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

[User]
[Starship Troopers] Who named Klendathu?

The bugs don't have a language as we would understand it, so we are not using their name for the rock... So a human would have named it... but if it was a human, why give it such an alien sounding (to western ears) name?

Who named it?

[Assistant]
> but if it was a human, why give it such an alien sounding (to western ears) name?

To make is sound more threatening.

The Bugs were never a direct threat to Earth. That was manufactured by the military to force a war with them.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes the feeling of butterflies in one's stomach when they feel nervous/excited?

[Assistant] Part of your flight of fight response is to prepare your body for action in cases when you think something dangerous is about to happen.  Part of that response is to decrease blood flow to non-vital areas of the body, so that blood can flood into your muscles, where it will be more useful.  Digestion is one of the areas that isn't real important in the middle of a fight, and the body decreasing the blood flow to the stomach is what gives you the butterflies in the stomach feeling.


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

[User] ELI5: Why doesn't the West openly say the Russian military is fighting in Ukraine?

[Assistant]
West excluding Russia: not enough evidence.

Russia's military doctrine is called 'maskirovka', and revolves around deception. It's a tactic that has been used for approximately a millennium, and is still as effective as ever. Basically the Russians deny everything, admit nothing, and play dirty; for example there is some evidence that they painted trucks white, disguising them as an aid convoy, and used them to ship ammunition and soldiers into Ukraine.

Any other nation would probably admit that they have invaded another country, but Russia's MO is deception, disguise, and denial.


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

[User]
[StarWars]How was Order 66 such a blistering success?

Hey guys, this is my first post here so please comment what I'm doing wrong before you downvote. I'll try fixing anything asap.

So as most know, the Jedi lose the majority of their numbers to Order 66. My question is, in the scenes where the clones turn on their generals, how were they able to kill the Jedi without any resistance? Are the Jedi not able to sense a disturbance in the force or even forsee the near future? Doesnt the force aid them in deflecting the blaster bolts? I know that they would have been taking fire from both sides, but in that scenario, they could have used the force for defensive purposes and too escape. Also, a lot of the ones killed were completely battle-hardened and competent warriors like Plo Koon and Aayla Secura.

[Assistant]
Firstly, the Jedi as a whole were pretty much unable to foresee the future due to years of Palpatine's influence clouding their minds, so they couldn't have been able to sense the impending danger in the month, weeks, days, or hours before the order was given.

Secondly, the Jedi's numbers had been dwindling since the beginning of the war. Thousands had died in the war, exacerbating the already dwindling numbers in the years preceding the war.  This meant that most remaining Jedi were either imbedded in Republic Army units or in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, making them very easy to find and kill.

Thirdly, the clones that would have been closest to Jedi generals and commanders in the field would either be their subordinate Clone Commanders (who were the first to receive the order) or crack troops (if the Jedi was leading a mission personally).  They're some of the best soldiers the galaxy had ever seen: cloned from the greatest bounty hunter, trained by its greatest warriors, given state of the art equipment and near infinite resources, a few of them are a tough match even for combat proficient Jedi. Additionally, the clones carried out Order 66 without malice or hate, something the Jedi would have clued into through the Force to give them more warning. The clones were just following orders.

Ultimately it worked so well because Palpatine designed it to.  It was just the last pin in a very very long plan that knocked the Jedi down closer and closer to extinction with every move he made.


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

[User]
Are all elements solid at absolute zero?

I know liquid nitrogen is extremely cold, but it made me wonder if solid nitrogen would be even colder, and is that impossibly cold point absolute zero?

[Assistant]
A lot of people here are saying that absolute zero implies no atomic motion. Classically this is true, but due to quantum effects there is motion at absolute zero. It's called zero point energy if you want to look it up.

Anyway, to answer your question, helium is liquid at regular pressure at absolute zero, and very sparse cold systems like Bose-Einstein condensates are not solid.


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

[User] ELI5: If modern man has been around for 50,000 years, why have we only begun to scientifically progress over the last 2000 years or so?

[Assistant]
1. We were busy surviving. Doing real science takes a certain amount of free time, and when all of your time is taken up getting enough food, clothing, shelter, etc. then you don't have much to devote to R&D. Unless it helps you win wars, which was one of the drivers of scientific progress (and to an extent still is).

2. Religion and similar philosophies explained how the universe worked already. Who needs empirical data when the shaman knows why things are the way they are and how its going to be? There was no culture of testing ideas and conclusions with experiments; if things didn't go the way the priests said it would, there was always an explanation.

3. Science builds upon science. You gotta get the foundation, and get it mostly right enough. Then you refine, improve, expand. It appears that scientific progress improves on something like an exponential curve. Exponential curves start out slow when you look back from high up on the curve. To be fair, there was scientific progress long before 2000 years ago, but it was spotty and slow. For example, look at ancient Egypt. They had many examples of good-enough science (and plenty examples of non-science, too).  You have to remember, things like the wheel and agriculture are very much based on science and technology.


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

[User]
[I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream] How would AM react to a human who is entirely unafraid of his manipulations?

Lets say Batman (but any imagined character can work) is the only survivor that AM was able to keep a hold of.

AM throws every physical and emotional torture at Batman for centuries, but Batman being Batman, he refuses to break or engage in AMs games.

AM says Theres fruit 500 miles away, go walk and get it.  Batman replies Go fuck yourself.  Then endures whatever torture AM responds with.

How do you think AM would react or think about such a human?

[Assistant] There's plenty of ways to torture someone. And the general idea is no matter who you are or how strong willed or physically strong you are torture will work eventually. Sooner or later you'll break and AM has all the time in the world to find your soft spots. Like not being able to sleep. Or playing a song on repeat for three days then starting to mess with the timing of song or skipping parts just to antagonize you.


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

[User] ELI5: If the flu shot contains a non-active version of the flu, then why are "flu like symptoms" common for the days following?

[Assistant]
the non-active proteins trigger an immune system response which can involve some inflammatory system responses.

once the immune system is activated for that infection your body will react more readily if the actual infection gets into you.


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

[User] [General] Does Claustrophobia exist in underground cities/societies?

[Assistant] Given that underground societies can still, at least in fiction, have large open spaces, it's likely not unheard of, but the constant lack of really open spaces probably reduces it. Imagine if your concept of an open sky was a twenty foot roof. You'd get claustrophobic in a smaller space than a person who lives above ground. Panicking in a coffin instead of a jail cell, essentially.


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

[User] eli5: Why do certain fruits keep growing, even though we have genetically modified many fruits not to have seeds?

[Assistant]
Most seedless plants are grown from cuttings, which makes the plants all genetic clones of each other.

Potatoes for example have flowers and seeds, but if you plant the seeds the resulting plant won't make potatoes you recognize. Specific Potato varieties are so heavily modified that they can only be grown from cuttings.

While this is good from a volume and consistency perspective in farming, this can actually pose some serious problems.

Supermarket Bananas for example are all the same cloned plant. The specific variety we know and love is called the Cavendish but because all the trees are clones they are vulnerable to a specific fungus that is killing them all off.

Banana plantations are also full of trees that are all the same age because they were planted at the same time and large plantations are starting to either lose all their trees due to age, or they are being killed off or forcibly burned down due to the fungus.

Within a decade or two the bananas we know will be functionally extinct. The good news is we'll just start eating a different variety, and this has actually happened before. The Gros Michel banana that was widely eaten in the late 19th and early 20th century went extinct for the exact same reason.


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

[User]
[d&d/star wars] How would you carry a double bladed sword like in d&d or starwars?

I was thinking about darth mauls lightsaber and wondering how he carries it so how would you actually carry one?

[Assistant]
In star wars you would just turn it off and clip it to your belt or put it in a pocket or holster.

In DnD, it depends. Double bladed swords will have a pair of leather covers to slide over the blade so you don't accidentally cut anything, then you'd just strap it to your pack or the back of your horse, or maybe just use a strap to carry it over your shoulder, or just toss it in the wagon and grab it when you need it. Double blunt weapons you'd carry the same way, or maybe even use one like a walking stick. And there's the classic of just carrying it in your hand, and setting it down when you need both hands.


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

[User] ELI5: Whenever I see behind-the-scenes footage of a movie, directors are always seen talking to their actors while they're acting. What do they do to remove the director's voice in the final product?

[Assistant]
Two things.

1. It is surprisingly common to film without audio and dub everything in later. This is done for most outdoor scenes, and scenes shot in unusual locations. It is less common today now that small efficient microphones are available but still happens; back in the 50s and 60s, it was common especially in Italy to just shoot *everything* without sound and dub later. There are a lot of reasons for this: there may be nowhere to put the microphones in a scene that requires a very wide shot, the environment may be unsuitable for recording sound (noisy streets, factories, etc), they may only have 2 hours to film in a specific place like Times Square and so just film the motions and worry about getting good line delivery later, there may be complicated actions like pyrotechnics that require unusual sounds or require crew members to yell during the shoot, etc etc.

2. You may be watching a run-through, like a last-minute set rehearsal. Actors do rehearse scenes ahead of time obviously, but may not be rehearsing on the actual set, or the director may want to guide and change certain things based on how it looks on the monitors (he has a little screen set up to see what the final product will look like). So they'll run through the scene a couple of times with live guidance before actually shooting. This stuff is especially likely to be seen in Making Of documentaries because it's more engaging to watch and because they usually don't want some guy shooting a Making Of featurette on his camcorder bustling around the set during an actual take.


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

[User]
[Skyrim] If the Dragonborn is a legendary hero that has Lycanthropy and has pledged themselves to each Daedric Prince, where do they go upon death?

It seems like everyone is trying to get the Dragonborn to sit at their table at the high school lunch room that is the afterlife. But obviously Dovahkiin can only go to one, so which overruled the rest?

Hircine seems to have a pretty big say with any werewolves (even those perfect for Sovngarde), as does Nocturnal with those appointed as Nightingales. Sovngarde seems perfect for the legend that is the Dragonborn, but as the champion of Peryite then it's also possible they end up as a guardian of The Pits.

So if The Last Dragonborn (or anyone for that matter) allies themselves with multiple Daedra/Aedra, where do they end up?

[Assistant]
This is a very common question.

The most likely answer is that Akatosh has the biggest claim on your soul because you have the soul of a dragon. Since dragon are his children it would make sense that he has the strongest claim.

He is also the god of time and that stuff so i imagine most would not want to go up against him.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is dryer lint so flammable?

What it says on the ~~tin~~ title.

Per rule 7, performed a search and found a 4 month old post with two replies and no real good answers, and a few comments in related threads about lint that touched on the suspect but didnt really answer it.

[Assistant]
Things ignite easier if there is maximum surface area between the air and flammable material.

It's the same reason why grain silos filled with grain dust can spontaneously combust if they get hot enough.

Lint is made up of lots of tiny fine particles stuck together.

So there is a LOT of surface area between air (oxygen) and the combustible material, lint.

Conversely, it's hard to ignite a large log from just a match, because there is not enough relative surface area between the wood and the air to sustain the combustion.


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

[User] ELI5: How can bots like !remindme bot simultaneously scan through thousands of comments posted every minute under many different posts, in different communities?

[Assistant] Because it's not a single entity. Think of it like a (massive) company instead. There are a large number of workers, each assigned to look at new comments from a small number of sources (possibly down to an individual person). When things get busy they probably even do the computer equivalents of calling in temp workers to handle the extra load.


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

[User]
I have come to the conclusion that socialism is the best viable form for an economy to take. Does anyone care to CMV?

Socialism is defined as a democratic control of the means of production by the working class for the good of the community rather than capitalist profit. The line of thinking being that when the working class becomes their own executives (supervisor, factory owner, company owner, manager, etc.) workers will be able to receive pay proportionate to the work they do and their usefulness to the company. Workers will no longer be a simple piece of machinery, designed to assemble the components and make pennies on the dollar compared to the supplier of the components, the large shareholder, and the factory manager, all of whom are able to sit back and let their wealth generate more wealth. Socialism is about the community, not the individual, and will ensure meaningful and relevant work for anyone who is willing to learn a profession.

[Assistant]
Why should a factory worker putting parts together be as valuable to a company as the engineers who make the company's existence possible? Why should people want to strive for more if they're equally served doing less? A full transition to socialism removes all reason to excel and advance past pure intellectualism, which, while nice, isn't very fast because not enough people pursue it.

Why not have a partial change instead and move towards being a social state where everyone is supported equally and able to survive and be happy, but the more useful have more than the less useful?


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does Japan have such huge cities?

I was on Google Earth the other day and when I was looking at Japan I was astounded as to how much city there was. There were loads of them and they were huge, incomparable to American or European cities. Why is this?

[Assistant] Population density.  Like most places, Japan has been urbanizing since before the second World War.  Good health care combined with historic longevity pushes the population up and up.  Being an island, there is limited opportunity to build new cities, so the existing ones creep outwards and upwards - there are some really cool skyscrapers in Tokyo.


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

[User]
[Dragonball Z] Who all has canonically seen all three of Cell's forms?

Mainly referring to Cell's "Imperfect", "Semi-Perfect", and "Perfect" forms, as no-one has really seen him outside of those three forms, save for the test tube.

[Assistant] In person, Piccolo, Krillin and Trunks. Piccolo saw each of them in order. Trunks saw the Imperfect form last when he traveled back to his future. Trunks and Krillin even saw the larval form, when they went back to Gero's lab to wreck up the place.


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

[User] Black holes slow down time of nearby clocks relative to an outside observer. What is the theoretical effect that a white hole would have on time?

[Assistant]
The same. The metric for a black hole is the same as that of a white hole. The exterior part is the same, the black and white hole are different *inside* regions, the former in the future, the latter in the past. In fact, the normal Schwarzschild solution describes a spacetime with both a white and a black hole, simultaneously, sharing an exterior region outside their horizons.

In real life, the white hole part is unstable and does not occur. Only the black hole in the future forms as the past region is cut short by the fact that well, that's actually where the original star that collapsed was.


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

[User]
ELI5 How can a blood oximeter read your level of oxygen in the blood without requesting a drop of blood?

My mom bought one of those recently and I still can not figure out how that thing works without a drop of blood.

Edit: Oh this really did blow up. Thank you all for responding. I have more knowledge that I anticipated on this little thing now. Very useful.

[Assistant]
The trick is they shine two colors of infared light in your skin, and then look at the reflection.

The two colors reflect very differently off oxygenated and unoxygenated blood, and the ratio between the brightness can be used to figure out the oxygen concentration in your blood.


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

[User]
[MCU][Watchmen] What would Dr. Manhattan think of Thanos?

 How do you think Manhattan would feel about Thanos wiping out 50% of Life in the universe? Manhattan says at the end of the movie [Watchmen], that he'll maybe create some Life. So what do you think his opinion would be on the matter?

[Assistant]
I don't know much about him in the new DC continuities, but *Watchmen* era Manhattan was ready and willing to stop Veidt from murdering far fewer people, despite Veidt's arguably noble intentions. Manhattan would also be smart enough to realize that Thanos' plan, unlike Vedit's, was completely idiotic.

Manhattan would most likely snap Thanos out of existence as soon as he learned about him.


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

[User]
[Warcraft] The story says "Arthas bad" for you-know the infected villagers, but what were the possible never-mentioned alternatives?

So Arthas decides to kill all the infected villagers.

They keep going on and on about how it's wrong and he became evil while trying to do good and therefore he must be stopped, but they never explain what were the supposed alternatives, nor what would be the cost...

So what could have been done instead?

[Assistant]
There was no "good" alternative, and that was the beauty of the Lich King's trap. No matter what happened at Stratholme, Arthas was going to be pushed to the extreme edge of sanity, and forced to pursue Mal'ganis to Northrend.

Uther and Jaina would have preferred to surround the town and observe, then likely try to engage the Scourge somewhere away from the civilians. They wanted to take a more compassionate approach, even if that compassion involved a strict quarantine of the entire city that would have looked and felt much like a siege.

Unfortunately, all of the townsfolk had eaten the plagued grain before Arthas arrived, and they would have all become mindless undead in the fullness of time. Which would have caused them to swarm the soldiers surrounding the city, or worse, attack the Alliance forces from behind when they tried to deal with Mal'ganis in a "safe" location. They would have been doomed, and Arthas would have witnessed that destruction and suffering firsthand. He would have mindlessly pursued Mal'ganis in a quest for revenge either way.


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

[User]
ELI5: How were battles fought during the American Revolution?

I'm watching the show Turn on AMC, it's about Washington's spies in the Revolution War. There's one scene in season 2 episode 10 where they battle.

During those times, were battles really so clunky and unimaginative? I mean, do both side just line up in rows and fire one after each other? It seems so non-strategic. First row fires, reloads, second row fires, reload, switch, etc. They just stand there like sitting ducks or human target bulleyes. What's up with that?

[Assistant]
You had limited communication, limited mobility, limited range to your weapons.

Good discipline and volleys made it harder for your enemy to advance while broken ranks, charging or retreating left you more vulnerable. Pikes had made calvary charges a bit less efdective than they used to be while guns were not at a point that charging horseback had a lot of options.

As your side weakened the other you could move in and around and split the lines, etc.

Gatlin guns and pistols in the Civil war started to give the advantage back to aggression to a certain extent, but trenches flipped war back to being more defensive.

The history of war can in some ways be looked at as the history of which was stronger at the time, a defensice or an offensive strategy.


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

[User]
[Tolkien] Why did Aragorn's family not reclaim the throne before the events of Lord of the Rings?

If it was always known that Aragorn's line was the line of Isildur, what was stopping Aragorn's father or grandfather from doing exactly what Aragorn did? Why did they wait until that generation?

[Assistant]
They did, or at least they tried to. Ancient Middle-earth history time!

The original High King of Arnor and Gondor, Elendil (the leader of the "Men" half of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men; the one who died in battle with Sauron) had two sons, Isildur and Anarion. The descendants of Isildur became the kings of the northern kingdom of Arnor, while the descendants of Anarion became the kings of the southern kingdom of Gondor. Arnor quickly fractured into three kingdoms over succession disputes: Arthedain (which in hindsight is known to have the correct claim), Cardolan, and Rhudaur. Cardolan was itself fractured and eventually destroyed by wars and plagues, while Rhudaur was corrupted by the sinister forces of the kingdom of Angmar (at the time ruled by the Witch-king, hence "Witch-king of Angmar"). Eventually, in Gondor, a King named Ondoher died without any male heirs. King Arvedui of Arthedain was married to Ondoher's daughter and the two claimed rulership of Gondor as well as Arthedain. Arvedui also claimed that Elendil had never meant for the kingdoms to be separate forever and that the heirs of Isildur (the elder of Elendil's sons) had the rightful claim to both kingdoms. However, politics intervened and the nobility of Gondor instead decided to crown the great general and recent war hero Earnil (who also happened to be a distant relative of the late King Ondoher). Shortly after this, Arthedain was destroyed by Angmar and Arvedui died (though his son survived), and in Gondor Earnil's son Earnur was the last king before the line died off (Earnur thought it would be a good idea to meet the Witch-king in a one-on-one duel in Minas Morgul). It wasn't until the great deeds of Aragorn II during the War of the Ring that Gondor accepted a northerner as a king.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the purity of precious metals measured in karats rather than just using percentage?

[Assistant]
Carats were/are a measure of weight, not purity. In olden times they thought carob seeds didn't vary in weight much, so they used them on balance scales as a unit to measure weight. At some point, there was a gold coin (there's debate about which, though most think it was a Roman solidus) that was pure gold and weighed 24 carob seeds/carats. Pure gold came to be known as 24 carat gold. If you mixed in other metals, you'd reduce by the number of carats, so 50%gold would be 12 carat.

In the US, to lower confusion between carat as weight and carat as purity, they agreed to spell it karat when applying to purity. Otherwise, is just a term that's been around a long time.


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

[User] eli5: Why do regular batteries last for so long whereas rechargeable ones have to be recharged so frequently?

[Assistant]
Some hold less energy but also the chemicals in rechargables produce a lower voltage (1.2v instead of 1.5v) lots of devices will detect rechargables as less than full battery even when fully charged since the voltage is lower. On top of that the voltage might drop below operational threshold sooner since they start lower.

To add to that regargables degrade over time so eventually they hold less charge and wear out with greater frequency.


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

[User]
Are swimming pools breeding chlorine-resistant organisms?

Like the overuse of antibiotics. Are we breeding super microbes through the use of pool chlorine?

[Assistant]
If you think of microbial resistance in human terms, it makes more sense.  If you send out a plague that kills a lot of people, some will survive and will likely be more resistant.  The plague is a very specific, complicated way of killing an individual.  Now if instead, you threw every human in lava, nobody would survive to develop resistance.  Lava is simple and direct, and you can't have a "lava doesn't kill me" gene.

Think of antibiotics (specific, complicated, potentially survivable) as the plague, and the chlorine as lava (non-specific, simple, very difficult to survive).


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

[User]
What's your favorite statistics interview question?

What are your most **interesting** / *appearing to be hard but* **easy** / *appearing to be simple but* **complex**statistics interview questions?

Please feel free to add questions you've come across or even thought of that can testconceptual understanding.

Let's make this thread an invaluable source of quality statistics interview questions!

[Assistant]
> What's your favorite statistics interview question?

*When can you start?*

TBH I've never been asked a stats question interviewing for a stats-related job. I've had conversations about statistics though, or talked a bit about some specific topic.


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

[User]
ELI5: When you get skin indentations from clothing or leaning on something, what's happening on a cellular/biological level?

Not the kind of long-lasting indentations from actual skin disorders (which is all that google search seems to turn up). Just the normal marks that anyone gets when leaning against a textured wall or accidentally resting your arm on your headphones cord, which go away after a while.

It changes the surface of your skin pretty dramatically and often lasts for several minutes, but never has any permanent effects, so I'm curious what's actually happening.

[Assistant]
Physiologist here:  Your body is a bag (skin, tissue) that contains a bunch of smaller water-filled bags (cells) that are surrounded by more water (what is technically called interstitial fluid).

Pressing a textured pattern against the skin causes higher forces to be imparted on the skin by raised surfaces - resulting in more water being pushed aside in the tissues in and underlying the skin.  This is grossly observed as the pattern of a textured fabric/wall/whatever temporarily imprinted in the skin.

Over a few minutes of removing the textured surface, the interstitial fluid redistributes itself, and the textured imprint on the skin disappears.


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

[User] Why does silver have a really high coefficient of friction with itself, but low when it has friction against other materials?

[Assistant]
Silver is relatively soft and has a low strain hardening coefficient (deforming the surface doesn't make it very hard).  At the same time, it has a relatively high adhesion with many metals, a low cohesion  (self bond strength), and a low melting point.

The combination of all these properties results in a thin transfer layer of silver to mating surface of dissimilar (harder) metals, which keeps the local surface bond size and Strength low, resulting in low friction.

For self- mated silver pairs, the soft metal results in local contact areas that grow relatively large. This results in high friction.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do all of my packages from China get shipped as a "gift" even though I paid for it? Also, how do they get away with shipping a sale as a gift?

I believe everything I've ordered so far from an unnamed site with most of their suppliers shipping from china gets shipped with the label of "gift." Why is that, and how do they get away with it if it is some sort of workaround to something?

[Assistant]
It's a customs / import duty thing.

In some countries, if you're bringing a gift into the country, the recipient isn't eligible for import duty or extra taxes, whereas they are for items that have been purchased.


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

[User]
ELI5: If water is better at conducting electricity than air, why do static electricity shocks happen more often in dry air?

Every winter I get zapped with shocks by static electricity whenever I touch something metal, or another being. Why does this seem to only happen in the dry winter months and not in the humid summer months?

[Assistant] You have almost answered your own question. You get static shocks when the air fails to connect you electrically with the things around you, so when you finally touch them, any electrical difference is resolved very suddenly. Ouch. When the air is moist, you have a constant though very weak electrical connection with the things around you, so the electric difference does not build up.


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

[User] If space is ever so expanding, do we seen new/farther everyday we take photos of the outer edges of space? Do we add on to observable universe everyday too?

[Assistant]
Kind of.

So, the universe as a whole does not have a boundary. The expansion of the universe is not the expansion of the *edge* of the universe, but rather everything getting further away from everything else - it's not expanding at the edges, it's expanding *everywhere*. In fact, the evidence is somewhat pointing towards the universe being *infinite* in size.

However, the *observable* universe *is* expanding. The edge of the observable universe represents the distance that light could have travelled since the beginning of the universe. The universe is about 13 billion years old, so the light from the edge of the observable universe is the light that has travelled about 13 billion light years (although the universe has continued to expand since the light was emitted and the images we see from this light are from objects that are now much more than 13 billion light years away).

This means that the images we see of the very edge of the observable universe are images of the very very young universe. This is the universe before there was any structure - it was a dense, uniform, opaque fluid of energy and particles. Because the universe was opaque, we can't actually see the light from the very beginning of the universe. Instead, we see the light that was emitted just as the universe got cool enough and sparse enough to become transparent. This light forms a background behind everything else in the universe. It has been redshifted over billions of years into microwave frequencies, which is why we call it the Cosmic Microwave Background, or the CMB.

So, as the observable universe expands, what happens is that the CMB radiation that we see is from slightly further away. What's happening is that the CMB radiation was emitted *everywhere*, but because it takes time for light to reach us, every second we're seeing CMB radiation that was emitted from gas about a light-second more distant than what we received the previous second.

This means we are technically seeing new parts of the observable universe, but it's not like we're seeing new galaxies turn up - we're just seeing slightly more distant "slices" of the CMB. The CMB is far too uniform over time for us to really see any change over decades though.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is vaping nicotine supposedly better for your health than smoking cigarettes?

[Assistant] Forget the nicotine, that is not what is bad about smoking. smoking is bad for you because of the chemistry that happens when you burn stuff. It's why people die from smoke inhalation during house fires. Smoking causes you to ingest all sorts of toxic chemicals. Not because they are put into cigarettes, but because they are created when you burn them.


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

[User]
When you see weightlifters lifting hundreds of kilos at a time, how close are they to breaking their own bones?

I've seen them rip muscle off the bone. Is it even possible to break your own bones with the strength of your muscles?

[Assistant] Weightlifters that you see in competitions are lifters whove been lifting and perfecting their form for years. If their form wasnt perfect, they wouldnt have reached the strength level that they are today. Perfect form involves eliminating all sheer forces on the bones in our body. The only forces at play are compressive forces, and bones can handle orders of magnitude more compressive forces than even the heaviest weights lifted by professional weightlifters. They may tear muscles and tendons, however broken bones only ever come from improper form. Something almost exclusively common to amateurs and beginners and practically never seen in the top ranks. Plus, broken bones are very very uncommon due to the lack of movements that directly bend bones enough to break them.


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

[User]
When I bashed my head as a child I cried; as an adult I get angry and swear. When did the change occur and why?

Bashing my head still *really* hurts, as do other injuries. But as a child I would burst into inconsolable tears now I stamp my feat, shout "fuck" and I'm moody for a little while. Has my perception of pain changed?

[Assistant]
Crying from pain is pretty damn useless if not to alert adults that a child is hurt. Anger on the other hand causes adrenaline and endorphin levels to rise significantly, which is useful both in suppressing the pain and dealing with any potential threats.
Crying helps to relieve anxiety; it helps when we are distressed and sad. It's calming.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we say "Shhh" when we want someone to be quiet?

[Assistant] I would assume it's because a shhing noise is what we hear in the womb, and it calms and soothes babies when you loudly shush them. I've heard that mothers across cultures all "shush" their babies when they are little. Maybe it is ingrained from us very young to continue using the phrase on adults.


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

[User]
Finished my PhD, then ruined my life. Former advisor's advice is awkward, but it couldn't hurt, could it?

I finished my PhD three years ago, left academia for an industry career. Realized I hated it, left it, now Im scraping by with part-time teaching gigs. Sat down with my old advisor to talk about where / how to publish my dissertation, and she said, in a concerned way, that if I wanted to get back into research, I should start asking mutual contacts at my alma mater for admin-type jobs while I publish more. Is this a thing people do? How does this email go? Do I include my CV? Do I sound apologetic? Im not too proud, Im just surprised by her suggestion.

[Assistant]
What is your degree in, because this seems like odd advice to me.

I would suggest leveraging your industry experience to sell yourself as a great manager and start talking to professors looking for postdoc or bench professor jobs. You can help run the research and begin to bolster your publications.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are there so many varieties of apples yet other forms of produce may only have 2 or 3 varieties (or none at all)?

If I go to the grocery store I'll see multiple bins with different types of apples, but if I look at the banana section it's just a bin of same variety bananas. Why?

[Assistant]
In apples there are a variety of varieties that folks use for different things.

Just like you have white onions, yellow onions, sweet onions, green onions.... Or red peppers, orange/yellow peppers, green peppers, mini peppers, jalapeo, habanero, Serrano.... Or russet or Yukon gold, or baby red potatoes.... Or Roma tomatoes or beefsteak or cherry.....

But some produce has become particularly popular or comoditized in just a few similar variations for various reasons. Bananas for example are a clone of the variety that transports well and folks are familiar with. Carrots used to be all sorts of colors, but orange settled into popularity and the different varieties grown are all pretty similar in form and flavor - and growth so they're good commercial variants.

Most produce there are dozens if not hundreds of varieties available, but they don't all transport or sell well at retail. Of the thousands of apple varieties, you still only get a handful in the store.


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

[User]
Are there "deserts" (vast areas that don't provide any life-sustaining resources) in the ocean?

There are many nature shows that talk about how life in the oceans is in so many ways different than that on land and adapts to extreme conditions - depth, temperature, non-iron-based blood, etc.

My question is, are there large areas in the ocean devoid of what is needed to sustain life in any form?

As a follow up, if so, what is the equivalent of a camel in the ocean? A creature that packs in its energy to traverse or live in these areas? (and does so)

[Assistant]
I'd like to point out that actual deserts are not without "any life-sustaining resources". They do in fact host various ecosystems. Therefore, answering your question becomes a bit problematic. Do you mean:

1. Nutrient-poor environments in the ocean (like a desert) that only specialized species can exist? or,
2. "large areas in the ocean devoid of what is needed to sustain life in any form" and therefore an area with no active ecosystem?

The second interpretation is unlikely at any surface water where you can get cyanobacteria growing.


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

[User]
[ATLA] Did each of the four nations only have benders of their respective element? Ex: Were there any earth or water benders living in the Fire Nation legally?

If so, why didn't they aid in the war? Earth benders with allegiance to the Fire Nation would have been very useful in breaching the wall around Ba Sing Se.

[Assistant]
Bending is as much genetic as it is spiritual, so some of the nature of bending passing between generations is up for debate. But yes, it seems like benders of one specific type congregate and have bender children of that type within the confines of their nations.

Cross-bender migrations and contact happened before the war, as evidenced by the swamp benders being a long-lost group of waterbenders far from the poles. (and perhaps sandbenders learning airbender techniques to augment their natural earthbending) But it's very probable that 100 years of constant fighting with the fire nation consolidated and segregated the remaining bender population. Especially since the firebenders held themselves to such a supremacist regard, and seemed unwilling to use other benders as allies except in very specific scenarios, often ones where the firebenders are clearly in a superior position. (referencing the way Azula used the Dai Li)

Waterbenders would not have been able to live in the fire nation, since it was accepted knowledge for many decades that the previous airbender avatar was dead, and the next would be born a waterbender. That's why the southern tribe was so brutally attacked and stripped of its benders. And the north was barely strong enough to resist, but it would have come under heavy assault even without Aang's reappearance.


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

[User]
[Monsters Inc.] Why do monsters think that the touch of a human child can kill you?

Where did the myth come from?  Why is it so pervasive, even though dozens of monsters regularly enter the human realm?  Shouldn't they have noticed that all those scarers have come and gone from kids rooms nightly for decades without ever dying?

[Assistant]
It could be deliberate propaganda. Since powering the monster world depends on terrifying and traumatizing human children, they can't risk scarers empathizing with them. Look what happened when Sulley scared Boo after getting to know her. He was heartbroken.

So, the monster government, the CDA and the higher-ups of the various scream companies deliberately spread misinformation about human children in order to demonize them. So long as monsters fear humans, monsters are happy to frighten humans. If monsters start liking humans, the whole system breaks down.


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

[User]
Will getting the Johnson and Johnson vaccine impact the efficacy of future gene therapy treatments?

Given that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and many gene therapy treatments both use adenoviruses as a vector, could getting the J&J vaccine limit your options or decrease the efficacy of gene therapy treatments later in life? I was wondering if your body might recognize the gene therapy virus as the J&J vaccine virus and attack it before it can get its job done.

[Assistant]
We dont know. Its possible, but its more likely that the immune response to the adenovirus vector will be so low, and so short-lived, that it wouldnt impact subsequent exposure. Remember that the adeno component doesnt replicate or amplify itself whereas the antigen passenger (spike protein) is driven by a powerful promoter so will be expressed at thousands of time higher than the adeno component, so the latter is probably marginally antigenic. Until J&J or AZ etc publishes details on the response to their adeno carrier we wont really know.

In any case even if it does, its a minuscule concern. The number of people getting gene therapy is very small, the number getting chimp ad or Ad26 specifically is even smaller if not 0.  Its not worth worrying about in the general case. If someone is already lined up for gene therapy it might be a consideration on which of the (now multiple choices) vaccines to take, but its not something for the general public or even vaccine manufacturers to bother with.


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

[User] eli5: how do paint rattlecans work?

[Assistant]
The contents of the paint can are under pressure. Some form of gas (usually nitrogen or carbon dioxide) is in the can, as well as liquid paint. The amount of gas greatly outweighs the amount of paint, likely at a 10:1 ratio or greater.

When you shake the can, you're agitating the paint so it's suspended among with the gas, creating an aerosol of gas and paint. When you press the nozzle, the gas rapidly escaping the can 'pulls' the paint with it, spraying from the tip of the can which directs the spray in a fan pattern.

As the aerosol moves from a high pressure to a low pressure environment, the gas dilutes in the air you sprayed it in, but the paint remains on the surface you aimed it at.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40000] I'm a Rogue Trader who turned a few eldar soul stones into magical dust and decided to snort them over the ass cheeks of my mistress. What's going to happen to me now?

I mean we all want that ultimate high and it was really good. Like I don't think I've ever had such a high before.

[Assistant]
You absolutely did not have a real Aeldari spirit stone. The psychic energies contained within their crystalline structure is immense, and breaching them has been known to cause massive damage to the nearby area. A space marine named Trythos once smashed one with his power axe, and was flung several meters backwards in the resulting explosion.

So whatever it was you smashed wasn't anything close to a real spirit stone, count yourself lucky. Whatever mind-altering effects that came with the experience were either entirely in your head, or the product of the other drugs/alcohol you ingested that night.

Your most immediate danger is the same thing that happens when inhaling any kind of dust made from crystalline substances. Inflammation in the lungs, a bad cough, maybe even outright trauma and scarring to the lung tissue if the particles are in there long enough. Good luck having full lung capacity ever again.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do teeth consistently grow crooked, but other bones dont?

[Assistant] Jaws of modern humans are too small to accommodate the teeth.  Our jaws grow in based on genetics and the food you eat.  Modern foods are too soft so your jaw doesn't grow to it's full potential causing overcrowding in your mouth.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can aliens listen to the golden record on Voyager 1 if they ever found it?

Assuming that someday they find it, how can they have the technology to play a record or understand it works?

[Assistant] The record comes along with the device intended to play it,  as well as instructions that are decipherable as long as they understand basic scientific concepts (which,  if they are a spacefaring civilization, they likely will).


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

[User]
ELI5:Why can't shows like Mythbusters show brands in their TV shows?

They always put tape over it or cover it in some other way, I've seen this done in a lot of other shows as well (DigitalRev)

[Assistant]
The presence of one brand may piss off one of their advertisers, who may produce a competing brand of the same product.

i.e. They are seen using a Coca-Cola product and now Pepsico refuses to advertise on a show that promotes their competition.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] How big is the student body at Hogwarts?

[Assistant] Well there's 6 Gryffindor boys in Harrys year. If we assume that is standard, there's 12 Gryffindors per year, so 48 students per year. That's 336 students overall and makes sense with the number of named characters. But remember that we're seeing a generation of children born from the survivors of a war. There may usually be many more students, but too many young adults died, leaving an almost empty generation.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are some U.S. cities, like NYC, designed in a nice grid-system while others, like Boston, look like something a drunken toddler with a magic marker drew on his parents' walls?

[Assistant]
Some cities' roads were planned in advance - SLC and Chicago are good examples.  They laid out the streets in a grid BEFORE people started building roads, houses, etc.

In the case of Boston (and many old cities in New England, Europe and elsewhere) the cities were not really planned in advance.  The roads at the time were often originally based on native american paths through the woods (which themselves might have been based on trails that deer and other animals used), or just random trails/roads between farms, things like that.  Stuff that didn't need to support a lot of traffic and just went from point-to-point.

Once you build up a whole area like that, it turns out completely random and stupid.  But after it's built up, it's too late to change.


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

[User]
ELI5: Been watching cooking shows lately, is there a reason why chefs choose to forego measuring their ingredients?

Edit - Oh and I forgot: It is in shows like Iron Chef America, Cuttthroat Kitchen, Beat Bobby Flay, Chopped, Kitchen Nightmares if that helps.

[Assistant] if you are cooking and not baking, then measurements are pretty irrelevant.  You season food to taste not to any specific measurement.  You add an onion because you have an onion, it doesn't matter if it is 1 cup or 1.2 cups it will still taste good. Things like that.  In the end if you taste your food and adjust accordingly it will turn out well.


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

[User] When a star runs out of fuel and collapses, does it happen all at once or does is slowly deflate?

[Assistant]
Yes and no. In the grand scheme of things, it is very fast. But it still takes such a long time that a person living on a planet around it would hardly notice what was going on.

From the point where the star begins expanding to the point where the core is left as a white or black dwarf, it can take a few billion years.

That is, except if the star goes nova. The explosion of a supernova can be as fast as 100 seconds in duration, effectively making it so if you see the explosion, the star is already gone.


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

[User]
[Raimiverse/MCU] Why was there artificial intelligence in Doc Ock's tentacles to begin with?

In Spider Man 2 and No Way Home, it's explained that Doc Ock's tentacles had their own artificial intelligence, and so Ock had to invent an inhibitor chip to prevent the AI from taking over his mind, which it did when the chip was destroyed by the electrical discharge of his fusion experiment,  and MCU Peter Parker had to create another inhibitor chip that is resistant to electricity to fix Ock.

But why was there an AI in Doc Ock's tentacles to begin with? Why couldn't he control the tentacles with his own mind?

[Assistant]
Without that it would take forever to program it to take full advantage of the flexibility offered by the design, and it would probably always have been clunky.

Controlling them directly with his mind would probably have lead to some other, similar form of psychosis.  You really don't want to be the test subject for the world's first neural interface.


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

[User]
[Fantasy] What creates bottomless pits?

My name I don't remember, though I am from Ohio. I had a wife and children and good tires on my car. What took me from my home and put me in the Earth was the mouth of deep dark hole I found behind my barn.

We chucked in garbage since I don't know when. We threw everything, dead chicken, tractors that broke down. After a while, I sat at the edge of that deep dark hole and the thought of the bottom could not escape me. I rigged myself a chariot of the old clawfoot and my wife helped me.

I sank away and when the last rope pulled tight, I had not reached the end. I got out my knife and told my wife goodbye. I cut loose from the rope and I've been falling ever since.

Will I ever hit the bottom? I can't see anything, but I know my skin has wrinkled and my body feeble with the age of an old man. How do I escape? What created this evil pit?

[Assistant] Pits were invented in early antiquity, in order to make kicking people more dramatic. This technology stagnated during the middle ages, until the pit-bottom was invented by William Pitt (no relation) in 1756. While building codes have ensured most American pits built after the 1930's have bottoms, bottomless pits are still frequent sites in rural areas that lack proper funding or materials for pit-bottoming. This is especially prominent in Ohio because the lack of geographical features means most people are not aware of the hazards of elevation-change-related scenery.


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

[User]
[DC/Batman] What are some examples of Riddler having actually clever riddles?

I know he's capable of a good riddle. I've seen him dispense a few coins from a payphone to Batman's hands and Batman had to figure out Riddler was at the police station.

But most of the time... they ought to call him the Joker cause he doesn't have riddles, just jokes. (What question can you not say 'yes' to? Are you dead?) One time he didn't even have that, he just set up a race course for Batman to drive through.

We all have our off days, but surely he's got something going for him? (Outside the animated series.)

[Assistant] **Arkham: Living Hell**. Riddler is being snotty during an interview with one of the Asylum's doctors. They mention another doctor who usually treats him, and Riddler patronizingly says "Yes, how is the deer girl?" \[sic\]. This is actually a clue to something going on at the asylum that nobody on the staff was aware of: >!A deer girl is a doe. That female doctor had been killed by a patient known only as Jane Doe, who was impersonating her.!<


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

[User] [War of the Worlds] What was an average day in the life of a Martian like?

[Assistant]
There isn't much. But from the original source only, it is believed that they once resembled and functioned like Humans do.
But they are much evolved, they are octopus like with much large cranium, they do not digest foods directly instead are transfused with all they need, and on earth this is witnessed by blood transfusion from humans and also from a slave/animal race brought from Mars.

They do not have any visual or audible communication whilst on Earth but are seen to work together, so it is assumed there is telepathy there.

It is also known that they do not reproduce sexually, and are completely ignorant of disease.

From the limited information we have about them and the hostile conditions on Mars (evident from their desperation to leave, so we again assume they find it as inhospitable as we would) we can guess the following:
They are a survivor race and have survived the devastation of their planet through genetic mutation or guided evolution.
Because of the hostility of their world their population must be small, and we have never observed any visual signs of activity on Martian land, so they must remain either underground or in cave complexes, meaning their society is closely grouped together and small in number.

I imagine these intellectual giants as controlling their population size, expending as little resources as possible, and either largely in hibernation or set only on finding a new world and research into how to colonise it.


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

[User]
ELI5 How an oversupply of solar energy could lead to a blackout

I live in South Australia where 35% of households have solar panels. Some of these panels were temporarily switched off recently in order to avoid a "state wide blackout". How does an excess in energy to the grid cause a blackout?

[Assistant]
Traditional power plants (except hydro) can't switch on/off instantly, it can take hours or days and costs $$. And obviously solar can't generate during the night, so those power plants have to be on and generating at night. But they can't stay on and generating _as well as_ all these solar panels unless there is demand to match the generating capacity (too much energy -> things start tripping to prevent overloads etc., harder to balance) so since the solar panels can be turned off pretty easily, they get shut off first.

This is why Tesla and their giant batteries is such a big deal: if you can take the excess capacity from wind and solar and store it for use overnight or when its cloudy you _can_ turn off the generating plants and save a whole buncha money.


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

[User]
ELI5: why does sugar help a burn?

My friend burnt her finger and her son said to "put in in the sugar." She did and felt immediate relief. We looked online and found that sugar is indeed used to help burns, but nothing about why it helps.

[Assistant]
There's a couple ways it's beneficial.

Primarily, sugar absorbs water really well. This sucks up all the water in the wound, inhibiting the growth of bacteria that proliferate in wet wounds. This also has the effect of reducing swelling in the area.

Additionally, cells use sugar for energy. When a burn occurs, the normal distribution network of our skin is disrupted, cutting cells off from the nutrients they need to live. There's evidence that sugar can act as an energy source for those cells when it's absorbed into the blood- keeping cell death to a minimum while the wound heals.


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

[User]
[MCU] Can anyone with sufficient strength wield Stormbringer?

We never saw anyone put the May he be worthy enchantment on Stormbringer like Odin did to Mjolnir. Can anyone potentially wield Stormbringer if theyre physically strong enough? I know we also saw Captain America recall Stormbringer from afar but I dont know what to make of that.

[Assistant] Indeed, Stormbreaker has no worthiness enchantment. So as long as you're physically capable of holding it, you can use it. Not only did Cap briefly summon it, but Thanos almost killed Thor with it before Cap proved he was worthy to wield Mjolnir.


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

[User] ELI5: why does a Geiger Counter have that distinctive sound when detecting radiation instead of just beeping the intensity?

[Assistant] Radiation particles striking a gas filled vacuum tube create a "spark" (keeping it simple for a 5 year old). The tube is hooked up directly to a speaker so you're hearing the actual noise. By not introducing another layer of circuitry to transform the no3ose into a beep, you keep the cost and complexity down. First Geiger counters were early 1900s when technology was more limited so the simple but effective design has stuck.


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

[User]
[Dark Knight Rises] Where was Joker?

In the Dark Knight Rises, Bane liberates all prisoners from Blackgate, which means that the Joker shouldve shown up in the movie, so then where was he?

Ive seen it argued that he was sent to Arkham after the events of TDK, but thats not possible. The Dent Act that was passed in that movie denies the insanity defense to those with ties to organized crime. Joker was paid by the mob to kill Batman, so he cant be declared insane.

The logical answer from that point then would be that the Joker was executed, especially since the Dent Act also guarantees maximum sentencing for those connected to organized crime. The problem with that, however, is that Gotham City isnt in a death penalty state. Neither New York nor New Jersey (the two states where people think Gotham is in) have capital punishment.

With tall of that out of the way, I ask once again. Where is Joker in DKR?

[Assistant]
Joker wasn't sent Arkham. He had escalated his antics to domestic terrorism and no longer fell under the jurisdiction of Gotham police or their courts. Somewhere between the two films he was transferred to bell reves or whatever the name of the supermax that is shown in suicide squad is. They're better equipped to handle a prisoner of his classification than a mental asylum or Gotham prison.

The only reason the FBI and other alphabet agencies weren't involved in the dark knight is very little time passes between his attack on the hospital and his arrest which would have warranted their involvement instead of a mob task force.


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

[User] At what size of a particle does classical physics stop being relevant and quantum physics starts being relevant? Why?

[Assistant]
Classical physics starts deviating significantly at the molecular level, so on the magnitude of ~10^-8 m. There is no clear boundary between classical and quantum mechanics, it's more of a continuous transition.

With that said, quantum mechanics can be used to predict phenomena on a larger scale, it's just that classical physics approximates it so well that they're basically identical.


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

[User]
[Marvel's Spider-Man] What do Daredevil and The Punisher think about Spider-Man's work?

In the beginning of the PS4 game, Spider-Man helps the police take down the Kingpin. Wilson Fisk is also known to be an enemy of Daredevil and the Punisher, so how would they react to the news of his arrest at the hands of Spidey?

[Assistant]
Daredevil approves, as a backpack item you collect is a business card for his lawfirm. Murdoch had approached Peter in his civilian identity and offered his services in case they were ever needed on Spider-Man's behalf (this seriously shocks and confuses Peter).

In all honesty, Punisher would be disapproving of Spider-Man... since he's not massacred the mob like he would've done.


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

[User] [Metal Gear Solid 3] Without saying the words nanomachines or parasites, why did The Fury explode into a fireball with a face that followed Snake and screamed at him?

[Assistant] The Cobra Unit members were able to harness certain supernatural abilities through very advance tech and expert skills(i.e the fear: controlling hornets with a device that emits pheromones and or a certain frequencies, the fear: using octocamo and very skilled acrobatics) also each member had small microbombs on their person set to detonate when they died. Now the really crazy shit we see, such as the aforementioned fireball face. A lot of these over the top escapades could be taken from the perspective of snake, who is an unreliable narrator sort of speak. He has been in the dense jungle for a few days; most likely severely dehydrated, under fed and sleep deprived, not to mention the funky shit he eats along the way can all alter his perception in a huge way and by the time snake meets the fury he's been at this shit for awhile, so it's safe to assume he's incredibly delirious; so picture it from his perspective. Munching on poison frogs, glowing mushrooms, multiple injuries with minimum care, low access to clean drinking water, lack of sleep and running on pure instinct and adrenaline. Snake just finishes beating the fury, he's screaming and yelling at snake as he starts to ignite, snake books it out of there just as furys microbomb goes off, his jet pack and the fuel tanks around them explode in a huge fiery ball as the fury screams in agony, it's safe to assume snake is hallucinating the furys fire ghost as he tries to out run the explosion.


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

[User]
Did Derrida write in an obscurantist way? (asking for people who have studied him)

I have a hard time understanding him.  I'm not trying to insult him by asking this question, but I am genuinely curious.  Sometimes I feel like he's trying to seem profound with convoluted sentences, but I'm probably not smart enough to understand.  Can someone who has studied Derrida deeply share their thoughts?

[Assistant]
I think a better way of considering his writing style is that it is confined to sometimes odd constructions by the way he thinks language works. He is also frequently mobilizing an entire contextual knowledge of a thinker (and sometimes implicitlyin these cases *maybe* it is fair to critique him as obscure, or unclear in a way that isnt necessary).

Briefly, one part of the problem for Derrida is that language doesnt just represent some pre-existent ideal content and then communicate it. Language is actually a condition of possibility of this content in the first place, and confines and fissures that content by the iterability of the bits of language that are used. His writing tries, among many other things, not to fall into the trap of pretending that it can or does transparently represent some set of ideas, without already having contaminated them and related them to other ideas which exceed the intention in the case at hand.

A good place to begin with this problem is Signature Event Context, and it would help to have a good knowledge of J L Austins speech-act theory.


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

[User] [Pokemon] If Humans are "normal type" pokemon, could you catch a human?

[Assistant]
Humans are not a normal type Pokemon. Humans aren't really Pokemon, even if humans and Pokemon have a common ancestor. Mammals and birds have a common ancestor too and they're both warm blooded vertebrates but we don't say that mammals ARE birds, we understand that there was divergent evolution.

Humans aren't Pokemon. Pokemon lay eggs, humans do not. Humans are vertebrate, Pokemon can be vertebrate or invertebrate.


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

[User] ELI5:why can i read reddit for hours but can't focus on doing schoolwork or studying?

[Assistant] Quickly changing topics keep you interested because your brain is always "expecting the next thing to be even better". Delving deeper into a single topic is harder to stay interested in because your brain expects the next thing to be harder to understand.


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

[User] [Neuroscience] Why can't we use adrenaline or some kind of stimulant to wake people out of comas? Is there something physically stopping it, or is it just too dangerous?

[Assistant]
Adrenaline, cortisol, and other stimulants are like an alarm. They're a chemical signal that can quickly travel around the body.

People fall into comas for many reasons, but generally increasing the 'wake up' signal won't do anything. It's like a ringing alarm clock for a deaf person.

Most comas are caused by drug overdose of one kind or another. This tends to cause coma through damage to a region of the brain stem called the Ascending Reticular Activating System (ARAS). In particular, synaptic function is impaired. Basically the neurons that form the 'wake up' button lose the ability to talk to each other. Pressing the button harder won't make a difference.

Other times, there's systemic damage to the brain. The 'wake up' button may work, but the stuff it's connected to can't sync up correctly. This is particularly true for damage to the outer layer of the brain - the cerebral cortex - which is where consciousness seems to happen.


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

[User] [ Marvel Comics ] Why don't king Tchala end the African poverty or at least hunger?

[Assistant] Because of a large variety of reasons, mostly because they were extremely isolationist - a depiction that carried over into the MCU. They were so isolationist that they weren't even allowing their own citizens to leave to other countries for education - T'Challa was legitimately the first Wakandan to study abroad.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is an economy "stimulated", what does it mean to stimulate an economy, and what leads to inflation?

This might've been asked before but it's something I've never understood, so thought I might as well ask.

[Assistant]
Two methods: fiscal policy (government decisions to tax more/less or provide more:less subsidies and payments to businesses or people) and monetary policy (a central bank managing interest rates). These days the big one is the latter.

All interest rates in a country (eg your interest rate on a line of credit, personal loan and mortgage) are based off that countrys Policy Rate.  Commercial banks can borrow from the central bank at that policy rate (well, not exactly at that rate but lets not go into details about that). They in turn lend that money to people and businesses. If the policy rate goes up, then the rates at which they lend go up (to maintain their profit margin). If the policy rate goes down, then the banks lower the rates at which they lend to consumers.

The policy rate is raised to cool down an economy (that is, to keep inflation in check) if its overheating. This happens since higher central bank rates mean people and businesses are less likely to take out loans to spend on things like houses, cars etc. If people arent spending as much there is less demand for products so prices dont increase very fast, which means inflation wont increase (in theory) very fast. The economy starts to cool off since spending is one of the main components of a countrys GDP (the others being investment, government spending and net exports)

Or the central bank can do the opposite: lower its policy rate so banks can lower their lending rates. People decide to borrow more money to buy more stuff, increasing gdp. demand goes up but that also leads to inflation.

Basically its a big game of equilibrium and balance. Banks like to keep an inflation target typically around 2% since that leaves a nice buffer to avoid deflation (ie negative inflation, or decreasing prices) which is a whole other story and which can be very dangerous to an economy.


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

[User] ELI5: If electricity moves so fast, why does it take so long for phones to charge?

[Assistant]
Because batteries do not store electricity.

They store chemicals. And when those chemicals react they MAKE electricity to power your phone.

Plugging your phone in doesnt fill your phone with electrity, its using the electricity to move the chemicals back to where they were.

And when that happens, the battery is able to make electricity again.


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

[User]
[The last of us] Is Ellie going to grow up fine anyway?

So Joel chooses to save the kid, yay him. However, it seems to me that what Ellie has is more of a resistance than an immunity. That wound wasn't healing, and looked pretty manky. And the fireflies found some spread of infection in her brain, just not as aggressive as normal, or enough to impair her faculties.

Yes, Ellie may not have turned in the usual time frame, but what's to say she won't slowly become an infected in a few years?

[Assistant]
The 'infection' in her brain is what's actually causing her complete immunity. It was caused by some kind of anomalous genetic interaction that occurred right after she was bitten. That's why the wound looks kinda gross - it's because the wound *did* fester for a bit before the mutation in her brain kicked in and gave her full immunity to the disease.

As far as we know, her immunity will last until she dies. Of course, if there was some other trigger to make her brain mutate in a different way, or if she was to lose that part of her brain in some kind of accident, then she would probably fully turn into one of the infected.


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

[User]
CMV: Disability wage gap is a more serious and less mentioned topic than gender wage gap.

Disclaimer: I am not downplaying the importance of gender wage gap, I am merely stating that disability wage gap seems to be more serious --- if anything intersectionality would imply that different sorts of identities compound onto its social impacts.

I am a person with multiple chronic issues and have been struggling really hard in finding higher education / jobs. As a person who has long been following gender wage gap, it has only recently hit me that disability wage gap is probably a thing. And indeed, after searching a bit, there has been researchs made which outlines and states the figures of how disabled people are paid less in the workforce.

So cmv: are disabled wage gap actually less severe than gender wage gap? or cmv: are disabled wage gap actually discussed or promoted often in media? or cmv: whatever you see fit

Edit: Thank you all for your comments! I am trying my best to get to them one-by-one!

[Assistant]
Any studies on that topic would need to find and correct for some factor for the reasonability of "reasonable accomodations". Because disabled people not getting jobs that they just can't reasonably do isn't an serious failing of employment practices, just reality.

Did those studies you find do that? It seems like that would need to be done for each kind and severity of disability separately, so that would be kinda hard to get an overall number.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why aren't electrical prongs hot when they're removed from an outlet?

If high amounts of energy are being conducted through these prongs, shouldn't prongs be glowing hot when they're removed?

[Assistant]
Heating occurs when there's a significant amount of resistance.

Significant resistance can occur if the material you're using is a poor conductor, or if you're using a conductor that's physically too small.

In the case of the prongs of a plug, they're both made of metal (good conductor) and fairly large in size. Therefore, there's no major resistance, and they don't heat up noticably.


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

[User]
[MCU] how many powered people are there in the MCU?

We know theres enough for there to be a dedicated prison for them so presumably there are at least  several thousand just in the US even with a relatively high rate of incarceration. Do we have any indication or guesses as to the total number of people with powers in the MCU both worldwide and in the US?

[Assistant]
No way to know for sure. The phenomenon is widely enough known that people immediately understand when they encounter someone who is powered, but rare enough that it's still a surprise.

A couple of government agencies were tasked with cataloging them all.  One terrorist organization specifically targeted them.  At least two enclaves of Inhumans existed - Afterlife and Attilan.

You'd have to decide what criteria to use to consider someone powered, too.  Many people just have high tech gadgets, like Shocker, Diamondback, and Toomes.  Even a lot of Avengers like Stark, Rhodes, Sam, and Clint are normal humans with technological enhancements.

Then there are combat drugs taken by people like Trish Walker and Simpson.  T'Challa also is technically just a normal human who doses with herbal enhancers and has a high tech suit.

Thousands or tens of thousands is a good guess.


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

[User] Does the recipient of a heart transplant inherit the resting heart rate of the donor?

[Assistant] Only sort of.  After a transplant, the heart is generally not connected to the nerves that regulate rate.  But cardiac muscle is not like skeletal muscle, in that the nerves do not directly initiate contraction, they just speed it up or slow it down.  The heart itself has autorhythmicity.  Not connected to those nerves, the heart will beat at its intrinsic rate, which is usually around 100 bpm.


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

[User]
[The Midnight Sky] What the hell happened?

There arent many clues for this one but radiation is steadily advancing outwards from all the major urban centers on the planet. Its so hopeless that the staff of an Arctic observatory is flying home to be with their loved ones for the end.

The radiation is projected to reach the Arctic station about 15 days after The Event and slightly before that birds start falling from the sky and convulsing on the ground outside the station.

The view from space is pure WTF dust storms.

[Assistant]
It's Nevil Shute's *On The Beach* updated. Nukes probably, lots of 'em apparently, don't dwell on sciencey shit. The end of the world is just a MacGuffin for the story.

>!Two parents and a child on a fresh planet is still extinction.!<


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

[User] ELI5: Who or what determines a road's speed limit?

[Assistant]
Who sets it, and puts up the roadsigns? Typically whatever governmental body is responsible for the roads in that area. In the U.S. most highways are managed at the state level, and local roads at the county/city level.

Sometimes there are laws that determine default speed limits; other times the relevant Dept. of Transportation determines it based on conditions.

Those conditions typically are:

- How narrow the road is, and how many lanes there are.
- How many houses/businesses are along the road.
- How much the road curves or changes elevation (which effects visibility).


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

[User]
ELI5: how do animals with extremely acute hearing not get bombarded with loud noise all the time.

with my only frame of reference being my own hearing.. I struggle to grasp how this works.  If you can hear a whisper across the room.. Shouldn't every sound in your immediate vicinity be blaring loud? Any insight would be appreciated.

[Assistant] Animals like dogs & cats have 'directional' ears, so if a sound is uncomfortably loud they can turn their ears away from the sound to help. They will also have ears that can 'adapt' to the ambient sound level better than ours.


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

[User] ELI5: Why shouldn't you put hot water from a tap into your kettle to boil?

[Assistant]
Hot water heaters hold water for long periods of time, and as such they often have buildup of various sediments and other contaminants that you really don't want to be ingesting on a regular basis.

Also, it fouls the flavor of the water. Especially if you have scale issues.

Take two cups. Fill one with hot water, fill another with cold. Put them both in the fridge.

Once the hot water is cold, taste both cups. You'll see that the taste of the hot water is not nearly as good as the cold.


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

[User]
CMV: Im not happy with the political party I mostly support. I shouldnt donate a dime to anyone until I am happier.

I am approaching this from a non-political perspective and I feel like this could be party agnostic, but Im really not happy with the political party I have supported in the past. They are awful and disappoint me at every turn. Every election, they induce a most important election of our lives narrative, but dont really deliver when in power IMHO.

I am a member of multiple minority groups (intersectionality is a thing), and I feel very much taken advantage of. I have advanced degrees in public policy and law, so I have an understanding of how US government and politics works. Voting for the current ecosystem of the other party is not an option.

I am starting to get fundraising emails, invitations, etc as 2022 starts to ramp. I feel that there is no good reason to donate my money to candidates or political party. The amount I am able to donate does not get me access to a candidate, just more spam emails and calls.

My friends believe that this is still important to donate. CMV: Why should I still donate to this machine?

EDIT: Its probably germane that I am in the United States and I live in DC where I have NO direct representation in federal elections.

[Assistant]
If you wait until the general election to support candidates, you are too late to make any real change to your party.  Changes to the party happen during the _primaries_, where multiple candidates within the party compete for the main nomination.  _This_ is where new ideas are introduced and the party moves further left/right based on who wins the primary.

Case in point, AOC unseated Joe Crowley - a 10 year veteran of Congress - in the Democratic primary, pushing that seat _much_ further left.  A Democrat was always going to win that seat, but real change was made there because Democrats made their voice heard when it _really_ mattered.  Similarly, Trump came out of nowhere to win the 2016 Republican POTUS primary, fundamentally changing the GOP.

If you support your candidates _then_, you can actually influence things in a meaningful way.  So you 100% should donate time and money to candidates - you just need to do it _earlier_.


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

[User]
How does a vine searching for and object to climb know not to wrap around itself?

Ive seen a time laps video of a climbing vine and as it circles around searching for something to climb it seems to run into a chute from itself. Upon interacting with itself it simply disengages and continues its search for another object.

How does it recognize itself?

[Assistant]
There are surface proteins which sense when  the vine is touching something. When it does it sets off a signal cascade which causes growth/elongation on the opposite side of the vine.

There are a number of processes at work, almost all of which are poorly understood and heavily researched. They also vary between organisms that exhibit the process.

If you're interested in diving down the rabbit hole Google "circumnutation" or "helical growth in plants".


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

[User] ELI5: What makes a fake smile different from real one?

[Assistant]
Humans are extraordinarily good at picking up very minute changes in facial expressions. Most of it happens unconsciously, that is to say automatically. Same kind of thing happens when you display emotions on your face. Tiny tiny muscles arrange the skin bits in very particular order to display an emotion, say a happy smile face. Im sure both of these things can be practiced to a point, but mostly it is all autonomous.

Fake smile is someone putting a smile-mask on top of some other emotion and it looks different because your brain does the brain-work automatically and the smile seems off.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why keep certain creatures a secret from the non-magical population?

Why do wizards keep the existence of unicorns, dragons, hippogriffs, etc. a secret from the muggle population?   Why aren't they just normal animals to humans?

[Assistant] Many of these animals have magical properties (unicorn blood's properties being the most obvious, but also dragon's breath, the fact that hippogriffs probably fly at least partially by magic since their actual proportions are impossible, etc.) and if muggles were to witness these magical properties, they would try to analyze them/study them, and might either stumble across magic, or try to abuse their observations of it for personal gain (imagine what would happen if muggles tried hunting unicorns for sport to drink their blood).


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

[User]
[Marvel] Can commands from The Purple Man/Kilgrave override someones physical disabilities?

If he orders someone to stand and theyre in a wheelchair, what happens? They cant do it physically but is there something magical about his powers to force that person to find some fucked up way to stand?

[Assistant] No. His powers only work on the mind. So, if he tells someone in a wheelchair to stand up, they will attempt it and fall out of their wheelchair. However, he could tell them to abandon their wheelchair and crawl everywhere, which he would probably do because hes the Purple Man.


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

[User]
What would happen if I stuck a really long pole into a black hole?

Would the part that is in the event horizon break off if I pulled back on the pole?  Would it get sucked in instantaneously or would it take time?

[Assistant]
So here's you, chillin', hanging out *by some witchcraft* at rest relative to the black hole.

And not just any black hole, right? A *magic* black hole. A black hole that is not boiling and seething with a highly energetic stretched horizon.

You begin lowering your pole. Unseen by you, the stress on the pole begins to climb. Soon, there's insane internal stress on the pole, due to the difference between four-acceleration where you are and where the end of the pole is.

Then snap. Pole breaks. And it will always break *where it can be observed by you.* That is, it will break *before* the four-acceleration on the end of the pole goes infinite at the event horizon. The fragment or fragments that break off fall toward the black hole and vanish; the bit you're holding on to remains intact until you either pull it back, or lower it farther until it, too, breaks.

Don't ask what would happen if the pole were infinitely strong. Everyone always does, and the answer's always the same: you can't have infinitely strong materials and black holes in the same universe.


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

[User] How often do cancer cells develop in our body that self-terminate or are caught by the immune system before doing any harm?

[Assistant] We can estimate each parent line experiences cancer cells within 10-100 generations, depending on the cell type and risk factors. With each variable generation speed, you're looking at between 4,000 to 40,000 new cancer cells every day.


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

[User]
I would have thought that by now the optimum spout-shape (as on jug or kettle) is longsince known - that is, 'optimum' in terms of water falling cleanly from the spout & not dribbling back along the underside of it: so does anyone know whether such an optimum spout exists?

And if so, then why it's not so that _absolutely all_ spouts are made that shape.

I don't think such a spout-shape could be _calculated_ ... so I'm not asking for a _mathematical equation_ for the curve of it (unless it be a _parametrised empirical_ one). Also such a shape, if it does exist, has possibly been known for two or three millenia ... or _yet longer_, maybe!

Actually - it's just occured to me now that _each individual material_ might have its optimum shape, according as the affinity of water for substance varies from one substance to the next.

This question was infact prompted by an actual act of pouring water from a jug, & thinking "that spout could be a better shape than that!".

[Assistant] I suspect that an 'optimum pouring' spout might be impractical, since 'not dribbling back' can probably best be achieved with a sharp edge (fluids flowing along a smooth surface tend to adhere to it, whereas a sharp corner can break the adhesion). Depending on the material the container is made of, this would liable to be easily damaged and/or hazardous.


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

[User]
CMV: Piracy as a "demo" is morally justifiable as long as you buy it or stop using it in a 'timely fashion'.

Pirating a game to see if you like it. Pirating a new version of Windows to see if you like changes. Download music (ok, you could just go to Youtube, but bare with me) is all morally justifiable if you're using it as a "demo" version and buy/uninstall it.

Many people claim that you're taking someones work and not compensating them, however, I feel that there is nothing wrong with this, as long as you don't keep using the product after a "trial" period. Think of it as purchasing a new item and returning it before the cut-off date.

So, Change my view, is downloading a game or other product not morally justifiable if you're doing it solely to see if you enjoy it, it runs on your computer, ect?

[Assistant]
But what is a "timely fashion"? In the past, if you wanted to play a game, you had to buy it. Now you still have to, but if you want to try it out you can pirate it. You are still reaping the benefits of the labor of whoever made the game without compensating him/her... supposing you decide you're done with it after your arbitrarily defined "timely fashion," you have still used it without compensating the developer.

I think that answers the point, but as a relevant tangent, ask yourself how many people actually go back and buy the game that they already have, save files and all.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Was Darth Vader still attracted to women after the Mustafar incident?

He might still long for Padme but if he sees an attractive woman, would he check her out?

[Assistant]
There's an instance in the Vader comic that's the closest we've seen to Vader getting presented with a romantic situation. Darth Vader is a guest at a planet's ballroom dance. There's a royal guy who keeps insisting that Darth Vader dance with his daughter. Darth Vader gets annoyed and says "I'll just dance with you bro." Then Vader starts force choking the guy in the air and waves him all around the dance floor.

I don't think he feels those feelings at all anymore. And even if he did, he'd realize he's just more machine than man and it'd be impossible to do anything about it, thereby just pissing him off.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can metal go into commercial microwaves in restaurants but not my microwave at home?

[Assistant]
SOME metal is microwave safe - Most is not.  Rather than try to have home microwave users differentiate between good metal and bad metal, they just say don't use any metal, because the potential risk far outweighs the potential benefits of using metal in the microwave.

In professional kitchens, there are some metal tools that they know to be microwave safe, and they use that specific tool in the microwave - but that doesn't make all metal safe in commercial microwaves.  They just know the difference.


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

[User] ELI5:Do donated organs age according to the donors age or do they adapt to the age of the new body?

[Assistant]
Organs are made of cells, like pretty much the rest of your body.

A transplant procedure just hooks up the organ to the new body's blood supply (veins and arteries), so that the cells inside the organ can have oxygen and food, and basically survive and do their jobs.  That's it.

There's no "adapting", the cells in the organ don't change their DNA or makeup in any way, so basically they'll live and divide and function based on the DNA that they have (which is, the donor's DNA).

So, to answer your question, the organ "ages" according to the donor's DNA and "age".

But the biggest issue with transplanted organs is that the recipient's immune system (which is in the blood), recognizes that the DNA of the organ is NOT from its own body, and attacks it as if it's actually contamination.  The immune system tries to kill all the cells in the organ, as if they were microbes.

To prevent this, every person receiving a transplant organ must go on medication to disable their own immune system from being so aggressive.  Of course, if you disable a person's immune system, they'll get sick extremely easily, so you can't disable it 100%.  You can just reduce it a bit.

So the organ does eventually get attacked, because the immune system is not disabled, just reduced, so it does still attack the organ over time.  5 years, 10 years.

Basically, age isn't a problem for the organ, as much as being "killed" by the new person's immune system.


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

[User]
ELI5 What's the difference between page.site.com and site.com/page?

It seems like both are ways of having a sub-part of a website, but I'm not sure (from my non-web-savvy POV) what the difference is.

[Assistant]
page.site.com is a subdomain. It acts like a top-level domain and can point to different web servers than other subdomains (for example, page1.site.com and page2.site.com can be on different servers).

site.com/page represents a directory (page) on the site.com server. So site.com/page1 and site.com/page2 are both on the same server, but are different directories.

You can think of site.com as being your house, page.site.com representing a specific computer in your house (called page), and site.com/page represents a specific folder (called page) on a computer. So if you have comp.site.com/page, you're requesting the page folder on the comp computer that is in the site house.


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

[User] ELI5: How do smart watches and fitness trackers know when you've fallen asleep?

[Assistant]
You dont move much anymore and your heartbeat goes down. Both metrics such a device tracks.

It tracks your heartbeat over the day and thus knows your at rest, but awake value and the sleep value typically is even lower.

Possibly it also notices that you are laying down, which is another clue for sleeping.

So the combination of lower than average heartbeat frequency, doesnt move much and is laying would be a good indicator for is sleeping


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

[User]
[The Walking Dead] About the walkers they "kill"....

Whenever the group stay in places for a while (e.g the prison or more recently Alexandria) Would it not be a more viable option to spread corpses/walker blood around the walls? Haven't we learned that by covering yourself in walker blood and guts that they show absolutely no interest in you, why don't they cover their walls in it? Wouldn't that actually cause the walkers to take no notice of it?

[Assistant]
The prison is big, way to big to cover all the outer walls (casue i assume you dont want the inner walls covered in blood), duye to lack of enough walkers and lack of time. Also, who would wanna go around, dragging zombie corpses (or harvesting them for blood) and paint the walls with rotten blood. The blood would rot fast, or evaporate, meaning you would need to paint it often. And thats even if you can find walkers where the blood have not evaporated, so they need to be relativly fresh, otherwise they will dry out.

It would just be too much work, between hunting walkers, harvesting them for blood then walking around the whole damn prison painting the damn thing every day.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are carpet floors so ubiquitous in some countries? Are they worth all the extra hassle?

For an equivalent price, carpet brings more headaches than tile: stains are harder to clean, carpet wears down, fungus or other stuff can more easily grow in it, vacuum cleaning is mandatorycannot just sweep a broom over it, cannot wash it with a mop.

Coming from a country where tile/hardwood is the absolute norm, I'm still struggling to understand.

[Assistant]
I'd say the main two reasons are warmth and comfort. It's much more pleasant to walk on without shoes/slippers because it's soft, and warm. It also keeps your room warmer since it helps further insulate the air from the cold ground (unless you have underfloor heating, of course). Lots if people also find it a makes for a more pleasant environment since it helps to absorb sound so rooms feel cosier since there's less echoing of noise.

I'd also say that vacuuming is easier and more convenient than sweeping/mopping to be honest...