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

[User]
[Halo]How did the forerunners 'fake' human prehistory?

To clarify, as far as I can understand, ancient humans were obviously de-evolved by the forerunners after their war. But, what I don't understand is how did the humans that rose up afterwards, not notice anything odd; Because in my mind, that would imply to me that the forerunners were able to plant fake fossils or something like that to throw off the next iteration of humanity, since they would inevitably rise up again.

So, in short, did the forerunners do anything to make the humans oblivious to their past, or is there a plot hole in regards to this?

[Assistant]
The majority of the forms the Forerunners devolved ancient humanity into had already existed earlier in mankind's evolutionary chain. A few were mutations but from a historical perspective that would just like a species diverging with a few missing links.

Before activating the Array, the Forerunners covered every life-bearing planet they could find with a substance called Solute. Its purpose was to ensure that every lifeform affected by the Array (which is pretty much any animal with a nervous system more complex than a starfish) would disintegrate into its component molecules. No bodies, no bones, no fossils. This was done to prevent an ecological disaster across the galaxy. Having billions of rotting bodies all at once would not be good for any environment. However it had the secondary effect of potentially muddying up a fossil record as it would leave gaps between species that would never be filled.

On Earth, it wiped out the species of humans not already indexed by the Forerunners -homo sapiens, homo neanderthalensis, homo floriensis, denisova hominin and a few others- and, for the most part, any trace they'd ever existed as it takes about 10,000 years for organic material to fossilise (where it would then not be affected by the Solute, thus explaining why there are still dinosaur fossils) and it was only around 9,000 years from the end of the war to the firing of the Array.

Also, while the Forerunners were de-evolving humanity, they also took the time to physically dismantle every trace of human civilisation they could find. They pretty much erased almost all physical evidence that it had ever existed, save for a handful of ruins on some remote worlds. Absolutely nothing was left on Earth.


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

[User] I've seen alarmist TV shows making conspiracy theories that "Fort Knox is actually empty" . Would that even have any actual economic implications?

[Assistant]
> Would that even have any actual economic implications?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: The US gold reserves (310 billion USD) are about 1.6% of GDP (19.4 trillion) and about 1.4% of total national debt (22.4 trillion). The gold reserves correspond to less than two weeks of the total economic output of the US, and about one month of the total yearly gov't revenue (3.6 trillion). If all of the gold reserves vanished overnight, the debt/GDP ratio would go up from 108.0% to 109.4%. Not a big deal.


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

[User]
ELI5 what is dynamic programming?

Ive been encountering problems lately where the solution requires a dynamic programming solution, but I cant wrap my head around how that works. Can some ELI5 it?

[Assistant]
Dynamic programming is a way of breaking problems up into repeated subproblems, then solving the subproblems from the bottom up, reusing any answers that youve already figured out.

Consider a naive recursive Fibonacci function:

```
fib(0) = 0
fib(1) = 1
fib(n) = fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)
```
Im on mobile so Ill use notation fn to mean `fib(n)`.

f5 = f4 + f3

f5 = (f3 + f2) + f3

Now Ill expand the f3 calls.

f5 = ((f2 + f1) + f2) + (f2 + f1)

Now Ill expand all the f2 calls.

f5 = (((f1 + f0) + f1) + (f1 + f0)) + ((f1 + f0) + f1)

Now lets look at how many times fib got called.

-	f0: 3 times
-	f1: 5 times
-	f2: 3 times
-	f3: 2 times

For f0 and f1, this isnt a huge deal. But we had to calculate f2 twice more than necessary and f3 once more than necessary. This is ok for `fib(5)` but it wont be ok for `fib(100)`.

Since the nth Fibonacci number builds on the last two,  and this logic will unroll all the way down to 1, we should only need to calculate fx once for each x less than n.

```
fib_dynamic(n):
  if n is 1 or 0 return n
  fibs = [0, 1] // fibs[x] represents the xth Fibonacci number
  for i from 2 to n, inclusive:
    fibs[i] = fibs[i - 1] + fibs[i - 2]
  return fibs[i]
```

Try out fib_dynamic(5) on pen and paper and see the difference.

With this method, we dont have to repeat any work because we saved the intermediate answers to be used again.

There exists another technique very similar to dynamic programming, called *memoization* (yes, thats how you spell it), where you essentially save the results of each function call, then the next time that function is called with the same arguments you can return the saved version. This is often a little bit easier to implement because you dont have to change your algorithm to go bottom-up, the stack will do it for you.

```
cache = [0, 1]
fib_memo(n):
  if cache[n] exists, return it
  cache[n] = fib_memo(n - 1) + fib_memo(n - 2)
  return cache[n]
```

Try this one out on pen and paper too, see how it compares to the other two.


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

[User] ELI5: Why, after taking long showers, do we feel dried out? What makes the moisture leave our skin?

[Assistant]
Imagine an extremely hot and humid day. Once you step outside, you'll be drenched in your own sweat immediately.

Being in a hot shower/bath/pool is almost the same environment. You're still sweating large amounts but you don't feel it because the sweat is washed away immediately.

Since you are losing water through sweat during the shower, you feel dried out. This can be dangerous if you stay too long in the shower/pool because being in water reduces your sense of thirst and you can get dehydrated.


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

[User]
I can't shake the stereotype that the American South is still filled with racism and backwardness. CMV

First off, I absolutely know this view is wrong; I have visited a few places in the south, have relatives who live there, friends from that region I love and appreciate, etc, and I do NOT mean to offend anyone or slam anyone, so I'm sorry if I have, but I can't help that every time I think of the south I associate it with racism, homophobia, extreme conservatism, and general backwardness and lack of education. Heck, I almost offend myself with how this stereotype still pops up in my head. I think it is a result of how negatively the south has been portrayed in history (Civil War, reconstruction, Jim Crow, etc.). Logically, I know it's wrong, but I'm looking for some people to help me change my gut reaction to the south. Thanks in advance!

[Assistant] Stop thinking North vs South and start thinking Urban vs Rural. Major urban centers are generally more progressive in every way than rural areas. It's just when you think of the north you think of NYC, and when you think of the south you think rolling Alabama cornfields. Think of Atlanta instead.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Could a wizard conceivably make it into low earth orbit, board the ISS, and return to Earth safely using only spells, potions, and magical apparatuses (e.g. a broomstick)?

Assume Apparating onto the station is prohibited, and any restrictions on Wizard-Muggle contact don't come into play.

What sorts of spells etc. would a wizard need to employ to reach the ISS safely, and how long would it take on a broomstick?

[Assistant]
I believe so. We dont know all of the different spells and potions that exist, but given that it was possible for wizards to travel to the bottom of a large lake we know that theres some magic that can allow wizards to endure harsh environments.

 Theyd probably just need something that obviates the need to breathe, protects them from the harsh conditions of the atmosphere, and increase the speed and momentum of their broom enough to reach the station.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is/was the federal mail service (USPS) in debt and on the brink of financial failure, while independent services (UPS, FedEx) remain profitable?

[Assistant] Congress got it in their heads that since emails became popular and would only become more popular, the US Post would eventually have a lot of problems staying profitable. Worried that a majority of their workers would retire at the peak of people no longer using the Post Office, they said that the USPS needs to make sure to have enough money for all these people's retirement funds and pensions NOW, before the plunge happened.


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

[User]
[Overwatch] How does Sombra hack things?

She seems to just be some odd tech-guru that would even leave Technomancers scratching their heads. When she was younger, she seemed to have to be in physical contact with a computer, but now she has all this fancy holograms and stuff, so any ideas on how it all works?

[Assistant] For most of the combat "hacking" it's probably less of an actual "hack" and more like a brute force overload that takes the targeted machine a few seconds to compensate for, or the owner a few seconds to troubleshoot/repair. The only really innovative thing is probably her ability to affect things that should be airgapped but even then. It would explain why it's so close range and why it doesn't last very long. For everything else, like the medical pickups and the shenanigans at the robot factory, she probably has backdoors.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] How are the Weeping Angels not breaking the laws of time, by sending people from the present into the past they are giving them the chance to change history with their future knowledge thus breaking the very rule that the Doctor keeps harping on about?

And this is going on a lot.

[Assistant]
I mean, they are. They just get away with it.

It's like going "Why is that person speeding? That breaks the laws! He could cause a lot of accidents and make problems for everyone!" Yes, the Weeping Angels do things that can cause paradoxes and mess with the fabric of time. They're BAD.


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

[User] [marvel] can someone explain how a human can breathe with an Adamantium ribcage? (the ribcage needs to move with the lungs)

[Assistant]
How does *your* ribcage move? Bones don't flex.

The ribs may be adamantium, but the cartilage and tendons which connect it together are not. That is what allows a ribcage to flex, be it bone or indestructible metal.


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

[User] ELI5: With UAVs being common throughout the world, why aren't there many unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) being used for military applications yet?

[Assistant] Its easier to navigate when there are no obstacles, so the ocean and the air is simply easier for unmanned craft to manage. With modern developments in ML thats changing, but its a fundamentally harder problem being *in* the terrain than over or under it.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the reasoning behind how trains are loaded?

I see trains everyday and Ive never understood how/reason behind how rail cars are organized. I see 3x fuel cars then 2x box car, and finally more fuel cars. Why not all the fuel cars then box cars?

[Assistant] They are generally arranged by how they are picked up and delivered.  It's much easier to pull into a place and unhook the last five cars, then go to the next place and unhook the next 8 cars, etc., then to have to go to each place, unhook cars 1-6, and cars 7-12, then connect to cars 7-12, then move them, then disconnect them, then reconnect cars 1-6, then reconnect the rest of the cars, etc.


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

[User]
CMV: Considering the majority of society arent adequately educated on the criminal justice system, jury trials are an ineffective way of delivering justice.

For example, if somebody is facing the death penalty or a life sentence, it is unfair to have someones life hanging in the balance of legally uneducated people. Surely legally trained professionals are far more capable of deciding whether somebody is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Letting someones life be shaped by a group of people who most likely have no education on legal matters puts defendants at a disadvantage. Most people use their judgements on gut instincts or prejudices instead of following the way the law works.

[Assistant]
The job of a juror really doesn't require much legal knowledge. You really only need an in-depth understanding of the law in order to know what to charge a person with or how to make a case for or against them, which is why lawyers are responsible for those parts. A juror's job is not to interpret the law at all but only to look at the evidence and arguments before them and judge guilt or innocence. The judge will inform them the crimes the person is charged with and what each one entails, and that is really the only legal knowledge they need. One doesn't have to go through law school in order to determine whether someone broke the law or not.

>Most people use their judgements on gut instincts or prejudices instead of following the way the law works.

That's why we have a jury of 12 people and require them to agree unanimously, because it's highly unlikely all 12 people are going to have the same exact prejudices or instincts. They debate the evidence among themselves, which helps to moderate any one person's opinion and come to the most logical final conclusion.


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

[User] ELI5 Why can't each state run the voter rolls through the SSA death index database to get rid of the 'dead people who vote'?

[Assistant]
(1) They should.

(2) The SSA death index isn't always 100% accurate (though it should be), and people get very upset if a single voter is denied access to the polls.

Further, any attempt to clean up the poll books is met with accusations of deliberate voter suppression.  (Some of them might actually be attempts at voter repression, which complicates things even further.)  The result is that the poll books remain highly inaccurate (out of date).


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

[User]
[DCEU] Why did people hate Superman when he was alive but love and mourn him when he was dead?

Throughout Dawn Of Justice, and I think during Man Of Steel(I haven't watched that one in a while), Superman was something of a pariah, people hating and fearing the power at his disposal and even the government themselves wanted to bring him in dead or alive. But in the Justice League movie, after his sacrifice against Doomsday, people started loving him, calling him a hero and a symbol of hope, even building enormous memorials in his honor. What gives? What made public opinion on him switch at all but the drop of a hat? Also, when Superman was revived in Justice League, did people go right back to hating his guts?

[Assistant] Dying is always the best PR move, and in a heroic sacrifice against a giant monster? Plus the fact that he *died* proved that he wasn't a god, just a powerful man, which quelled a lot of people's fears and criticisms of him.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are domesticated cats generally so afraid of water yet wild cats like pumas, lions, etc. regularly cross rivers, lay in the rain, and don't seem to be bothered by it?

[Assistant]
It has a lot to do with the nature of their fur. Domestic cats get soaked in water, and really lack the lose skin and shaking reflex of a dog. Other animals have guard hairs and oils that keep the inner fur dry.

If you wash a kitten in warm water, dry it straight after, it will not mind this - it doesn't link getting wet with the unpleasant effect of getting getting very cold. If a cat's first experience with water is something like trying to run across a weed-covered pond - well, it will be paranoid for the rest of its life.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why don't we see riots in Belarus, when there are riots in Ukraine?

The latest riots in mainly Kijev has been triggered by heavy russian influence in the country, and the pinching between Russia and EU.

This leads me to think: wouldn't that imply, that this dilemma between staying Russia-influenced or moving towards EU would move on to a country like Belarus. It's known as the last dictatorship in EU, and is stuck in a bit of a limbo like Ukraine. I suppose that eventually there will be a heavy pressure to open up towards west, but why aren't there any rumblings in this country? Is it because that the opposition is more oppressed than in Ukraine, or are the people of Belarus keen on staying a gated country and leaving progress behind?

[Assistant]
Belarus was already effectively a dictatorship, and the government would never, ever have permitted a protest movement to develop and take over a public square for months. They'd have sent in the military on day one. And everyone living there knows it.

So there's no protest movement. But hey, the situation was similar in places like Libya, Egypt, etc, so who knows what could happen given time?


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

[User] ELI5:Why is that animals can sense things like earthquake before they happen while were left totally clueless?

[Assistant]
Earthquakes produce two kinds of waves, P-waves and S-waves.  P-waves travel faster through the ground than S-waves, and aren't destructive, or even easily noticed by humans.

The leading theory is that some animals can sense the minor vibrations caused by the P-waves, which alert them to the incoming S-waves (which are what cause the damage from the earthquake).

As a side note, we have the capability to build P-wave detectors which can give warnings as early as 60-90 seconds before an earthquake hits, depending on how far the hypocenter is.  It's enough time for people to seek shelter and for certain dangerous systems to shut off, such as trains and natural gas pipes.


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

[User]
[Invincible] So did Urath never contact the Coalition of Planets where their evaluator was?

Allen the alien has been going to Earth for fifteen years, where an evaluation hapen every three years, so Urath missed at least five evaluations and never asked the coalition where the evaluator was? They can obviously contact them because they need that to start the mandate in the first place.

[Assistant] It's possible Urath didn't know what the schedule of evaluations would be. Given there are species out there that can see multiple decades as a pittance in terms of lifespan, it might not have registered as odd that no one came to fight them for 15.


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

[User]
ELI5: The significance/obsession of USA citizens with prom and high school graduation.

Is there something that I'm missing here?

I thought it's normal to finish high school and prepare to go to pre U than Uni.

But after seeing limousine being rented, hundred plus USD dress, another hundred plus USD for shoes, and top that with another couple of hundred USD for other necessary stuff, I'm questioning my own logic.

It doesn't stop there, it seems, graduating high school is widely celebrated even to a point that parents give out paid vacation trips or a car as gift.

As for the students theme self, OMG they spent months preparing for prom and the fight for Queen and King is actually real. I thought it was just TV shit.

Back to the question, why? what is it I'm missing here?

[Assistant]
TL;DR: We've lost most of our developmental milestones and coming-of-age rituals. So high school prom and graduation are a major milestone for most people, often the *only* milestone. They're an important cultural event and ritual that signals a transition from childhood to adulthood. People want to mark the occasion and remember it later in life.

The US, like many Western societies, is gradually secularizing. It is also highly urbanized. And finally the cultural importance of marriage and the nuclear family has been declining for decades. As such, we've found that many of our developmental rituals have faded away.

In many religions, there's some type of coming-of-age ceremony. Jews have bar mitzvah at age 13. Many Christians have Confirmation around the same age, where children are taught important theological points and are allowed to take communion at church for the first time. Lots of cultures have various rituals and ceremonies for the time when a child is perceived to have become mature and able to take on adult responsibilities and privileges. These ceremonies aren't always religious, but in America, historically, they have been. Most people in America, even if not personally religious, have a Christian background. But religion has faded greatly from public life. Most people rarely go to church, if at all, and a sixth of the US population has no religion. So religious coming-of-age ceremonies are gone for many people.

Second, we have urbanization. Rural areas tend to be "old-fashioned." Traditions are stronger. There's a variety of reasons for this. Part of is it the closeness of communities. In urban settings, you can be alone, you can get lost. If you have no interest in keeping up traditions, there's no local authorities: familial, religious, or economic, to force you to keep up with tradition. If you stop going to church, stop wearing traditional clothes, stop going to holiday gatherings and other ceremonies, no one's going to notice. But in rural settings, people rely heavily on one another, and you'll be gossiped about heavily if you're an oddball who doesn't keep up with tradition like everyone else. So you do. Rural areas often have all kinds of gatherings and rituals, especially for children. Barn-raisings, harvest festivals, Christenings for babies, and especially early marriage. In old times, in rural places, people often moved straight from their parents' house straight into a new home with their spouse. They married at 19 or 20 and started having kids immediately. Weddings then became a huge deal. You kindof weren't an adult until you got married, but there were always the occasional "bachelors" and "spinsters" who delayed marriage or never married. This has gone away. The average age when a woman first gives birth now is 27, compared to 22 a century ago. And marriage is delayed as well. We now give weird looks to people who marry before 21. That used to be about the average age people got married. Now it's not abnormal to wait until you're in your 30s to marry and have kids.


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

[User]
[Aliens] Why are alien planets *always* unified politically?

Every time I see a sci-fi in which another planet is shown, there's always just one government ruling the whole planet and no other political divisions. Given that has never happened in the history of the earth, why do we assume that it'd happen on other planets? Any examples of a sci-fi alien planet that has multiple nations on it?

[Assistant] In startrek most races have conflicting political parties. That being said they still act in unison for the most part when attacked by outside forces. An example of this would be the Klingons. They have a consul of honorable families that have power and there own political goals.  That being said most scifi that deal with aliens race seem to assume that by time you are capable of FTL travel you have created a society that can at least unite your planets political parties.


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

[User] How did we come to know that our galaxy is spiral?

[Assistant]
There are a number of factors.
Partly because lots of other galaxies are spirals, and the difference between spiral and elliptical galaxies is quite pronounced, in terms of the types of stars they contain.
Plus the Milky Way looks like a disc-shaped thing plus a bulgy thing in the middle from side on.
And nowadays, we can use parallax, doppler shift and all that to make a 3D model of the Milky Way, and the arms and bars are clearly visible.


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

[User]
What do Kierkegaard and Hegel mean by infinite absolute negativity?

I was reading Kierkegaards The Concept of Irony: With Continual Reference to Socrates
and couldnt find any sources to unpack the Hegelian definition of irony. Can anyone explain it to me like Im five?

[Assistant]
Maybe this? "Infinite Absolute Negativity": Irony in Socrates, Kierkegaard and Kafka Author(s): Reed Merrill
Source: Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Sep., 1979), pp. 222-236. :

Infinite absolute negativity fully expresses Kierkegaard's dialectic of opposites, and irony provides the mode of its presentation. To Hegel, infinite absolute negativity is the meeting of opposites - negatives merging with negatives - the result being evolution to new and higher levels of improvement in historical time. The term is meant to
be positive and integrative; it describes the Hegelian moment, according to Emanuel Hirsch, "in the dialectic of the Idea, the Idea which negates itself and through this negation emerges as the true affirmation." For Hegel, irony was only a mechanical device serving positive ends.


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

[User]
[IT] Can IT eat unsalted meat, AKA, "fearless"?

So fear salts the meat, according to Pennywise. But a person can eat unsalted meat, it'll just be bland.

If confronted with people who don't fear It, are they just bland, or impervious to being attacked?

If they can be eaten without the neccesary fear, why not kill them at It's convenience?

[Assistant]
Yes. It's fully capable of killing people without terrorizing them first, and it can eat those it didn't properly scare, either.

However, people that don't fear it have the capability of turning their belief and conviction against it, and using those psychic weapons as very potent methods of injuring, if not killing, it. So it's usually in the entity's best interest to keep potential victims afraid and incapable of rationally thinking.

So it's a combination of taste preferences as well as basic self-preservation. It could easily sneak up on unsuspecting humans and eat them, but there's no sport and no seasoning. And if others get wise to it without being kept under a terrifying mental sway, they'll be too vigilant and ready to fight back.


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

[User] ELI5: What Is Stoicism?

[Assistant] I believe its a philosophy from the Ancient Greek era that preaches ideas along the lines of dont concern yourself with what you cannot control and that you are in control of how you react, your emotions etc.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can scavenger animals (that feast on often diseased, rotten flesh) stomach such meals?

What makes their digestive system so unique that they are classified as "scavengers"?

[Assistant]
In addition to highly acidic stomachs, scavengers also have short digestive tracts. Their food spends less time in their body\*, so whatever may have survived the stomach has less time to multiply in the intestines and become a problem.

\*they can afford this because rotten meat is basically pre-digested. Tenderized.


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

[User]
Why does Starkiller use a reverse grip?

Starkiller's training came from Vader (who used a standard grip) and a combat droid using simulations of dead Jedi, most of whom would have used a standard grip. Why did he chose to use a fighting style that he likely had next to no training material on to work with?

[Assistant]
Marek was originally trained primarily in Form V, which is all about creating your own openings, acting unpredictably and keeping the opponent off-balance. The reverse grip (despite the decreased versatility and possible health risks of introducing your forearm to your lightsaber in while in combat with a physically superior opponent) helps by throwing the opponent off balance, given how rare the unorthodox grip within the form is (partially natural selection, since you're exposing your front. If you don't have the agility for it, squish!) for a Jedi to run into.

Vader didn't use it because he wasn't agile enough - his entire combat style was focused around bringing his enormous physical strength to bear and working around his own limitations. But for someone like Starkiller, designed specifically to kill Jedi and kill them fast? Oh yes. Very nice indeed.


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

[User] [Doctor Who] Did the Tardis originally come with a Perception Filter installed or was this added later to compensate for the broken Chameleon Circuit?

[Assistant]
I believe this is a standard feature. The primary function of a TARDIS is to allow timelords to travel to other worlds and observe them without disturbing the inhabitants.

The camouflage features are there to protect the place it travels to, not the Tardis itself.

As well as the chameleon circuit and the perception filter, the tardis navigational circuits include a feature which looks at the landing site selected and will do a last-minute adjustment of the co-ordinates so it materialises out of sight. Of course, like many features in the Doctors tardis, this only functions intermittently.


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

[User] ELI5: How are impurities and other garbage taken out of the water inside sewer systems, and what happens to the waste after the water is cleaned?

[Assistant]
I went to a waste treatment plant several years ago and this is what happened:

* The water flows in and is run though a gate. The gate picks out most of the larger stuff, and the flow of the water is slowed occasionally to allow people to clean out the gates.

* Then the water is run through a grate. Sometimes the water will be run through two or more grates. This will pick up the solid stuff and non-dumpable things that get flushed every so often. Your kid's dead fish will get scooped out here as will your lost diamond ring.

* Following the grates, the water flows through at least one, and maybe more screens. This is the first stop where your poop gets filtered out. It also filters out condoms, tampons, toilet paper and whatever else gets flushed down. Again, the water flow is adjusted or even diverted to allow for cleaning of the screens. The stuff filtered from the screens may be taken to a landfill.

* Then the water may get held in a pond for awhile. This allows for anything else that may have founds its way through to drop to the bottom of the pond and be scooped out.

* The water, at this point will have bacteria added to it. The bacteria will eat whatever organic material is left and then more bacteria is added to eat THAT bacteria.

* Then you may have the water sprayed over charcoal for one final washing.


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

[User]
(Pokemon) Is a Pokeball a weapon?

Could you consider it a weapon?

[Assistant]
Not really, the League-approved ones can't realistically cause harm other than blunt trauma. Pokeballs use the low-end of the matter-energy spectrum so there's not much raw energy to work with. You could try to jury-rig the ME ray to cause damage, but most likely you'd run out of battery before killing anything. And really, when you have creatures hotter than the Sun at your command why bother?

Capturing people really isn't an option either. All pokmon traffic is handled by the Bill Cloud, which can't be fooled. If you really stretch it, you might be able to redirect the data into your own system, but that requires too much infrastructure to be practical.


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

[User]
I don't believe married, home owning, or procreating people should get tax breaks. CMV.

These three things are all your own choice. None of them help society as a whole. Being a an unmarried renter who hasn't knocked anyone up, it makes me upset that I never get much back on my tax returns (a couple hundred dollars on 40k a year), when I see my friends with kids getting back thousands and thousands of dollars.

[Assistant] Having children is really, *really* expensive. Without some form of subsidies the only people having children would be people who are 1) rich, or 2) bad at planning/making decisions. There are a lot more people in the second category.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why have humans evolved so far as to lose their thick coats but still grow hair on their heads and faces? What purpose does it have?

Just confused as to why we all still grow hair if it doesn't really do anything.

[Assistant]
In short because as humans evolved from arboreal dwelling primates to plains dwelling proto humans it was more important to keep cool, and since we sweat to keep cool those who were less hairy tended to cool off better and hence survive better to pass on the less hairy genes. Hair on the top of the head remained because it was likely an effective sun block, and pubic hair probably had some part in sexual attraction or scent retention. Humans in this environment had dark skin pigmentation that evolved as a natural sun block as hair was lost. Once humans began expanding to cooler climates they had learned to use animal skins, and hairy individuals didn't survive any better than less hairy ones, so humans who moved to cold climates didn't have to be hairy to pass on their genes.

Edit: Also around 10,000 years ago, give or take, humans in colder climates who's skin had less pigmentation were more able to make use the decreased sunlight, and eventually the lighter skin became the predominate skin tone in these climates.


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

[User]
[Kung Fu Panda] Why didnt Oogway give the scroll to Tai Lung and explain it to him?

Why didn't Oogway just give Tai Lung the scroll and explain the lesson of self-worth? It was, apparently, the only thing he was missing from his training; if Oogway knew that Tai Lung and Shifu had been working towards making him into the Dragon Warrior but missed something crucial (like humility and self-esteem?), shouldn't it have been his responsibility as Shifu's master to say "Hey, you're missing the point of *excellence of self*"? Philosophy and fate and the illusion of control aside, his actions seem fairly arbitrary. Oogway saw a darkness in his heart, but never felt particularly inclined to identify or address it? He just said 'no scroll for you, fuck off'?

[Assistant]
When the student is ready, the master will appear.

Contrapoint:  if the student is not ready, the master should remain hidden.

In the philosophical tradition Oogway and Shifu were part of, stuff like 'questioning' and 'explanations' and 'just fucking tell him what's going on you secretive old asshole' are pretty much anathema.  True knowledge can only come from within.  It's the student's job to find his own path to truth, and it's the master's job to guide the student on that path of self-discovery, *not* by telling the student what to do, but by approving or disapproving of the student's actions and thereby showing him whether the path he has chosen is correct.  To teach with words is to provide only the illusion of understanding and so sabotage true growth.  If Tai Lung (and Shifu) didn't come to realize the true meaning of *excellence of self* on their own, no amount of words would matter.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the air recirculation in car AC work?

Also, is it safe to use the feature for long time? If the air inside the car is always recirculated, won't it be saturated with carbon dioxide as we breath?

[Assistant]
If cars were sealed to the point that one could suffocate themselves by not opening a window, it would be difficult to open your door, and then when you closed it your ears would pop.

Setting the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and AC) in your car to recirculate just means it will draw the majority of the air it is using to either heat, cool or ventilate the car from the cabin instead of just at the base of your windshield outside. This helps in certain situations. Mostly it's good for when you're using your AC because it reduces the ambient temperature of the incoming air, making chilling it easier for you system. It's also good for when you're behind a truck or some 'bro' rolling coal to stop the fumes from being drawn into the cabin of your car. Also on particularly humid days it can be used to speed up the defogging of your windshield (carry a shower squeegee for this in your car as well, you'll thank me come this fall/winter), and any day with a pollen index warning to stop that from being drawn in. Other than those situations it's fine to use either setting.


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

[User] ELI5: If exercising is good for your heart, why is being overweight bad for your heart even though it works your heart out?

[Assistant]
Copy paste of an old response of mine about high blood pressure :

"Oh you are right, it gives your heart a workout, but not a good one.

High blood pressure means that your heart will need to work harder to pump blood, which makes your muscle heart, specially the left ventricule ones, get bigger and bigger. Problem is that, the more this muscle will get bigger, the more it will take space within the ventricular cavity. Therefore you'll have less space for blood. And in order to not get less blood sent to your organs, your heart will beat faster.

And the faster the blood will get pumped, and because of the high blood pressure, the more blood will get to your right ventricule. And at one point, the volume in right ventricule would be so big that it will deforme the ventricular muscle : your ventricule will be dilated and won't be able to effectively pump.

In the end, you'll end up with a very low functioning heart."


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

[User] ELI5: No idea if it's crappy design or malicious design, but I've noticed that packaging never wants to tear open where the perforated line is. Why is that?

[Assistant]
Most likely the blade that makes the perforations is either worn out or not adjusted properly, so it just marks the packaging a bit instead of significantly weakening it.

To fix it, the manufacturer would have to regularly take a sample and see if it tears easily where it's supposed to, then stop the production line to fix it whenever it gets close to failing. Stopping production lines is expensive, and QA costs money too.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a Chameleons colour change work and how does it activate it? Also, is there any colours it struggles with and can it change into colours beyond our visible spectrum?

[Assistant]
Chameleons aren't the masters of color and camouflage - for that you need to go to the octopus, the cuttlefish and the squid.

Chameleon are mostly greens or browns and shift to lighter and darker colors. Some do have red or yellow markings as well and they have UV markings as well. When they get angry or threatened then their color changing goes into overdrive and they go very dark.

But Chameleons are born with particular markings / pattern and they can't change those - their color changing is restricted to lightening or darkening their existing pattern.


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

[User]
Why do cars idle at about 1000 rpm? Why haven't engineers developed a car that idles at or near zero?

I understand that the engine runs on combustion and that must occur to keep the engine running. However, what is keeping engineers from developing a car that brings the rpm down to 0 or near 0 when idling?

[Assistant]
In theory, you can "idle" an engine at 0 rpm if you have a valve train that offers very fine control to the ECU, and a direct injected system (also controlled by the ECU, the fuel injector has its own socket in the cylinder head like a spark plug does). To do so, the ECU just squirts some fuel into whichever cylinder is closest to the top of its compression stroke, while simultaneously firing the spark continuously.

For a traditionally-designed engine, however, there are basically three competing needs: the ability to rev up quickly on demand, the minimum energy required to keep the engine turning without external input (like you get when using the starter motor or engine braking), and the minimum amount of air the engine can suck in at any time.

I think the first two are pretty self-explanatory, so I'll go into more detail with the third. As it turns out, the otto-cycle engine (a gas/petrol engine) is controlled by a process that basically amounts to reducing its efficiency from 100% of its rated power at a given rpm to whatever you want. This is done by closing the throttle valve; this requires the engine work harder to suck in air, due to path constrictions. Your engine is always most efficient at full throttle.

Additionally, for combustion to take place inside the cylinder, the mass ratio of the fuel and air has to be close to ideal. This is called the stoichometric ratio, and basically means that when the combustion event is complete, there remain no unburned fuel molecules or oxygen molecules. For standard gasoline, it's a bit over 14:1 air:fuel, once again going by mass.

It is possible to deviate from this "golden ratio", and sometimes it's even advantageous to. We call a mixture that's heavy on the fuel side "rich", and one that has too much air "lean". Both of these modes are used occasionally by a modern engine's ECU depending on the feedback it's getting from its sensors. Running rich (to a point) often gains more power, and has the added advantage of providing a cooler combustion event. It also won't damage the engine, because worst-case scenario you put waaay too much fuel in the mixture and the engine stalls out. This is what your ECU does when it gets a faulty reading from the exhaust gas O2 sensor, which it uses to determine which side of the ideal ratio the engine is running on (and from there, how to adjust it towards ideal).

Running lean offers hotter, more efficient combustion. It's also a sure-fire way to start melting pistons and valves, so if you have to choose one way to mis-tune your carburetor, err on the side of having a rich mixture.

Anyways, due to the minimum a mount of air an engine can suck in at idle (when it's barely producing enough energy to overcome parasitic loss), there's also a minimum amount of fuel that can be introduced to that air charge, which all correlates to a minimum amount of energy you can deliver without damaging the engine.

Some companies (notably, one of the snowmobile manufacturers we work with) actually *do* run an ultra-lean mixture at idle; they can get away with this because they are using a very high-pressure fuel injection system on a two-stroke motor, so the fuel is mixed with oil and doesn't burn as hot in the first place. Further, the injector literally squirts fuel right onto the spark gap, so no critical engine components are damaged during ignition. Note that they only do this at idle.

Diesels do not have this issue, because they don't have a throttle valve. They always operate at 100% volumetric efficiency, and the power is varied by increasing or reducing the amount of fuel introduced to each cylinder for its power stroke. This is why a stock diesel engine (normal compression ratio) uses barely any fuel at idle.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why doesn't chicken, beef, or any other processed meat go through rigor mortis when being prepared at a factory or even in the days afterwards?

Is there some kind of chemical applied or process introduced that keeps this from happening?

[Assistant]
Hate to break it to you, but they do.

Rigor mortis, depending on conditions (animal health, size, temperature, etc) takes 2-24 hours typically. In processed meat, it's already in a package by then. Sometimes, the process is allowed to complete, as it can actually result in more tender meat.

When it comes to big animals, like cows, controlled temperature and electrical stimulation (contracting/relaxing the muscles so they don't lock up) can be used to avoid or control it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why aren't turboramjets (like those in the SR-71) used for other aircraft?

I understand the SR-71 had to deal with a lot of issues in order to keep its speed (special fuel which leaked on the runway, titanium fuselage and probably other stuff). But wouldn't the same type of engine be able to power a relatively slower fighter jet capable of easily cruise at match 2-2.5, so it doesn't have to deal with so much friction as the SR-71 at match 3.

But while the engines exist since the 1960s, relatively few fighters go faster than match 2 and it took all the way to the 21st century to have fighters capable of supercruise (and still below match 2). So I guess there has to be a reason for that.

[Assistant]
Turboramjets are substantially larger and heavier than a standalone turbofan engine.  You basically have to build two separate engines, then stick the turbojet inside of the ramjet.  That also leads to the engine being much more expensive and difficult to maintain than a standalone turbofan.

Also, the ability to go that fast is of limited usefulness nowadays.  When the SR-71 came out, networked radar didn't exist - every AA battery was a standalone station that could only coordinate with other radar sites by having the operators talk to each other over the phone.  That meant that it was really only practical for a battery to fire on a target once it came within range of that battery's own radar, which is limited to 35ish miles, depending on how high the plane is.

The missiles themselves were also pretty dumb and would basically just try to stay centered on their current target.  For a high flying, fast target, that meant that the missile was constantly turning and bleeding off speed.

The theory behind the SR-71 was that the SR-71 was flying so high and so fast that a missile fired from 35 miles away didn't have the time or speed to reach the SR-71's altitude and then catch up to it.

Modern radar is networked, which means that a missile battery can fire on a target that it can't see, but which a radar hundreds of miles away can.  Missiles are also a lot smarter and can target an empty area of space where they calculate they will intercept the target at some point in the future.  The result of this is that speed offers no protection from SAMs anymore and flying high just exposes you to more radar.

High speed does still offer a benefit, since it allows you to get to an enemy quicker or run away from a slower enemy.  But its not worth the substantial cost of the engines.  To give you some context - the SR-71 cost $34 million to build, much of the cost of which was the engines, at a time when top of the line fighter jets cost ~$5 million.

That latter point is especially true if you're only looking to go Mach 2, since you can get to that speed with a much cheaper turbofan engine.  The reason that most jets don't go that fast is, again, there's just very limited utility to doing so outside of the interceptor role and most fighters are now built as multirole fighters, rather than interceptors.


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

[User]
ELI5: When I need to pee, and I'm standing there waiting, but nothing is coming out, what's happening in my body that's making me wait?

Shy pissers unite!

[Assistant] You brain is good at knowing when the appropriate time to "go" is, so much so that it lets you be largely in charge of it. This happens because of 4 different types of nerves controlling the urinary mechanisms: Sensory (afferent) nerves, which tell you your bladder is full; sympathetic ("fight/flight") nerves which relax the bladder and keep the urinary sphincter tight; parasympathetic ("rest/digest") nerves which contract the bladder and relax said sphincter; and somatic nerves (that act on skeletal muscles, i.e. Muscles you can control voluntarily) which let you initiate when to go. When you are in line at Fatty's Pizza Shack, for instance, your sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight) is keeping that bladder sphincter tightly closed (it does this without you even knowing it, much like you don't need to consciously make your heart beat). Later, after drinking your extra large Floaty Shake, your bladder fills with urine, and sensory nerves alert you to this fact via stretch receptors on the bladder itself. As your bladder fills with more urine, the stretch sensors cause little contractions in the bladder which you feel as urges. When you finally feel like it's a good time to pee on something, your somatic nerves signal your accessory muscles (abdominals) to assist with voiding (a fancy word for micturition which is an even fancier word for urination), and your parasympathetic nerves (rest/digest) takes the hint and squeezes the bladder and relaxes your urinary sphincter. The result is pee happening. Several regions in the brain are also involved, mainly keeping you from peeing when you don't want to pee. You can consciously keep from wetting yourself for quite a while, unless you have some sort of disease where nerves are damaged or the muscles in your bladder (detrusor muscle and sphincters) don't cooperate. Incontinence = can't hold it in. Enuresis = bedwetting.


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

[User]
[Cyberpunk Genre] Are there Independent Shareholders or Holding Companies that hold ownership in rival Megacorps?

In some of the more hardcore settings, Megacorporations are all encompassing entities with fingers in every pie that compete against each other to the point of almost open warfare and its employees with the most stake in their companies treat their Corp as its lifeblood. Does that leave any room for people to be able to buy Shares in competing firms without being bought out or killed?

Like say you're an employee of Megacorp A, and Megacorp A has a hundred companies and subsidiaries you can invest in under its umbrella, but you think Megacorp B has a hot streak coming and you want to invest there. Is there any room for outsiders to invest like that, or would Megacorps consider such an action as akin to treason and fire you/kill you? How about if you're like an outsider not affiliated with the Megacorps?

[Assistant]
The upper level, uber-wealthy leaders of the megacorps would absolutely invest in each other's ventures if it even hints at increasing their wealth. Even if they publicly decry everything the rival corp stands for and engage in actual turf wars via mercenaries and street thugs. That kind of corruption is the absolute least they do on any average day.

Average corpo drones are likely discouraged from placing their money anywhere near a rival corp's business. Not only would their big financial transactions be monitored to ensure they don't cross-invest, but they might even be dissuaded from going to a restaurant or grocery store owned by a rival. Anything to keep the money flowing to THEIR pockets and not the other guy's.

Outsiders who are not on any corp's paycheck are free to invest however they like. Especially if they have enough capital to help fund some of the bigger projects and riskier ventures. It's possible this sort of individual might be courted by representatives from both organizations, trying to pull them completely over to one side through invitations to exclusive clubs, lavish gifts, and all-expenses-paid vacations anywhere in the world. An average joe who tosses a handful of dollars into one corp's venture and another corp's cryptocurrency would be ignored.


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

[User]
Mitosis: Which is the Original?

When a cell divides by mitosis, could it be said that either of the two daughter cells produced is the 'original' cell?  Or would it be better to say that the original cell no longer exists and has been replaced by two brand new cells?
I understand this may be more a chicken-and-egg style philosophical question, but I was curious if there are any biological markers distinguishing one daughter cell from the other that could be used to declare one as being 'the original' and one as 'the clone'.

[Assistant]
When there was still active discussion about DNA replication, there was a famous experiment (the Meselson-Stahl experiment) where cells were grown in media that only contained the N15 isotope of nitrogen. This meant all the nitrogen in the DNA was N15 instead of the more common N14.

Then the cells were put in regular N14 media so that all the new DNA strands would have a different mass than the old ones. They used this difference in masses to measure how much dna was old versus new. What they found was what we have come to know about DNA replication--that each cell gets half of the original DNA.

There's still plenty of research in the "symmetry" of mitosis, however.  Turns out proteins and organelles in the cell don't always split 50-50 into the new cells, and this can change the fate of the daughter cells. We use similar tricks to measure how proteins segregate, although it's more common to use fluorophore labeling instead of isotope labeling these days.

In the case of stem cells, the daughter most similar to the parent cell may keep more of its chromatin-related proteins than the other, as one example, and this means it will have different gene regulation than its sister cell.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between the roles of a Director, Producer, and Studio, in the making of a movie?

[Assistant]
Director makes the artistic decisions; who plays who, how shots get taken, what the edit looks like.

Producers do the heavy lifting on the organisational side; contracts, locations, etc

Studios put up the money. Producers may well be involved in negotiating other income streams as well.


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

[User]
[Avatar: The Last Airbender] What's up with those animal names?

I mean, there are all these hybridized names, but we never see any normal names. I mean, we hear of koala sheep, but not koalas or sheep, for instance. No ostriches or horses, but they do have ostrich horses.

[Assistant]
(I think the 4th wall reason is that the mixed animals are a joke about how, in Chinese, many animal names combine the characters for two other animals. For example, pandas are "cat bears". But, trying to answer in-universe:)

This is a translation issue.

In the Avatar universe, the language is much like Chinese, and many names for things are compounds of two simpler words.

Now, no one is really calling a polar bear dog "polar bear" + "dog", since if either of those two animals exist, they are very rare and most people would never have heard of them. But, the polar bear dogs have two obvious traits: that they are large polar hunters,  and that they are loyal pets. There's a word to describe the large polar hunter  aspect (which is shared with the names of a few other animals that we'd say are half polar bear) and a word for the doglike aspect, and the name is naturally a compound of those two.

Why are there so many animals with two aspects? This is a cosmological fact of the Avatar universe, that all creature have a dual nature. Most interestingly, of course, are humans, with a material aspect and a spiritual aspect.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly is Ebola?

[Assistant]
Ebola is one of several viruses known as *Hemorrhagic*.  Hemorrhagic is a big word that means bleeds a lot.  Bleeds a *scary* lot.

The way this virus kills a body's cells is it ruptures (explodes) the cell walls.  All of your cell walls begin exploding.  The cells guts leak out.  This effect begins in your blood and works itself deep inside.  It begins affecting your organs through the blood.  It spreads everywhere.  Unlike some viruses that like certain areas or tissues, this stuff is nasty pervasive.  It goes everywhere.

*BOOM!*  Cell walls go.  What this means is eventually your body can't hold all the blood anymore.  Your veins and arteries, your capillaries, all of them leak.  Your organs leak.  Everything's leaking.

This effect begins to be noticeable within days of infection.  Along with the high fever and cough, deep bruising begins to appear as the body starts leaking blood into surrounding tissues.

Ends with people bleeding from eyes, nose, mouth.  Everywhere there's an opening a person will bleed from it.

That's one of the scariest parts of the virus.  The bleeding everywhere.  Scary stuff.

Hope that helped some.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do people get so hungry they feel like they're gonna throw up?

Basically what the title says. I'm just lying in bed trying to sleep and I haven't eaten in hours. My stomach is grumbling, but yet I also feel sorta pukey. Why does this happen?

[Assistant]
Someone commented but they may be shadowbanned, just letting them know.

So what a hungry person is feeling is the stomach acid acting on nothing, as your stomach is basically digesting acids. The nausea is caused by your body trying to get rid of the excess acid in the stomach.


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

[User] [Star Trek] What is the effective range of a phasor?

[Assistant]
Yay for Starfleet Technical Manuals.

 On the type 1 phaser they were: stun - thirty meters, heat - two meters, disrupt - twenty meters, dematerialization - ten meters. On the type 2 phaser the ranges were: stun - ninety meters, heat - six meters, disrupt - sixty meters, dematerialization - thirty meters. Setting dials on the hand phasers indicated nine settings on the type 1 phaser and fifteen on the type 2 phaser, of which all above ten were labeled by the letters A through E. The letters might be a reference to the disruptor-B setting mentioned in "Obsession", which would make it setting 10B. According to Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise, the hand phasers used during the first four movies had only three preset levels: stun, disrupt, and dematerialize.


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

[User]
ELI5: how come if your left nose is plugged and you turn to lay on your right side your left nose unplugs? (and vice versa)

Edit: yall, didnt you know we have two noses and one nostril sheesh

[Assistant]
Your nose has a rhythm where it engorges one side with blood, restricting airflow, while the other breathes clearly. If everything is going well, it switches back and forth over time without you noticing.

But, if something aggravates your nasal passages (say, a cold or allergies) then there will inflammation and one or both nasal passages will become extra engorged and you will notice that one passage is more blocked than usual.

When you lay down on one side, gravity pulls the blood to the down side, so the upper passage feels clear while the lower feels blocked from engorgement.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] How did Robert Baratheon survive as king for so many years before the start of the series, only to die in such a stupid way shortly thereafter?

Given the very short general life-expectancy of Westeros' monarchs as demonstrated by Robert's successors, and the general characterization that Robert was supposed to be an idiotic and terrible king, how did he manage not to get killed sooner? Did he have to deal with any other major conflicts during his reign subsequent to his war against the Targaryens and prior to the present-day beginning of the series?

[Assistant]
Robert was far from idiotic, Robert was actually pretty sharp and knew how the world truly was instead of seeing it as white and black as most people do.  The only reason he was a bad king because he was a fighter not a diplomat, Robert was born to live on the battle field not sitting on a throne hence why he took to drinking.  He told Ned that if Joffery wasn't such a cunt(not his exact words) with Cercei whispering in his ear, he would gave up the throne years ago to go live as a sellsword in the free cities but could not doom the country to that fate.

Also who would have killed him? The North was the most loyal with the Vale not too far behind, the Riverlands where tied by marriage to the North and Vale so no hostilities there, the Westerlands where wedded to the crown through Cercei, and the Reach suffered no real losses during the rebellion and basically just sat out the entire war with no reason to hate Robert, plus Mace's favorite son was best friends with Robert's younger brother who was also the Lord of the Stormlands.  Dorne is the only Kingdom who has real cause to hate Robert, but they know Robert did not give the orders and they focus their hate at Tywin and the Lannisters.

Only the Greyjoys challenged Robert rule with their rebellion which took place 5 years after Robert took the throne so he was still in his prime and had yet to fall into his cups and grow fat.


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

[User]
Can someone explain to me how a computer processor works....like i'm five? [ELI5]

I have never really understood this device that I use on a daily basis. I know it is very complicated and I am not asking how does it pull up this program or this program...I am more interested in the 0's and 1's and the electricity running through it and how it makes its most basic function happen which is turning a 0 to a 1? I just don't know.

[Assistant]
Logic gates are the main tool used for dealing with binary, there's a handful of them:

* Not gates, which take in a 0 or 1 and output the opposite
* And gates, which take in 2 numbers, and output 1 if the inputs are both 1, other wise it outputs 0
* Or gates, which take in 2 number and output 1 if either of the inputs are 1, if they are both 0 it outputs 0

They work because of transistors, which you can think of as little door ways that can be opened or closed.

**Example: **
Say you're running down a hotel hall way as fast as you can (cause you're five), and the hall way forks off to a side. If you go straight there's a door ad the end of the hall way. If you're wanting to run as fast as you can and if the door at the end is open you'll take the door way (cause you can run faster straight than turning.) But if the door is closed you can't go that way, so you have to take the turn and go down the side hall way. That's like how a not-gate works. Call the door being closed 1, and open 0. Then your output is "Did he go straight?"
The other gates work the same way, but with a different hallway setup.


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

[User]
[MCU] So far we have only really seen the Mind Stone and the Power Stone used to grant or enable individuals to have access to super-powers. Would any of the remaining Stones be capable of similar feats and if so what potential powers might be manifested by them?

With my question I'm not counting individuals who gain temporary abilities by using a Stone directly such as Malekith, Thanos or Doctor Strange, but rather individuals who are permanently changed after an encounter with a Stone or it's energies such that they continue to exhibit unique powers even afterwards?

[Assistant]
It's the Space Stone, rather than the Power stone we see give anyone powers (Captain Marvel).

It's not really clear how that works, anyway. For Wanda, the Mind Stone only unlocked and enhanced existing powers. That makes sense if you think of her being limited by her own mind.

But the Mind Stone giving Quicksilver super speed? Or the Space Stone giving Captain Marvel generic powers?

There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to how stones grant powers and what kinds they can grant.

There doesn't seem to be anything special about the Mind/Space stones that wound suggest that *only* they can grant powers, so it's probably safe to assume that any of the stones could grant powers, and the powers granted are not necessarily related to the powers of the stone itself.


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

[User]
Do we live in a time of low wages, or high asset prices?

We might be living in both but I am not an economist, so dont I have the answers which is why Im asking others who are more intelligent. So do we live in a time of low wages, or just over inflated asset prices?

In a lot of countries workers are striking, there is a rise in antiwork sentiment, working people who are homeless, adults living with parents etc.

Theyre complex issues and there is no simple solution to each of these but I cant help but feel that much of their discontent is *actually* due to high rent and mortgage costs which has a knock on effect on almost everything. So instead of increasing everyones wages, **would it not make more sense to decrease asset prices, so that they are in line with the majoritys wages?**

So maybe high asset prices good for an economy, but if wages do not keep up, they become a burden on it.

I am based in the UK for context.

[Assistant]
The economy isn't a video game where you can dial some knob somewhere to turn wages up or turn prices down. Prices are being set by millions of people buying and selling goods and services, each individually making their own decisions about how much to sell something for and how much they're willing to pay for something.

Laws that force certain goods and services to be sold for a certain price are generally considered to do more harm than good, and this has just a tremendous amount of evidence supporting it, going back to Diocletian, the Roman Emperor in the late 200s. In something like 500 BC the Roman Republic tried price caps and it didn't work back then either.

You'll hear people say that wages are "sticky" which means they increase more slowly than inflation, when inflation is high. But that's going to put financial pressure on people so it's pretty natural they'd demand raises to keep up with prices.


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

[User] ELI5: trying to find a simple answer the birthday paradox and how having 23 people in a room means a 50% chance of two people sharing a birthday.

[Assistant]
"share a birthday" is not a property that a person has, it's a property that a pair of people have. With 23 people in a room there are 253 pairs of people (maths calls this 23 choose 2). There's only 366 days that could be shared by each of those pairs, so it's quite unlikely that they're all distinct.

Those pairs of people aren't quite independent, so it's not so straight forward as to say there's a 253/366 chance of a shared birthday, but that view should make it a lot more intuitive that these are comparable numbers and a 50% chance is not insanity.


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

[User]
For light to qualify as a laser does it have to be emitted in a beam or does it just have to be of one wavelength?

If it does have to be a beam, what is the maximum spread it can have and still qualify?

[Assistant]
Laser has nothing to do with colour or beam divergence. Lasers are just good for making tight beams, and they inherently make a rather monochromatic source. You can have a really wide laser beam, and you can have a rather narrow focus with lenses or mirrors.

L.A.S.E.R. is actually an acronym. It's Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. To be a laser, it has to be light amplification done by stimulating the emission of radiation. Basically you energize certain types of materials so much so that more electrons are in the energetic state than the ground state, and then as light passes it causes electrons to emit basically identical photons, amplifying the light. The coherence of this light is what makes laser have a narrow wavelength band and allows for tight beams if desired.

This is opposed to spontaneous emission, which is most other sources, like an from a hot object like an incandescent bulb or fluorescence like in a fluorescent lamp or white LED. Here a minority of electrons are energized, and they randomly emit leading to a less coherent light source. Some spontaneously emitted photons may trigger stimulated emission, but it's a minority effect. Once you pass a point called population inversion (more electrons energized than not) stimulated emission takes over as a dominant effect as you can start lazing.


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

[User]
[Matrix] When Neo woke up, why didn't the robots kill him.

When Neo first awoke from the Matrix why didn't the robots just kill him (and all humans that woke up) before 'flushing' the pod?

[Assistant]
Because as we learned in the third movie, the machines were allowing the humans to escape and were waiting for the appearance of The One to destroy Zion and let Neo and his chosen group start it over.

I don't know what reason the humans had established for the machines not killing them, or what the logic was before they wrote the final movies, but that's the real in-universe answer.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] What does "Abracadabra" do?

[Assistant]
Fun Fact. In the wizard Community, "Abra Kadabra" is the linguistic equivalent for "Duh" in Muggle culture, as something you would say when someone else said something incredibly stupid.

A number of years ago, some young Wizards used their magic to perform what would look like Ordinary Magic tricks to Muggles, presumably for quick cash. And as a joke, they used words like "Hocus Pocus" and "Abra Kadabra" in place of regular incantation. The phrase stuck around, and that is why Wizards can't bring their younger children to Magic acts in Vegas, otherwise they would burst out into giggles whenever the "magician" would perform a trick.


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

[User]
[Beyblade] What are beyblades? What's the big deal about them?

I have seen the first anime, Metal Fusion, and Burst on-and-off yet I still don't get it.

Are beyblade living creatures or not? Why is it such a huge sport? Why does no one over 18 seem to play it?

In the original anime it felt like beyblading as an up-and-coming sport but the other anime make it seem way more important. Everyone is obsessed with it and it's very serious business.

I am pretty sure some bey's have spirits in them, but do all of them do?

[Assistant]
IIRC, Beyblades are pieces of a meteor infused with a soul. Or at least, the faces are.

I think Metal Fusion has a few examples of fake, soul-less Beys.

Doji (user of Dark Wolf) is most likely over 18 in Metal Fusion, by the way.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does it actually mean when a state declares a state of emergency?

I hear that phrase all the time. Most recently, governor McMaster of South Carolina declared a state of emergency in anticipation of hurricane Michael. Im just wondering, what does that actually do? Simply raise awareness of the disaster? Does anything more practical happen automatically as a result? Government buildings, schools close, etc?

[Assistant]
A state of emergency waives some legal procedures and requirements that would otherwise prevent the government from quickly stepping in to help affected areas.  In addition, a state of emergency can be used to effectively rapidly inact temporary "laws" that otherwise would not be permissable or contradict existing laws.

For example, contractors may be called in to assist cleanup/rebuilding important infrastructure bypassing the competitive bidding process (which is a massive time sink, see the i85 bridge collapse in Atlanta as an example), and the state government can call in federal millitary for assistance if needed.

In effect, declaring a state of emergency typically grants the state/local executive branch of government a lot of powers it normally wouldn't, as the interest of the public demands rapid action.


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

[User]
Is Mayonnaise a compressible fluid?

I know it's technically a colloid.  I'm working on a question from an eve friend who wants to make a mayonnaise jet pack.

[Assistant]
First some clarifications that are somewhat relevant to your question.

* A fluid exhibits *incompressible flow* if the density of fluid parcels is constant. This implies that div(**u**) = 0, which is roughly a statement that infinitesimal volumes are conserved.

* Something is an (homogeneous) *incompressible material* if the density is constant in time and throughout the entire material.

All incompressible fluids exhibit incompressible flow, but the converse is not true. The density of a fluid can vary throughout the fluid with the flow itself still being incompressible. We very often *assume* the density is constant throughout to make some problems easier or to get a first approximation, but it's important to understand the difference between an incompressible flow and an incompressible material.

(The phrase "this fluid is incompressible" technically means that the fluid is an incompressible material, but it is often interpreted as "this fluid exhibits incompressible flow". So to be absolutely clear, we often either put in the specific word "flow" or just say that the flow is *isochoric*. The word "isochoric" literally means "same volume" and emphasizes the fact that div(**u**) = 0 is an expression of conservation of volume.)

---

That being said, you are really asking whether mayonnaise exhibits incompressible flow. Mayonnaise is essentially an emulsion of eggs and oil. So it is a liquid (oil) with solid particles (egg) suspended throughout. Generally speaking, all liquids exhibit incompressible flow. This is not strictly true (e.g., seawater is about 5% more dense at the bottom of the ocean than at the surface), but it is true to a very good approximation for many, many applications. Compressibility becomes important if the flow velocity is comparable with the speed of sound in the material or if you are interested in pressure waves (sound), density waves, or shock waves. For everyday problems with mayonnaise (squeezing through a bottleneck, spreading with a knife), the flow of the mayonnaise can very well be approximated as incompressible.

However, you are definitely right to be suspicious of mayonnaise, as it is very clearly not like other liquids like water or even honey. Suppose you have a jar of water or honey and you tilt the jar to pour out the fluid. The gravitational force is said to be applying a shear stress to the fluid. The water or honey immediately begins to pour out as soon as you tilt the jar, no matter how little you have tilted the jar. Yes, the honey flows much more slowly than the water, but it *does* flow right away. (Honey is said to be more viscous than water.)

Fluids like water and honey are called *Newtonian fluids* and a defining feature is that the shear rate is a linear function of the shear stress. This just means that the fluid flows as soon as you apply any shear stress and the rate at which it flows increases in proportion to the applied shear stress. That proportionality constant is related to the viscosity of the fluid.

Mayonnaise is a *non-Newtonian fluid*, which is simply any fluid that does not exhibit the defining feature just described. There are many types of non-Newtonian fluids. Mayonnaise is an example of a *Bingham fluid* (or Bingham plastic, or yield-stress fluid). A Bingham fluid will flow in response to an applied stress, but only once *enough* stress has been applied. Think of sliding a block on a table. The block doesn't move until you apply a large enough force to overcome static friction. It's pretty much the same idea with Bingham fluids. If you tilt a jar of mayonnaise just a little bit, it will not flow at all. At some point, you will have tilted the jar enough so that the gravitational force is large enough to cause the mayonnaise to flow. (If the mayonnaise is especially thick, it may not even flow if the jar is turned upside down.)

So for a Newtonian fluid, the shear rate and shear stress are proportional. The graph of shear rate versus shear stress is a line through the origin, whose slope is related to the viscosity of the fluid. For a Binghman fluid (e.g., mayonnaise), the graph of shear rate versus shear stress is a line *not* through the origin. It has some positive *y*-intercept. So you need to give two numbers to characterize the fluid: the slope (related to the viscosity once it starts to flow) and the y-intercept (called the yield stress, the minimum required stress for the fluid to flow).

So think of squeezing mayonnaise through a bottleneck. Once you squeeze hard enough to overcome the yield stress, the mayonnaise flows through the bottleneck just as any other fluid with some viscosity. Then it falls under gravity and finally lands on your sandwich. As soon as the shear stress is no longer applied (i.e., once it lands on your sandwich), the mayonnaise stops flowing. This is why when you squeeze mayonnaise out of a bottle with, say, a circular opening, you end up just getting long tubes of mayonnaise on your sandwich, which you then have to spread with a knife to get a nice even coating. (This happens for pretty much all emulsions.)

**Summary:** Mayonnaise is a liquid that exhibits incompressible flow. But it is a non-Newtonian fluid, specifically a Bingham fluid. So it requires a certain minimum shear stress before it begins to flow.


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

[User]
CMV: "Borat 2" was a poor-quality sequel

To begin this post, I think it's important to first look at what made "Borat" such a great film in the first place:

1. **"Borat" was, fundamentally, a film about the character Borat.** "Borat" is such a great movie because Borat is such an entertaining character to watch. Visually, Borat is tall, gangly, and stands out from the crowd with his bushy moustache and intense gaze. Personality-wise, he is energetic, naive, simple-minded, and has no sense of shame or embarrassment. As the story unfolds we also learn that he is racist, misogynist, and pretty much any other bad "ist" that you can name. And yet despite all of these negative opinions / beliefs Borat holds, we still love him anyways and root for him (amazingly).
2. **All of the (fictional) characters in "Borat" are undeniably human.** For all of the film's outlandish moments and grotesque extremes, we the audience still fundamentally connect with all of the plot's fictional characters on a personal level. We see our own humanity reflected in their hopes and dreams, their fears, their conflicts, and their romances. Friends fight and then reconcile (Borat and Azamat). Strangers meet and then fall in love (Borat and Luenell). These emotional connections serve to "ground" the viewers and provide a backdrop against which all of the comedy can unfold.
3. **A large portion of the humour in "Borat" is the mockery of "inferior" cultures.** Borat has lived his entire life inside a comically-exaggerated primitive and regressive society, "Kazakhstan", which is all he's ever known. When we tour his home village, we laugh at the absurdity that such an obviously-harmful culture could ever exist. This laughter also comes with a feeling of moral superiority, as we thank our lucky stars that we don't ourselves live in such a barbaric culture. This last point will prove an important groundwork for the film to build on later.
4. **The next obvious part of the humour in "Borat" is watching confused Westerners experience culture shock while trying to interact with the character Borat.** This is probably the most memorable aspect of the film's comedy. However, it's important to point out that most of Borat's funniest interactions actually involve regular, friendly citizens who are earnestly trying their best to be welcoming and accepting of a stranger from another culture. It's this precise dynamic that makes it so funny when the interactions become awkward or go off the rails.
5. **Another famous running thread in "Borat" is the shock at discovering that some (many?) Westerners actually share Borat's harmful beliefs.** This last thread too is one of the most famous aspects of the original film. And the audience, having been lead into a false sense of moral superiority at the start of the film, is now shocked to discover that real-life Western society shares many of the same societal ills which they so mocked at the start of the film.

\*phew\* Coming up with the above list was the hard part! Now for the easy part:

Why "Borat 2" failed as a sequel:

1. **We no longer get to watch Borat.** Aside from sharing screen time with a new co-star, the character Borat actually appears very little in the sequel. Predictably, due to the success of the original film, today nearly all of the United States now recognizes Borat when he's out in public. This forced the story-writers to make Borat don various disguises, alter his voice, and downplay all of his overt personality traits so that Americans would no longer recognize him as Borat. Unfortunately, this also means that we the audience are no longer really watching the character Borat anymore.
2. **The colourful and hilarious supporting characters are missing.** Azamat and Luenell were both integral parts of the original movie's storyline and comedic value. Their characters were written out of the sequel's plot in a slapdash manner, and no new secondary characters were brought in to fill the void left by their absence.
3. **The co-star of "Borat 2" is neither funny nor entertaining.** This point alone really deserves its own post, as there's a lot to say on this topic, much of which extends into hot button topics like equality and feminism. But in short, there are many problems with Tutar's character in the sequel: bad acting, bad writing, poor character development, no clear motivations, no human connection with the audience, etc. Additionally, it seems like we are supposed to laugh at the idea of a young girl being raised in a sex-shaming, infantilizing, oppressive culture. But this feels cruel, and instead we just feel sorry for her character (as does Jeanise the real-life babysitter).

...actually, at this point in the post I'm so bored with the rest of "Borat 2" that I don't have to energy to continue picking apart the exact ways in which it failed to deliver.

On that note, change my view!

[Assistant] I think you overestimate how much of the point of Borat was laughing at Borat himself. Sacha Baron Cohen has said that the real comedy of his characters comes from the absurdity that anyone could believe they're real people and what people are willing to reveal about themselves when you use the classic agree and amplify approach. For example, getting a room full of people to sing "Throw the Jew down the well" is quintessential Borat, and the second movie is full of that kind of humor.


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

[User]
Why do boiled eggs smell but scrambled eggs don't?

This question was posed by a friend and I don't know the answer. She's curious about the smell when you finish cooking eggs by the different methods. I think she may not be able to smell scrambled eggs because of how often she eats them. Please correct me!

[Assistant] Boiled eggs smell because sulphur compounds in the proteins making up the egg white release hydrogen sulphide when heated to 100 C. When making scrambled eggs (1) the temperature is usually less than 100 C and (2) compounds in the egg yolk (which is kept separate when boiling) react with any hydrogen sulphide thus neutralising any smell.


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

[User] Every summer in NYC, the mosquitoes are surprisingly prevalent. Every winter, obviously, they die off. How do they repopulate?

[Assistant] They are like flies. They have four stages of life egg, larva, pupae, and adult. Mostly the cycle only lasts for a few weeks, but in cold climates the stages can last for months. Some stages can even be frozen and thawed later.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does Russia want to invade Ukraine?

I'd also like an explanation on why Ukrainians rebels want to fight to join Russia?

[Assistant]
Crimea was conquered by the Russian Empire during the reign of Catharine the Great in 1783.  Russia fought two wars with the Ottoman Empire in Crimea, largely over the peninsula's strategic and economic value.  In 1954 the Soviet republic of Russia transfered administration of the Crimean peninsula to the Soviet republic of Ukraine.
However Crimea remains predominantly ethnic Russians.  Ethnic Russians, both in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, are afraid of the new pro-Western Ukrainian nationalist government.  Combine that with pro-Russian propaganda coming from the east.  Russians in Crimea and eastern Ukraine want to be part of Russia again.
Russia wants that territory back.  They ceded administrative control over an area with a great deal of strategic and economic value.  Now that area is a part of another, possible unfriendly, country.  With Ukraine's new pro-European government replacing their earlier pro-Russian government Russia no longer feels they can trust Ukraine with what they still consider their territory.
Russia sees unhappy ethnic Russians in a territory they still consider rightly theirs which they want back.  So they support rebels that will either secede from Ukraine to rejoin Russia or act as counter-revolutionaries and restore the earlier pro-Russian government.  When Ukraine tries to stop the rebels Russia claims they are attacking ethnic Russians and steps up support for the rebels.


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

[User] ELI5: The Stock Market and how I can get involved.

[Assistant]
A market is a place (or virtual place nowadays) where people meet to trade things.

A stock market is a place to trade stock (shares of a company). There are commodity markets, bond markets, candy markets (in pre-school classrooms). Pretty much anywhere people have things that they do not need and would value having something else more you'll find a marketplace ready to trade in it.

You can best get involved by doing some research on what kind of company's stock you'd like to own. Once you know this you can contact a broker (or maybe your bank) to open a trade account and purchase the shares.

I strongly suggest that you buy things that are undervalued and sell them when they become overvalued (i.e. buy low, sell high). That strategy seems to work for Warren Buffet.


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

[User] [Family Guy] Why is Brian an adamant atheist when hes met Jesus Christ personally several times?

[Assistant]
Because Brian is a pretentious douchebag who thinks he's smarter than everyone else.

The thing is, several times throughout the show we've seen him praying to god ( Usually when there is a real possibility that he's gonna die) so one could make the argument that he's not really an atheist to begin with.


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

[User]
I'm a nurse who loved statistics in college...

...is there a way to make a career out of statistics and the medical field? I know there is, but I have no idea what path is possible or what are common jobs for people in medical statistics, so any info is appreciated. Again, sorry if this is a stupid question.

[Assistant]
Y-E-S is the short answer. Depending on the place you'll probably need to learn R (John's Hopkins has a great intro course on Coursera) or SAS (which I'd personally rather take a bleach enema than work with every day).

You'll probably need a formal graduate degree to get your foot in the door (don't be fooled by bootcamps, nobody hires people who take shortcuts in subjects that require deep expertise IRL). A good stepping stone may be to ask about working on some research at your current job or asking for them to cover a graduate degree part time.


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

[User]
Why do the planets orbit the sun on a flat plane?

Why don't they look similar to electrons orbiting an atom?

[Assistant]
1. Our Solar System was a big blob of gas and dust, and it wasn't ordered in any big way. There was a little bit of rotation.

2. Gravity pulled the blob together, and by conservation of angular momentum that small amount of rotation was magnified, like a skater whose rotation speeds up as they pull their arms in.

3. Now the whole thing is mostly spinning around an axis; the orbits won't all be around the same axis but over time collisions will even them out. It's looking more like a cylinder now.

4. The cylinder flattens along its axis because that's the direction where gravity is unopposed by the rotational inertia of the debris. Bam, you've got a disk. It clumps together into planets and moons because of gravity.


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

[User]
[Once Upon a Time] So is the Galactic Republic out there?

How about Asgard?

[Assistant] Star Wars actually is canonically part of the Once Upon a Time multiverse. At one point (in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland), Jafar and the Red Queen are reviewing a book of monsters to find things to sic on Alice. One of the monsters the read about is the sarlacc, which they say will "digest her over a millennia".


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

[User]
Is there an optimal time to have a baby during the career timeline?

The other popular thread today about having a baby during graduate school made me wonder the same thing about having a baby during a post-doc or while going for tenure... Generally, I've heard there is never one "right" time, but is there a time that is easier than others? Any certain milestones that should generally be passed before conceiving, like exams, starting a post-doc, or starting a TT position? What considerations and advice would you recommend to graduate students trying to coordinate career and family timelines?

[Assistant]
The answer to your original question is no. There is never an ideal time and you can always find an excuse to wait. You just have to decide what your priorities are and go for it when you are ready to start a family. Its what we had to do.

Also, for comic relief, watch the beginning of Idiocracy by Mike Judge. It highlights what happens when smart people wait too long to have a family. Comedy yes, but theres truth in his observations.


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

[User]
Why does life "want" to reproduce? When did this come about?

I know this is a very strange and abstract question and I cannot articulate it as well as I can through text, so here is my attempt.

Given that the general evolutionary reason that life wants to reproduce is to simply "continue" itself, my question tries to stem from a more existential and logistical perspective: the causal core behind why it wants to continue itself, how this idea was conceived, and where this innate drive began. Seeing how this drive to reproduce comes well before the advent of sentience, what exactly caused the first and most primordial and rudimentary being to *want* to reproduce as opposed to... simply **be** and then run its course and end its life.

Did it conceive of the thought that more of itself will provide for something better? How? Did some positive feedback loops come about randomly and thus was born the world of reproduction? Did the rise of competition of, say, certain chemical reactions embed itself into this being and carried forth into reproductive tendencies? When did the first virus or piece of life suddenly say to itself that it would harness the energy or power of certain physical phenomena and proliferate itself? And how did this idea of reproduction carry onto further generations enough to where architectures of cells and viruses are devoted solely to it?

[Assistant]
There was no 'thought', and it started before anything was even 'alive', i.e. reproduction has been around longer than life, as the chemical precursors to life reproduced and evolved.

Things that are good at copying themselves make more copies of themselves than things that aren't good at copying themselves. It's that simple. It is a positive feedback loop, if you like. And things that make imperfect copies of themselves adapt better than things that don't make copies (which don't adapt *at all*): Adapt to changes in the environment or to take advantage of others.


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

[User] [ELI5] How does Wireless Charging work?

[Assistant]
A long length of fine wire is wound into a coil, basically in the shape of a doughnut or garden hose.  When electricity (specifically, alternating current or AC)  is run through this coil, it sets up a magnetic field around it.  If you then bring another similar coil of wire close (but not touching) to this coil, the magnetic field from the first *induces* an electrical current in the second. This is then connected to the battery so that it can be charged.   So, the charger will have the first coil , and your device the second.

Edit: Added AC reference.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] C-3POs memory is never wiped after Episode III. What changes?

What, if anything, would happen differently or would he do differently?

[Assistant] Assuming palpatine knows his memory is intact Luke and Leia are snatched up soon as the empire gets their hands on his memories and turned to the dark side at a young age to replace Vader.  Outside of that happening Leia would know she has a brother sooner than Return of the Jedi.  Probably would go find Luke prior to a New hope and work with obi wan to train both in the force and more directly confront Vader prior to the Death Star becoming active. Best outcome family unites to stop palpatine and the entire original trilogy never happens.  Worst case they kill Vader following obi wans instructions despite knowing he's their father and fall to the dark side.  3pos only involvement would be revealing the family relationship and where the twins are at which depends entirely on how close bail organa kept 3po to Leia or if he simply served on the tantative 4 and a new hope was Leia's first meeting with him.


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

[User]
Why don't, if two countries are in debt to each other, they forgive a certain amount of each others debt?

If countries X and Y are both in debt to each other, say X owes &5 million to Y (I'm letting & be an imaginary currency, but you can think of it as Euros, USD, or whatever), and Y owes &3 million to X, why don't they cancel out so X only owes &2 million to Y and Y owes X nothing?

[Assistant]
Often when we say, for instance, that X owes &5 million to Y, what we mean is that *private interests* in Y own &5 million of X's debt.

So we might have a situation where Chase is owed $5 billion by the German government, and Deutsche Bank is owed $5 billion by the US government, but we couldn't make a smooth exchange of that debt.

EDIT: Also, what pocketcookies said.


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

[User]
[Fallout] So when is this music from? For instance, did the Ink Spots start producing music in 1930's or the 2070's?

In the Fallout universe am I listening to hits from the 1930's or to music that was made just before the bombs fell?

[Assistant]
It's the Ink Spots. What had happened was a cultural freeze. Politicians in charge made particular decisions which had nasty side effects like a lack of new music.

After all, what do you need that *new* music for? It sounds communist to me. Isn't good old fashion traditional American music like the Ink Spots not good enough for you? If you don't like it, you can go back to communist China, buster.


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

[User] ELI5: Does all the money in the world really exist physically? If you added up all the bank accounts, would there be physical money to equal that?

[Assistant]
Not only does the money not physically exist, there is no means to tell exactly how much money DOES exist at any given time.
Let me give you an example.

You have $10,000.
You put that $10,000 in the bank.  You still have $10,000.
The bank (being a bank) lends $9000 of that money out to a company.
You still have $10,000, but the company now has $9000, too.
The company uses that $9000 to pay nine of its workers.  Each of those workers takes home $1000.
You still have that $10,000, and each of those workers has $1,000.
One worker puts that money into the bank.  And the loop starts all over again.
Money is imaginary.