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

[User]
ELI5: How does labelling an arrested criminal a domestic 'terrorist' change how the rest of the judicial process operates? (If at all)

A 'cop killer' in the United States is being charged with terrorism because interviews with him revealed that he had intended to effect change in government policy.

My question is: how does labelling him a terrorist change the game here? Do his rights change in any way, especially related to the evidence-gathering methods that will be admissible in court? Is labelling him as a terrorist going to allow the government to treat him differently than they would if he was a 'simple' 'cop killer'?

I'm also more than willing to learn about how this works in other nations as well! (esp Canada)

Thanks!

[Assistant] I had an old hippie computer science professor way back in 2002 that took what happened in 9/11, saw how the patriot act was and based an entire class around it...it was some sort of computer ethics class but he was tenured and it was a small school with a small department so he basically did what he wanted. He emphasized the whole "terrorist" label being bad in general and it stemmed from the fact that it's not a well defined term and can be thrown around at anyone.  It was sorta like calling someone a "communist" back in the day.  And in a lot of cases the accused gets treated differently once labeled a terrorist. If some evil country tried taking over the world and we captured some of their soldiers, their soldiers would have more rights than "terrorists".  No due process and they can be thrown into a hole for years on end. The prof was cool but a little bit of a nut but he was totally right about how things would turn out. Even today, 14 years after shtf we still don't have a universally accepted definition of terrorist that can't be twisted into fitting any general act of violence committed.


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

[User]
ELI5: How was it possible to build those highly accurate CNC machines we have today?

As the questions in the title says, how could we build those higly accurate CNC machines (or any other manufacturing machine) to that accuracy, assuming you need accurate machines to machine the accurate parts for the accurate machine?

Was it some kind of make 10 parts, take the best one and repeating this and gaining the accuracy through that?

And to take the best part, you need good measuring tools and they needed manufacturing by accurate machines and so on.

Its like what was first, the egg or the hen?

[Assistant] One of the most important parts of how very high precision machine tools are made is the fact that clever design allows relatively inprecise parts to be assembled into a machine that can make a more accurate part. A pretty good example of this is the micrometer, which uses a screw to measure parts with a significant level of precision. Screws are easy to make on even a relatively crude lathe, and micrometers can be used to check the accuracy of parts that will be made into a more precise machine. Another important part of making good machine tools is being able to make perfectly flat surfaces that can be used as beds, machine ways and reference planes. In theory it's possible to rub or scrape any three non-flat surfaces together in a specific order and eventually they will reach whatever level of flatness that is needed for their intended application, without any fancy tools or precision equipment required.


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

[User] [Disney's Hercules] How was Hercules able to build so much muscle mass when he already exhibited super strength in his lanky teenage form?

[Assistant]
Muscle mass in Hercules' case wasn't a good indicator of his raw strength so much as it was how good of shape he was in - that is, fairly poor compared to what his body was capable of physically reaching. Skinny, atrophied arms for a god are still entire levels above what a human can reach.

Naturally, once he found the right trainer and stopped feeling the need to refrain from exercising his strength, he was able to exercise in a way proportionate to his physical ability, thus building muscle mass the same way a human would.


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

[User]
ELI5 how thousands of cows go through the slaughter house a year and yet leather products are still so expensive.

With supply and demand, shouldn't the theoretical high supply of raw leather from cows killed for meat processing drive the price of leather goods down?

[Assistant]
you're not just paying for the cow hide, you're paying for the cost of turning that cow hide into tanned leather, and then turning that leather into the final product.

let's just say it takes a lot of work to turn cow skin into wallets and purses.

for an example, cotton is cheap, but when you buy a cotton shirt, you're paying for the effort that it took to turn it into a shirt and not just the cotton that the shirt's made of.


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

[User]
How do traditional filament lightbulbs fail?

They have no moving parts, the filaments are protected from friction and corrosion ... what exactly is happening when they fail? What processes are involved?

[Assistant] The tungsten evaporates from the filament. You can tell a new filament from a well worn one by looking at it under a microscope. As it ages, it develops more resistance at the thinnest spot. Eventually, the filament breaks. Old bulbs can have a dark coating of tungsten on the inside of the glass bulb. Halogen bulbs get so hot that the tungsten doesn't condense on the glass. When the bulb is turned off, some of the tungsten vapor gets redeposited on the filament.


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

[User]
What evolutionary pressures caused some dinosaurs to become so large?

What evolutionary pressures caused some dinosaurs to become so large?   And why are those pressures not present today?

[Assistant]
Short answer is, we really don't know. We can hypothesize, and we can speculate, but that's about it.

It should be noted that pressures for gigantism are still present today. See, for example, elephants, rhinos, and hippos. There are advantages to getting big; less chance of predation, easier to maintain internal body temperature, and more efficient food intake (for example, compare yourself to a mouse. You require more food total, but a mouse needs to eat its own bodyweight in food very frequently--something which takes you several months usually).

The question then becomes, how did some dinosaurs get so freakin' gigantic? Most big ones got about the size of an elephant or so, but some got even larger.

Now, there's a couple points to discuss before moving farther. 1) anatomy. We do have (very) good evidence that many--if not most and possibly all--dinosaurs had extensive air sacs in their bodies attached to the respiratory system. Birds have the same thing (makes sense, since they are a subset of dinosaurs) and crocs have something similar though less extensive.  2.) size vs. mass. When we say dinosaurs got "large", what do we mean? Do we mean they were physically big, or that they were immensely heavy? They're not necessarily the same thing. Because of those airsacs, it is actually tricky determining how much those big dinos weighed, because we're not sure how much of their volume was made of of those airsacs.

But one thing IS unmistakable--some dinosaurs (e.g. some sauropods) got very VERY big. But how did they do this physically? One idea is that it is actually related to those airsacs. You see, in birds, those airsacs actually affect how the lungs work. In you, your lungs work like a bellows--air goes in, air goes out. In birds, it is a bit more complicated. Air flows into the airsacs, then *through* the lungs (in one direction) to another set of airsacs, and then is expelled. This means air passing through the lungs interacts with the capillaries in a counter-current mechanism. Bird lungs are actually much more efficient at extracting oxygen from the air than our bag-like lungs are.

So, *maybe* sauropods had a similar lung setup as birds. There's actually pretty good reasons to suspect this, including evidence of airsacs in the vertebrae. If they did, this may explain why sauropods managed to get so much larger than elephants, and also maybe how they managed to get enough air to breath with those amazingly long necks.

**tl;dr:** the pressures are still there, and dinosaurs may have gotten larger than animals today because of more efficient bird-like lungs affecting the constraints on maximum size

**edit**: there's another aspect to this question: growth. There's two general ways to get really big: live a long time and keep growing, or grow really, really fast. Some large animals, like crocodiles, get really big by growing slow through long lives. Others, like elephants and whales, reach adult size within a few years. Bone histology of dinosaur fossils indicates that they grew very, *very* fast. The largest *T. rex* know, "Sue" on display in Chicago, was only about 30 years old when it died, and it was an old individual.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we feel strong emotions in our chest?

This question was asked a couple of years ago but the answers weren't very detailed or clear, so forgive me for reposting!

[Assistant] Hypothalamus in brain is strongly affected by emotions! And in return hypothalamus can affect a vast number of structures in the body! So when you feel strong emotions, the neuronal discharge from hypothalamus alters your breathing, your blood pressure, the tone in the blood vessels, vomiting centre etc.


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

[User] [ELI5] Why do little kids like sweet flavors so much more than adults do?

[Assistant]
There's a few factors.

Firstly, children don't have an upper limit on how sweet a food they'll eat. Finding sweet food sickly isn't something developed until adulthood. Apparently this has something to do with bone growth.

Secondly, children have a lot more taste buds than adults. We lose taste buds as we age.

Thirdly, children are much more sensitive to bitter foods than adults, beyond simply having more taste buds. This is thought to be an defense against accidental poisoning.

All of these add up to children having no reason to dislike sweets, and more reasons to dislike other flavours.


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

[User]
[The Truman Show] What kind of lawsuit Truman can fill against the TV Producers of the show?

What was done to him is pretty heavy, and there are literally lots of people involved. But starting from the very creator and director of the show... What kind of criminal charges can fall upon him if Truman decides to take legal action?

[Assistant] Slavery, violation of privacy, sexual assualt, rape, illegal imprisonment, back pay and wages, copyright and trademark infringement, coercion, mental duress and trauma. The list goes on and on. But a corporate entity cannot be named guardian of a child and any consent or rights waivers his mother signed would have expired on his 18th birthday. He was forced to stay in the town despite several attempts to leave. Forced to perform and work without pay commensurate to his labor. Engaged in sexual relations where consent would be impossible (actors playing a role can't consent because their characters consented, but it's dubious because it opens up a can of worms legally speaking for anyone that's hired an escort to sleep with someone else unknown to them). Products sold and marketing using his face without his permission or monetary compensation. It'd be a landmark case and enough public support would be behind Truman from the fans that he would be hard pressed to find an unsympathetic or nuetral court to hear the case.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does chewing aluminum foil cause a shocking sensation where dental fillings are present?

[Assistant]
You're creating a rudimentary battery inside your mouth.

The fillings are one metal, the foil is another type of metal, and your saliva acts as an electrolyte. Ions move from one metal electrode to the next and this is an electric current.


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

[User] ELI5: why do many birds heads bob when they walk?

[Assistant]
The birds head doesn't bob. The head stays in the exact same place while the body moves forward, and then it catches up.

This helps the bird in seeing clearly, and detecting motion of perhaps, a potential predator.


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

[User] ELI5: How do poops and farts work together in the digestive system? Are they lined up in a row or can a fart overtake a poop?

[Assistant]
The poop isn't compacted into a turd until it reaches the end of the digestive system and is ready to exit.

It's more of a mush that doesn't completely fill your tubing, and which needs to be actively squeezed through.

Imagine some ice cream inside a drinking straw. You can blow air through it while there's still a lot stuck to the sides. To get it out, you need to squish it through.

So, the farts do overtake the poops.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do men, traditionally, have short hair and women have long hair?

[Assistant] A lot of it has to do with the military requirements of WWI. This is also why the male standard is to be clean shaven. Prior to WWI long hair was common on men, as were beards. The military required short hair to limit  liability in hand to hand combat, and required you to be clean shaven for the better fit of a gas mask.


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

[User]
[Godzilla 2014] (Spoilers inside)

So we learn in the movie that M.U.T.O. and Godzilla used to live off radioactivity (there is some part in the movie where they say the reason Godzilla goes to live underwater is to absorb the earth's core radiation). **My question is, how come these monsters have a mouth?** It makes no sense from an evolutionary point of view that these monsters have a working, ingesting mouth. It would make sense to have teeth and other dangerous parts to defend from predators, but M.U.T.O. ingesting radioactive barrels? Why are they grown with working mouths?

[Assistant]
I don't think they only feed of radiations, they still need matter and nutriments to grow.
Radiations allow them to grow fast and big. Instead of only using combustion for their metabolism, they must have found a way to also fuel it via radiation.


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

[User]
[Dragons] Why do dragons hoard gold?

In ever story and every movie they steal and hoard gold. They can't spend nor would they need to as they can take what they want.

[Assistant]
It depends on the specific dragons.

Some require a bed of rather specific hardness to sleep comfortably, and Gold offers the more readily available material for them.

Others value the wealth, for any number of reasons. It can offer them financial leverage with which they can exercise their influence without resorting to using their physical or magical might. It can offer them a lure for their favourite ego-padding meal : under prepared mortals. Some are even afflicted by simple greed, ajd desire it simply because it is wealth.

Other Dragons use it as a food source. A rare characteristic, but some varieties of Dragons subsist mostlly on minerals and metals, with gold being somewhat of a common nutritional base.

Others seek to keep the gold from mortals, knowing the lengths they tend to go for wealth. For them, the Hoard is their attempt at staving off the greed that spurs mortall races to violence.

The reasons are really as diverse a are the world's which contain Dragons.


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

[User]
[MCU] What's Thanos going to do with his army now that he's completed his goal?

Thanos controlled a massive army of Chitauri warships and soldiers in addition to the Outrider forces, but he was using them in order to assemble the Infinity Stones and wipe out half the Universe.

So my question is, now that Thanos has done just that and is chilling out on his farm, what happens to his army?  I know they're all robot guys, so does he just power them down and store them in his basement?  I know some of this would require knowledge of the plot to Avengers 4, but I guess I just want to know, given what we know from Infinity War, what you guys think Thanos would do with his forces.

[Assistant]
Who do you think is going to work on that farm?  Thanos?

No, this is just the beginning of his plans for mass industrial farming of the universe.  Thanos does nothing small.  His war machine will be dismantled and repurposed for agricultural production.  Literally swords to plowshares.

In a decade we'll start seeing Chitauri and Outrider farmers' markets cropping up in our neck of the galaxy.  They'll talk enthusiastically about paleo diets and health benefits of organic Xandarian flax.  Massive amounts of alien produce will flood our markets driving Earth-based growers out of business.

And Thanos will grin.


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

[User] [The Punisher] Does Frank actually have a mental flowchart for which organized crime groups he'll prioritize taking down that month, or is it a more impromptu process where he just destroys whoever makes him mad that week?

[Assistant]
A bit of both.

Sometimes a loud gang war or criminal event will draw his attention, sometimes he starts by taking out a small fry who reveals that's he's working for a larger organization and Frank just kills his way up the ladder, sometimes someone will come to him for help or with a lead on an operation or organization that has been on the down low and needs his attention, and sometimes really really stupid people come looking to take him out.


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

[User] ELI5:Why is Pi so special and how was it discovered?

[Assistant] Pi was discovered initially as the specific ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. They determined that the exact ratio was not a simple fraction, though they were happy to approximate. As they explored mathematics, they determined that this ratio came about with surprising regularity, due to it's natural relation to circles and spheres.


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

[User]
ELI5: What seems to be the best method for raising a dog?

I don't think negative reinforcement is the answer.

How do I raise a good dog?

[Assistant] To raise a dog the right way you should place both arms underneath the animal and lift whilst keeping your back straight and shoulders level. Face the same direction as your hips. Always bend your legs instead of the trunk to reduce stress on the spine.


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

[User]
ELI5: what is fiberglass and why is it so dangerous?

I keep hearing people talk about fiberglass and I've heard of the name but I have no clue what it is. And now I keep seeing so many people freaking out bcs there is fiberglass in their mattress and I'm so confused. I've tried searching it up but I still don't really understand what it is. Can someone explain pls?
Edit: thanks for the replies and answers everyone I really appreciate it!

[Assistant] In this case, you can think of it as a cotton candy type material made of super fine glass shards. Fine enough that they can become airborne like particles of dust. Due to said glass shards it gives you tiny cuts on your skin if you touch it which can cause a rash/blisters, and can cause lung damage if you inhale it. It will also irritate your eyes if they are exposed to it. Inside of a mattress, fiberglass is used as a flame retardant. It's there to slow the process of the mattress catching fire if it were to start burning, as it melts and forms a sort of "barrier" to protect the flammable insides of the mattress. This layer is going to usually be located in the inner mattress cover, which you are never supposed to remove as the fiberglass will get everywhere. It is extremely difficult to remove from carpet/clothes/furniture and can even enter your HVAC system.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it so difficult to desalinate water?

[Assistant]
It's hard to do because the molecules that make up salt are extremely tiny and can slip through all but the most extreme filters.

That leaves you with two options:

1) boil the water into vapor to leave the salt behind.

2) force the water through an extremely fine membrane to filter the salt out.

Option #1 requires a massive heat input, option #2 requires a massive pressure input.  Both are very energy intensive and therefore expensive.  Both also have issues with the salt residue fouling equipment.

As technology improves and freshwater sources dry up it will become more economically feasible to desalinate on a large scale.  Some nations have already built plants.


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

[User]
CMV Students who graduate with arts degrees and complain about the job market got exactly what they signed up for.

I'd like to preface this by saying that I'm only referring to those arts students who went to school to achieve only their bachelors degree and have no plans to pursue graduate schooling.

I've noticed that many of my peers graduating with arts degrees have taken to Facebook to meme about their lack of job opportunity or even explicitly complain that the system set them up to fail.
I'm of the opinion that since we (society) have known of the devaluation of university degrees for quite some time and to pursue an area of interest formally is incredibly ill advised.
I understand the argument for studying what one is interested in but why does that interest need to be explored at a massive cost?

I personally have a passion for photography/videography/filmmaking but am pursuing an engineering degree while using my free time to make films. I chose my major out of practicality and have been told that I chose the "sell your soul" route rather than the "stay true to yourself" route. Help wrap my mind around this.

[Assistant]
I think a big part of your point is valid and will just focus on one part:

> what they signed up for.

What many signed up for was what the generation before, their parents and counselors, had. There were large differences between the experience of the baby boomers and their millenial kids in a number of ways:

1. A college degree in anything, even art, was more of a job qualification, because less people had degrees

2. College used to be much less expensive

3. The labor market was much more forgiving and it was possible to make a decent living even with a "worthless" college degree because at least it would signal you were "cultured"

4. College was a spot to network with other people who have successful futures

The 1950s-1990s were a pretty unique time. The parents generation applied their own experience in the advice they gave their kids, which turned out to be lousy advice. What this generation "signed up" for is list of 1-4 above and what they got was something entirely different.

Was some of this change foreseeable and would many people have been wiser to study something which would make money, rather than studying their hobby? Yes. But they got plenty of bad advice along the way as well.


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

[User] How are the digits of constants (eg pi) calculated to so many places?

[Assistant]
ELY12:

They calculate quantities that are near pi, and refine their calculations as many times as they want.

The Greek mathematician Archimedes drew a circle with a radius of one unit and then drew two hexagons, one inside the circle and one outside. You can find the area of a hexagon using basic geometry and algebra. Since the circle is bigger than the inner hexagon and smaller than the outer one, he knew that the area of the circle was between the two. The area of the circle is just pi (since the radius is one), so pi is also between the two.

By itself, this isn't a very good approximation, since the hexagons aren't a very close fit to the circle. But if you do it again with 12-sided polygons, you'll get a much closer fit, and you can keep on doubling sides as long as you want.

Modern mathematicians use the same idea, but with calculus instead of geometry. For example, using something called a Taylor series, you can figure out that pi = 4*(1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + 1/9 - 1/11 + ...). Adding more and more terms to the series gets you closer and closer.


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

[User] ELI5: How are there so many accidental pregnancies but so many women try so hard to get pregnant, even though they aren't infertile?

[Assistant]
Because a lot of women are having sex, which means statistically improbable things will happen.

A fertile couple who have sex regularly have about an 80% chance per year of conceiving.  That means 1 in 5 won't get pregnant after a year of trying, 1 in 25 after two years, and 1 in 125 after three, even if nothing is wrong.

Similarly, most birth control methods have between 1 and 10% effectiveness, depending on how diligently they are used.  That means we should see about as many women getting pregnant unexpectedly (1 in 20ish) per year as we would see women who are unable to get pregnant after 2 years of trying (1 in 25).


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

[User]
Adorno's Negative Dialectics

I'm a bit stuck on finding the stark differences between Negative Dialectics (as written by Adorno) and Hegelian Dialectics. How do they differ, and what are the implications of negative dialectics on the uses of logic?

[Assistant]
Like Hegel, Adorno thinks that dialectical philosophy takes us towards the identity of thought and being. Unlike Hegel, he sees this identity not as the triumphant result of a positive process, but the worrying result of a *negative* one: the identity of thought and being, according to Adorno, is achieved via the suppression of difference (between thought and being, etc.), the suppression of what he calls *the nonidentical*.

For Adorno, the suppression of the nonidentical has social causes, which he explains using Marxist concepts. He claims that, in capitalism, the predominance of *exchange value* demands that *use values* be rendered as equivalent even when they are different. His idea of dialectics is tied with his anticapitalism; defines dialectics as 'consciousness of the nonidentical', and believes that a philosophical mode of thinking that recognises contradiction, recognises the nonidentity of thought and being, can point us towards a social future where the compulsion to render identity everywhere is no longer such a dominating force.


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

[User]
[Fantasy] Why do immortal species have such long childhoods?

I'm not sure I'm asking this quite right, but, ok. Take Baby Yoda.

His species apparently lives to 900, and as such at 50 he's still a baby. Which seems to make sense.
Except he's still 50. However much his species lives to, he's still had 50 years of learning and experience and so forth. So why isn't he an adult, by human standards at least? Is he fully mature but trapped in a biologically infant body? Or do Yodas (for lack of a better word) have the inverse of a human infants rapid period where for the first hundred years they're thick as pig shit?

Likewise elves in D&D, who remain children for a century. I'm sure I've heard the trope a lot before.

Why don't those decades or centuries of learning and developing show up? 50 years of maturing is 50 years of maturing. Why are you still babbling nonsense and playing with block toys?

[Assistant] Brains also have to physically mature. Even for humans, it takes years. If brain development is really slow by human standards, then he's not a 50 year old in an infant's body, he's a 50 year old infant.


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

[User] [MARVEL/DC] What low-rank supervillains would be more successful if they gave it 100%?

[Assistant] The Shade.  He plays the part of a traditional supervillain, robbing banks and getting foiled by super heroes but he has access to wide scale eldrich powers and is more than a match for the entire Justice League if he wants to be.  Success is relative though, he's basically just doing it to have fun and he's successful in that regard.


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

[User]
[Buffy the Vampire Slayer] What was the Mayor's plan post Ascension?

So let's say graduation day comes and everything goes to plan.

Mayor Wilkins turns into a giant snake demon and devours everyone at graduation and maybe the rest of Sunnydale.

What then?

What's he gonna do? Wander around SoCal wreaking havok until the army takes him out? He's a sixty foot long snake monster. It's not like he can hide or go back to doing human things.

Did he have a plan for after his ascension?

[Assistant]
He may have been working off outdated information. Ascend to become the demon Snakey McSnakerson and not even the mightiest of mortal powers may stand against you, written in a time when the mightiest of mortal powers was, like, 60 guys with bronze spears and steel balls.

He may have planned to head off to a hell dimension.

Most likely, though, is what was hinted at: Both he and the previous dead McSnakerson got exploded/volcanoed before the transformation was complete, and if hed only been given the time to chow down on a full graduating class hed have become far more powerful - and then neither a library full of chemical fertiliser nor the mightiest of mortal powers (here represented by the US military) could have stopped him.


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

[User]
ELI5: With the advent of the new SanDisk 128GB Memory Card, I was wondering how memory is actually stored on such devices.

I understand the basic concepts like CD's, Vinyl Records, Cassette Tapes and the such, but is it the same process on microchips and such?

[Assistant]
No, it's very different. Weirdly, your standard internal hard drive is somewhat similar to a CD or record (or even a cassette), but "flash" memory is very different.

Flash memory uses devices called "floating gate transistors." The physics is incredibly complicated, but all you really need to know is that a transistor is like an electrically-controlled switch. There's a section of the transistor called the "gate," and if you apply a voltage at the gate, the transistor switches to "ON" and will conduct. Take away the voltage, and the transistor is "OFF" and will not conduct.

A floating-gate transistor is similar, but the difference is that there's a little insulated "box" at the gate that can hold electric charge. If you force some charge into the box, the transistor will conduct (switch is "on"). However, since the box is insulated, it will *stay* on, even when you power down the system. The charge can't go anywhere.

So, a device like an SSD or USB stick uses floating-gate transistors to store their data, since they can "remember" what the data was even when they're unpowered. Roughly, a transistor in the "ON" state is a 1, and a transistor in an "OFF" state is a 0.

Wire a couple hundred billion of those together, and you've got a 128 GB memory card.

edit: about the internal part in case you're curious: an internal hard drive is a spinning platter with a read head like a CD or record player, but it uses magnetization to store data like a cassette.


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

[User] ELI5: When people lose their memory to the point that they don't even remember their own name, how can they seemingly still speak their language fluently?

[Assistant]
There are two different categories of memory, declarative (or implicit) and procedural (or explicit). These break down further; declarative memory can be broken down into semantic memory (facts, like your name) and episodic memory (things like a sequence of events). Usually when memory loss occurs, it happens to only one kind of memory (most frequently episodic), and does not typically affect all memory.

So, when you forget your name (declarative semantic memory), you don't necessarily forget your language (procedural skill memory). Although you might have trouble remembering an exact definition of a word, you could still string together a sentence that made coherent sense.


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

[User]
[Assassin's Creed II] Why did Subject 16 "encrypt" his massive secret with a series of simple puzzle games that basically anyone can do?

I loved Assassin's Creed II when I first played it primarily because of the mystique of the puzzles and the crazy ending. I'm replaying it now and I can take or leave most of the game, but I almost was playing it just for the puzzles eventually.

The only thing is that now that I'm older and more experienced with puzzles, math, and logic in a fairly amateur way, they're MUCH easier than I remember. It takes a long time for them to even get remotely difficult, and even the hardest ones are pretty straightforward. You can use partial guessing to simplify ones you don't know like the art puzzles to a few solid guesses and brute force the rest in seconds. The ones I enjoyed the most were the number wheel ones, but they were pretty easy too. You could take for granted that if you could line up two of the relevant numbers with blank spaces, that was likely the correct alignment. It's basic math from there.

Overall, the Subject 16 puzzles are fun for the mystique, but what was the point of using them to encrypt a secret about all humanity? They're not that hard.

[Assistant]
The encrpytion wasn't the main protection.

Remember Desmond had get the secret by scanning each glyph with eagle vision. To do that he had to relive the most important part of Ezio's life through the Animus. A process that imbued him with the skills Ezio learned and taught him the history and philosophy of the Order. In other words, a process that turned him into an Assassin.

Clay *wanted* his secret to be found and hid it in the Animus in such a way that the finder would become an Assassin who could then be trusted with the information and be able to escape to spread the word to the Order.


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

[User]
When pushing against something in space, do you have the same speed as the object moving away from you?

So since in space you have no weight but still have mass, do those physical calculations still apply when pushing an object that is heavier than you? I would imagine yes because everytime an astronaut pushed off the wall of the space shuttle the would change its course. I guess it's just getting the idea wrapped around my head with a little explination. Thanks!

[Assistant] You have the same momentum, not the same speed. If you pushed off of an object of the same mass as yourself, you'd have the same speed, an object with less mass would be moving faster than you, and a heavier object would be moving slower.


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

[User]
ELI5: The implications of North Koreas nuclear test?

Is there going to be anything to worry about? Are there any really impactful ramifications for them?

[Assistant]
North Korea has a very broken farming system and is running out of food again, and it needs to get food from somewhere. Because it made other countries angry, they haven't been giving it food for awhile. NK leaders would look very bad if their people got hungry, so NK does this nuclear test that the whole world can see.  It is a clever plan: it embarrasses world leaders in China and the US, who had told their people that they would stop NK from testing bombs, and makes them pay attention to NK.

Here's how it works: the US and Chinese leaders need to look good to their people, which means they need to look like they are doing something to make NK stop. They need NK to show up to talks and promise to the whole world that they will stop making these bombs, at least for awhile. Now, NK then says they won't come to talks unless they get food (from US) and oil (from China). Since the US and China need them to talk or they will be really embarrassed, they will give them these things.

The US gives food because it looks to US people like an act of kindness and can't be used to make weapons. However NK leaders need to look good to their people too, so they remove the American flags from the boxes of food and put NK flags on it, and tell their people THEY grew the food.

China is worried that without oil, NK will fall apart and make a mess.  Since they are neighbors, that mess could spill into China too. Maybe if they fall apart, the Americans will even move in, and that would be dangerous, because everyone in China knows how dangerous Americans can be! So China gives NK oil to keep them stable.  NK leaders tell their people it is a nice gift from China, given to NK because of how big and strong NK is after making a big bomb.

Nobody is REALLY worried about the bombs themselves because they are pretty weak and very heavy, too heavy to put on rockets and planes and stuff, so NK can't really get the bomb anywhere yet and can pretty much only blow up nearby mountains.  But it LOOKS and SOUNDS scary to most people, so the other leaders have to react.

So, NK gets the things it needs by doing something it shouldn't do, and promised not to do.  They have done it before and it worked, so they are doing it again.

TLDR: It is like throwing a tantrum because you are hungry, and making a lot of noise for no reason, and then you get fed.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Were there any Jedi who preferred to not use a lightsaber?

One thing Ive always found interesting is that Jedi and lightsabers are always together and when the Jedi is without his, it would seem that they are almost helpless. Given this, Ive always wondered if there was a Jedi or two who saw the risk of this and perhaps trained a lot more heavily in the force to help mediate the loss.

[Assistant]
While it's uncommon, there were jedi who either preferred to not wield a weapon at all, or wield something other than a lightsaber.

Although most of them come from Tales of the Jedi comic. Nomi Sunrider for the longest time tried to be pacifist, her master Tholme was a huge quadruped beast, so he just didn't use a lightsaber, just gored people. Master of Exar Kun Vodo Siosk Baas fought his apprentice with just a cane vs a lightsaber.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we cry?

Why do we cry when we feel

* Physical pain
* Emotional (e.g. loneliness, loss of loved one etc.)
* When cutting onions (and why does chewing gum stop this? Does chewing gum stop us from crying during physical pain?)

EDIT: I was let down by the inconclusiveness of this thread, but appreciate the answers. I'm making it my life goal to find out why we cry.

[Assistant]
No-one has a definite answer. We have a good understanding of what tears are made of and how they come out of the eyes, but not what the actual function is. Some say that it is to do with the release of certain chemicals which have been building up inside the body when we are stressed. Others think it evolved as a way of communicating to others that we need help or comfort. But neither of these explanations is completely satisfying so it is still being debated.

Onion tears, on the other hand, are a completely different matter. They happen because when you cut into an onion it releases chemicals that were inside the onion into the air (a bit like suddenly being able to smell an orange when you start taking the peel off). These include acids which are irritating (and also explain why raw onion has such a sharp taste). When they get into our eyes, the eyes respond with tears to flush out these irritating chemicals.


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

[User]
[General] What would be some non-lethal applications of your standard pyrokinesis?

For example, imagine you are a superhero with pyrokinesis and you have to stop two regular criminals that are holdig up a liquor store. How do you do it without killing or seriously maiming them?

Edit: Making a list of the interesting answers.

-Intimidation

-Making a barrier of fire around them and wait for the cops.

-Melting their guns.

-Using up the oxigen so they black out.

-ROCKET PUNCH!

-Short heat blasts Iron Man style.

-Heat flashbangs.

[Assistant]
Call the cops.

Don't go around trying to apply powers to petty tasks they're not suited for.

Desalinate seawater or generate clean electricity, you won't get the dopamine hit of fighting crime but you'll accomplish far more good from a pragmatic perspective.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] What exactly are the dementors? Do they work for the government as prison guards or are they feral beasts who just happen to live near a prison as an escape deterrent?

[Assistant]
They appear to be a sentient and very much malevolent species. Dementors drain happiness from their victims to sustain themselves. That happiness needs to come from somewhere. So, in an attempt to prevent them from terrorizing the countryside the ministry has them guard Azkaban where they can drain all the happiness of the prisoners nonstop. Which is horrifyingly inhumane if you think about how Azkaban seems to be the only wizard prison in Britain.

They allied with Voldemort (both times) because he allowed them to run wild while the ministry kept them on a comparatively short leash.


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

[User] ELI5:What is the plan/policy for what happens on the International space station if the US and Russia happen to go to war for some reason?

[Assistant]
ISS is quite literally above politics on the ground. The whole crew understands this. Also the agreements that make ISS possible are such that every party, the governments, involved is tied to it in a way that they will not really get out of it nor do they have interests in it.

Also USA and Russia are major part of it, but they are only two of 15 participating in it.


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

[User]
Does knowledge have mass? If so, how much does it weigh?

This may be a stupid question, but as I was running today, I was thinking that as we gain knowledge, we gain more information in our brain, so in a way does that knowledge have mass and does it have weight as you sort of keep it in your brain? Thanks! Just curious and I couldnt find similar questions that were already on this sub.

[Assistant]
Information doesn't (necessarily) have mass. In the most basic principle, information is how existing mass or energy is organized.

For example, a Morse Code transmitted using light flashes. If you send the light at random, you have no information, but if you send light in a pattern, you have information.

Our brains store information in a similar way - certain chemicals, cells, and electric signals put in the right order create information. If you disrupt the order, you lose information. At no point do you gain or lose mass.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How does Spider-Man's spider sense work?

It had been explained as some sort of precognition to glimpse the future very briefly. Does the precognition apply to events besides physical threat? If he was sitting at a blackjack table, would his spider sense trigger and perceive a financial threat if he was going to take a bust card or would it trigger if he was going to call an unfavorable all-in at the poker table?

[Assistant] There is a supernatural aspect to Spider-Man's powers (even though Peter tries to ignore it and focus on the mundane science he understands).  The Web of Life and Destiny is a plane of reality that is the source of power for every spider-totem in the multiverse.  It also exists in circular or at least non-linear time which is probably why spider sense can grant glimpses into the imminent future or hyper-awareness of the present.


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

[User] ELI5: As Francium is the most unstable element, how much more energy will it generate if it is split compared to, let's say Uranium?

[Assistant]
The half-life of an element doesn't really say anything about the energy release per-atom when fission occurs.

Fr223 to Ra223 produces 1.149 MeV of energy

Boring U238 to Th234 produces 4.270 MeV of energy, but only once every 5 billion years.

Shorter half-life isotopes release more heat overall because the decay is so much faster, but all this really does is make the material difficult to process and handle.

The heat buildup is often sufficient to melt or vaporize samples, rendering them useless.


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

[User]
ELI 7: Radiation

Not the heat version.  The kind that's interesting to 7 year olds.  The kind that makes mutants and is the result of nuclear explosions.  I have a 7 year old who just asked me this and I figured "This is a job for Reddit!"

[Assistant]
All matter is made up of atoms. Sometimes, we find atoms that are 'unstable', and will suddenly 'pop'.

When it does, a little 'bit' of the atom flies off at high speed. That's radiation.

The biggest pieces are like cannonballs. They're big, heavy, and can't go very far - a few inches at most.  When they hit something though, they do a lot of damage. We call these 'alpha' particles.

The next size down is like a bullet. It's a lot lighter than the cannonball, and can go a lot further, but if it hits something the damage is less. We call these 'beta' particles.

The next size down is more like a laser, because it doesn't weigh anything at all! It's actually just like a laser, only it's a kind of light you can't see. It goes really far, even through *outer space*, and most likely will pass right through you. But it can 'burn' you like a laser can, so we have to be careful. These are called 'gamma' rays.

The fourth kind is like a grenade. It's a little bigger than a bullet and smaller than a cannonball, and doesn't really hurt whatever it hits....yet. But like a grenade, it causes another little 'explosion', and another atom 'pops'. We call these 'neutrons'.

Here's a neat thing for you; if one of the 'grenades' or neutrons makes another atom 'pop', and that atom also releases a 'grenade' when it pops, we can try to string them together so they keep popping more atoms. This is how nuclear reactors work.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do so many Americans seem opposed to unversal healthcare?

As in is it purely a political thing and people just dislike it because it's accociated with the left, or are there actual benefits of the current US health insurance system?

[Assistant] Fundamentally, a lot of people don't believe that they should provide for others' welfare.  They believe that if you want good medical care when you get sick, you should be a productive member of society when you are well.


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

[User]
If you uniformly heated a body of water to boiling, where would the bubbles form?

I have a feeling that the answer is "from the bottom, because gravity." but I don't know or know why. Also, what if it were a sphere of water in space heated uniformly, would it bubble at all as it evaporated?

[Assistant]
The water wouldn't boil, it would go in a metastable superheated state. It's liquid above the boiling temperature. A sufficient shock, even mechanical, would trigger a violent transition of the whole mass of fluid to the stable mixed-phase state. That is a good part of the water would suddenly boil.

Translated: do not heat distilled or even still water in a microwave. Microwaves are designed to heat water as uniformly as possible. If the cup is smooth enough not to provide good nucleation points for bubbles, and the heating is uniform enough and the water is relatively devoid of particles, it can be superheated above boiling temp without actually boiling. When you take it out, everything looks normal. You put in your teabag, the water suddenly boils all at the same time. Splashing boiling water on your face. This has happen, iirc.

This can be understood by studying the Van der Waals equation of state. Under the critical temperature, a portion of each VdW isotherm does not actually describe stable states, but a metastable states. This is because there actually is a set of more stable states which are mixed-phase states, that is the fluid is divided in a gas and liquid phases - this is the flat part of the isotherms and describes the actual phase transition where part of the liquid starts boiling  and then this fraction gradually increases until all of it is gas. If you don't give it a chance to form inhomogeneities though, you can get onto that metastable part of the VdW eqt of state. As soon as that inhomogeneity is provided, we decay to the stable state.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do young babies instinctively try and put everything into their mouth?

[Assistant] Curiosity, examination of surroundings and sensory practise. There is also a theory that they are building up a more resistant immune system by tasting stuff and getting germs in their system. It prevents allergies.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is happening to your body when youre getting uncontrollably tickled?

And why do you get crippled again when the culprit hits you with another and doesnt actually touch you?

[Assistant] It's a reflex response to the "tickling" stimulus serving to get you to pull away from or swat at something tickling your skin. In evolutionary biology this kind of stimulus would have been insects, creepy crawlies, that sort of thing.


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

[User] [Pirates of Caribbean] What the heck does the black spot do?

[Assistant]
It allows the Kraken to track you down and drag you to a watery grave.

This is based on the black spot from *Treasure Island*, where it was simply a symbol that a pirate had been judged guilty by his cohorts, and sentenced to death.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does everyone want to move to Canada when their country falls on hard times?

[Assistant] Basically, it's the middle ground country between the European and American way of life and politic, and thus disaffected peoples from both continents can find this-or-that thing in Canada that seems better than their own land.


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

[User]
Can and how protons fuse?

The question is simple, what happens when two protons overcome Coulumbs barrier? Do they fuse and make some sort of a hadron? Or do the 2 protons stick to eachother making a sort of nuclei? Or does something else happen?

[Assistant]
There's no bound state for two protons and no neutrons (^(2)He). There only are unbound resonances, which decay on timescales of around 10^(-21) seconds.

So there's not really any way for two protons to fuse. However, the weak force can turn a proton into a neutron, with an extremely low probability. In that case, two protons in the initial state become a deuteron (^(2)H), and leptons in the final state. This is a very important reaction in stellar nucleosynthesis. It happens in our sun, and is the first step in the pp-chain, and a crucial source of neutrons (bound within nuclei).


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

[User] [Star Wars] If Darth Sidious wanted a strong apprentice so bad, why didn't he just fuck someone and have children whom he can train?

[Assistant]
A strong apprentice was always his Plan B.  Plan A was always the Rule of One, with himself cloned and ruling forever.  Children would undermine that plan.

The Plan B was there just in case something interfered with Plan A.  Sidious originally wanted Anakin because he could be powerful enough to overthrow him, therefore he wanted Anakin converted past the point of no return and fully committed to the Sith tradition.  Once Vader was crispy-fried and in the suit, and Sidious had his clone bodies, Plan B became drastically less-important, and it was sufficient to have a powerful enforcer to enact his will.

It was only when Luke appeared on the scene that Plan B regained any real importance.  Then Sidious was looking at a younger Skywalker that had lost little (if any) real potential, and could potentially defeat both Sidious and Vader.  Not only that, but Vader may have conflicted loyalties once Luke came into play.  At that point, it was necessary to ensure that Vader kill Luke (he could not be allowed to take him as an apprentice), or convert Luke to the Dark Side by getting him to murder his own father.


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

[User]
[Addams Family] Gosh... So many questions. What is Thing and how does he drive cars and do other things? What is It? How does the family not die when they ought to?

For example when they drink poison, get shocked by a radio in a bathtub or have an explosion happen less than a meter away from them?

Why feed the baby a raw egg & vodka?

[Assistant]
Thing is something too horrible to be seen, except for his one human arm. He didn't become a disembodied hand until the movies, at which point we have to assume magic is involved.

Cousin Itt is just an exceptionally hairy person with a strange voice. At least, the family insists he is, and if anyone asks him what's under all that hair he says is "Roots."


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

[User]
[Halo Reach] Emile, do you know how expensive this gear is, son?

When Emile carved the face into his helmet did that weaken it somehow? How did he not have trouble seeing out of his face? Was nobody super pissed that some kid just wrecked a very expensive piece of UNSC equipment for no real reason?

[Assistant]
He just scratched off the UV foil. It meant he would get a really bad sunburn on a spacewalk, but nothing else. He could have used paint, but that would have blocked his vision or been too clear to be seen clearly (and the whole point is that the enemy can see it).

Also, he's a "graduated" Spartan-III, a program that was even less ethical than the Spartan-II program Master Chief came from. He can't be released into the general population just because of that, and his choices are either continuing military service or being locked up in an ONI-controlled psych ward.

Emile *does* suffer severe mental and emotional instability as a result of his training and battlefield experience, that's obvious. He undergoes mental evaluations as frequently as possible while he's on active duty. According to his file, carving a skull on his helmet not *typical* behavior, but considering what he's coping with and what other things he could be doing to cope, he's doing pretty good for a Spartan.

Regarding materiel, Spartans are known to specialize. The powered armor they use is not in mass production and each suit is practically custom-made, they are often given experimental prototypes for field-testing, and they have generous weight and ammo allowances for personal gear. If a Spartan asks for a sniper rifle in a dense urban environment where the enemy is underground, or for thirty combat knives in a ground assault, nobody bats an eye because that's a Spartan and they're gonna get the job done.


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

[User] ELI5: Why aren't there organisms that live on the sun, eat fire, and drink heat? In other words why does there need to be water for life?

[Assistant]
The only life we know of occurs as chemical reactions - complex molecules interacting through electrical forces - in liquid water.  "Exotic" life that might function similarly but use different chemicals in something other than water (e.g., liquid methane on Titan) is a topic of speculation, but has never been detected.

The Sun is too hot for molecular bonds to exist, so there is no way for different nuclei to interact with each other except fusion in the core or keeping each other apart by mutual repulsion of protons.  At such temperatures, matter is ionized and electrons move freely.

"Chemistry" in the normal sense does not exist in such an environment - there are simply atomic nuclei and subatomic particles.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does Microsoft give Windows 10 away for free to Windows 7 and Windows 8 users?

Edit: Thanks everyone!

[Assistant]
It's part of their different monetization strategy. Rather than selling Operating Systems, they now sell software (or more accuratly subscriptions to software).

In fact, since the Windows 10 operating system is shared between phones, tablets, holographics ,computers, and even the Xbox, it means Windows get an extremely big market.

So every system that works on any of the above systems, can also work on everything else. Through that, it means that Microsoft will get the dominant marketshare in apps on each of the systems.

By getting everyone on the same system, Microsoft ensures that every developer will want to make titles for the system, and thus, that everyone will switch to it's systems.


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

[User]
ELI5:What, exactly, is tilt shift and why does it look so different?

It looks so groovy, but I just can't understand why it's so different looking.

[Assistant]
Lenses bend light to focus it on the sensor of the camera, so it captures the image. Tilting and shifting the lens distorts how the light hits the sensor, creating those groovy shots.

Shifting the lens moves the center point of the lens from the center of the sensor. While the lens only moves around a centimeter or two, it causes a much more dramatic shift in the image, as if you took several steps in the shifted direction. It is very useful for shooting buildings, because you don't need to tilt your camera to capture the whole building (doing so distorts the perspective, making the top narrower than the bottom).

Tilting the lens is a bit more complicated, because it angles the plane of focus. Normally the lens focuses a plane parallel to the camera sensor. But when the lens is tilted, one part is closer to the sensor than the other. The light's path through the lens remains unchanged, but the way its cast onto the sensor changes. Like with shifting, a small change in lens angle results in a much larger change in focal plane angle. You can tilt the lens to increase or decrease the effective focal plane. If you have an image with flowers in the foreground and mountains in the back, it would be hard to focus on both. But you can tilt the lens to create a focus plane that encompasses the whole scene with ease.

On the other hand, you can tilt the lens in the other direction, reducing the focal plane to a razor's edge. This causes objects slightly in front and behind the plane of focus (which wouldn't normally be too blurry) to appear much more out of focus, which gives the impression that you're photographing a very small model. The farther away from the sensor you focus, the larger the area of focus will be. A small model of a city may be ~1 foot from the lens, while an actual city will be dozens or hundreds of feet. By reducing the depth of the focal range, it appears similar to moving the sensor closer to the subject.


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

[User]
Why can we see clearly underwater with goggles but not with our bare eyes?

Also, do fish have some sort of eye-covering membrane or how do they circumvent this problem?

[Assistant]
Your eyes are trained to deal with a surrounding medium with a low refractive index, like air.  Water has a high refractive index, which makes the light bend in ways your eyes aren't expecting.

Fish eyes are made for seeing while immersed in water, so they'd have the same problem in air that we do in water.


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

[User]
[Ant Man] Why is Cross so focused on weaponizing his "Cross Particles"?

Cross already said they perfected shrinking non-organic matter, which begs the question: why not just cash the infinite money check of being able to resize matter at will? Industrial uses for resized machinery and electronics alone would be akin to inventing electricity and having the controlling interest in that technology would make him an over night trillionaire.

[Assistant]
Mostly because of his overblown ego. Cross was the got to be the smartest type. His mentor had developed a safe and effective way to shrink organic matter years prior, and never let Cross in on how. So Cross was not only going to rediscover the method, he was going to make a mint doing it.

People even told him he should stop while he was ahead and he just gave them the typical Im gonna go all the way egotistical villain response.


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

[User]
ELI5: Do insects get food poisoning?

For example if a fly eats salmonella contaminated raw chicken does it affect them?

[Assistant]
One reason insects react so differently to many toxins is because their digestive tract is alkaline in contrast to the acidic environment of the vertebrate intestines. A different pH may render some toxins less harmful and others more so. A common "food contaminant" for insects is *Bacillus thuringiensis*, a species of bacteria which lives in the soil (and on leaves) and basically produces a crystalline toxin that can only be dissolved in the alkaline digestive tract of insects. However, it's non-toxic to humans because the crystals pass our digestive system undissolved. This is why *B. thuringiensis* is sprayed on crops to prevent damage caused by larvae.
   TL;DR: Their digestive system makes insects vulnerable to different bacterial toxins. Yes, they can suffer from certain food poisonings.


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

[User]
Does bouncing my leg up and down really fast burn calories?

I do this all the time, as I'm sure a lot of people do, and I was wondering if bouncing my leg accomplished more than making my family look at me when the kitchen cabinet starts shaking.

[Assistant]
The short answer is yes the act itself burns calories, but what may surprise you is that **it actually allows your heart to not work as hard.**

When you sit or stand you create a substantial pressure gradient between your heart and feet. In order to keep the cells in your feet alive they need to be resupplied with oxygen. Your heart must work extra hard in order to pump blood back up this pressure gradient. However, this process is much easier if you are moving.

When you use your muscles they create dynamic forces on your veins which squeeze them, forcing fluid through the vein. All along the vein are 1 way valves which direct the blood back to your heart. By shaking your leg you are using the muscles in your leg to assist your heart. If you stand for a long period of time without flexing your muscles you will strain your heart to the point of passing out. Buckingham Palace Guards must take this into account to perform their duties.

Edit: Sorry. "Guard" not "soldier"


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

[User]
ELI5: How can you hear yourself speak in your brain?

Most likely, while you are reading this you are narrating it in your head, unless you read everything out loud for some reason. Despite the fact there's not actually any sound waves, it's still possible to "hear" what you say. How does this happen?

[Assistant] The parts of your association cortex (that is, parts of the brain's neocortex that are not sensory processing areas) responsible for conscious thought and linguistic comprehension are working together to send signals back into your primary auditory cortex that you perceive as sound. Normally it is the other way around, with the auditory cortex sending processed sound signals to other parts of the brain. This is also how dreaming and imagining things works. When you are seeing and hearing and feeling things in a dream, information is actually flowing backward from the areas responsible for conscious thought, language, etc into your sensory processing areas.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there predictions that there will he a recession next year?

[Assistant]
The US Fed is raising interest rates and unloading their balance sheet. This means there is less money in the countrys money supply. Businesses are forced to borrow at higher rates which means they have to be more conservative about their decisions in opening new plants and hiring new people as it will cost more with higher rates. Less plants being developed and less people being hired causes less spending in the economy which means businesses will make less money. This causes even less hiring, and even worse, potential layoffs. This compression of the economy causes a cyclical loop. Less corporate profits means more layoffs which means less corporate profits. The Fed raising interest rates has scared many people which causes the discussion of a potential recession forecast.

Keeping interest rates too low and continually expanding the money supply creates inflation which causes an entirely different set of economic problems. So since we are off the gold standard and have a central bank lowering and raising interest rates, expanding and contracting the money supply, it creates a natural boom and bust, expansion and contraction economy.

Other important factors include: 25% tariffs which causes costs to go up which means less corporate profit and a yield curve which is almost negative and is considered to be one of the strongest signals of a recession according to investors. Does this mean we are guaranteed to be in a declining recession? No, not necessarily. But there certainly are a lot of intelligent people who are worried about it for all of these reasons.


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

[User]
Does light travel forever?

Does the light from stars travel through space indefinitely as long as it isn't blocked? Or is there a limit to how far it can go?

[Assistant]
As long as it doesn't get absorbed by something, then yes, light will continue to travel indefinitely. However, due to the expansion of the universe that light wave will get stretched out along with the space it travels through, becoming lower in frequency and energy. This is why the Cosmic Microwave Background, which began its existence as ~~gamma rays~~ visible light emitted very shortly after the Big Bang, has been reduced down to microwaves after traveling through space for ~13.8 billion years.

Edit: Wrong spectrum.


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

[User] ELI5: why do some ball-pens dry out so fast but others can be uncovered for years and still work fine?

[Assistant]
Because there are different types of inks put in to ball point pens.

you have the standard issue Bic Crystal which uses a very dense and almost dry ink, it will go on forever uncapped without drying out, but in exchange it requires more force to write with.

Then you have the gel ones which are softer to write with but at the expense of drying out a bit more.

Then you have the liquid ink ones which will dry out easly but can use thinner tips and are much easier to write with.

so depending on your taste, you can use a bic crystal which is cheap, rugged and hard to dry.

Or something more refined like a Pilot G2 or a Uniball Signo which are a pleasure to write with but are more fragile and less resistant to drying out.

If youre a student and take care of your pens, for the health of your wrists and hands, i suggest you avoid BIC crystals.


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

[User] ELI5: If the brain cant go longer than 6 minutes without oxygen before brain damage occurs, how can some free divers hold their breath for 10, 15 and even 20 minutes without getting severe brain damage?

[Assistant] It is the blood that carries oxygen. Divers have their oxygen level highest possible before the dive. Extra breathes minutes before the action can help. Also there is no proof some of them havent got brain damage.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How did R2D2 carry the Death Star Plans?

The Death Star plans have to be enormous considering it's size and complexity.  As seen in Rogue One it takes a dedicated space hard drive on Scarif, then needs a high gain space antenna to transmit and record onto a giant space SD card to get it to Leia.  How does R2D2 have enough internal memory to hold all that?

[Assistant] The format of the plans held in the Scarif vault seems to be more of an issue of data *security* than of actual storage: they held it in an air-gapped vault that could only be accessed by manipulator arms. When it arrived on the *Profundity* the Rebels were able to download it all on to a single datacard that Leia subsequently loads into R2.


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

[User]
[Marvel/Thor] Could Thor "override" the worthiness qualification of Mjolnir? Is Mjolnir "smart enough" to know when to make distinctions?

Consider two hypothetical situations.

1. An evil being of immense power comes to Earth. The *only* way to defeat it is if a powerful magic user  say, Doctor Strange  strikes it with Mjolnir. That is *literally* the only way it could be defeated. But Doctor Strange isn't "worthy" to wield Mjolnir. Can Thor "override" that qualification to allow Doctor Strange to use Mjolnir for this one occasion, knowing that if Mjolnir doesn't "cooperate" then Earth is doomed?

2. Thor is fighting someone/something and is hit so hard that he's embedded a mile below the Earth's surface.  He's unconscious and very badly hurt, but Mjolnir is with him. Astonishingly, he happens to land in an underground cave that has a portal back to the surface that can only be unlocked by Mjolnir. The *only* way for Thor to be saved is if, say, one of the Mole People picks up Mjolnir and uses it to unlock the portal. Would Mjolnir allow this, knowing that if it didn't then Thor would die?

[Assistant]
1. The worthiness depends on Odin. If that is literally the only way to defeat the threat, and Odin deems the threat needs to be defeated, then yes, Dr Strange can wield the hammer.

2. "Using" Mjolnir is not "wielding" Mjolnir. The hammer itself knows the difference of intent.

Obligatory: That fucking hammer...


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do allergy shots work over time but not the allergen itself?

I understand how allergy shots work. What I don't understand is why they work by exposing you to the substance you are allergic to, yet just being exposed to your allergen over time doesn't build the same tolerance.

[Assistant]
Imagine if you had parents (the immune system) who freaked out (allergic reaction), if you stayed up past your bedtime  which is 4pm (crazy low threshold)! They thought you'd actually turn into a monster if you were out of bed after 4pm, no one knows why, maybe they saw you cranky once and put the kibosh on the whole thing. Anyway. You have to convince them that you should have no set bedtime at all and they shouldn't freak out (no allergic response).

Option 1 - Stay up till 8, maybe 9 or 10, and see what happens. Or maybe midnight just to show them? (encounter the allergen) They'll flip out. They'll get mad. This definitely won't work. They'll get more vigilant and more strict and very upset.

Option 2 - Stay up till 4:00:02 on "accident". Then 4:00:05, then 4:00:30, then 4:01. Over some months, keep overshooting by a tiiiiny and almost unnoticeable amount until 4:30pm, 5pm, 7pm... etc.

As long as they're not getting really upset, you can fudge it just a little and then they're comfortable with that new time. Eventually they will probably stop being so jumpy (less or no allergic reaction).


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

[User] [LOTR Movies] If the Stone Giants have been fighting regularly for ages, why haven't the mountains been ground to dust?

[Assistant]
They don't appear in the stories men tell until the third age nor get a mention in the tale of creation, given dwarves lived in the mountains before the third age it's reasonable to assume the giants moved there around the time Sauron was defeated.

Fact is 3000ish years of throwing rocks of similar hardness at each other just isn't enough to destroy a mountain range.


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

[User]
I'm substituting for high school physics this week and a student had a question I wasn't sure of.

We are in the potential and kinetic energy chapter. I basically understand the inverse relationship between PE and KE as an object goes from being at rest to being in motion and back to rest again.

My student's question is if a ball is on the ground does it have PE in relation to the ground? I can kick the ball and give it KE and thus PE I suppose as well. Do I, the person kicking the ball, possess the potential energy that transfers to the ball? Also, what type of PE is this, elastic, gravitational or chemical energy?

This is outside of my educational expertise but I don't want my students to suffer so thanks ahead of time for answering my question!

[Assistant]
Potential energy is relative. You could say the ball has 0 joules on the ground, and when you set it on top of a table it has 100 joules. Or you could say it has 0 joules on the table and -100 joules on the ground. When doing physical calculations, what's important is the difference between two potential energy states, not the absolute value.

In terms of kicking the ball, you are converting chemical energy (which you got from your food and metabolism) into kinetic (plus heat) energy.


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

[User]
(Marvel) Could The Hulk jump from the moon to the Earth?

I've seen it written that Hulk can jump anywhere from three to seven miles on Earth. With the moon's reduced gravity would he be able to launch himself back to Earth if someone tossed him to the moon?

[Assistant]
If the Hulk jumped toward the spot in space where the Earth would be in the several weeks it would take for him to arrive, definitely.

How he would calculate that properly is beyond me.

Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely just by his leg power? No.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do patients who suffer severe trauma often complain of being thirsty?

[Assistant]
Patients who have suffered a severe trauma resulting in a lot of blood loss begin to go into shock. Without enough blood to circulate the oxygen to all of their organs, muscles, etc, their body goes into a natural state of damage control. What blood supply you do have is sent to the brain/heart in an attempt to keep these 2 most vital organs running. However, with oxygen practically cut off to the rest of your body, things begin to shut down; and one of the first systems to be ignored for the "greater good" is your digestive system.

Naturally, you will experience a water craving because (even though everything is going haywire) your body wants to get back to normal and replace your blood volume. However, drinking water will cause the patient to vomit (because the digestive system is offline) which will cause further imbalances in the body and the possibility of breathing in/choking on the vomit resulting in respiratory distress.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is your voice different (e.g. higher or less powerful) after being silent for a while?

[Assistant] You know how if you sit down for awhile, and then stand up, your legs feel like youre stretching even though youre just standing up? Muscles, both your leg muscles and your vocal chords, get cold after not being used for awhile. So when you start using them again, they need warmed up and practiced with a bit before being ready for normal operation.


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

[User]
Dark matter is thought to not interact with the electromagnetic force, could there be a force that does not interact with regular matter?

Also, could dark matter have different interactions with the strong and weak force?

[Assistant]
Dark matter cannot interact via the strong force or the electromagnetic force.  It may or may not interact with the weak force, although many models have it doing so.

Yes, there could be additional forces that ordinary matter does not feel.  In fact, we already have examples of something like that, in that electrons do not feel the strong force.


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

[User]
[Marvel/Avengers] How in the hell does Captain America stay relevant?

He's a peak human with a shield. That's it. He's far outclassed by everyone on the team and I seriously wonder why he just doesn't give the shield to someone who's more capable like, say, Iron Man. Even Batman understood that just "being there as a leader" ain't gonna do shit when the local Death God 9000 comes around, so he built some big ass suits that buff him up to stay relevant. Cap has none of that. Just a shield.

[Assistant]
Cap is a master of what sports scouts call 'the intangibles'.

He has leadership ability that inspires everyone who works with him to new heights of accomplishment. People just plain fight harder with him present. His loyalty to them and the team in turn provokes rabid loyalty to him, as well. You will not harm Steve Rogers without dealing with a lot of his very unhappy friends shortly thereafter.

He has tactical skills that allow him to coordinate multiple superpowered people with near perfect efficiency, which itself is a force multiplier.

He is an unparalleled combatant, capable of fighting much more physically enhanced creatures using superior technique, insane levels of agility, and knowledge of fighting arts.

Physically, in the MCU there's really no way to get around it, the stuff he does is straight superhuman. He may be 'peak human', but he operates at a level no human ever has operated at.

And then you say 'just a shield'. That shield is a disc of the toughest material on the planet. A material that defies physics and renders him invulnerable when properly used. Not to mention it is a fierce weapon in Cap's hands, and Cap can do things with it no one else can. That shield can deflect anything his more powerful teammates and opponents can dish out, and hurt them pretty badly if they're not very careful.

So others on the team have some attributes far beyond Cap's. His particular combination of attributes make him invaluable on any team he's on. It helps that he's no slouch in a fight and will always be found leading from the front and taking on the brunt of the enemy attack.

Death God 9000 might show up, but when it does it'll find Cap there, with that shield, a plan and some friends, and when it tastes that vibranium across it's grill, it may not be quite as easy to brush him aside as it thought.


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

[User]
[General Superheroes] Why do most Earth-based supervillains seem to appear/act in close proximity to currently active superheroes?

You'd think that with as many incidents bring about heroes and villains, you'd eventually have more cases where major villains pop up in otherwise "inactive" regions without heroes to oppose them, and likewise eventually have powerful heroes appear in regions where most/all of the crime is the occasional homicide at most. Or that some villains would intentionally move away from places like New York so they could set up operations in a more secluded location.

[Assistant]
That's a very good question.

You see, that's where the opportunities are for villains. New York is of course a major financial hub, with many companies including banks, research companies and others being ripe for the picking and being a dime-a-dozen. The same is true for other equivalents in other, alternate world cities such as Gotham and Metropolis.

Also, more often than not, there *are* heroes who patrol in the other cities. As mentioned, a large number of heroes exist in New York due to the vast opportunities and the population density, but heroes exist in other parts of the country and world. Blue Beetle operates in El Paso, Texas, while Big Hero 6 (before being exiled from Marvel by some *dense motherfuckers at Disney*) operated in Tokyo. England has it's own superhero team called MI-13, for example.

And come to think of it, Emil Blonsky *did* leave America and retired to Siberia... only to be hunted down, tortured and murdered by the Red Hulk >!in revenge for his daughter's murder!<.


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

[User]
CMV: I oppose government-ordered, business-enforced vaccine mandates (USA)

To clarify a few things:

* I am not anti-vaccine
* I do not oppose mandates issued for public infrastructure (schools) or government workers
* I do not oppose private mandates issued by a private business

What I specifically oppose is the current way these mandates are rolled out. City / state / municipal governments enact a mandate / ordinance / law requiring that **businesses** enforce mask-wearing and vaccine-checking, at their own expense and with their own devices, and those businesses face fines or other legal action for failure to enforce.

What these governments haven't done is:

* commit police or other government personnell to enforce the mandates or assist with those who attempt to violate it
* commit to penalties against individuals who attempt to evade the mandates or become belligerent when doing so
* establish reliable systems of vaccine verification (like RealID for 21+ ID checks) or provide businesses with the hardware / software / training needed to use such systems

This results in minimum-wage, young employees being put on the fontlines of arguments, threats, escalated violence and of course the inherent health risk that comes with turning away anti-mask, anti-vaxx clientele, at the full expense to and liability of the buisness. In some cases, a business might reasonably conclude that the cost of violating the mandate is lesser than the costs of subjecting employees to harassment or making the financial commitments needed to enforce the mandate evenly. This completely defeats the purpose of such mandates in the first place.

We are in strange times and I understand that governments are seeking public health solutions to a grave problem - I am sympathetic to that challenge. However, I can't see how vaccine mandates in their current iteration are anything but a half-assed shirking of responsibility on the part of governments. CMV that these mandates are defensible in their current iteration.

EDIT: After a few days, no argument except those trying to paint me a hypocrite for not opposing any other given government regulation on business. My argument, very clearly, isn't *Regulation is bad, therefore mandates are bad -* it's that the mandates **as they are currently executed** aren't effective, aren't well-written, and place undue burden on businesses. No one has made an argument in favor of the mandates themselves, or are confusing patron-focused vaccine passports with Biden's attempt to use OSHA to force employers to mandate vaccines for employees.

[Assistant]
Isn't this a natural extension of how public safety regulations already work generally? Businesses are already required by OSHA to make their workplaces safe for their employees and by other government agencies to make their places of business safe for customers. This is at the business's own cost, and the government does not usually commit personnel to help businesses with the things. Why should masks and vaccination be treated differently?

>This results in minimum-wage, young employees being put on the fontlines of arguments, threats, escalated violence...

Well as soon as there are threats of violence, the government _would_ commit their personnel, namely the police.


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

[User]
Why does gravity cause all objects (regardless of mass) to accelerate equally?

I know this sounds dumb and its quite obvious that objects with different masses accelerate due to gravity at the same rate, but why? I would expect gravity to exert a fixed amount force on objects.

I might be applying the equation wrong, but if Force = Mass x Acceleration, then each object experiences a different amount of force as they have different masses but equal acceleration.

[Assistant]
>I would expect gravity to exert a fixed amount force on objects.

This is the misunderstanding. In Newtonian physics, gravity exerts a force directly proportional to the masses of the two objects interacting.

So for the Earth and any two objects, mass m and mass 2m, the gravitational attraction felt by the 2m mass will be twice as strong as that felt by the m mass.

Then all you have to do is go to your Force=mass*acceleration equation and see that your 2m object will feel the same resulting acceleration as the object mass m. Simply put, the object with twice the mass feels twice the force and therefore the same acceleration.


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

[User]
[ Aliens ] Why exactly are there Colonial Marines?

Why does the USMC exist? Is there some kind of civil war between colonies? Are there other alien species to fight against?

They've mention something about a bug hunt. I don't know why they'd need marines to fight bugs unless they're really big like starship troopers big. But we've never really seen other alien species aside from the giger aliens.

[Assistant] I'd imagine putting down insurrectionists, pirates and terrorist groups operating outside of Sol would be one of their primary missions.  Another primary mission would probably be humanitarian operations in the Colonies.  They probably also get sent in to deal with hostile organisms that colonists are unable to handle.


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

[User]
[Meatloaf] What exactly is happening down in the valley?

As recorded in Bat Out Of Hell, something terrible is going on. Something that is making him need to run and leave everything, even the girl he loves behind.

"The sirens are screaming and the fires are howling. Way down in the valley tonight. There's a man in the shadows with a gun in his eye. And a blade shining, oh, so bright. There's evil in the air and there's thunder in sky, And a killer's on the bloodshot streets."

Just what is going on? What evil or conflict is consuming the valley?

[Assistant]
Fires of hell itself are smoldering in the valley. The city is clenched in the jaws of a nameless terror that drives men into murderous intent as demons stalk the shadows hunting for their prey.

An Angel, they call her Baby, lives here in the city, and she is the only thing here that's pure and good and right, and wherever she goes and wherever she is there's always gonna be some light. And this is the purity the forces of Hell thirst for.

But angels are demons are not so different, and in the time before Lucifer's rebellion Baby had a lover amongst the hosts of Heaven, but he was led astray by the Morningstar and cast down. He came before the gates of Heaven time and again but they remained forever closed to him.

Baby had come to the mortal realm to sow her light, and the demons of Hell sought to destroy her, but Lover Boy has made his way into the incursion. The demons are unleashed and chaos and discord abound as they hunt for Baby but none of them know her like Lover Boy, who flies unerringly to her doorstep.

He couldn't bear to see her come to harm, he's here to warn her, to save her, but also to spend one last night with Angel he has loved for longer than either of them can remember. When day breaks they will be found but they steal one perfect moment for themselves... If he has to be damned, then he wants to be damned with her. And if he could stay, he would, but her only escape is without him.

Hell is unforgiving and cannot abide a traitor. Like bloodhounds the demons in their human hosts are on his scent and when it seems like death is certain a Silver Black Phantom Bike explodes onto the road and with his demon wing unfurled behind him Lover Boy hits the highway like a battering ram. All the demons forget Baby and blaze down the highway pursuing Lover Boy with murderous intent.

He's tearing up the road faster than any other boy has ever gone. His skin is raw but his soul is ripe, and nothing's gonna stop him now he'll make his escape. Wherever she went and wherever she was there was gonna be some light and that light was shining in his heart. The demon army nipping at his heels but faster and faster he led them in a blazing chase through the night. He's gonna make it, he just might escape Hell forever.

But he can't stop thinking of her, and he never sees the sudden turn till it's way too late.

Now he's at the bottom of a pit. The sun beats down and all around him is smoke and fire and the screams of the damned. All around him the mangled remains of the demon host writhe and burn as they still claw their way towards his broken form. Somewhere, a bell is tolling. And the last thing he sees is his heart, filled with his love for Baby and the purity of his sacrifice it streaks away. As the essence of the demons are being pulled forcible into the gaping maw of hell itself his heart blazes across the sky.

At the gates of Heaven, broken and crawling, a weary shape pulls itself forward one last time...


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

[User] ELI5: Why does short-term sleep deprivation alleviate depression while chronic sleep deprivation seems to worsen it?

[Assistant]
Short term sleep deprivation (a type of stress) increases the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, which in the short term, make you feel buoyant and happy.

Chronic sleep deprivation, with chronic increase in stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline give rise to depression.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did ROM files originally get extracted from cartridges like n64 games? How did emulator developers even begin to understand how to make sense of the raw data from those cartridges?

I don't understand the very birth of video game emulation. Cartridges can't be plugged into a typical computer in any way. There are no such devices that can read them. The cartridges are proprietary hardware, so only the manufacturers know how to make sense of the data that's scrambled on them... so how did we get to today where almost every cartridge-based video game is a ROM/ISO file online and a corresponding program can run it?

**Where you would even begin if it was the year 2000 and you had Super Mario 64 in your hands, and wanted to start playing it on your computer?**

[Assistant]
This is going to be a lot so hang on.

Computers work by reading a set of instructions and doing exactly that. This is true of anything, from your PC to your phone to your game consoles.

Game cartridges are usually just small chips that contains this list of instructions, like an SD card. Especially on older ones, the connector directly or nearly directly exposes that chip. In many cases these chips aren't super unique so public data sheets exist that say how to read and write to them so companies and engineers can use these parts in their own stuff. Nintendo uses the part, likely for cost and performance reasons, and then when hobbyists disassemble the cartridge they find out what is in there and how to talk to it. Sometimes though, like for the game boy, the cartridge is more than just a few chips with the stored data, and the method of communication is logged while the game boy is running and then the cart dumped once they figure out how to read it.

Most of the time the actual reading is done with a microcontroller, Arduinos have proven particularly popular due to low cost and ease of coding. The person dumping it simulates a request for the data across the whole contents of the cartridge, and what's on there is read and then written to a file.

Emulators are a bit more difficult. Typically, emulators start by investigating as much as they can about the system they're emulating. What cpu is used, what instruction set it runs on, what is connected where to the CPU and how it's accessed. A lot of this is borderline trial and error using some of the games dumped from game carts to figure out what commands do what based off of what they might expect them to be doing. Think of it as reading a cake cooking instructions in a foreign language. You have an idea of how to cook a cake, so you can guess what ach instruction is actually telling you to do. Compare your guess with guesses from a dozen more instructions and you can start to figure out what each word means. Use that knowledge and you can write a program that will read the instructions and do what they say to do on your own computer.


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

[User] ELI5: One of the most spoken languages of the past, now an abandoned one; how did the Latin language "die?"

[Assistant] Didnt die.  With the fall of the Roman Empire, and the isolation of the dark ages/late antiquity, the local common Latin (aka: vulgate) morphed and evolved into the various Romance languages.  Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese, French, Catalan... these are all Latin today.


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

[User] eli5: Why does it sometimes get harder to fall asleep the longer you stay awake?

[Assistant]
Tiredness and wakefulness are two independent states influenced by your circadian rhythm.

Your body produces melatonin to help induce sleep, as controlled by the circadian rhythm. This peaks around 3am for a normal adult lifestyle. Past this peak, melatonin production ceases and your liver breaks down what was produced. Your body becomes more alert, though is still fatigued.


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

[User]
ELI5: If the Devil is evil, wouldn't he reward the sinners who end up in Hell? And if he punishes sinners in his domain, doesn't that make him a good, moral deity?

I'm not religious or anything, but I've had this question floating around in my head for years.

[Assistant]
People generally get confused on the notion of the Devil because Christianity has actually merged three different entities into one evil personification.

In the Bible, you have the Serpent, the Adversary named Ha-Satan and Lucifer, fallen Archangel.

The Serpent's main reason for being included in this is because he tempted Eve into eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  This is where his contribution ends.

Ha-Satan is known as the Adversary and his main purpose is to stand beside you on Judgment Day and list off your sins and explain why you don't deserve entry into Heaven.  A Celestial District Attorney, basically.

The story of Job actually describes how God is in heaven and he's bragging on Job down on Earth and Ha-Satan is there 'with God' in heaven and Ha-Satan suggests that Job is only pious and devout because God gave him a great life with lots of kids and stuff and wives.  So, God takes it all away and ruins Job's life to prove that he's right.

In the end, God gives him all that back after scolding Job for being too self-righteous in his suffering, and Ha-Satan is proven wrong.

Ha-Satan is known as the Adversary, but he plays a role in the Divine Scheme.

Lucifer is the fallen Arch-angel and his story is told in Revelations.  He's called 'The Morning Star' and is basically #3 in Heaven.  Pride and hubris causes Lucifer to plot rebellion against God and he gets cast down into Hell along with 1/3rd of all the angels.

The whole thing about the Devil ruling in Hell, though, is because of Dante's Inferno.  Until that was written, the idea of the Devil ruling Hell wasn't even considered.

In short, lots of people mixed up three biblical entities, added in a dash of Dark Ages fiction and there you go.