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

[User]
CMV: a practical way to reduce gun violence is requiring insurance

***UPDATE:***

*I was convinced by several different commenters that using insurance to enforce safe storage and handling rules is overly complex. If the SCOTUS were to allow my insurance idea, they would probably also allow a simpler scheme like a  permitting system where the state or country requires proof of secure storage before issuing the permit.*

*Ultimately, I think the best ideas for safe gun policies would include (in no particular order):*

* *Expanded background checks with a 10-day waiting period.*
* *Red-flag laws with a lower threshold than full involuntary commitment. Friends and family should be able to get guns out of the hands of their suicidal or homicidal loved ones.*
* *Those convicted of violent crimes (felonies and misdemeanors) should be prohibited from possessing guns. Many domestic violence convictions are misdemeanors. Also those with active restraining orders.*
* *Raising the age limit for purchasing guns.*
* *Banning the sale of high-capacity magazines.*
* *Policing practices that get more illegal guns off the streets (preferably without putting more people in jail).*
* *Requiring proof of safe gun storage in order to get a concealed- or open-carry permit, a hunting license, etc. Ideally, I'd like states to require to even purchase a gun or ammunition.*
* *Possibly requiring gun owners to belong to a local or county militia, who would vet new permit applicants and store high-capacity magazines etc.*

I think that gun owners should be required to get \[edit: liability\] insurance to cover the harms that their guns could cause to others. Insurance coverage would require proof of secure gun storage and responsible gun ownership. High-capacity magazines and guns that have high potential to kill many people in a very short time could be uninsurable unless stored securely at a gun range or gun club ("a well regulated militia").

I think this would reduce gun deaths by encouraging safer storage and use of guns. Owners would have no excuse to not secure their guns. It would also get expensive to own many many guns unless stored in a very secure manner or at a gun club. By reducing the number of guns it is practical to own and pushing to have those guns in a manner that a depressed or angry family member can just walk out of the house with them or use them on themselves, requiring insurance would add friction to the process, hopefully reducing gun deaths. And when people are killed, their family members can get compensation.

Most NRA members and gun enthusiasts support responsible gun ownership and are often obsessed with safe gun handling. They would be able to obtain insurance easily. I could imagine a scenario where they would support this approach over heavy-handed government bans.

Caveats:

* *Eliminating* gun violence or banning guns in this country is not possible. But reducing gun deaths is still a reasonable goal. Reigning  in things on the edges would help. This could be in addition to universal background checks and other approaches.
* I understand that most gun deaths are from suicide or non-mass-shooting homicides. Still, safer gun storage could help. The Sandy Hook shooter stole his mother's guns. How many suicides are committed using unsecured guns?
* Yes, criminals would still illegally own guns. We also need to make a bigger effort get illegal guns off the streets.
* The insurance could be government-run if you don't like the idea of private insurance companies getting involved. Or they could be required to be run in a not-for-profit manner.
* The government could subsidize the insurance so that the the coverage for the first gun is affordable for all. \[Edit: the insurance could be *free* as far as I care, as long as people need to show proof of insurance before purchasing guns, applying for concealed- or open-carry permits, go to a shooting range, or get hunting licenses. But if you fail to secure your guns and your insurance is revoked, you lose your guns.\]
* I understand that it is not currently possible to insure against deliberate illegal acts, but Congress and state legislatures have the power to change that for this instance.
* We already acknowledge that "to bear arms" in the Constitution is not sweeping and absolute. It is generally illegal to purchase machine guns, mines, shoulder-fired rockets, drones with munitions, or nuclear weapons. Local ordinances limit hunting to shotgun only. I don't buy the argument that requiring proof of secure gun storage would be unconstitutional. But I'm not a Supreme Court Justice.

**UPDATE:**

Not all these were awarded deltas, because my view hasn't fully changed. But the most compelling counterarguments I heard are:

* It's simply impractical because the (current) Supreme Court would overturn it.
* It's too complex a solution. Instead, just enact laws that require secure gun storage instead of going through the insurance. (This got a delta.)
* Reducing the number of unsecured guns wouldn't actually prevent many gun deaths. (I'd need to see statistics on this claim for it to get a delta.)
* The vast majority (99%) of gun deaths are with illegally obtained guns. So adding more restrictions on legal guns wouldn't help. (Again, I'd need to see real stats on this. I don't believe the 99% claim.)
* It's unenforcible without heavy-handed searches and monitoring by the insurance company.
* Outsourcing enforcement of gun safety to private companies is icky.

[Assistant]
A HUGE problem with this is it will ensure only the rich or at least middle/upper middle own guns. As poorer people will be priced out of ownership.

It will almost immediately be called racist/Jim Crow esque.

"You're preventing poor black people from legally owning guns but ensuring rich white people can." (I don't agree with that statement, but it would get said)

>The government could subsidize the insurance so that the the coverage for the first gun is affordable for all.

This essentially renders the entire idea moot, its just the government spending more money. Also "affordable" means different things to different people.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is Happening in Your body During a Hangover?

It can't just be dehydration. I've seen hungover people drink water and still look sick. What exactly is "wrong" during a hangover? Thanks!

[Assistant]
Basically alcohol is metabolized by the body by something called zero order kinetics. This is a fancy way of saying the body can only metabolize a certain amount of alcohol per unit time. When alcohol (ethanol, really) is broken down, it is turned into acetaldehyde and then to acetate. Acetaldehyde is what actually causes the hangover, and because alcohol is only metabolized at a certain rate, when you drink enough you get a build up of the bad stuff that takes a while to go away, thus the hangover.

There are medications (disulfiram, classically) used to treat alcoholism. It blocks the last step of metabolism (acetaldehyde to acetate), causing bad hangover symptoms and making you not want to drink. Of course you need to get the alcoholic to take the medication for this to be effective. But other drugs, such as certain antibiotics (like metrinidazole) have a disulfiram-like effect and can make you sick if you drink too much while taking them.

Another fun fact is methanol (from bad moonshine) is metabolized by the same enzymes. You can treat methanol poisoning by giving someone ethanol, which competes for the enzyme and reduces the breakdown of methanol into formic acid, which is what is toxic. Some rural ERs will actually use liquor to cure methanol poisoning, because the other antidote (fomepizole) is not always available.


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

[User]
Is deductive logic a special case of inductive logic, or is inductive logic a special case of deductive logic? (Or is this entire disjunction false?)

I was reflecting on inductive vs. deductive logic, and I feel like I'm hitting an infinite regress or something and my brain is short-circuiting.

**In favor of deductive being a special case of inductive:**

* Deductive logic is just inductive logic where the probabilities of the premises = 1.

**In favor of inductive being a special case of deductive:**

* Probable premises (i.e., premises with probability x, where 0 < x < 1) necessarily/certainly follow probably. That is, the inductive premises are nested in certaintynamely, being *certainly probable.*

I think it's similar to having something be necessarily possible.

Thanks. Maybe I'm just being silly.

[Assistant]
Inductive and deductive arguments are distinct because each is characterized by a distinct relationship between the premises and the conclusion. The premises of a deductive argument *purportedly* entail the conclusion (if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true). The premises of an inductive argument *purportedly* support the conclusion, but do not entail the conclusion.

Whether the premises are certainly true or probably true is irrelevant to the form of the argument, and it is the form of the argument that makes inductive and deductive arguments distinct. A deductive argument in which the premises do in fact entail the conclusion is valid, and if the premises are true, then that argument is sound. An inductive argument in which the premises do in fact support the conclusion is considered strong (depending on how well-supported), and if the premises are considered true then it is also considered cogent.


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

[User] ELI5: When we look into deep space we see the light of stars from deep into the past. Will we, at some point when we can see far enough, be able to see the Big Bang?

[Assistant]
We'll never be able to see the Big Bang, but we can already see the next best thing.

First thing to point out is that the Big Bang didn't happen at a specific point in spaceit happened *everywhere,* so there's no waiting around for a specific moment when light from the Big Bang finishes crossing the distance between its origin and the Earth.

Second thing is that for the first ~370,000 years, the entire universe was still so dense and hot that it was completely opaque, like being filled with a thick dense fog. We can't see anything from before the fog cleared, but we can see the last light from the fog itself, emitted in every direction from every point in space. It's called the Cosmic Microwave Background, and it's visible throughout the entire sky if you have a sensitive wide-field radio telescope.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does Japan drive on the left, even though they have never been a part of the British Empire?

[Assistant]
The Japanese are actually kind of...adopted children of the British Empire, in that the Brits were actually a really big influence on the Japanese during the Meiji Restoration and the rapid industrialization of the country. The Brits also were a major ally of the Japanese during their formative Imperial years (particularly during WW1), to the point that the war planners in Washington assumed that WW2 would pit the United States against both the British and Japanese empires at once for control of the Atlantic and Pacific.

Point being; the Japanese got a lot of influence from the Brits, so it's not unexpected for them to have picked up some British customs along the way.


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

[User] Why don't we always get immunity to diseases that we have had once before?

[Assistant] Lots of infectious diseases you can get multiple times because different strains exist, or mutate into different strains that is immune to the antibodies that worked on the earlier strain. Also some diseases like the common cold are actually caused by a bunch of different viruses that all prompt the same symptoms.


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

[User]
eli5 How did the telephone in the 1955 Cadillac Westchester work?

ELI5
Knowing cell phones weren't invented tyet, how did the telephone in the 1955 Cadillac Westchester operate?

[Assistant]
It was most likely using something called MTS.

In 1949, a service called "Mobile Telephone Service" (MTS) was launched by the Bell System. It provided a way for a radio to connect to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

The method was basically to use VHF radio, like a ham radio or CB, to communicate with an operator who would then place the call. It was not available in most areas, but it did have coverage in some major metropolitan areas like Chicago.

It was limited in its utility by things like range, congestion and the fact that the equipment to use it was both heavy (80 pounds) and expensive.


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

[User]
[Blade Runner] How could someone determine if they are a replicant by themselves?

Surely by the end of the film. Deckard must have some suspicions about being a replicant, is there anyway he could find out without getting the test administered?

[Assistant]
Are you asking "for a friend?"

The following is assuming a Nexus 6 model living freely and independently in the world:

With a properly established personal history and isolated from any outside corroboration, not really.

If you run into other people and notice suspiciously identical personal experiences among you or if someone has details of your private thoughts, then you might reasonably assume you have a manufactured life. It would be hard to prove either way. Even Deckard is no certainty, depending on which version of his story you heard.

If you die for no apparent reason in your prime, that is also an indicator. At which point it's not terribly important. What's it matter anyway. If your life is so human that no one including yourself knows, who cares? Even with a manufactured past you still live in the now. You feel things, make choices and experience life as it is happening - just like a human.


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

[User]
[Mortal Kombat] Is death really that big of a deal?

So we've seen sorcery like Quan Chi's and we know Raiden has some sort of say on how he can bring back people but is death really permanent? Could characters like Noob Saibot, Shang Tsung, and others be brought back?

[Assistant]
If the religions are right and you go to heaven / paradise / nirvana when you die, death isn't a big deal at all. Even reincarnation with a chance to advance to one of the above softens death's sting.

But in Mortal Kombat, you aren't guaranteed one of these fates. You might get stuck in purgatory as a shade, sent to hell as a spectre, or yanked out of the ground as a zombie. All of these are less-than-idea states.

And worse, even if you *do* get sent to heaven, if one of the less-noble Kombatants wins the tournament, what do you think is going to happen? You'll be sitting on a cloud, strumming a harp and wondering why you didn't go to more toga parties in your mortal incarnation, when suddenly a giant bodybuilder with a skull mask kicks in the door, smashes an angel in the face with a sledgehammer, and shouts "You weak pathetic fools, I've come for your souls!"

Yeah, it's probably for the best that we deal with this whole Tournament thing here and now.


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

[User]
[Marvel and DC universes] What could cause Wayne Enterprises or Stark Industries to go bankrupt?

Both companies have seemingly limitless amounts of cash. What could possibly cause it all to dry up?

[Assistant]
Wayne Enterprises could, in most circumstances, outright buy most iterations of Stark's companies without much (if any) fuss. Between Wayne Enterprises and LexCorp, the two holding companies make an absurd amount of the GDP of the US - upwards of *half* if some claims are to be believed. Remember that WayneTech is only one small part of what Wayne Enterprises encompasses.

Stark, meanwhile, has gone bankrupt or been bought out multiple times. His current company (Stark Unlimited) is something like the sixth company he's had and built up. It wouldn't take nearly as much for his companies to go bankrupt.


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

[User] [Star Wars] In Legends, they name a ship after the A-Wing pilot who brought down the Super Star Destroyer in the Battle of Endor. How did they know who he was?

[Assistant]
Prior to the Battle of Yavin, the Rebel Alliance was a collection of scattered rebel cells that acted primarily independently. Thus, there wasn't much of an organized central command. The destruction of the first Death Star changed things - the Rebel Alliance was now seen as an actual movement that might actually take down the Empire. More and more people flooded to the fight against the Empire and the Alliance solidified into an actual fighting force and by the time of Endor it had a central command and a degree of centralized organization. With that came record-keeping and personnel files and all that.

Games like *TIE Fighter* suggest that Star Destroyers had some kind of tactical oversight ability over the fighters that sortied from their bays. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to learn that the Rebels had the same - they could simply look through their logs and see which A-wing crashed into the SSD. After-action reports from the wingmates of the A-wing pilot who didn't return would report the same and corroborate the records of the capital ships' computers.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why have I heard older conservatives tell younger liberals to wait until they're older, then they'll change their mind?

I'm a college student, technically leaning to the left politically. My dad says wait until I'm older, then I'll change my mind. Something like I have to learn the value of income. He's not the only conservative I've heard say that. Is there a valid argument behind this saying?

[Assistant]
I wouldn't call it a valid argument, but he does have a point.

At the moment, you were a child, then in school, then in college - so you have never had to pay any real taxes.

Therefore it's very easy to believe taxes should be raised to pay for social programs/education etc.

However assuming you graduate college and get a decent paying job, you may be more reluctant to support these policies - since you will have worked hard your whole life, finally get a house/car etc. and now you're expected to give away 20% of your hard work to help other people who you may think don't deserve it.

It's easy to support liberal policies when you're receiving the benefits of them and not paying the costs, but it's harder when you are the one paying the costs without receiving the benefits.

This doesn't mean that he is correct totally, but he is correct in the sense that you have only experienced one side of the coin, and it is definitely possible that you will change your mind as you get older.

NB. This only touches on economic policy, not social.


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

[User]
ElI5- what did Nietzsche mean when he said "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you."

I always interpreted it as if you look at something long enough, you'll become that thing. For example, if I see drama and chaos everywhere I go, that means I'm a chaotic person. Whereas if I saw peace and serenity everywhere I go, I will always have peace and serenity.

Make sense?

[Assistant]
The context gives some clue, especially the preceding sentence:

> He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

The warning might be generalized: You can't go out changing things, without things also changing you. When you struggle against people or things, for reasons good or bad, those people or things *will take a hand in shaping who you become.* You must accept that fact, and live with its consequences, if you are to take up a struggle.

Much of Nietzche's writing, especially in *Beyond Good & Evil*. is concerned with power, influence, and will, and about how and why one exercises one's will upon the world. The simplest reading in that context, is just that this is always a two-way road. You exercise your will, *and* you are exercised upon.


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

[User]
CMV: JK Rowling's messages in her books were downright awful and dangerous, especially for a kid's book.

CMV: When I say "JK Rowling messages are dangerous" I'm referring to the messages she had in her book regarding the Dursleys and Harry's relationship.

In any other setting, Harry's childhood would have been a villain's origin story. From what I remember it only shows the abuse Harry takes from them daily and never Harry learning any form of moral compass or lesson. I'm surprised he managed to make friends with Ron after all the abuse he took from the people that "loved him".

Frankly, I'm shocked that Harry never tried to kill the Dursley's after learning he was a wizard.

But what pisses me off the most is the "motherly love" angle Dumbledore told him about and how his mother's love lives on through his aunt. WHAT THE FUCK ROWLING. You basically told your reader "You have to stay with your abuser because they love you deep down". "They love you deep down" is something you should never say to an abuse victim, especially one with childhood trauma.

This motherly love also seems to have faulty logic to it. Harry spends most his time away from the Durselys and that love never seems to go away. At most he only seems to spend about 3-5 weeks max a year at their house.

My main complaint is: Using the neglect and favouritism for Dudley that the Dursleys clearly displayed and playing it off as normal and something that everyone knows about but does nothing about is a dangerous message. Imagine a kid in a similar situation to Harry. Seeing his role model suffer every day and dealing with it because "That's what Harry would do".

In real life, there would not be a competent solicitor (lawyer) in the area that wouldn't call the police and have the Dursleys arrested for child abuse.

But there were many alternatives that Dumbledore could have had placed on Harry's protection when his parents died.

Hogwarts is a well-guarded area thanks to Dumbledore and the forest. Why didn't Harry just stay at Hogwarts? You would have thought that Dumbledore would make an exception for "The boy who lived" and the one destined to save the world and keep him close to the school grounds for extra spell practise and security. Why not give Harry a "summer school" program taught by Dumbledore himself or even Hagrid, allowing Harry to learn more about magical creatures.

The ministry is well aware of Harry and his legacy. Why not have Harry taken by the ministry and placed in some sort of witness protection that Dumbledore can closely monitor? Maybe Dumbledore can even handpick the members of Harry's guard. Like, say... The Weasely family?

Sirius was a wanted criminal but I don't doubt that he could have kept Harry safe. It took the death eaters half a year to find them when they lived in the house during Deathly Hallows and Sirius showed great magical skill during the battle at the ministry. Surely he of all people would have kept Harry safe. Plus the fact that he's Harry's Godfather must mean something to the magical world. Would that not make him Harry's sworn parent. Surely that's enough to warrant at least some of Lily Potter's protection.

and those are just off the top of my head.

My td'lr is this: Having Harry stay with clearly abusive parental figures and forcing him to stay is a fucked up message for kids, especially those that are going through similar situations. In real life, the Durselys would be arrested for their crimes and taken away from Harry.

[Assistant]
When dumbledore said that he was explaining the original thought and why they didnt keep him.

They didnt know Petunia / all of them would neglect Harry. Their belief wasnt anything concrete just a hope that it would continue through the maternal connection **not** that Petunia would love him but that whatever kept Harry getting killed by Voldemort (keep in mind they **do not know it was the horcrox thingy**) was something to do with Lily and it **might** continue with Petunia through a gene connection. Harry had to stay with someone with the same blood for this protection.

In fact Harry Potter puts a lot of agency with Harry. It never ever shames him for moving in with a different family, it never shames him for cutting out the Dursleys, the **only** acknowledgement is that Dudley was a child and therefore wasnt a horrible person necessarily but needed to grow up, Harry still didnt completly get over any of it though.


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

[User]
How did the rabies virus evolve to cause the death of its host so quickly? From an evolutionary point of view, that appears counter productive?

Most of the natural hosts of rabies virus only survive for a few weeks.  How did the virus evolve this characteristic ? Isnt that a poor evolutionary trait? Why didnt it evolve to cause the host a mild encephalitis  and irritable state where the animal would show a degree of aggression but not perish in a week or so?

[Assistant]
You are looking at it purely from a human/canine/etc perspective.

You're 100% correct that diseases that purely exhibit such extreme symptoms and progression aren't very long-lived, but there's a reason why rabies - unlike eg the Spanish Flu, sweating sickness, and thousands of other bouts of infectious diseases that came and went - issue still around today.

From an evolutionary perspective, a disease gets no more "points" for infecting humans than it would any other species. The "primary host" for a disease is one which is crucial for its reproduction, and there are plenty of mammalian species in which rabies is not an immediate death sentence, including those who coexist with it without any symptoms at all.

The primary carriers or rabies in the USA are bats, raccoons, skunks, and foxes; all of whom are primary hosts for rabies that *aren't* killed off by the disease. Rabies, apart from the dead-end human hosts, is actually an incredibly successful and adaptable disease, that can infect (and spread) via both warm-and cold-blooded hosts, and has been even artificially spread to avian subjects as well (who aren't killed by it but do remain infected/symptomatic).

In fact, in all other regards, rabies is downright terrifying from a epidemical perspective. It's theorised that it would be capable of spreading as an STD between hypothetically "infected but somehow not dying so quickly" human subjects, as it's been found in both semen and vaginal secretions.


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

[User] Forgive me if this has already been asked, but why is it that, historically, natures giants are herbivores (i.e. blue whales, elephants, brachiosaurus)?  What is it about plants that are more beneficial in sustaining a larger body than meat?

[Assistant] Every level you go up in the food chain requires ten times as much from the one below it. 100 pounds of cow needs 1000 pounds of grass, 100 pounds of lion needs 1000 pounds of cow and 10000 pounds of grass. Imagine how much meat a carnivorous elephant would  need.


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

[User]
[MCU] How come Ant-Man can punch Ghost?

Hey everyone, i'm not a huge consumer of the MCU but have recently been trying to catch up so that I can enjoy Endgame. I was watching Ant-Man and the Wasp and I do not believe this was addressed. I also am not incredibly familiar with the names of the players at the moment, so will try my best.

My question is simple...if Ghost has some sort of quantum disposition thing going on and cannot touch anything - how does she take any damage at all? In the big battle towards the end she does get a bit of a kicking and i'm trying to understand how.

[Assistant]
She can touch stuff, its just on and off.

Her power is fundamentally unstable, so when she wants to be intangible theres a chance that shell suddenly become tangible. And the thing thats destroying her life is that when she wants to be solid, she frequently goes ghostly.


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

[User] ELI5: If EMPs can shut down all electricity, why dont they effect the electrical impulses in our bodies?

[Assistant]
First lets look at what an EMP actually is. It is an "electromagnetic pulse", or an extremely powerful oscillating magnetic field. This causes currents to be formed in conductors through induction, and is more powerful the longer the conductor. The result is powerful surges of electricity in the power grid, and electronics relatively small surges of power can physically damage the extremely delicate semiconductors in the chips. That is why electronics are damaged or destroyed by EMPs.

Inside your body is different. We don't have lengths of wire or other conductors in our body; the "electrical impulses" that occur in our body are extremely short range charge interactions between neighboring cells. These *can* be influenced by electric charges being passed through our body such as with a Taser, but an EMP has no way to cause such charge differentials because there isn't any portion of our body that reacts strongly to magnetic fields.


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

[User]
When I turn on a flahslight, am I creating brand new light particles (photons?) that didn't previously exist?

.

[Assistant]
Short answer: Yes.

Electrical energy goes into the light-emitting device (whether that's an incandescent bulb or a light-emitting diode) and gets converted into photons emitted from the flashlight.


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

[User] Could an creature have both an endo and exoskeleton? Do any?

[Assistant]
As far as i understand it, no creatures have both as it is simply not required. One of the basic functions of a skeleton (exo or endo) is simply to provide structural support for the creature, so it can move. If it has a exoskeleton it has no need of an endoskeleton, and vice versa.

However i'm not sure if you would classify a creature which has an endoskeleton, but also has some kind of bonelike armour (not connected to the endoskeleton) under this category.


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

[User] Biologists say that humans have 10x more bacteria in their body than human cells, but how can this number be possible?

[Assistant] Bacteria are much smaller than human cells, roughly 1/10th the diameter in size. Imagine a cantaloupe compared to a blueberry or a grape to get a rough idea of their relative sizes. There's a very large population of bacteria living in your gastrointestinal tract, which is where that 10x number usually comes from. By weight bacteria still only make up around 1-2% of your body mass.


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

[User] [Star Trek] If Data was so unique as an android, then what was Roger Korby making?

[Assistant]
Data was unique because he had the potential to be very, very human. He could learn, grow, decide things on his own and... Let's not forget. He was fully functional and anatomically correct.

Korby's androids, on the other hand, were trapped by their programming. Unlike the superior Soong-types, the Korby-type androids couldn't learn the way that Data could, they had to be programmed. While Data grew into a very human being after a few years, Korby's androids, after five years, were unable to demonstrate the barest shred of humanity. Despite the fact that several of them were programmed with human minds, unlike the blank slates that the Soong-types began as!

Data was, in short, unique because he could improve on his own, with the only needed input being his own senses. Korby-types, however, had to be programmed for any kind of improvements or changes.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why, in the modern age of "HD" obsession do phone conversations still sound like you're listening through a tin can?

It struck me as odd when I was listening to a call-in radio show last night. The hosts were having trouble hearing the caller, and rightly so, because she sounded like she was transmitting from Mars. Couldn't "they" employ some kind of EQ feature for voice? "Android. Now available with 'TrueVoice'^TM "

  **EDIT:** I noticed a few people citing bandwidth issues. Is this because the conversation is "live?" I mean, I can stream HD video on my phone, but I assume it's only because buffering is involved.

  Also, with the audio quality being inherently poor, couldn't one develop some kind of software that fixes the voice after the fact (like the EQ I had mentioned), or can you just not polish this particular turd?

[Assistant]
It's a legacy due to cost. When we used the old analogue (POTS) phone system it was designed to work well enough to be intelligible, but no more than that because a slight increase in quality would have cost huge sums.

Then technology moved on and phones first went digital. When this was specified it turned out that a method of encoding speech as good as the previous analogue system could be achieved, so that was standardised upon.

At the time the digital voice links used a data rate of 9600 bits per second. Technology always gets cheaper, so when we were still using modems in pre-broadband days we were getting 56,000 bits per second which is enough for CD quality phone calls, but the standards had already been set, were 'good enough' and standards are best if they don't keep changing.

So the world stuck with a standard voice call using 9600 bits per second.


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

[User] [Warhammer/WH40K] Has a servant of Chaos every truly escaped from servitude to the Dark Gods?

[Assistant]
For those who truly repent, it is possible to die in the Emperor's light.

But really that's your only hope. As long as you're alive, the Ruinous Powers will have their hooks in you. It doesn't matter if you're piling skulls for the Skull Throne or down on your knees flogging yourself before the high altar of a sacred shrine; you're still at risk. If you truly want redemption, turn yourself in to the Inquisition, make a full confession, and then when they burn you try to die singing hymns to the Emperor.


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

[User]
How is it that voltage lags current in a capacitive AC circuit?

I thought that voltage is the force that compelled current to flow, so how could it be that current can flow ahead of voltage?

[Assistant]
Instantaneously, what is happening is that current is proportional to the derivative of voltage: i=C dv/dt.  There's no anticipation: if voltage sits steady for a while and then starts to change, there will be no current until it starts to change.

With a steady sine wave, it turns out that dv/dt is largest when v is near zero.  It can appear that the current is anticipating the peak voltage, by having its own peak earlier.  But it's really just a reaction to the derivative at that moment, not an anticipation of the upcoming peak.  Sine waves are special in that the derivative is the same shape as the original waveform.  If you had a different voltage waveform, perhaps a triangle wave, the current waveform would be a different shape, not a time shifted version of the voltage waveform.

By the way, it's not always true that voltage is the cause and current the effect.  It's just an engineering choice that we set up most electrical systems that way.


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

[User]
[Westworld] This definitely seems like a place where some guests would stay up all night on a bender of alcohol, gambling, bar fights, etc. How do the park workers get the time to repair/reset everything without guests noticing?

Is there a rule that guests have to go to bed at midnight? That seems like it would ruin the immersion.

Are the hosts programmed to spike your drink (without you knowing) to force you to sleep?

[Assistant] Throughout the show in the first season they're constantly talking about immersion and integration of other stories. What in guessing happens is that they simply shut down all "side quests" where that robot was a key factor until they're able to bring it back. The "locals" are the ones that take the "dead bodies" away to be "buried", but the technicians simply take it from there.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] A Jedi from the 10,000 years in the past is brought forward in time to just before the Phantom Menace. What changes in the order and the society at large shocks them the most?

Can be from further then 10,000 years if that's not long enough.

[Assistant]
The first change they'll notice is the lightsabers which weren't fully invented as a small device until somewhere after the great hyperspace war. Then they'll be terrified of the existence of the sith having ever happened. Older jedi studied a more balanced version of the force and while the focused on the light side certain dark side techniques were studied and taught. The modern jedi under Yoda and his predecessors became more involved in politics and more extreme in their beliefs and practices. Instead of treating the dark and light side as necessary for balance they focused only on the light side and shunning the darkside completely. Seeing jedi involved in politics beyond an advisory or emergency role and their ignorance and fear of emotional attachments and the darkside would be a massive culture shock for the more scholarly monks of ancient Jedi.

Edit: ancient jedi also often had families and children they raised. They existed almost as a separate ethnic group instead of a religious cult.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is brushing your teeth so important for their (our) health? Did our ancestors make any moves towards cleaning their teeth? Is it related to dietary trends over the years?

I feel that before the modern era of tooth care, brushing would have been ridiculed, rudimentary and unsanitary.    How did the hygienic custom begin?

[Assistant]
IANAD(entist), but our modern dental predicament is due to the ridiculous amounts of sugars that we consume in our foods.

While there were toothbrushes and other dental instruments going back hundreds of years, food stuffs had far less sugar; people didn't have over processed industrial starchy-corn-syrup-fructose overloads to contend with.

A lot of mummies exhumed from around the world have excellent teeth.

Who knows, maybe in another hundred years or so our teeth will have evolved to cope with the influx of sugar.


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

[User]
What starts the movement of an meteor or a comet? What force made it move initially?

What makes a random object such as a meteor to fly pass planets, what was the initial force or push that starts it's movement? Since Inertia might apply over here(unless it doesn't, the correct me if I'm wrong), wouldn't the space rocks stay in a place, unless an external force is applied on it.

[Assistant]
Much of this motion begins during the gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud around a newly formed star.

As the protostar's gravity pulls the gas and dust into it, conservation of angular momentum will flatten that gas and dust into a rotating disk around the star (the protoplanetary disks you may have heard about).

The exact process of the formation of larger bodies (such as comets, asteroids, and planets) from this gas and dust is still a matter of some debate, but as they do form, they begin to be affected not only by the gravity and orbital motion from the star and the disk, but from each other as well.

So you can imagine a large planet or gas-giant forming and "sweeping" out a path of gas, dust, asteroids, and comets from the disk.  As that large planet barrels through these, their interactions can fling the comets out of the solar system and into the orbits that we see today, only coming back into the solar system to plunge toward the star on huge time scales.

But it all comes back to the motion imparted by the initial gravitational collapse of gas and dust around a new star.  Of course, you can trace it back further if you wish (how did the star collapse to start with?), but I'll leave it at this for now.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do rainbows last so long? I know they come from the refraction of light through rain drops, but aren't those drops always moving? What keeps a rainbow stationary and constant?

[Assistant] It's the same way that cars crossing a bridge are always moving, but "traffic on the bridge" seems stationary and constant.  Some cars exit the bridge, new cars enter the bridge, and so you're looking at different cars, but the same traffic.


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

[User] ELI5:Why did channels like TLC, The History Channel and Discovery Channel switch to airing only shitty scripted reality shows and stop airing anything of substance?

[Assistant]
They try a show and when that show has lots of viewers they get more ad money. They then try to replicate the success with a similar show and that continues until there are not enough viewers to justify the production costs.

Tldr: because people watch it.


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

[User] [Toy Story] Do toy figurines of religious idols really believe they're the religion's diety or do they believe they're a toy?

[Assistant]
It seems that something being a toy depends on how they're viewed by humans, especially children.

So since religious paraphernalia is viewed more as decoration than as a toy, that means that they wouldn't come to life.


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

[User] ELI5: Could investigators go back and test the dna evidence from the O.J Simpson case using today's DNA techniques to confirm if it was truly Simpson's DNA?

[Assistant] There's zero doubt that it was OJ's DNA. OJ's defense was that it was possibly planted by a racist detective(Furhman) as part of a systematic culture of racism in the LA Police Dept. Whether or not it was actually his DNA was not in question. Also the murder weapon was never located, so you couldn't test that.


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

[User]
How can railway cables be kilometres long without a huge voltage drop?

I was wondering about this, since the cables aren't immensely thick. Where I live there runs a one phase 1500V DC current to supply the trains with power, so wouldn't there be an enormous voltage drop over distance? Even with the 15kV AC power supply in neighbouring countries this voltage drop should still be very significant.

[Assistant]
Part of designing such systems is allowing for fairly substantial swings in actual supply voltage compared to the nominal.

(The IEC 60850 standard, for instance, specifies that a nominal 1500 VDC system is in spec as long as the voltage on the line is anywhere between 1000 and 1800 VDC.)

System design considerations include the selection of suitably-large, low-resistance conductors, as well as regular placement of substations to connect the high-voltage AC grid to the railway's overhead wires.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Why wasn't Hermione sorted into Ravenclaw?

[Assistant] Because the hat doesn't sort you based on what traits you *have* the most of.  It sorts you based on what you *value* the most.  Why was Nevllle sorted into Gryffindor despite being a pussy?  What were Crabbe and Goyle sorted into Slytherine despite not having an ounce of Cleverness or Ambition (evil / pureblood house aside).  Why was Luna a Ravenclaw instead of a Hufflepuff?  Hell, why was Ron a Gryffindor?  Just because he's a Weasley?  Hermione wasn't sorted into Ravenclaw because despite her being intelligent and studious, she cared more about bravery.  Look how quickly she jumped at the call of adventure.  She did more to defeat Voldemort than Harry did.


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

[User]
Why is "that was just the initial condition" not considered as an answer to the horizon problem?

[Physics] I understand the problem is that the cmb is uniform and that implies that the early universe mixed, but did it have to mix? Couldn't it have just started off uniform?

[Assistant]
It's possible, but all that does is shift the goalpost without actually explaining anything: why, then, did it start out that way? Given what we know about quantum mechanics, the universe starting out uniform would be *unusual*, so it just raises a bunch of questions that we have no way of even beginning to answer.

To answer it means to start asking questions about the nature of the actual origin of the universe, which is well beyond our means to test (although some cosmologists do enjoy thinking about it, it's entirely conjecture and likely will remain so for the foreseeable future). On the other hand, proposals like inflation, which could resolve the horizon problem, actually predict some measurable effects.

TL;DR it could've been, but that would be weird given what we do understand, and raises a whole bunch of questions that are even harder to investigate than the horizon problem, and so we stick to the line of inquiry that has a chance of going somewhere.


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

[User] ELI5: How does alcohol make you drunk?

[Assistant]
Ethanol molecules are very small, which means they can pass through the barrier between the bloodstream and brain quickly. Once the ethanol molecules reaches the area of the brain responsible for controlling the central nervous system, a number of things happen. Ethanol is considered a depressant, so when it comes in contact with a specific neurotransmitter called Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), it causes the reaction time between neurons to slow down. Essentially, your brain's brakes have failed and the "conductor," GABA, is now too impaired to call for help. This is the very beginning of feeling intoxicated.

Meanwhile, the rest of the ethanol has had time to reach the small intestine and is now entering the bloodstream. More ethanol molecules arrive in the brain and continue to depress or slow down the normal functions of the central nervous system, including the areas of the brain responsible for social caution and good judgment. This is why many people lose their inhibitions and become the life of the party while intoxicated. The ethanol has effectively neutralized the brain's natural "don't do that" switch.

While the brain tries to deal with this new intoxicated sensation, the liver is working overtime to metabolize or convert the ethanol into a harmless form of sugar. A healthy liver can only process a certain amount of ethanol per hour, so the drinker becomes even more intoxicated as the excess continues to flow through the bloodstream and into the brain. More ethanol in the brain means more possible damage to the central nervous system. As the drinker's level of unmetabolized ethanol rises in his or her bloodstream, the depressing effects become more pronounced. When an intoxicated drinker's blood alcohol count (BAC)reaches a certain percentage, generally around .07 to .09 percent ethanol levels, then tasks such as driving become illegal or seriously inadvisable.

As long as the ethanol remains unmetabolized by the liver, the central nervous system will still be impaired and the drinker will still feel intoxicated. This process of eliminating the ethanol from the system could continue for hours, depending on the initial amount of alcoholic beverages consumed. It is possible to consume enough ethanol to cause death, either by compromising the central nervous system beyond repair or by choking on vomit after the natural choking reflex has been suppressed. BAC readings of .50 or more are generally considered fatal.

Eventually the level of ethanol in the bloodstream should be reduced significantly and the neurotransmitters of the central nervous system will fire at their normal rate. A recovering drinker should no longer feel intoxicated within 24 hours or so of his or her first drink. Dehydration and other factors may create a painful sensation known as a hangover, but at least the drinker's central nervous system is no longer too impaired to do its job properly.


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

[User]
[Dune Novels] What is the real basis of prescience?

It seems that to me that there are two main interpretations, but I haven't found any explanation that does not simply take one or the other for granted and then progress to more 'interesting' conclusions from it. One is that the powerfully prescient are capable of absorbing data from their experience and knowledge, and extrapolating incredibly accurate conclusions from it. The other is that they are literally capable of seeing the future - that is, what they see is a direct insight into the future, and not simply an extremely accurate mental model that imitates the future.

For the former, I am reminded of a passage from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon:

>Plodding through the surf, Waterhouse strikes deep craters in the wet sand that are read by the ocean. Eventually the ocean erases them, but in the process its state has been changed, the pattern of its swirls have been altered. Waterhouse images that the disturbance might somehow propagate across the Pacific and into some super-secret Nipponese surveillance device made of bamboo tubes and chrysanthemum leaves. Nip listeners would know that Waterhouse had walked that way. In turn, the water swirling around Waterhouse's feet carries information about Nip propeller design and the deployment of their fleets -- if only he had the wit to read it. The chaos of the waves, gravid with encrypted data, mocks him.

So we can take it as a given, seeing the feats of the Atreides, that in a universe where everything is inextricably causally connected, these prescients are capable of perfectly extracting such information and drawing conclusions from it without error. But how does this explain the no-ships, the Dune tarot, and then the Siona gene? Why would these arrangements of matter make the ability to draw conclusions from prior data impossible, and (if we accept the former conceit) why do they not cause a butterfly effect that completely breaks prescience, particularly when it involves figures with great influence?

On the other hand, if the ability is an application of natural laws hitherto unknown to us which allow direct perception of the future as it is with full context, how exactly are No-ships such a hindrance to prescience? Clearly it is not the case that the mere entry of an individual into a No-ship makes them immune to prescience, since if this were true, you would build No-chambers instead and 'immunize' people against precognition, instead of going so far to create the Siona gene. Yet, if this were not the case, why would a prescient not simply look backwards and forwards in time, looking for the moment when someone enters or exits a No-ship, or more so, looking for external sources of data unprotected against prescience, which can assist in deducing the location of this void?

[Assistant]
I've always taken it more as the former. The existence of the No-Gene and No-Rooms being deliberately engineered to disrupt predictive paths by concealing information from such precient calculations seem to support that. They don't have any magical ability to block far-sight, but rather alter or disrlrupt sources of information as to make accurate predictions impossible.

If Prescience is about accurate predictions, then more data allows you to identify patterns,  which allow you to make accurate predictions. But if you have something which limits data (such as a gene that interferes with Genentic Memory) or patterns (the Holtzman field use in No-Rooms) of atomic behaviour, then you disrupt the ability to make those predictions.


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

[User]
[MCU]: Are the "realms" that asgardians are able to travel too simply other planets? Or are they traveling to different universes.

Asgard seems to be regarded as somehow special because they are able to travel to different realms. But if they're technology only let's them travel to a limited number of planets then aren't they not all that great in comparison to other space faring races?

The collector in guardians of the galaxy said that each infinity stone was a product of a big bang. This would seem to lend to the fact that there is more than one universe in the MCU. Are the asguaridans special for their ability to traverse the different universes?

Also in Thor 2 when they were waiting for the "realms" to align.  Wouldn't they have just said planets if all they were talking about were planet's orbits? It would make more sense if they were talking about the universes aligning in the space outside space-time that they exist in. That would make the event much more special.

[Assistant] In the comics all 9 realms are different dimensions, in MCU i think they are only different parts of space, connected by yggdrasil, which make travel instant, rather then very long, even with ftl. The infinity stones are not a product from a big bang each, they are from before the big bang. It was a great being, that split itself into six parts, the stones. And when the realms would align, i think that it was more that yggdrasils different parts would align, and create all the whacky portals we saw.


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

[User]
How come cars don't automatically detect and tell what is wrong with them? Given all the technology we have today?

All we have is the check engine light. What I would like is an LCD text prompt that tells what specifically is wrong. Is it because repair shops have monopolized on the check engine light reading equipment?

[Assistant]
But they do, just not to you.
You can read out an errorcode and look it up with an instrument for $100 off ebay, but why whould you?

If the code turns out to be, faulty generator, you still need to go to the shop.

And EVERYTHING will give off false messages all the time, the trick is learning how to interpreting them, and the shop is generally better than you (No offence :D).
Do you really want an LCD display that will be filled up with 100+ errorcodes every time you blew a fuse?


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

[User]
[Starship Troopers]At the start of the movie contact with the bugs was fairly limited. How did the Federation get enough Giant Bug larvae to supply them for high school science class dissections?

Making them available for a typical school implies that they have a vast supply of them.  You would think that the larvae of bugs transported across the galaxy and taken from a highly hostile species would be difficult, the Federation had never engaged in planet side combat by this point in Starship Troopers so it boggles the mind how they even got them.  So how are they getting Bug larvae on an almost industrial scale?

[Assistant]
The federation had limited colonization efforts near the arachnid quarantine zone. There was also at least one non federation human colony inside arachnid space. The arachnids weren't overtly hostile to human presence at least initially and exotic zoology would make a fine export for a fledgling colony that isn't mining or farming and needs to import supplies.

Aside from that the bug they were dissecting is relatively harmless beyond burrowing and maybe swarming over a person. Breeding a population to understand bug biology and eventually using it for propaganda purposes makes sense. The point isn't to teach school children how bug anatomy works its to teach them that bugs can die and where the most lethal areas to hit are. You start with the relatively disgusting but harmless drones so by the time they see the warriors it's less of a shock to them.


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

[User]
[Fallout] How has no one written a survival guide before Moria brown's one?

I was just thinking about this. In the two hundred years since the bombs fell wouldn't someone have made a survival guide by now?

[Assistant] Because like Moria says, the book is meant for adventures and people who are going out and about the wasteland. The ordinary people know what's out there and survive by simply staying in their protected space and defending it. These people might have a run in with some or other animals or mutants but it's nothing they can't shoot themselves out of.


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

[User]
[Warframe] So what does my future look like? Should I get out of dodge asap, or am I going to live?

So I, a grineer marine, was assigned to a critical area in hopes that I could help defend against the tenno when the facility is attacked. Well, today a tenno attacked and before the alarm was actually raised, he ran right in front of me. He darted away before I could get a shot out, and he completed his mission before I was given a chance to do anything. I'm afraid my superiors are going to murder me with whatever comically cruel item they can conjure up in their minds. Is this true? Am I doomed?

(Stepping out of character for a moment, always wanted to know what happened to those marines who I refused to interact with violently or otherwise.)

[Assistant] Obviously you are defective and will need to report for recycling so that your cybernetics can be put to better use for the queens.  Don't try running not many steel meridian traitors can stand up to the wrath of the grineer long enough for you to escape to earth.


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

[User] [Doctor Who] In Day of the Doctor, all 13 Doctors communicate with the War Council and save Gallifrey. Any indication as to where in each Doctor's personal histories they were from? Perhaps based on their clothing? Except the Seventh Doctor, who wore two two sets of clothes during the scene.

[Assistant] As far as i know, there is no indication at which point in their lives they arrived there. it seems all of them were alone tho, so most likely at a point where they didnt have any companions. but there is no telling how old they actually were when it happend, and it wouldnt matter since due to how meeting yourself works, you dont remember it untill your oldest version experiences it, so only the 11th doctor would remember it.


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

[User]
Starting Postdoc@30

Hi, I recently graduated with a PhD in a STEM field from a top tier department in my field. I have 2 publications so far and at least 2 more in line, planned for this year. I accepted a postdoc position at another University which is also well ranked, but in a slightly different area. I do want to aquire the skills that the postdoc will offer, cause I think they will be quite valuable, even if I want to make a switch to the industry.

However, now I'm feeling ambiguous about my decision. I feel like I accepted the first position that was offered to me, without giving due thought to other options. It feels my dreams of landing a tenure track position might be a fool's errand. Based on what I gleaned from the posts on here, most people report negative experiences of postdoc... The regret of getting stuck, of being exploited. I am 30 and have minimal savings, in a different country and have no relationship (been that way for a while). Am I being naive...? The probability of landing a tenure track position seems too low. However, any mentor I talk to encourages me to pursue the dream as "I have potential". Any advice...? I know I can get an industry job, after searching for a while, which pays atleast twice as much. However, I fear il be bored of working in the industry soon and will hate myself 5 or 10 years down the line for giving up on my dream. (I don't know if I am ambitious or stupid)

Any advice from someone who has been through a similar phase..?

[Assistant]
Not everybody who does postdocs and then moves to industry jobs regret it, even if financially they are worse off in the long term. It can be very rewarding to do research for a few years, even if you have no long-term future in academia, and most likely you do not.

Since we don't know your field, we can't say your chances of getting a TT position, but given the range of probabilities that exist, your chances range from negligible to very bad, unless you have already got a paper in Nature or Science. Your supervisor's claim that you 'have potential' means very little here since a very large fraction of the very large number of academics stuck on fixed-term contracts have loads of potential and would be just as good or better than most tenured academics. Academia does not reward ability with jobs.


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

[User] ELI5 Why do certain sound frequencies make us feel unnerved/afraid?

[Assistant]
Your brain has a sort of "library" of sounds. For example, loud thuds and booms in nature are usually something like thunder, a large boulder/tree falling, etc.

These grab your attention because they present imminent danger and you generally have a good idea why.

For sounds which are not in that "library", your brain has no built in instinct other than to heighten your senses and try to figure it out. The heightened senses will likely make you feel uneasy simply because your brain is trying its best to piece together what's happening and, putting it bluntly, your brain doesn't like not knowing things.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does a rice cooker know that the rice inside it is cooked?

Usually, i cook long grained white rice in our rice cooker and it takes about 10 minutes to cook. But recently, we switched to brown rice and its cooking time is longer, i think like 25 minutes.

edit: thank you for all the answers guys!

[Assistant] Once the rice cooker's thermal sensor detects the pot going above 212 degrees, the water has all been absorbed. At that point, the rice is done. To prevent the rice from cooking any further, the sensor automatically trips the shut-off switch for the heating mechanism.


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

[User] Do cats and reptiles have similar eyes because of convergent evolution, or could they maybe be using the same genes?

[Assistant]
You would need to clarify what you mean by "similar eyes". If you are referring to the vertically elliptical pupils that cats have (narrow rather than round), then yes, it is probably convergent. If you look at an evolutionary tree of the terrestrial vertebrates, vertically elliptical pupils appear in a handful of isolated groups. Many reptiles have pupils that are round, like most mammals, suggesting that the common ancestor to reptiles and mammals probably had round pupils and that vertical pupils evolved independently in those handful of groups.

Now if you're talking about similar visual capabilities, well that is probably not correct.  Mammals and reptiles generally have different visual sensitivities, with reptiles generally having much better color vision than mammals, with the exception of snakes and nocturnal lizards such as geckos.

Finally, if you talking about just the general shape of the eye, than those similarities are likely due to conserved genes, but that would apply to amphibians and fish as well.


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

[User]
[MCU]Why didn't Doctor Strange use the Time Stone to go back in time and hide the Infinity Stones better, or to kill Thanos at a more convenient time in the past or using the Time Stone's time manipulation powers dump Thanos into the end of the universe or freeze him in time forever?

Any issues of "But Thanos has an Infinity Stone so the Time Stone does not work!" are neutered if Strange goes back far enough that Thanos has none and then, he can use his time control powers to fuck Thanos up good.

If the movie ending was the "only way forward" then why not just change the past?  And as we saw with vision, the Time Stone absolutely can work on the others.  If Thanos getting them all was "inevitable" for some reason because he was a badass and would never quit, why not freeze him in time forever or freeze him for a few moments then dump him in another dimension or dump him at the end of the universe?  Or freeze him for a short time, then dump him into intergalactic space.  Or into a sun.  He isn't a god, dropping him into a sun or black hole would get the job done.

We see in Doctor Strange's movie that the stone can manipulate limited areas, so it only effecting the whole universe is a non-issue.

[Assistant] People were freaking out about Strange using the stone to go back 10 minutes, you're talking about going back years or at least months. By the time Strange was aware of Thanos's plans billions had already died, it's not entirely clear to me how those people can be brought back without at least the soul stone though presumably people were brought back by Strange's shorter rewind as well.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Why not just send the Ring to Valinor?

It's not like Sauron can hop over the ocean and fight Manwe and all the other Valar to take back the Ring. Sending the Ring to the Undying Lands seems like a much simpler way to keep the Ring out if Sauron's hands than sending it to Mordor, where its liable to be intercepted and taken back by Sauron.

[Assistant]
Because they knew that the West would never accept it. The Ring is more or less a Middle Earth problem, it's up the the peoples of Middle Earth to solve it on their own instead of relying on the Valar to do it for them.

The Valar did help though by sending the Istari to guide the peoples of Middle Earth.


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

[User]
Why aren't asynchronous processors a viable replacement for synchronous processors?

As a computer scientist, I've always been fascinated by the idea of a clock-less processor, but I have very little knowledge of electrical engineering, so I've never really understood why they're not considered a viable replacement for modern synchronous processors? Is there some inherent flaw in making a circuit without a clock that makes it impractical for CPUs?

[Assistant]
Two big things:
1) More space is required due to completion signal detection circuits.
2) Synchronous designs are easier to test.

That's really about it. Most of the other reasons we don't make them is no one is trained to make them and none of the design programs are built around asynchronous designs.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do energy companies like Con Edison give you tips on how to use less energy?

I see ads on the NYC subway where Con Edison gives tips on how to reduce your energy use. Why are they trying to get you to use less energy? Doesn't that mean less money for them?

[Assistant] As a regulated utility, they make a profit based on negotiations with the state, not based on exactly how much electricity they sell. In fact they can get paid to reduce demand, as a substitute for getting paid to build more supply.


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

[User]
Is it possible for a star to be cold?

If it is, is the limit absolute zero? And a follow-up, is there any limits on how HOT things can be?

[Assistant]
Stars can be cold if they are brown dwarfs, objects much bigger than Jupiter but not big enough to ignite nuclear fusion at their core, or black dwarfs, collapsed medium-sized stars (white dwarfs) that have radiated away all their thermal energy. The universe isn't old enough to have black dwarfs though.

relephant edit: in brown dwarves you can still have deuterium fusion, but not hydrogen fusion, and it's debatable whether these are stars are not.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the "sharp" in sharp cheddar? How are there various levels of "sharp"?

[Assistant] The term "sharp" tells you how long the cheese was aged.  Mild is 3 months, sharp is 9 months and extra sharp is more than 18 months.  As it ages, its texture also goes from smooth and creamy to crumbly by developing hard, salt-like crystals called calcium lactate.


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

[User]
[DC] I hear Darkseid remembers the previous iterations of the Multiverse. What are his memories of that time he died in Final Crisis?

Also, is there still a higher-dimensional Darkseid alive and well even though he was recently killed and reborn as a baby?

[Assistant] Supposed he would remember Final Crisis, and yes there is a higher concept Darkseid that is continuous through his incarnations, the Darkseid that interacts with the the universe is an avatar of that higher being.


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

[User] Why does tickeling make us laugh?

[Assistant] The areas of the body that tend to be ticklish are often vulnerable spots, like the neck, sides and stomach. When tickled, we tend to laugh, yet there is something almost unpleasant about it that compels us to protect that area of the body and stop the stimulus. This is believed to come from an impulse of mammalian children to "play fight" and it helps to reinforce the need to protect vulnerable areas from attackers.


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

[User]
[ELI5] What happens to our brain the exact moment we fall asleep?

Like, how in one moment we are awake and in the other unconscious? What precisely happens that triggers it?

[Assistant] Its not really such a sharp transition, you generally drift to sleep and the current theory is that the thalamus (basically a relay station between your senses and your brain) gradually stops transmitting information from your senses to your brain.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does practically every website still have trouble handling high traffic volumes even when they're expecting it?

It seems like everytime I go somewhere to buy tickets, watch an event stream, etc. the site hosting the sale/stream/etc. crashes. How is this still the case in 2016? Can they not prepare servers for increased volume ahead of time?

EDIT: Thank you everybody for your explanations, I guess the technology just isn't there yet. Still incredibly frustrating though!

[Assistant] Servers have a finite amount of processing power. The only way to increase your capacity is to get MORE servers or upgrade the hardware of existing servers. This is an expensive proposition and takes work to do. It doesn't make much sense unless you're expecting to have to handle this sort of volume a lot.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why the Ferengi never had slavery?

>     Quark: I think I figured out why Humans don't like Ferengi.

>     Sisko: Not now, Quark.

>     Quark: The way I see it, Humans used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget.

>     Sisko: Quark, we don't have time for this.

>     Quark: You're overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi: slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you... we're better.

Concentration camps and wars may not be good for business (other people's wars are good for busssiness), but slavery seems to be a thing that Ferengis would do.

[Assistant]
The Ferengi have indentured servitude, and keep almost every feeeemale Ferengi in effective slavery.  Quark is just arguing semantics in an effort to appear morally superior.  He's like those weirdos who harp on word choice rather than subject matter.

E.g. "it's not pedophilia, it's ephebophilia."


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

[User] [WH 40k] Is there an internet?

[Assistant]
Some planets maintain digital data-networks, primarily used by the Adeptus Arbites and the Machine Cult, but these are temperamental and usually ancient systems governed by capricious Machine Spirits.

Nothing like the Internet exists through the Imperium as a whole, nor is it possible.


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

[User]
ELI5: When can a species be mutated much enough to be considered an entirely new species?

Since evolution happens through mutation after every generation, when can a species mutates so much that it is considered an entirely new species? Would there be a point when the parents considered one species while their children are considered an entirely new species?

[Assistant] Species are considered different if they can't produce fertile offspring. It doesn't change in one generation. Different species are very vague expression though because there are many animals that are concerned as different species even they can produce fertile offspring just because they live separately and don't breed in nature.


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

[User]
Does Occam's Razor eliminate teleological explanations for phenomena?

Here's an example:
Why does a bacterium swim up a glucose gradient to a food source?
 The reductionist way to answer this would be to examine the glucose receptors, and what protein messengers they trigger, which result in deformations in the outer membrane.
The teleological answer would say that the bacterium goes through that chemical process *in order to* reach the food source.

While a combination of both explanations are needed for complete understanding, it seems like people tend to consider the reductionist answer to be more real, probably because purpose isn't measurable.
Is an immeasurable but seemingly real phenomenon considered an assumption to be eliminated by Occam's Razor?

EDIT: A better example of teleology being a more effective agent of understanding is explaining why salmon swim upstream. Reductionism examines the chemistry of the fish, where teleology finds the purpose, that is to lay its eggs.

[Assistant]
One important thing to remember is that Occam's Razor is a guideline for theories that have equal explanatory power. It is open to a teleologist to insist that his or her account has more explanatory power, and that, for this reason, its greater complexity does not count against it.

Another thing is that the example you gave is a tricky one. Why should we say the bacterium goes through that chemical process 'in order to' reach the food source? That sounds like a intentionalistic projection onto a creature that is not capable of having intentional, goal-directed action. Why would we need that sort of explanation 'for complete understanding?' Nevertheless, in explaining human or other animal behavior, teleological explanations are very helpful.


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

[User]
Am I correct in thinking zero is the middle of all the numbers?

Or are there any weird high-end math type things that keep this from being true?

[Assistant]
Well, it depends entirely on what you mean by "in the middle of the numbers".

One possible definition of "in the middle" is this: *A number x is in the middle of all numbers if and only if there is a one-to-one pairing between the numbers smaller than x and the numbers larger than x*.

Before we go on, let's try our definition out and see if it makes sense. Let's consider just these five numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Now, is 2 in the middle of these numbers? Let's see. There's only one number less than 2 (namely, 1), but there are three numbers greater than 2 (namely, 3, 4, and 5). There is no way to make a one-to-one pairing between the set {1} and the set {3, 4, 5}, so 2 is not in the middle of these numbers.

Okay, is 3 in the middle of these numbers? There are two numbers less than 3 (namely, 1 and 2), and there are two numbers greater than 3 (namely, 4 and 5). It is possible to make a one-to-one pairing between {1, 2} and {4, 5}: for example, we can pair 1 with 4, and 2 with 5. Therefore, 3 *is* in the middle of these numbers.

Now, it may seem like we've made things needlessly complicated. The point of mathematics, though, is to make things absolutely precise and exact. As a result, mathematics allows us to know things with absolute certainty.

Okay, so, if we use this definition, then is 0 in the middle of all numbers? Yes, it is. There are infinitely many numbers smaller than 0 (-1, -2, -3, ...) and infinitely many numbers larger than 0 (1, 2, 3, ...). We can pair -1 with 1, -2 with 2, -3 with 3, and so on, thus making a one-to-one pairing.

There's an interesting consequence of our definition, though: it states that *every* number is in the middle. Let's look at an example here.

Is 10 in the middle of all numbers? There are infinitely many numbers less than 10 (9, 8, 7, ...) and infinitely many numbers greater than 10 (11, 12, 13, ...). It's possible to make a one-to-one pairing between these two sets: pair 9 with 11, 8 with 12, 7 with 13, and so on. So yes, 10 is in the middle.

The important thing to realize is that it depends on how you define "in the middle". It would be possible to come up with a different definition of "in the middle" such that 0 is in the middle, and nothing else is in the middle; or yet another definition of "in the middle" such that nothing at all is in the middle.


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

[User]
Would You Step Into The Happiness Box?

This is an exert from - "The Big Questions" - by R. Solomon

Here's the question:

[We have developed a machine, a box with some electrodes and a life-support system, which we call the "happiness box". If you get in the box, you will experience a powerfully pleasant sensation which will continue indefinitely with just enough variation to keep you from getting used to it. We invite you to try it. If you decide to do so, you can get out of the box at any time you want to; but perhaps we should tell you that no one, once they have gotten into the happiness box, has ever wanted to get out of it. After 10 hours or so, we hook the life-support system, and the people spend their lifetimes there. Of course, they never do anything else, so their bodies tend to resemble half-filled water beds after a few years because of the lack of exercise. But that never bothers them either. Now it's your decision: would you like to step into the happiness box? Why or why not?]

[Assistant] One interesting question is a reverse example. You find out one day that your whole life has been generated by a happiness box. You now have the choice of shutting off the box and stepping out, or continuing to live your life. Which do you choose, and why?


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

[User]
[LOTR/The Hobbit (movies)] Couple questions (spoilers)

Watching the new hobbit movies for the first time, and i'm confused on a couple things:

  1) If the ring is what gave Gollum an unnaturally long life, shouldn't he have died after he lost it? When Bilbo gave it up in the first LOTR movie he later seemed really weak, and yet Gollum lives 60 years longer after losing the ring. Why was Gollum unaffected by losing it?

  2) In the first Hobbit movie, Saruman is still a good guy, but when LOTR starts he's evil. What happened in the 60 year gap to turn him evil? This stuck out especially because of his dislike of Gandalf causing trouble with the dwarves, to only have him become a bastard in the later films.

Searched for these questions and didn't find anything. Also don't know anything about the books, so my apologies if the answers are obvious to book readers.

[Assistant]
1. Gollum would only have lost his long lifespan if the One Ring was destroyed; while the Ring existed it still sustained him. Peter Jackson messed up and had Bilbo age a lot after giving up the Ring.
2. Saruman had been a traitor to some degree for many decades before the events of The Hobbit, but he was only revealed during the events of LotR. He was always interested in Ring-lore and other arts of the Enemy, originally just to learn how to better oppose Sauron. But eventually he came to think that it would be better if the Wise increased their power as much as possible and took control of Middle-earth, allegedly for the benefit of everyone. He was convinced that the One Ring would provide the necessary power and so he began to search for it himself. He also opposed Gandalf's proposals of attacking Sauron, hoping that if Sauron got strong enough the One Ring would reveal itself openly and he could claim it. But during the events of The Hobbit he decided that Sauron was too likely to find the Ring if things kept going the way they were, and he finally agreed to the attack on Dol Guldur. Then he took Isengard for his own and began to use the palantir. Sauron had a palantir of his own (stolen from Minas Morgul, originally a fortress of Gondor), and Saruman quickly became fully ensnared by Sauron's evil.


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

[User]
How do philosophers conceive of the difference between intended acts ("I want") and normative acts ("I should")?

I'm a psychology researcher working on a model of normativity - the biological and cognitive basis of the sense of "ought". One of our proposals (based on empirical evidence that I omit here) is that there is little distinction between the mechanisms underlying intended actions and actions that are believed normative. What you think is normative (what you think you ought to do) is in essence just what you intend to do, and the experience of a distinction (the sense that there is a big difference between an act that is intended and an act that is normative) is in large part illusory.

Is there any philosophical tradition along similar lines? What have philosophers arrived at when analysing the distinction between normative and intended actions? Are there philosophers who have argued that talk about normativity is not importantly different from talk about what people want?

[Assistant]
Look into A.J. Ayer's Emotivism which is a non-cognitivist theory ("Killing is wrong!" = "Boo killing!" with the latter not being truth-apt).

For a refutation, look into the Frege-Geach-problem.

If you talk about statements that are truth-apt but subjective ("Killing is wrong!" = "I don't like killing."), then look into G.E. Moore's open-question-argument.

Those should be some good starting points.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do the videos from the early 1900's look like they are being played at 2.5x speed?

[Assistant]
The original hand cranked cameras like the path and the bell & Howell 2709 had what was called an 8:1 gear ratio, which meant for every 360 degree crank it would produce 8 frames.

There was a song that cameramen would sing as they handcranked, which would result in about two revolutions per second - 16 frames. It would fluctuate, obviously, and sometimes cameramen would deliberately change their cranking speed depending on the scene.

Projectors were also handcranked in the early days, and the projectionist would change his/her speed depending on the scene.

With the advent of sound, the speed of recording /playback was deliberately changed to 24 frames per second to help with the fidelity of sound.

A proper silent film should be played back at 16/18 frames per second, and some criterion versions were transferred that way.


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

[User]
[Marvel] New Costume for a New Speedster!

Hello Reddit,

My hero name is Speeding Betty, and I've been established in Downriver Detroit for the better part of three months, and I think it's time to go legit! I've clocked up to 300 mph and could probably go faster, but what my dad calls my Speed Aura completely wrecks my clothes once I pass 270ish. My dad is okay with me caping since the Aura cushions my body from physical damage and I get a healing factor, haven't really tested that, because ouch. But the big big BIG hangup right now is the costume. I want it to cut down drag, be able to keep up with me and be resistant to some of the supers in my area. (Fire, Frost, Thunder, guy with a sword) Dad wants it to be in his budget, since he's trying to be supportive, but also wants it to be "modest," which means whatever he wants it to mean after a tangent on the X-Men and showing less skin than a Norse God. Anyway, what do you guys recommend?

[Assistant]
Talk to Reed Richards.

He specializes in unstable molecules costumes that should be able to keep up with anything you can throw at them. If your super speed turns out to be the one thing that the unstable molecule suit can't handle, then that's actually good news, because now you've just given Richards a novel problem to solve. He'll likely spend an afternoon redeveloping materials science from the ground up as an intellectual exercise, and you'll wind up with a nice super suit.


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

[User]
How common is our Moon's orbit which causes it to always show us the same face to Earth?

As stated in the title, is it common for other planetary moons to show the same face to the body they orbit? If not, are there any theories as to how our moon's orbit evolved as such. If so, what causes this to happen?

[Assistant] It's quite common, essentially all the large moons in the solar system are tidally locked to their planet. It's not a random occurrence, it happens because the gravitational gradient from the planet exerts a drag on the rotation of the moon that gradually slows it down until its rotation and its orbit are in synch.


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

[User]
ELI5: The Double-Slit Photon Experiment

In the wise words of Bender, " Sweet photons. I don't know if you're waves or particles, but you go down smooth."

Please help me understand why the results of this experiment were so counter what was predicted, and why the results impact our view of physics?

[Assistant]
Briefly, in the early 20th century, people like Rutherford, Planck and Einstein had competing theories as to whether light was fundamentally a particle or a wave. Thomas Young had performed the double slit experiment by showing that light that passed through two slits resulted in an interference pattern on the detector screen. This is analogous to dropping two stones in a perfectly calm lake. Waves will recede from each stone's landing spot, until the waves collide with each other. Wave crests will collide with other crests, causing supercrests, and troughs will collide with troughs, creating supertroughs (as long as the waves are in phase, which they would be in you dropped the stones at the same time). This pattern of supercrests and supertroughs is called an "interference pattern".  When Young saw an interference pattern on the detector screen, he declared that light behaved in the exact same way as water waves do, and therefore, light is fundamentally a wave.

However, Max Planck had shown that whether light was a wave or not, it existed in discrete packets called quanta. Like a case of beer is divided into 24 beer-sized quanta, you can't have a case of 24.6 beers.

So they were able to repeat the double slit experiment but this time they fired individual quanta of light through the slits, without looking to see which slit the quanta went through.  They observed little dots on the screen, representing each quanta of light.... so... particle?  Except when they kept firing quanta of light through the slits, the individual dots accumulated to form the same interference pattern that Young saw.  This was extremely counterintuitive, because it doesn't seem possible that individual quanta of light could produce such a pattern. How could it? This result suggested that the individual quanta of light were interfering with *themselves*, and therefore must pass through both slits at the same time.

So they decided to add a detector at one of the slits and see which slit the light is going through. To their amazement, when they did this, the interference pattern disappeared, and light clearly passed through one slit or the other, and just showed up on the detector as individual dots with no pattern. So... what?!?

They removed the detector and sure enough, the interference pattern returned.  In conclusion, light appeared to behave as a wave, even individual quanta of light, since it appears to pass through both slits simultaneously, which is necessary for the appearance of an interference pattern.  When you measure which slit the light when through, light appears to behave as a particle, and just flies through one slit or the other, but not both.
**The act of observing the experiment changed the result**.  So light can be described successfully as both a particle **and** a wave.  As it turns out, all matter can be described this way, not just light. This was a tipping point for a new understanding of the universe through quantum mechanics, which is a whole different story.

**TL;DR Light is a wave, unless you look at it like a particle, then it's a particle, but also it's a wave. Simple.**


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

[User]
[Predator] Predators/Yautja seem to be all about using their skill, cunning, and intelligence to hunt the most dangerous game in the galaxy, so why is their primary weapon a shoulder mounted plasma cannon equipped with auto-aim?

Sure, it showcases their technological prowess, but it takes away all of the 'sport' of the hunt, which seems to be the only reason they do what they do.

[Assistant]
Shoulder-mounted and self-aiming because it frees up the hands for weapons useful against more worthy prey.. the spear, the claws.. not all meat is worthy of these.

Plasma is useful versus both Soft and Hard meat, and requires little in the way of ammunition and upkeep, unlike the pellet launchers the Soft Meat prefers.


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

[User] [FilthyFrank] What's the source of Frank's connection to the Dark Lord ChinChin?

[Assistant] Dark lord chin chin is one of the main and most powerful beings, who rules that section of the omniverse and can survive the void. Frank, being a leader of his own clan, is the one who must appease to chin chin as it is necessary. Presumably there are other clans that require this as well.


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

[User] Why does information from entanglement travel instantaneously, yet information from other forces (gravity, etc) travel at the speed of light?

[Assistant]
It is only *causal* influences that are limites to the speed of light. You cannot use entangled particles to transmit useful information (without communicating via other means, first).

Imagine Alice and Bob are light years away and each have a set of entangled particles - say the spins of the particles are correlated. When they measure them, no matter who measures first, each observer on either end will always see a set of random spins. It cant be used to transmit any *useful information* (unless Alice and Bob first make an intergalactic phone call and discuss their spin basis, but this would travel at lightspeed). Anything that can transmit useful information (which could change the course of events) is limited to *c*.


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

[User] [DC Comics] Why is King Shark so weak compared to Wonder Woman when he's also a demigod apparently?

[Assistant]
Well, let's take a look back at Ancient Greek Mythology, shall we?

Both Heracles and Bellerophon are demigods.

Heracles has extraordinary strength and courage beyond the capacity of mortal men.

Bellerophon can ride horses real good.

Sometimes, them's the breaks.


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

[User]
If using AD block is stealing content then so is going to the bathroom during a TV commercial break (CMV)

You transmitted the ad & a program on my computer made it so I didn't have to watch. You have no more right to tell me what programs should or should not be on my PC and what they should or should not do, in same way you have no right to tell me not to click onto a different window or even just close my eyes for the duration instead.

Content creators  often say that they don't want people to watch the videos without the ad because they need the revenue. Well firstly your financial issues aren't really my concern, refusing to help a struggling individual isn't stealing just because it's a bit Dickish. Secondly I don't have to experience your art the way you want me to (nor do I have much incentive to want to if you freely admit you would remove your self if you could).

[Assistant] The main problem is that online ads report if they are blocked, which makes the site/video owner not make money off your view. In the case of TV ads the producers of whatever show you're watching make money whether you watch the ad or not.


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

[User]
Is it possible to be genetically fat?

What I mean by this question is that one argument given by overweight people is that they've tried all the diets under the sun and they are still fat and thus blame genetics.

Other people give a similar argument that certain medical conditions make it impossible to eat a healthy diet.

But wouldn't the laws of thermodynamics still be relevant, ie calorie intake < calorie usage = weight loss?

[Assistant]
The answer is 'kind of'. Metabolism is determined by the genetic makeup. Still, weight gain and loss is, for every one of us, the sum of calories absorbed and calories spent.

 Some ethnicities are on average more prone to gaining weight as a result of being adapted to diets low in fats and sugars. Many tribes from the American continents, for instance, have experienced a very negative impact from suddenly being introduced to western food products rich in fats and sugar.

 With very few exceptions to the rule, a carefully planned diet combined with adequate exercise works for everyone.


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

[User] [Marvel] If it were somehow possible to give Bruce Banner an Adamantium skeleton, what would that mean for his Hulk transformation?

[Assistant]
A few scenarios.

1- He can't get the skeleton because it triggers the Hulk.

2- His healing factor forces the skeleton out.

3- His healing factor creates adamantium  beta ala wolverine, which transforms with him.

4- You have a very, *VERY* angry Hulk.


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

[User]
Trailing spouse problem -- how to help my husband to get a position

Dear all, I am a postdoc in mathematics, in a German university. My husband has a doctor's degree in engineering and is working in China. I would like to bring him to my university in Germany, but to find a research job directly without any local contact seems to be very difficult. Luckily, he found a professor in my department (not in my work group, and may not know me at all), who involves a RTG (Research Training Group) that focuses on his research area. I plan to ask the professor for help, but I wonder if it is a little strange to do so...

[Assistant]
That's literally all that networking is.

Introduce yourself, tell them that your husband is looking for a position in his area, and ask if he knows of anybody in the department who is looking for a post-doc.


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

[User]
Can some infinities be larger than others?

> There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

-John Green, *A Fault in Our Stars*

[Assistant]
Yes. For instance, the set of real numbers is larger than the set of integers.

However, that quote is still wrong. The set of numbers between 0 and 1 is the same size as the set of numbers between 0 and 2. We know this because the function y = 2x matches every number in one set to exactly one number in the other; that is, the function gives a way to pair up each element of one set with an element of the other.