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

[User] ELI5: how do particles know when they are being observed?

[Assistant] At the quantum level, observation isn't a passive thing. Rather than just looking at an object like we would in normal life, it's more like a blind person tapping something with their cane. Predictably, if that object is something like a baseball on a hard floor, tapping it would tell the person where it is, but also change its velocity. The same kind of concept is in play with quantum particles because we have to interact with them somehow to get information.


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

[User]
If I'm looking at my bathroom mirror 1 foot away, is my reflection 2 feet away?

Also, if a person were to stand next to the mirror, do they see the same amount of visual details of me or more amount of visual details of me, because they are 1 foot away (just like the mirror)?

I assure you I am not high right now.

[Assistant]
Actually, the answer is just yes. In optics, there's the concept of an *image*, which is the apparent point of intersection of the light rays radiated from the point called the *object*. In the case of a plane mirror, the light rays never actually intersect after reflection, but you can trace their path back through the mirror to find their apparent point of intersection. (As a side note, when the rays actually intersect it's called a real image, while cases like this are called virtual images).

Anyway, you can calculate the position of your virtual image, and in the case of a plane mirror it ends up being exactly twice the distance from you that the mirror is. And yes, if someone were to stand right up against the mirror, they would be able to see more detail (as long as they didn't block you of course), because they would be closer to the image.


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

[User] [LOTR] What was Gandalf's childhood like? who was he before we knew him?

[Assistant]
As others have said, Gandalf is not human, he is a Maiar, a group of spirit beings that were created by Eru Ilvatar as helpers to the Valar. So he never had a "childhood" he was created in his full maturity.

As for your second question. Olrin was a helper to Manw and Varda and was known for his wisdom. He also spent much time with Nienna and learnt pity for others through her.

He spent time among the Elves and would grant them visions of wisdom to guide them. He later on took great interest in the sorrows of Elves and Men and would give them advice and guidance to help them in their moments of trouble.

Finally when the Valar decided to send some Maiar to Middle-Earth to assist in the fight against Sauron, Manw chose Gandalf because he admitted he weak and was scared of Sauron. That along with his wisdom and love for the Children of Ilvatar would keep him grounded in his goal of helping them.


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

[User]
Is there a boundary between elements that must exist and those that cant? I.e. what happens if you keep adding protons?

Asking for an 11 year old. We accept of course that these higher elements won't be stable.

[Assistant] If you keep adding protons at a fixed number of neutrons, youll reach a point where the last proton simply doesnt bind to the rest of the nucleus. If you try to add another proton, it just drips back out. We call this the *proton dripline*.


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

[User] ELI5: how come a lot of people are lactose intolerant if everyone started off by drinking milk as a baby?

[Assistant]
Most animals that drink milk are lactose intolerant as adults.

Mothers only produce milk for a short time after having a baby, which means that being able to drink milk is kind of useless a year or two after being born (since your mom isnt feeding you milk anymore).

It takes energy to generate lactase, the enzyme that digests lactose. But, if youre not drinking milk, theres no reason to generate lactase, so doing that just decreases your chances of surviving because youre spending energy on something useless.

As a consequence, most mammal children grow out of producing lactase as they get older.

Humans did something weird though. Rather than relying on their mothers for milk, people decided to start stealing milk from mother cows, and drinking that.

Now, theres a way for humans to drink milk at any age, not just as children, so its advantageous to produce lactase as an adult, which allows natural selection to produce humans who can drink milk.

There hasnt been enough time for this adaptation to spread to the entire human population though, so only some people with origins in specific areas of the world where drinking milk was common produce lactase as adults. People who havent developed this adaptation, just like every other mammal, are called lactose-intolerant.


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

[User] Does every human have the same capacity for memory? How closely linked is memory and intelligence? Do intelligent people just remember more information than others?

[Assistant]
1. No.
2. Some studies proved that those were correlated, while some hadn't shown any correlative tendency.
3. Absolutely not. An important ability is the one to analyze. Intelligent people, overall, tend to remember more stuff (this isn't always true, cf 2.), but what makes them smart is, mostly, their analysis capabilities.

*edited for clarity*


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

[User]
Do photons (ie. light) possess the property of inertia, or inertial mass?

It seems surprisingly difficult to find an authoritative (layperson-friendly) answer to this.  It's pretty obvious that a hypothetical box of photons will have a greater inertial mass than an identical-but-empty box, but can light be said to have inertia?

[Assistant]
To talk about photons/light, it is necessary to invoke relativity. We can't use Newtonian mechanics to answer questions about things that move at the speed of light.

In relativity, photons are massless particles, where 'mass' is defined to be 'the energy that an object has at rest.' Photons are never at rest, but by carefully considering how the energy of a photon depends on its momentum, one can see that they have no mass. (The argument is roughly that E^2 = m^2 c^4 + p^2 c^(2), and photons have E=pc, so they must have m=0.)

[Sometimes, especially in older texts, one finds a different definition of mass which increases with speed. This is the 'relativistic mass' which is given by m=E/c^2 or m=m0/sqrt(1-v^(2)/c^(2)), where m0 is the 'rest mass' discussed above. Using the relativistic mass as what you mean by 'mass' makes certain equations agree with Newtonian mechanics at the cost of hiding what is really going on and making photons more confusing. The modern view is to forget about relativistic mass and always talk about rest mass.]

'Inertia' is something that is harder to quantify for a photon. If you just say that inertia is 'resistance to changes in motion' then yes, photons have inertia, because they like to keep moving in straight lines just like massive particles. If you try to define inertia quantitatively, like by inertial mass, then you say it's the resistance to motion for a given force; but F=ma doesn't hold in relativity, so it doesn't follow that photons have no 'inertia' in this sense. Note that physicists never bother saying whether or not something has 'inertia'; they'll just tell you what its mass is. That's the number that matters.

By the way, in relativity, systems of multiple particles have a mass that is, in general, not equal to the sum of the masses of the constituents. So a box full of photons does, in fact, have nonzero mass even though each photon is massless.


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

[User]
[Marvel Comics] What is the limits of Absorbing Man's power?

I've been watching Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes a lot lately, and in one of the earlier episodes, Absorbing Man absorbs the Uru from Thor's hammer. Since then, I hear that he once absorbed the material from the Cosmic Cube (If someone can find a screencap of that, I'd be grateful) and became nearly omnipotent.

So wha are the limits of his power? Can he absorb sand and get powers like Sandman's?  Has he ever absorbed Adamantium or Vibranium? Could he absorb metals or minerals from other universes, like Kryptonite or Mythril?

[Assistant]
His power limits are... questionable. Once, he absorbed the Odinforce, he can absorb specific *properties* of items (Such as Thor's strength or the height of a Skyscraper), and he can absorb the properties inside of items (if he touches a steam engine, he might have fire and steam inside of him).

He can, and has, absorbed sand and water and gotten limited elemental abilities from them.

Basically, if he can touch it, he can absorb it. Whether it's energy, an element, an alloy, or from another universe.


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

[User]
[40K] Are pariahs creeped out by other pariahs?

A symptom of being a pariah is natural distrust and often hatred form humans, to the point of them being killed by angry mobs if they're not recruited by the organizations that use them. As I understand, this is a result of them not having a soul and people that do have a soul feeling this lacking. So, my question is this: if you had a group of pariahs together, would they feel unease at the other pariahs?

This question was inspired from researching the possibility of pariah space marines, and many thought that such a thing wouldn't be practical because a space marine wouldn't be able to form the crucial brotherhood with a pariah that they would with a normal battle brother. So, expanding on the above, could a space marine chapter composed solely of pariahs develop the brotherhood of a normal chapter?

[Assistant]
The best example would be the Sisters of Silence, who were a force composed of only pariahs, and now serve on Black Ships to transport psykers to Terra.

All we know about their origins is that they came from a society on Luna that sought to create unusual numbers of blanks. The Sisters were very cold and strict, so it seems there was no joy in being part of their order. I'd assume that pariahs just can't function normally in society.


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

[User] Why are so many computer gpus filled with completely different cooling fans? Don't we know the optimal shape and number of fins by now?

[Assistant] Fans and cooling systems are dependent on the architecture of what is below them. So a given configuration is only "optimal" for a given chip and power bus shape as well as dissipate power and price point.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do they re-attach severed limbs?

How do they re-attach severed limbs in surgery? Also, if you just physically reattach your severed finger by securing it with tape/stitches, would your finger reattach itself?

[Assistant]
When body parts are reattached, the most important thing to get right is blood flow.

The arteries and veins are all reconnected as best as possible.  This is needed to keep the part alive.

Muscles and nerves are also reconnected to give you sensation and movement.

The skin is the last to be reconnected.

If you just taped a finger tip in place, it wouldn't have the blood flow, and just die.


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

[User]
[Spider-Man: Far From Home] What was Beck's endgame?

If Spider-Man hadn't realized Beck was tricking him, what would Beck have done? If he was going to try to take over the world with EDITH, there'd be no reason to pretend to be the hero after getting control. Was he just planning on actually being a hero? It's not a great job. And maybe he'd do it just for the fame, but what about those people on his staff?

Also, the plan itself seems pretty terrible. Once he claims the fire elemental can destroy planets, all the heavy hitters would come. Was her seriously expecting the drones to fool Thor, Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange, etc? They didn't for some reason, but how would he have known that?

And while I'm at it, where were all the heroes? I'd imagine whatever it was they were up to would seem a lot less important once Earth is at stake.

[Assistant]
He wanted fame, praise and recognition. He didn't actually have to wherewithal to be a hero. He just wanted to look like one. He was joined by others that wanted exactly the same.
If he had succeeded things would have continued just as they did for a while, eventually they allies he had would have gotten disgruntled over how he treats them, and their lack of recognition.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does a burn still feel hot even after running it under cold water?

[Assistant]
The damaged area is more sensitive, meaning nerves are firing off more signals with less stimulus required, and the area is inflamed meaning the body saturated the area with blood to jumpstart the healing process.

Lots of warm blood+ extra heat sensitive nerves = constant signals that the area is hot.


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

[User]
Why is the Sahara a desert?

What geographic factors make such a large area of land so destitute? Why are other places on similar latitudes not as arid?

[Assistant]
Actually, places in similar latitudes (which is called the subtropical ridge) are typically more arid than other regions in the world. For example, the Middle East (Arabian desert) lies at similar latitudes, while in the southern hemisphere, Australia is well known for its dry climate.

There are of course other local factors that will determine the aridity of a particular location. For example, even though India is in similar latitudes, the monsoon seasons, driven largely by the land/sea seasonal contrast between both hemispheres (think: land/sea breezes at coasts), bring substantial rainfall to what may otherwise be a dry latitude.


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

[User]
[Jurassic Wold] What did Henry Wu mean when he said the animals wouldn't look the same if we had a pure gene?

I'm reviewing recovered security footage from the Jurassic World asset containment breech.  Dr. Wu had a conversation with Hoskins and he said if they had a pure gene that the animals wouldn't even look the way they do.  What did he mean by that?  What would the dinosaurs look like if they were perfect clones?

[Assistant]
Well, according to current theories the "raptors" would be a lot smaller and most likely covered in feathers. It's likely that the T-Rex would be too.

Unfortunately, we will never know because it's impossible to recover pure samples. Jurassic World has much more to do with genetic engineering than it does with palaeontology.


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

[User]
[Halloween Franchise] Does Michael Myers feel satisfaction and joy when he is killing? Also does he know his behavior is wrong from a moral standpoint?

So Michael Myers is supposed to be pure evil. Does he feel any satisfaction and joy for murdering others. Also is he aware that the things he is doing by killing others is morally wrong? Maybe he's into it because it's morally so wrong who knows? After all Loomis describes him as this pure evil being. Loomis also said: " I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding in even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong."

Following that logic Michael isn't even away of his own actions but this is just Loomis personal analysis about Michael.

[Assistant]
Myers doesn't seem to feel *anything*. When he kills someone, he looks at them with that puppy-dog head tilt that indicates curiosity more than anything else; he doesn't seem to understand what it means to take a life.

Myers doesn't hate the people he murders. At some level, he probably doesn't even know that they really *exist*. He just kills, because that is what he does. His is inexorable, a force of nature, the kind of person you'd get if you shoved an eldritch horror into a human body.

Even his obsession with Laurie Strode seems to transcend emotion. He isn't trying to kill her for revenge, or to fulfill a fantasy. She's simply on his list, a box left unchecked from when this all started, and he is compelled to complete that list. There is no joy in it for him, only necessity.


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

[User]
I think it is unfair to have to choose specifically what to do with your life by the time you're 18.

It seems like college really pushes you to decide and commit early on when in all reality I feel they should help in the decision process when it comes to future career.

[Assistant] If you don't know what you want to do, why are you attending college right now? If you are in college and exploring, are you utilizing all the resources at your disposal? All 4-year universities have some type of career center staffed with people who help students for a living. They're there to guide you through your choices and narrow down the range of possibilities to things that you might want to do. Ultimately it comes down to your decision, your motivation.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] What exactly does the Sorcerers stone do?

[Assistant]
If you mix it into an elixir, and if drunk regularly, it will magically cure all ailments, slow the process of ageing and basically make you immortal.

If you want to know more, look up the traditional mame of the Philosopher's Stone.


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

[User]
Why are white surfaces not mirrors?

An object is white because it reflects all wavelengths of light within the visible spectrum. Mirrors also reflect all light within this spectrum. So why are white surfaces not mirrors? Alternatively, shouldn't all mirrors be white?

[Assistant]
Mirrors reflect images because the incoming light rays bounce at the same angle they come in at, this is usually stated as "angle of incidence equals angle of reflection". This means if you point a light beam at a mirror at 90 degrees, it will bounce back at 90 degrees, the same direction. If you aim the light beam at 45 degree angle to the mirror, it will reflect at 45 degrees. This is basically because the reflecting surface of a mirror is extremely smooth, even at the microscopic level.

But things which are white have rougher surfaces (at the microscopic level), and any light beam hitting it will just scatter in random directions, so incoming light just goes everywhere pretty much.

Think of it like bouncing a small rubber ball on a smooth surface like a sidewalk - dropping the ball it will bounce back in the same direction. But if you bounce the same ball on a pile of broken up bricks or jagged rocks, the ball will probably bounce away in a seemingly random direction. In this analogy light is like a whole lot of tiny rubber balls, a mirror is the smooth concrete, and white things are the pile of jagged rocks.

If you had an opaque white material and you polish it smooth enough, it will turn into a mirror.


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

[User]
The dictionary paradox: Meaning of words in terms of other words?

Is there a subtopic in philosophy (of language) that discusses issues like, what I'm calling here, the dictionary paradox.

That if you keep looking up the meaning of words in a dictionary, you keep getting a definition consisting of other words. "In principle", if an alien could read the dictionary but not know the meaning of any word, the dictionary would be useless to it.

A related question, how come we are satisfied after a certain level of dictionary lookup, because we know the meaning of very simple words, even though we haven't checked the dictionary of those simple words, and are only aware of the "feel" of what those words mean.

In math, I know this is a problem related to formalizing a system, e.g., some algebra or analysis has to start with some axioms which are outside that system, and then the rest of the algebra or analysis is built upon it. Because of this separation of axioms and derivations, this is not that much of a problem in math. Unless we get into Godel's incompleteness (so maybe that has something to do with the dictionary paradox?).

I'm also aware of the concept of recursion (in math and CS). But even here recursion depends on some "base case" to be satisfied, otherwise it becomes infinite recursion and that's undesirable.

(BTW my philosophical level is good but not top notch. E.g., I think I'm good with the mind-body problem, physicalism, dualism, etc, etc, but I have difficulty reading/understanding Putnam and Quine. Actually I haven't read them at all. I watched some of their one-off lectures and interviews on youtube that's it.).

[Assistant]
>A related question, how come we are satisfied after a certain level of dictionary lookup, because we know the meaning of very simple words, even though we haven't checked the dictionary of those simple words, and are only aware of the "feel" of what those words mean.

This isn't a problem because a dictionary doesn't determine the meaning of words, but rather tries to describe them. This is similar to how a physics textbook doesn't determine the laws of physics, but rather tries to describe them.


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

[User] ELI5: How do movies filled with A-List Actors such as the Expendables 3 and Movie 43 manage to pack so many actors while keeping relatively low budgets?

[Assistant]
Cameos. Get a star to spend one day on set and record a few scenes. Some even do cameos for free as they as good promotion for the actor. There will be more factors at play and other reasons which hopefully others will be able to explain in more detail, but this is definitely one reason.
Also for Die Hard they HAD to get Bruce, which means he can demand loony money.


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

[User] ELI5: Does a vibrating toothbrush actually clean teeth any better than a standard one?

[Assistant]
Yes, the vibration makes the bristles reach different and harder to reach places.  Depending on plaque buildup, it can also break down tougher gunk.  Its not much but it technically is a better way to brush.

Source: family of dental hygienists.


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

[User]
Tree rings are often used to estimate historical atmospheric temperatures. However, numerous other variables (rainfall/snowpack, herbivory, volcanic activity, fires, etc) also affect the growth rates of trees, so why do we place so much trust in tree rings to measure past temperatures?

For example, say a tree was in its optimal temperature condition for two consecutive years in the distant past. Also imagine that the same tree was in sub-optimal rainfall conditions in the first of those two years, but in optimal rainfall conditions in the second year. This change in conditions would cause the tree to grow faster in the second year than in the first.

*From what I understand* (which may be wrong), scientists today would see that tree's rings and, in the absence of other evidence, surmise that the temperature was higher in the first year than in the second simply because of the difference in size between those consecutive rings. Obviously, this would be false, because the temperature was the same in both years.

[Assistant]
You're absolutely right that other factors need to be considered.  Here's how it works:

1) Be careful when picking trees.  To get an estimate of past temperature, pick trees that get plenty of water but a very short growing season, for instance trees on mountaintops.  If you want an estimate of rainfall, pick trees in deserts, and so on.

2) Correlate the tree data with historical observations.  Compare the tree growth with human measurements of temperature, rainfall, and other data, over the past century or two.  If you can show, say, that a given tree grows more when temperatures are high 90% of the time, and the other 10% it's due to other factors, that gives you good confidence in using it to estimate temperature farther back in time before thermometers were invented.

3) Use lots of trees.  If one tree's growth is only partly due to temperature and partly just random, then averaging over 100 trees will cancel out the random errors and give you a much cleaner estimate of temperature.  But you do have to worry about whether *all* the trees are responding to some other factor (say, rainfall) which is why steps #1 and #2 are so important.


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

[User] ELI5: How do our brains/noses decide what smells good and bad?

[Assistant]
It's a bit of nature vs nurture. There are some smells that we are conditioned negatively to from past experience, for example the perfume your ex, who cheated on you, wore, you might experience negative reactions to it (yeah fuck you Jenny.)

Typically though, shit smells like shit (err.. doo doo for 5 year olds) because it's biological hazardous to your survival, food smells good for the opposite reason.


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

[User] How does low gene diversity cause birth defects?

[Assistant] It doesn't directly (there are highly inbred mouse lines that don't have issues with birth defects). The concern with inbreeding is that offspring may end up with two copies of a recessive deleterious mutation. As long as the "bad" genes aren't there to begin with there is not much of a problem.


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

[User] [Star Wars] In the novelization of ROTJ, Jabba boasts to Luke that he "Hunted Jedi when being a Jedi meant something" Is that true?

[Assistant]
Remember that Jabba is very old. Yoda old. But a younger Hutt is a ball of muscle, they are immensely strong. Their hide can take blaster bolts. They are surprisingly nimble and quick in short bursts, like a crocodile.

And they are smart. Not so much booksmart, as cunning.

So Jabba could have fought Jedi. It isn't unknown for exceptional non-Force users to take down a Jedi. Maybe not a Master, but a tough and determined Hutt willing to fight dirty could do it.

Then again, Jabba is probably just talking smack, trying to scare Luke.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do .gif images in a browser often take longer to load each frame than videos do?

[Assistant]
GIF is a very inefficient format. Each frame in the animation which makes the film is stored intact.

Video formats only send occasional "key frames" intact, the rest of the time they just update the differences from frame to frame. Much less data for higher quality.


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

[User]
How did the astronauts in the Apollo missions protect themselves from cosmic radiation?

I'm not sure about specific forms of cosmic radiation, but I do know that the ISS has shielding technology (which I don't believe the Apollo missions had) and it's also within earth's magnetosphere. How did the Apollo astronauts not experience malignant effects of radiation after two weeks in space?

[Assistant] They did get exposed to radiation; many of them have cataracts now. The main risk was the van Allen radiation belts. The trajectory of the Apollo missions were chosen to minimize the time spent in these regions, and the hulls of the ships also protected them.


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

[User]
Could you inject your gut with bacteria from other animals to become a super eater?

I remember reading about people getting flora transplants from other humans to help them with digestion, but what about transplants from other animals? Could you expand your food palette by adding flora to your gut from other animal species?

Edit - thanks for the answers everyone, this was a fun 'what if' question for me to learn more about.

[Assistant] Unlikely, if you're thinking of something like transplanting the cellulose-digesting flora from herbivores. We lack the major anatomical features of most herbivores that allow for the fermentative conditions that are conducive to herbivory, such as a large cecum and ruminant stomach.


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

[User] eli5: Not sure if someone has asked this yet, but can someone please explain this whole FTX, Binance collapse thing which is happening? Seems really complicated but Im really interested in understanding what happened and what the repercussions are.

[Assistant]
A guy started up a company to convert between blockchain currencies and real money, and got billions in investment dollars to finance the company.

When an investigative report revealed the unprofessional way things were actually being managed, there was a run on his exchange.  He worked out a deal with Binance to stabilize the finances and protect against the run on the exchange, but the FTC and SEC also saw the report, and began their own investigations.  At this point, Binance realized there was no way such a deal would be profitable to them, so they pulled out, which caused a trade valuation drop, which decreased the amount of capital available to back the exchange.

Essentially were in the final stage of the Ponzi scheme now, and the crooks are fleeing with what theyve still got.


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

[User]
Would a 300 pound man live longer than a 140 pound man if both were starving to death?

Both are locked in a room separated from each other.

They're given no food whatsoever.

Would the 300 pound man live longer than the 140 pound man?

[Assistant] Assuming this isn't a trick question about dehydration, yeah the big guy would take longer to starve to death. Much longer. Sadly there's plenty of data on starvation. Many people going hungry in the world and several pretty well documented hunger strikes that went all the way to tragedy.


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

[User] [Lord of the Rings] Sauron has won, hes conquered all of Middle Earth, he has the ring back and has enslaved everyone with orcs overrunning the remaining elves, humans and dwarves. Now what? Does Sauron have an economic policy? A welfare state? What about leisure? How does he spend eternity?

[Assistant]
He would grind the world to dust remaking it in his own image. Sauron would never have enough control. There would always be one more pocket of resistance, one more unordered freedom, one more power beyond him. His fever for domination is endless.

The Fantasy Flight Games RPG *Midnight* is a decent numbers-filed-off description of a world where Sauron won.


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

[User]
ELI5: When a bridge was built to carry a river over a road and a boat passes over the bridge, what affect would the boat have on the load bearing capabilities of the bridge?

I saw a meme of a bridge in The Netherlands that carried a river over a road and someone raised the above question.

[Assistant] "Effect".  And the boat would add load to the bridge as soon as it was placed in the water, and no additional weight as it passed over the bridge.  The boat displaces its own mass in water, and that mass is spread over the entire river.


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

[User] [Wallace and Gromit] I get that dogs are loyal creatures, but why does Gromit show such love and loyalty for Wallace when Wallace treats him like a worthless slave?

[Assistant] Worthless slave seems a bit harsh, it's more of a homage to classic comedy duos like Laurel and Hardy. Wallace is just the good-natured, but slightly absent-minded friend, and Gromit is the level-head friend who holds everything together. Plus, dog owners are inherently patronising to their pets, so maybe it's all a comment on the plight of household animals.


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

[User] ELI5: We all know those movie scenes of Wall Street where people are yelling at each other while talking on phones. What exactly is going on there?

[Assistant]
Before computers became the primary method of matching buy and sell orders, "pits" where broker-dealers conducted transactions face to face were the norm.  Only a small portion of the trades would go through the pit, but by tracking the action in the pit a "market price" could be established that allowed trades to clear with mutual agreement of buyers and sellers outside the pit. (People could write a contract that said "do a trade at the price in the pit as of noon on Thursday", etc.)

The action in the pit was either someone saying "I want to sell X at Y price" and hoping someone would buy, or someone saying "I want to buy X at Y price" and hoping to find a seller.  Shouting out those offers repeatedly with minor changes in price let the rest of the pit know what kinds of deals were available.  A buyer and a seller could hear that each other had a trade they wanted, and then they'd make a connection usually with hand signals (and even more shouting) to confirm the trade.  The result was a piece of paper with the details written on it that was taken to a desk in the pit area where the trade was recorded and published.

These pits were not perfect.  People in them could and did influence prices by apply various social (and sometimes physical) pressure to their counterparties.  It was a huge clash of personalities and the strongest personalities could sometimes "move a market" by getting other buyers and sellers to go along with their desired price momentum.  Getting rid of these issues was a big reason people moved to computerized trading.


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

[User]
How do I stop myself from constantly re-writing my code?

I find it really difficult to finish larger projects because I always have the urge to re-write my code from scratch. It's especially hard when I don't work on it for a while and go back to it. I feel like I need it all in my working memory to keep going. What's the best way to get rid of this habit?

[Assistant] Make classes or "units" of code that just do one thing. That way you can just trust that it works as you left it last time, without having to know **how** it does it. You know it has that functionality, and that functionality works independently of everything else. No need to worry about that anymore.


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

[User] ELI5: Why anemic people(especially pregnant women)crave ice?What is the correlation between anemia and ice?

[Assistant]
Craving ice is a form of pica, which is a symptom in many illnesses and includes craving all sorts of non-food items such as clay, dirt and paper.

The exact cause is unknown, but there are theories that the cravings are the body trying to replace whatever it is you're deficient in (i.e. iron in anemia sufferers). There are also suggestions that anemia causes lowered dopamine levels, and pica is thought to be associated with low dopamine, so that is a possible link.


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

[User] [Arkham City] What was the general public's reaction about Arkham City?

[Assistant]
Gotham is menaced by crime and villainy. Terrorist attacks, muggings, mass murder, brainwashing, burglary, poisoning sprees. When you've seen the flowers in the park come to life and try to kill picnickers, the toys beneath your Christmas tree unwrap themselves and try to stab you, you realise that no facet of life in this city is untouched by crime. Its citizens aren't *paranoid*, but most can't go to the office without wondering if today will be another day when the earth is shaken by another bomb blast, the bridges closed, the trains cancelled, the skyline marred by rising smoke from another act of mass destruction.

When you can't get a hotdog without wondering if the Condiment King is about to leap out and threaten you with dangerously overseasoned guac, it changes your attitude. Hardens you. Little by little, people lose their mercy. The idea that criminals are made by poor circumstance or mental illness, products of a salted field, breaking the law only as a last resort in a life that's given them no good choices - all of this fades away behind the repeated mantra, "Tough on crime." People want to feel safe, before they can afford the luxury of empathy and a social conscience.

Arkham Asylum failed at creating peace. Rehabilitation? Well, some people are obviously beyond help. The mad ones. The masked ones. Prisons like Blackgate? Overcrowded breeding grounds - all they do is make people worse before letting them back out on the streets, *if* they don't break out first.

Just lock them up and throw away the key. Put them somewhere else. Higher walls. Thicker bars.

The mayor's new Arkham City initiative? Nothing else has worked. Why not give it a try? Santa Prisca had good results with their island prison. What's the worst that could happen?


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

[User]
ELI5: Is all military equipment EMP hardened? If not couldn't an EMP drastically reduce a modern army's effectiveness?

Most modern armies use electronics in every single vehicle. So wouldn't that mean an EMP could make these vehicles/aircraft practically useless?

[Assistant]
Most equipment is not EMP hardened, but a lot of it is, especially command stations and such on bases and server farms, and some other specific things (like tanks)

EMP would be a devastating effect to many things... but if someone uses an EMP weapon, well then they better prepare to get nuked in response for using such a massive indiscriminate weapon, so there's that.  Knock out some military gear, lose a few million folks and your capital city. Bad trade off.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the press respond so differently to Trump saying that McCain was not a hero than Bush saying the same thing about Kerry?

[Assistant]
Two things:

1) Your suggestion probably contributes. People expect Trump to say ridiculous and offensive things. Media loves playing to expectations because people like having their personal biases confirmed.

2) It probably helped that Bush and Kerry were in opposing parties. There is a built in opposition to Trumps comments because he is attacking "his own". Bush was attacking "the bad guy". Further, the 2004 presidential election was particularly vitriolic. People were more receptive to that kind of political rhetoric.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are general ed classes in college required regardless of your major?

Unless I have a misunderstanding about college, I thought college was when you took specialized classes that suit your desired major. I understand taking general ed classes throughout high school, everyone should have that level of knowledge of the core classes, but why are they a *requirement* in college? For example, I want to major in 3D Animation, so why do I need 50 credits worth of Math, English, History, and Science classes?

This isn't so much complaining about needing to take general ed as it is genuine curiosity.

[Assistant]
The goal of college wasn't supposed to be just a job training program. It was meant to make you an educated person with a focus in a field, not to just literally do job training that you have to pay for.

They have technical schools if you just want to specifically learn a craft or trade and not worry about general education.


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

[User]
How fast does object permanence develop in blind children?

When blind children put something down, they (obviously) can't see it, but at what age do they then reach for it where they last put it? How does that compare to sighted children?

I'm just curious if object permanence (or other developmental benchmarks) will develop faster because there's more pressure, or slower because it's more difficult.

[Assistant] their developmental milestones are in the same order, but might take slightly longer. if you look at it through the lens of piaget, the beginning of the development of object permanence is part of the sensorimotor period (birth to 2 years) in stage 4, which is typically about 8-12 months after birth, but obstacles such as blindness can delay stages. the beginning bursts of intelligible language are dependent on object permanence being conceptualized by the child though so if they're talking then they understand object permanence.


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

[User]
[The Ring] I have a copy of the tape and a direct feed to every broadcasting network on the planet, and I've set it to run continuously. What happens?

My hack into all TV broadcasting networks is foolproof and can't be taken down. I start the feed at 6:30 pm EST on a Friday.

I've locked myself down tight in my bunker, where I can monitor the feed without ever actually watching the video. Since it takes 7 days for anything bad to happen, I imagine nearly everyone on the planet will see it in a matter of days.

If the rumors about the tape are true, will the girl appear simultaneously to everyone who saw it in seven days? Or can she only appear in one place at one time?

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

[Assistant]
This might actually be a very effective way of dodging that spirit.

If 7 billion people watch it and lets say she can kill about a person an hour with an unknown recoup time then she is killing at most ~9000 people every year.

She is far less lethal than Tylenol... The chances she kills you before you die of natural causes is slim to none. Worrying about her would be stupid because youre more likely to get his by a car and die then have her kill you.


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

[User]
[Star Wars: The Clone Wars] Why are the Separatists mostly fighting offensively? Aren't they seceding? Shouldn't they be protecting their territory?

Are Grievous and Dooku just bad strategists?

[Assistant]
Grievous and Dooku are intentionally bad. Palpatine/Darth Sidious wanted them to fail on purpose because he didn't want the Confederacy to break free. He wanted a unified galaxy.

It's also possible that the Confederacy are fighting an offensive war to force the Republic to sue for peace. This might be an allusion to Robert E. Lee's Northern campaign in the American Civil War. Rush for the capital (Coruscant), take it, and then force the Republic to sue for peace. But the first explanation also makes sense.


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

[User]
My friend says that if she had to either kill a cow or kill a human, she would kill the human. This struck me as a shocking answer. What is the philosophical argument for (1) why killing a life-form is wrong, and (2) why killing a human is worse than killing a cow?

These statements are intuitively obvious to "normal" people.

However, I don't know the philosophical argumentation behind it.

[Assistant]
Assuming that both the cow and human being have a prima facie right to life (which is a debatable assumption), we can argue that generally the cow ought to be killed as it is likely the decision which generates the less harm.

This is because it seems to be the case that the human has much more to lose from being killed than the animal, there are a variety of different "opportunities for satisfaction it forecloses" (Regan, The Case for Animal Rights", page 351). By this, we probably mean that the opportunities are much more varied, richer and complex than that of the cows (or any other non-human animal).


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

[User]
What will happen to the typical American if The U.S actually defaults?

What would happen to the typical, average American if the U.S government does default?

[Assistant]
If the US government does not extend the continuing resolution to pay things. By next month.

1) We default, which is your specific question. By defaulting all investments in government bonds set to come due from this point forward would not be paid. This would cost billions of dollars in investment money immediately as people are not being paid. Additionally it means that few would invest in them in the short term future which would cost billions more. Additionally any federal bonds taken to say build new schools, build a government building, establish a park, or the like would also likely not be paid possibly putting thousands out of work who would otherwise be employed by those projects.

2) Federal Employees would continue to be in shut down. Those on furlough would have to do without being paid knowing that they will get back pay, but those who are simply getting the equivalent of unpaid vacation would likely have to start getting other jobs after being unpaid for a full month.

3) Without the extension of the budget all the "emergency" funds will be use up in the Federal pension plans, Veterans retirement and disability pay, Social Security, and Disability pay will not be given next month. This means there will be Hundreds of thousands unable to pay bills since most of these type of people live pay-check to pay-check.

So while the default by itself will mostly only effect the rich and upper middle class who invest, all the things that are connected with it will put hundreds of thousands without pay, hundreds of thousand more without jobs, and the economy in a massive death spiral.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the difference between momentum and inertia?

My 5-year-old really likes vehicles, and we've been talking about rockets and rocket cars and why they're not as agile as regular cars when it comes to turning and maneuverability. They are designed to just go straight, in the case of rocket cars.

I think this is because they have a great deal of forward momentum. But as we talked, I realized I no longer remember much about momentum -- or inertia -- and what the difference is between them.

And one thing I have learned in answering these questions from my son is that you need a rock solid understanding to be able to explain things in a way that promotes good comprehension for a young child. And when you have gaps in your own knowledge of a subject, you will realize it right away.

Anyway, thanks for helping a mom out!

[Assistant]
Inertia is an objects resistance to changes in motion. For instance, a heavier object is harder to push around so it has more inertia. Inertia does not change with speed (unless you consider einstein's theories, which can be ignored in daily life) so a certain object always has the same amount of inertia, which means it will always take the same amount of force to accelerate.

Momentum is the total amount of motion of all the parts of the object. Specifically it's the velocity of an object times its mass, in other words, the amount of motion times the amount of stuff. An object with a lot of momentum can push a lot of objects out of the way before it stops, while an object with less momentum can only push a few things out of the way before it stops. (an object with a lot of mass counts as many objects with smaller mass, because it can be thought of as a lot of lighter objects glued together).

A faster object can push more on things (more momentum), but it still takes the same force to change its speed (inertia does not depend on speed).


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

[User] ELI5-The mechanism by which, as we currently understand it, Ketamine produces such remarkable antidepressant effects?

[Assistant]
We don't know. If we knew the mechanism, we wouldn't need to screw around with ketamine, we could just find or produce a molecule with similar properties.

Ketamine is a compound in a class called NMDA receptor antagonists - it blocks the activity of a complex protein called an NMDA receptor. These receptors allow electrical activity to pass between the brain and the spinal cord.

The effect of NMDA receptor antagonists is, in general, anesthetic. Ketamine produces what is known as "dissociative anesthesia". This means that in addition to reducing or eliminating the sensation of pain, it also "dissociates" the patient from their environment - the patient no longer feels connected to the world around them.

Speculation has it that this dissociative effect gives the brain a chance to unwind itself when depression sets in. Depression tends to be a self-reinforcing condition. The more depressed you are, the more depressed you are likely to be in the future. Because Ketamine disconnects the cognitive areas of the mind from the rest of the brain, it may short circuit this cycle.

But, again, we simply don't know for sure. Ketamine and other hallucinogens have been historically difficult to conduct research on, owing to the stigma associated with them. Early research indicates that Ketamine could be a very powerful antidepressant. More importantly, it seems to cut short a patient's suicidal thoughts. Plus it has a very rapid effect onset - SSRIs take weeks to get to therapeutic levels. So research is probably going to pick up.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is every US Air Force pilot required to be an officer?

Perhaps a better way to phrase the question is:  What's the reasoning behind the decision that enlistees aren't allowed to be combat pilots?

EDIT:  My point of confusion is that enlistees are trusted to operate tanks, which seem to be quite similar: both tanks and jets are expensive and dangerous.  Why are enlistees trusted with tanks but not jets?

[Assistant]
There are 4 people in a tank, and each of them is only doing a part of the job. They can be trained easily. For example most people could be drivers or loaders with little training.

The pilot flies the plane alone. And flying the plane is fundamentally different that what you do on land. Pilot training takes much much longer, as it is much more complex. Being a pilot must be a career, they cannot afford to train you for 4 years, and then let you pilot a plane for 1 year or so before your enlistment expires.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do insects have much better vision than humans, despite having smaller eyes?

[Assistant]
Depends on how you define better

Insects have compound eyes that have evolved a number of functions that human eyes dont have.

Dragonflies have nearly 360 degree vision.  Bees can see near-UV light.  Moths can see in very low light conditions.

What they *dont* typically have is depth and focus.  Human eyes have a very different design and are built to track the 3D location of a single object.  We do this incredibly well, and your visual distance and clarity blows away that of any insect.

You cant see a full sphere around you at all times, but a dragonfly cant focus on objects more than a few meters away.  Insects live in a very small visual world.

And thats just the best of them, many have terrible vision.


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

[User]
ELI5: How the time zones where established and why the lines are not more parallel?

Looking at a timezone map the outlines seem to be all over the place, some spots are thinner that other  spots in the same time zone and some times zones are much wider than other time zones.

[Assistant]
Remember that time zones is a necessary evil of having long-distance communication and travel. Until this was a thing, people really didn't give two wits about times in other places. When the sun came up was dawn, when it was overhead it was noon, when it set it was dusk. The end. Yeah, some hoity toity's wanted to know the *exact* time, so we have watches and clocks and stuff, but, again, setting it was easy. When the sun was straight up. You looked at the clock. If the clock didn't say the right time, you fixed it. Time outside the town? Who cares.

But, long-distance travel and communication became a thing, so sorting out time became a requirement. You needed to know when, locally, a train would arrive across the country or continent. You needed to know when you could communicate with someone across the globe. But, given the previous paragraph, you needed to do this in a way that really didn't upset local people, otherwise it would never gain acceptance.

The first decision is the minimal unit of measurement. Time passes gradually across the surface of the Earth, yet you're not going to have thousands of different second-long time zones. An hour is nice and neat. Not too long as to be useless, was already the standard division of the day, and long enough as to not really impact people's lives.

The second decision is where to draw the lines. Ideally, you'd just divide the Earth into 24 equally-spaced sections, each representing an hour. The problem is creates significant impact.

What if a line runs right through a town? You have to change your watch every time you cross the street? Remember, at the time of adoption, most people don't care about this so you want to set it up in a way that doesn't impact them.

The end result is you *try* to draw lines across existing political boundaries. They already exist, so are good reference points. Crossing over one is already a somewhat notable thing to do, since it can result in entering an area with new laws and new customs, so adding "new time" to that isn't that big of a deal. And most of the people who don't care about this don't care about it because they don't communicate or travel outside their town, let alone their county, state, or country, so it doesn't affect them.

The lines then follow these kinds of political boundaries. The problem is you end up with larger than required time zones, meaning you need to pick up the slack somewhere so you can fit them all in. Thankfully we have large swaths of areas with no political boundaries: the ocean. This is also why the most impactful time zone boundary - the international date line - is in the ocean and deliberately carves around any countries that would be in the way.

The last issue is the fact that there is no global entity creating or enforcing these. It's basically left up to local governments, so they are going to carve up their own country how they see fit. So you end up with half-our timezones and large countries - like China - that stuck with only one.


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

[User]
ELI5: The algorithm the Banker to come up with an offer on the popular show "Deal or No Deal"

I tried just doing a normal mean of the remaining prizes but that doesn't check out. Does anyone know? A simple google search shows that there are a few theories but none seemed to be 100% accurate.

[Assistant]
The value offered by the banker is usually just below the expected value of your case. Expected value is fairly easy to compute.

Let's say 3 cases are in play :$1 million, $10,000, and $1. The expected value is $336,667. The Banker would likely offer $320,000 in this case.

The trick to playing though is not to compare the offer to your current expected value, but rather to the expected value after the next round.


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

[User] ELI5:Why can't we remember memories from when were 5 and younger?

[Assistant]
Not fully understood because humans are complex, but probably because your brain isn't ready to make memories yet.

You aren't born fully mature - indeed you're born rather useless. You still have a lot of development to do in many areas of the body. The brain is one of these things that's not good to go from birth.


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

[User]
[Sherlock Holmes] Can there be a mystery that can only be solved by knowing about heliocentricism?

Holmes and Watson famously had the following exchange:
> That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
>
> You appear to be astonished, he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.
>
> To forget it!
>
> You see, he explained, I consider that a mans brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose
>
> But the Solar System! I protested.
>
> What the deuce is it to me? he interrupted impatiently; you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.

That said, *could* there ever be a mystery that Sherlock would not be able to solve if he didn't know this fact? Are there any that he didn't solve because he forgot something that he thought something too unimportant?

[Assistant] I think this comes up in this decade's TV show (set in the 21st century). He detects that a painting is a forgery because of random astronomy trivia it took him a while to dredge up. It makes him really angry because they had the heliocentrism discussion earlier that week.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Can people without Reality Warping power resist Reality Warping from the like of Molecule Man, Franklin Richard, Scarlet Witch, Sentry, etc?

Marvel has many well-known reality warpers in their ranks, both Hero and Villain alike.

These monsters turn most characters into a punching bag by simply exist, problem is are there anyway for the rest of the Hero who doesn't have reality warping?

Or if they encounter reality warper it was guaranteed game over?

Is the best counter just blitz them before they use their power? That sounds so unreliable because the character above is not exactly weak in close combat as well, some might have a weak physique but they made up for it with another ability they might possess.

[Assistant]
Purely case by case basis. Almost nobody can resist powers of Molecule Man for example, and sometimes he's portrayed as borderline eldritch entity.

In Scarlet Witch case several people were able to snap out of her House of M reality warp.

Franklin Richards seems to have some limitations, regarding his juice running out, but otherwise there's also no resisting his powers - he not so much as warps reality as creates a bubble of a new one.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do we get itchy when we are sweating while sitting/ laying on grass fields?

Wow, I dunno what to say, this blew up. Thanks for all the responses everyone!

[Assistant]
Even for those without allergies, grasses and plants contain many organic compounds, like phenolic acids, that can be a skin irritant. Parts of the grass (especially freshly cut, dry grass) can also cause mechanical injury to the skin and elicit an itching response.

Sweating likely dissolves these irritating compounds and allows for closer contact with the skin.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is hiring private military contractors cheaper then using the regular forces yet everyone in a PMC makes three times the money as a soldier?

ELI5: How is hiring private military contractors cheaper then using the regular forces yet everyone in a PMC makes three times the money as a soldier?

[Assistant]
When you have a full-time employee, you're on the hook for the long term.  In the case of the military, they hire people for 3-4 year contracts.  They have to pay for all the effort to recruit qualified soldiers, several months of training on a new soldier, full room & board, retirement pay, long-term health care, and tons of other things.

With a contractor, they're *only* paying for the time they're working.  You can bring somebody in *today* for a single job & then let them go with zero long-term financial commitments.  Yes, the cost per day is usually higher, but you're not paying for tomorrow.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the machine measure oxygenation through the skin of your finger?

I was at the doctors with my kid and the nurse put a clip over his finger wich was hooked to a monitor. How can it measure pulse and oxygenation?

PS: I am a first time poster and english is not my native tongue. Be gentle:)

[Assistant] The process is called "Pulse oximetry".  To simplify the way it works, the device which is placed somewhere on the body where the skin is thin, in your case the finger, and it emits specific light wave lengths, and its sensors detects what waves are being absorbed through the blood, giving them a fairly accurate approximation of the oxygenation of your blood.


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

[User] Explain what defragmentation is (like I'm five)

[Assistant]
Imagine you have a big collection of books.  You have them on your bookshelf in alphabetical order.  Every time you take a book off the shelf, you put it back in a different place, disturbing the order the books started out in.  Each time someone goes to the bookshelf trying to find a book, it takes them longer to find it because they are no longer in order.  Your bookshelf is now fragmented.

Since you're tired of it taking so long to find something, you decide to go back through and put the books back in alphabetical order, decreasing the amount of time it takes for you to search for books.  This is called defragmentation.

The files on your hard drive are all like books, but pages could be scattered all over the place for each individual book.  Increased fragmentation leads to longer seek times, which makes finding and loading files take more time.


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

[User] [Marvel/DC movies] How comes that actors need half an hour minimum, to even a few hours to get into their superhero suit, yet in-universe, the characters put them on in a matter of minutes? What makes it so much easier in-universe to put on these superhero suits than out-of-universe/in real life?

[Assistant] Because usually, superhero costumes in-universe are just body-hugging fabric that can be thrown on, or some very durable and advanced materials that have physical properties necessary for their superhero duties. Take Batman for example - depending on the version, its often something like a flexible Kevlar or similar concept. Not a painstakingly sculpted foam.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Be honest, would you have joined the Empire after the end of the Clone Wars?

This survey is brought to you by the Sociology Ministry of the New Republic.

[Assistant] This question is worded as though wanting to end the utter chaos of the Republic's final days is a *bad* thing. You rebels have no idea just how much the might of the Empire has kept at bay. You'll come crawling back to us for protection soon enough.


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

[User]
I don't think the use of drugs, psychedelics in particular, can "teach" you anything. CMV

Now don't get me wrong, I've done quite the array of drugs and had a bunch of really great times on them. I just disagree with this idea that drugs are supposed to be some sort of spiritual/emotional teacher, and that if you use psychedelics recreationally to just have a fun experience you're somehow using them in an immature and irresponsible way. It seems like this claim is more of a meme that people pass along so they can come across as wise and more in-the-know with regards to drug use than you are. When you ask people what exactly they've "learned" from drug use you'll get some vague half-answer from them almost 100% of the time. Sure, I've had some moments on drugs where I've felt like I've gained some super important insight, like how on MDMA people tend to see how important empathy is, but for the most part these ideas seem to fade away with the drug's effect. I've done most of the major psychedelics and don't feel like I've gained much from them besides some fond memories. What exactly is it that drugs are supposed to teach you, besides how to appreciate pretty lights and sidechain compression?

[Assistant]
They don't teach you anything, they help you see things from an unbiased light and thus teach yourself. It's all within you, psychedelics can just help you come to a conclusion or decision, etc.

They aren't teachers, they're catalysts.


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

[User]
What the fuck Big O was about.

The anime. It confuses me even to this day.

[Assistant] It's kinda like the Matrix.  The entire series is the people of Paradigm coming to grips with the fact that they have memories of a life outside the city.  Eventually, its revealed Paradigm is simply the AI mental construct of an advanced virtual race.  In the end, the virtual race wins and reboots the program, sending everybody back to the start.


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

[User]
CMV: Digging up Mummies and displaying them in museums in barbaric and disrespectful

I am a lover of history and museums, but this one I just really don't understand. It's one thing if someone agreed to be mummified and put on display before they died (this is the case with some mummies in the Vatican). But if some Egyptian king thought he was being laid to rest forever in his tomb, we ought to have left him there. We're not better than grave robbers to put his body on display now.

I think it's fine to study the artifacts in there with the body and maybe put those on display, because they tell us a lot about those cultures. I understand their value to history. But I don't understand the disrespect of displaying someone's actual body without their permission. Am I crazy?

[Assistant]
Consider the purpose of mummification:

> In order to live for all eternity and be presented in front of Osiris, the body of the deceased had to be preserved by mummification, so that the soul could reunite with it, and take pleasure in the afterlife.

Now consider what happened to *other* mummies that weren't placed in museums:

> In the Middle Ages, based on a mistranslation from the Arabic term for bitumen, it was thought that mummies possessed healing properties. As a result, it became common practice to grind Egyptian mummies into a powder to be sold and used as medicine.

This (and similar practices) continued up until the late 19th century. Now considering that whoever was mummified wanted their body to remain intact - where do you think they might prefer to be? Left in a tomb at the mercy of grave robbers, or kept in a climate-controlled museum, their body attended by groups of workers whose sole interest is in seeing it preserved?


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

[User]
[Lord of The Rings] Does the One Ring try extra-hard to corrupt you the closer it is to being destroyed?

I mean, can the ring "sense" it might be in danger? Does anyone have the willpower to stand at the edge of Mt. Doom and let go of the ring? Or will the ring try its absolute hardest to corrupt you, maybe with second thoughts and whatnot?

We know Frodo could not give it up, but some could say it was due to Frodo having kept it for so long. Say someone who NEVER saw or knew of the one Ring was simply teleported to Mt Doom and give the ring and told to drop it....would they do so? Or would they suddenly have an urge to keep the precious little metal?

[Assistant] It isn't a matter of the ring sensing danger so much as it just becoming more powerful the closer that it comes to the place of its creation.  No one could have resisted the corruption in the crags, which is why the ring had to be destroyed accidentally by its own success in breaking Gollum.  Evil being its own ultimate undoing is a big thing in Tolkien's works.


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

[User]
[Supernatural] How are monsters not getting constantly hassled by ghosts?

I mean, they kill people constantly, often literally eating/reanimating their corpses. At the very least they get covered in blood regularly and have a ton of corpses to dispose of.

Every single dead person gets the option to stick around and be a ghost, surely some of them decide to stick around to protect their loved ones/community or just plain get revenge on the monster that killed them?

[Assistant]
Well, most monsters are ancient and have some occult knowledge or mess around with magic, so maybe they have means to scare them off or outright get rid of the hauntings. Aside from that, i'm not sure if most people pick the "i'll stay". Not hard to do initially but getting stuck or turning into a psycho (not to mention the traumatic process of becoming a ghost barely able to interact with others) are things.

The average joe prolly lets go of his ties and goes on, and doesn't know about the "powers" that come from becoming a ghost. There's limitations too, most ghosts seen in the series could only roam certain places depending on context, that wouldn't help the idea of hunting their monster (that are usually free to go wherever they want), and the person may lose sight of their original purpose.


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

[User] If time dilates relativistically around large masses, what does "seconds after the Big Bang" really mean? The Big Bang was a huge concentrated mass ... How did time pass amidst such a massive area?

[Assistant]
Well time dilation is always with respect to an external observer or external frame of reference.  The only frame of reference was the Universe itself, so.. even if time is dilated nearly infinitely *within* the Universe, it doesn't matter.  Time still passes normally for observers within the Universe's frame of reference, and would only look dilated to an external observer.  But we're talking about the *Universe* here.  It, by definition, encompasses all matter and all spacetime, so there is no external frame of reference that could observe time being dilated.

That is, we think spacetime doesn't exist as a concept outside the Universe, by definition, so -- time can't really dilate with respect to an external observer in such a situation since there are no external frames of reference outside the Universe, by definition.


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

[User] A bit of fun: Based upon the evidence we have, have there been any philosophers that were just 'bad human beings'?

[Assistant]
Rousseau sent a total of seven children away to almost certain death at a city 'orphanage'.  This occurred over the span of *years* and each time he would just send the child off to a brief life of poverty sickness and starvation.

Oh, and then he decided to write a book on proper child rearing.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does a 30% chance of rain actually mean?

Does that mean that 30% of the area will definitely get rain or that it's a 30% guess?

[Assistant]
It's generally a combination of both of those.  You take the portion of the area you expect to experience measurable precipitation (at least 0.01 inches) and multiply it by the estimated chance that there will be rain in the forecast area.

For example, if your models show that there's a 50/50 chance of rain occurring, and the rain would be expected to occur over half the land in the region you're talking about, you'd multiply 0.5 by 0.5, giving you a result of 0.25.  Convert that to a percent and you have a 25% chance of rain.


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

[User]
Why do left-handed fermions transform as doublets and right-handed particles as singlets?

I don't know how generally applicable this is, but it is at least true in electroweak theory. The answer *seems* to be "it just is this way" but if so, what is the practical upshot of the different forms of the left- and right-handed particles?

edit: in the title I say "fermions" first and then "particles". I mean fermions in both cases.

[Assistant]
This is true for all the standard model fermions, but there isn't really a known reason for it.

What you're asking kind of gets at the foundation of the standard model, namely the fact that it is based on gauge invariance under the group U(1)SU(2)SU(3), where the SU(2) part of the transformation applies only to left-handed fermions. In principle, we could have had a universe based on U(1)SU(2)SU(2)SU(3), i.e. with an extra SU(2) group that applies to right-handed fermions as well, but we don't. The standard model doesn't really bother to explain why, it just starts with the particular gauge symmetry we know to work and proceeds from there.

Perhaps some more fundamental theory gives a reason why the gauge symmetries are as they are, but anything of that nature would be speculative right now.


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

[User] ELI5: Why restaurants have policies to throw out food at the end of the day instead of donating/eating it?

[Assistant]
A policy of allowing staff to eat the food tends to encourage staff to "accidentally" prepare more food than what's actually required.

A policy of donating food causes issues of liability if someone should suffer from food poisoning from food they haven't paid for, that may not be eaten immediately and may have passed its "sell by" time before it gets eaten.


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

[User] ELI5: How are mosquitoes beneficial to the ecosystem in any way?

[Assistant]
As larvae, mosquitos are filter feeders that strain tiny particles such as algae out of water.  The larvae may then be eaten by fish.

As adults, they're eaten by birds, bats, frogs and spiders.

Mosquitos are an important part of the food chain.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the American government classify groups like ISIS as a "terrorist organization" and how do the Mexican cartels not fit into that billet?

I get ISIS, IRA, al-Qa'ida, ISIL are all "terrorist organizations", but any research, the cartels seem like they'd fit that particular billet. Why don't they?

[Assistant] Terrorism is more about the motive than about the acts themselves. To be defined as a terrorist organisation, a group has to use violence and fear to further a political agenda. ISIS, the IRA, AQ, they all had political motives. The Cartels are driven purely by moolah.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How do you get avada kedavra-d?

I get that you die when it hits you but when the spell hits the ground right beside you you don't die. Yet you die when it hits you in the chest with several layers of clothes. Will I die if it hits my hair? My purse? What if I have like 20 layers of clothes or an armor? If I use something like a book as a shield I won't die so why doesn't it work the same with clothes, they too can be seen as a shield for your body?

[Assistant]
The killing curse appears hold at least a minimal amount of bleed through.

Based on what we've seen the best comparison is probably a low caliber bullet. Enough power to punch through clothing, not enough to punch through stone.

Based on the fact that no one seems to consider wearing some kind of body armor it seems likely that the bleed through is significant. It very well may work like an electric shock, transfers very easily but loses power rapidly when conducting through material.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do flies keep circling your face even after posing threats like swatting at them several times?

We've had the same needy fly in our home for days and swatted at it (with our hands) many times but it still keeping flying in close proximity to us rather than retreating to a part of the house that's safer. Why do they insist on making their presence known?

[Assistant]
Bugs for the most part tend to act on their base instincts and their behaviour is almost entirely autonomous. They don't really think consciously about stuff, or have the kind of "danger zone" warnings that a mammal would.

That's why they fly straight into the fly zapper, or the fly paper, and why they face-slam the window despite it being open wide.


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

[User]
How does air get inside pumpkins?

Also, is the air composed of the same gases as atmospheric air?

[Assistant]
All plants take in air via respiration, and they do create air sacs which are normally composed of air with a higher-than-normal level of carbon dioxide. Air travels through and between plant cells in very minute amounts. They do so by absorbing air through lenticles, small extrusions of respiratory tissue along plant stems (They are larger and more visble in fruit trees such as Apple and Cherry, which have prominent horizontal lenticles up the trunk). These lenticles help provide oxygen to the plants for growth.

Hope this helps :)


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

[User] ELI5:When you're asleep, what part of the brain filters the noises you hear, determining whether to wake up or not?

[Assistant]
When we sleep, we are inhibiting loads of different parts of the brain, so a stronger stimulus is required to activate them.

Think of it like this - when we are awake there is a copper wire between the auditory centre of the brain and the higher centres of our brain that process and understand this auditory information and then respond to it. Copper is a very conductive metal, so even a very small voltage will mean that electricity passes through this circuit.

When we go to sleep, this copper wire is switched out with a lead wire. Now lead can still conduct electricity, but it is much less conductive than copper. This means that a much higher voltage is required to get any activity in the circuit. Standard, background sounds of the night are unlikely to provide a big enough voltage to get a current to run though the wire. A really loud sound, however, will provide enough voltage and will wake us up. Other sounds that have very strong associations in our memory, e.g. our ringtone, alarm tone or a doorbell, may also provide enough voltage in the circuit even if they're a bit quieter.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do updates for computers come straight from Microsoft or Apple, yet I have to wait months for cell phone updates to come from Google/Apple and go through my service provider?

I just had to wait 3 fucking weeks for an important security update for Android make it through AT&T, why is this allowed?

[Assistant]
Updates from Apple never go through your service provider. Apple controls the software and hardware of the iphones. Service providers are not allowed to make any changes to ios so you get your updates directly and immediately when they are out.

Google, on the other hand, allows service providers to add their own programs and applications to android. You need to wait for updates because your service provider also first needs to update any additional programming they have added before they can role out the complete update.


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

[User]
[40k] Why is technology stagnant?

What are the reasons for the ongoing stagnation? You'd think that the perpetual state of war would really drive innovation to secure the survival of the Empire. Why doesn't the empire has entire world researching for a superweapon to end it all?

[Assistant]
Theres a bunch of reasons. Ill try to do them in chronological order but like everything i do thats probably wishful thinking.

**TL;DR** The Imperium has lost knowledge, they dont have the ability to read old code, they dont have the technical know-how to innovate without old code, they are superstitious and fear enemies from millenia past, they focus on the past instead of the future and the imperium is bloody gigantic so any changes take thousands of years to roll out.

Ok so you have the Dark Age of Terra where the Iron Men, AIs created by the humans to do literally everything rebelled and tore apart the human civilization. This civilization considered the Rhino tank to be akin to a jeep and the Baneblade a "Light Tank", so when they say the Iron Men tore it apart its an indication that these Iron Men were really bloody powerful. Humanity prevailed but at significant cost and everything was lost, all that was left was hoarded and maintained but there were no resources for the majority of mankind stranded across the galaxy to innovate.

Examples of this are from the Knights who pilot behemoths smaller than Titans but still devastating. These Knights are piloted by humans who have an implant in their minds to allow them control, these machines are vital for keeping many worlds safe as there are monsters that even they have trouble dealing with (each one is around 4-5 dreadnoughts tall). They have no room for innovation, indeed with no supplies coming in over the millenia many fell into disrepair and it was only with the Great Crusade were many found and patching up for continued service.

Following the Iron Men's war, all research into AI has been forbidden upon pain of very very very agonizing death as orchestrated by the Mechanicus who consider it a very dangerous task indeed. The most powerful war machines of the Mechanicus (outside of their Knights and Titans) are golems which use punch-cards to fulfil their tasks, all AI has been stripped from other devices and the closest things that come to "intelligent" would be servitors which have their minds wiped and used to process information as machines.

So we have a humanity that no longer has the ability to produce the amount of resources to innovate as all supply lines have been cut except for within star systems (and sometimes not even then), so stagnation is the only real way forward. Consider the Terminator armour used by the Holy Adeptus Astartes, it was designed to perform maintenance within fusion reactors but now has been repurposed to wage war. The Power Armour was for outside maintenance upon ships not the standard kit of an elite fighting army. Everything has been repurposed and new discoveries are simply rediscovering old things i.e. the Lightning fighter of the Imperial Navy which spent 300 years in testing after the discovery of its STC to ensure it was not corrupted.

Then came the Horus Heresy were a full half of the Mechanicus rebelled and Mars was laid to waste by the Legions of Titans battling across its surface. Knowledge was lost forever as scrap-code (viruses) was inserted into data-cubes and the information inside rendered scrap for all eternity. In the aftermath there was barely enough there to maintain the Imperium itself and all attempts at innovation were halted as resources were poured into maintenance to ensure the xeno-hordes would not prevail. Over time this necessity became religion and now despite having the ability and the resources their religion prohibits any attempts at innovation and death awaits those foolish enough to challenge the Magos' words.

Part of this fear is due to the Iron Men (despite them being millenia before) as their AI still exists within much of the technology of the Imperium to this day. The "pacification" of the Machine Spirit in many cases is literally pacifying the residual Iron Man spark to ensure it does not catastrophically destroy everything. This spark is not present in all machines but often times it is better to be safe and do it for all than to have your battleship's warp drive implode and drag the entire segmentum's fleet into the howling abyss of the Warp.

The Mechanicus does not know which part of the code is essential for function and which is the Iron Men or if they are separate at all due to the fact that their language originally termed Binary has become mutated over time and descended into slang and shorthand common to all languages (think Latin and English). Their ability to read the very information necessary has been lost and so they rely on tradition and rituals to operate many of the more ancient machinery of the Imperium. At the same time this lack of ability to read operating language means that in innovating they will combine various pieces or use existing pieces to create new software which in turn might mean mixing Iron Men AI and creating an unstoppable machine that will cause untold devastation.

Normal people cannot do anything technology related (outside of operating and basic maintenance) as the Mechanicus holds a monopoly and will enforce it with extreme prejudice. No-one is willing to push them as they hold the monopoly on technical knowledge.

So in the end the Mechanicus lacking the ability to read information, mired in the past and tradition and built upon superstition does not innovate at all.

In regards to technology elsewhere the Tau are innovating at an extreme rate. Not held back by the dogma of the Imperium they already have armour on their battlesuits equal if not superior to Imperium Power Armour and their weapons can melt entire armies. They merely lack the manpower to wage a sustained war and they are definitely trying to remedy that.

I hope that helped and for further reading i recommend the new Mechanicus Codex as well as the Ciaphus Cain novelizations, the Fire Warrior novel, Baneblade, the Space Wolf saga and other pieces of fluff for peripheral knowledge.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is a pair of pants called a pair if there's only one item?

[Assistant]
People think the plural refers to the fact that there are two legs on the garment.  In fact, the plural refers to the fact that the garmet was always accompanied by another similar garment worn underneath.

The term "pair pf pants" refers to the outer garment and the under garment.

They get their name from an old italian clown named Pantalone who, like all clowns back then, wore tights and was actually funny.


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

[User]
[Batman] Why does Batman only fights criminals at night?

Why does Batman only hunts, follows, stalks criminals at night? Why not at daytime? ... there are no crimes at day in Gotham?

[Assistant]
There is much more police presence, and civilian foot traffic during the day.

If you try to break into a warehouse at night, you have a decent chance of getting away with it. If you try to break into a warehouse during the day, you're going to have to deal with the warehouse workers that, uh, *work* there.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] How desireable a wife was Sansa?

If Ned and Robert were not close friends would Sansa still have been considered a good match for Joffrey?  To me it doesn't seem like Winterfell wasn't that important or rich a region nor would they needed to marry to cement a political alliance.  Would Margaery Tyrell have been the first choice to cement a tie between the Tyrells and the Crown since they fought for the Targaryens?  If Sansa was not to be wed to Joffrey would she be acceptable to marry the heir to any of the other major houses?

[Assistant]
First, the north is the largest geographic kingdom in Westeros.  That's pretty significant by itself.

Second, think about Sansa and Jeoff's combined lineage, their child would be 1/4 Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, and Tully.  As well as grand niece/ nephew to the Arryn's. By heritage alone their child would be connected to five of the great houses and would be as connected a king/queen as is basically possible.  It would unify the kingdoms that have mostly acted separately since the Greyjoy rebellion.

Oh also, she grew up with the Greyjoy heir, giving her a connection to that house too.


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

[User]
How do magnetic poles spontaneously flip?

Every so often the Earth's magnetic field flips. What is the cause of this. How does it relate to a small magnet flipping poles? Bonus: In the instant the poles flip is there a instant when there is no magnetic field?

[Assistant]
We do not know what causes the reversals on Earth. On the Sun the magnetic field flips every 11 years and we also can not explain this. It is not even clear it is the same mechanism due to the irregularity of reversals on the Earth vs the Sun.

No there would always be a magnetic field. Magnetic fields generated by planets (and stars) are not strictly dipoles. They are only dipole at the largest scales (or at a distance). The dipole component of the magnetic field would indeed become zero at some point. However it is unlikely all harmonics would become zero at the same time. Instead what we would see is a weaker magnetic field over all harmonics (due to the largest component becoming zero) but the smaller harmonics would still manifest themselves as multiple poles at various locations around the Earth.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do mole hairs grow so much longer than other hairs?

[Assistant]
Because fate is cruel...

but really, stolen from Yahoo Answers:

"moles are benign tumours caused by the overproduction of melanin. tumours are defined as a growth of tissue abnormally after the initial growth stimulus has bees removed. thus, the cells just keep on growing. the hair that grow out of moles are due to the fact that the same stilmulus is keeping the cells growing at a speed until it is inhibited.

thus, the hair is longer. "


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

[User]
Stock market question NOT related to short selling

How does a company make money with stock resold on the market?

What I think I know.

Company Z decides to have an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and sell 100,000 shares of stock at $10.00 a share. Many people buy the stock and pay $10.00 a share. Company Z sells them all. Company Z now has $1,000,000 cash to grow Company Z. I bought 10 shares at $10.00 a share and gave Company Z $100.00.

If I sell my 10 shares to you for $15.00 a share, you give me $150.00. I recovered the $100.00 I gave Company Z, who still has the $100.00 I gave them. I also have $50.00 more.

To sum up;

1. I gave $100.00 to Company Z.
2. Company Z gave me 10 shares.
3. You gave me $150.00.
4. I gave you the 10 shares of Company Z I had.

Results;

1. Company Z has my $100.00.
2. I have your $150.00.
3. You have 10 shares of Company Z.

Company Z made zero money on the transaction between you and I. How does Company Z make money when their stock is traded on the market, if any? If they make zero money, why would they care what the value of the stock is after the IPO?

I have asked this question for decades to a wide variety of people and never received an answer I could understand. Thank you in advance.

[Assistant]
Companies mostly make money from their operations. The stock market is for raising capital for expansion or investments.

In your example, XYZ have made no money from the rising share price, however if they have opportunities to invest or expand, they could now sell new shares at $150 to new investors. This reduces the number of shares they have to sell for the same capital, which reduces dilution for existing shareholders.

So the rising share price is a result of a successful business, but it's the shareholders that benefit from the higher share price.


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

[User]
ELI5: If water starts evaporating before 100 degrees Centrigrade, what happens when it reaches 100?

Does it all evaporate? How is water at 99 degrees different from water at 100 degrees?

[Assistant]
Remember, heating isn't uniform through out a liquid and the bit you're sampling the temperature of won't be representative of the entire lot.

However! Yes, if you have a volume of water and somehow uniformly make it all hit 100C, it would all become vapour.

At 99C technically none of the water will evaporate with no external forces acting on it. But due to the flux of energy between molecules, this 99C is more an average and at any one time a molecule will "transfer energy" to another temporarily (making a molecule 98C and another 100C), giving it enough energy to change phase to a gas form. Put very simply, this is why warm water (eg 40C) will evaporate faster than cool water (10C); due to this random moving of energy between molecules and the likelihood of one having high enough energy to evaporate.

This is of course well before other factors (relative humidity, layering, pressure etc.) get taken into account.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do humans smell if we skip a shower but animals can go with out taking any sort of bath?

[Assistant] It depends on the animal. Human body odor is primarily caused by bacteria that feed off of our sweat. Our bodies sweat because the evaporation of sweat helps our body keep cooler. Many animals don't cool themselves that way because they're covered in fur that would make sweating much less efficient. Dogs, for example, expel body heat by panting. Since dogs aren't sweating all day, there's not all that yummy skin juice for bacteria to feed off of, so they don't produce that human body odor smell.


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

[User] Why is the Cold Sore Herpes Virus impossible to completely eradicate from the body and why is it invincible during dormancy?

[Assistant]
Because it literally hides in the body, in our nerves cells.
When the herpes virus enters a cell, the cell tries to protect itself by wrapping the viral DNA tightly around spool-like proteins called histones and condensing it into chromatin, which causes the virus to go dormant. But if the cells are unsuccessful, the chromatin is only loosely bundled, leaving the viral DNA accessible. The virus particles can then turn on their genes and replicate using the cells machinery to start a lytic infection, causing disease.

It's a two fold question and until we solve the way it manages to deal with the way it turns its genes off and on ad hoc, it's unclear if we will be able to solve it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Do different species perceive time as being faster or slower? How about different people?

Do different animals see time as being faster or slower than others? For instance, does a minute "feel" as long to a human as it does to, say, a jellyfish? Also, can different people experience that kind of difference of perspective?

[Assistant]
It is one of those questions that is virtually impossible to tell. How would you know without a shared frame of reference. How can you tell if one being experiences time differently to others.

The one thing you can say is that some species have shorter lives and that some also can react faster, but this isn't the same as perception.


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

[User] Eli5: gravity anomalies on the moon.

[Assistant] The moon is not a perfectly symmetrical sphere of mass, it's lumpy inside, with some parts heavier/denser than others, likely due to higher concentrations of metals in those areas.  If you're above a dense part, gravity is a little stronger than elsewhere.  These are the so-called gravitational anomalies.


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

[User]
[Alien] Would a microwave weapon work against the Xenomorph?

It's not carbon based life and it has acid for blood.

I was thinking of people putting up this big defense system and then seeing the Alien being totally unaffected by it.

[Assistant]
Microwaves would be too slow to be an effective defense...
And there are other reasons why it would not be used such as the fact it will reflect off metal and likely cook anyone in the room.

Xenomorphs are usually encountered in close quarters on space stations that are all metal construction and those walls would reflect the microwaves back at you and cook you too.

Besides they tend to move through ducts and access tunnels and avoid the normal entry ways so they could get to you because there is no way to effectively cover every path they could take to you.