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

[User]
Ways to stay involved outside of school?

Preferably want to hear from humanities people but science people can jump in if they have something to say.

I'm an undergrad senior and I really want to be an Egyptologist. However, based on the fact that I've been rejected from every Ph.d program I applied to but one unlikely program I still need to hear from and how agonizing I'm finding writing my thesis to be, it looks like I'll never get to put this NELC degree to use. So when I'm not at my boring desk job pushing papers or fetching coffee, will there be any way for me to stay involved in academia - besides just reading the lame books meant for people with no academic background or shelling out money I won't have for actual scholarly publications. I want to contribute something to our corpus of knowledge, but it's starting to look like I have nothing to offer.

TL;DR (in metaphor form) If it turns out you aren't cut out for the the ivory tower, can you still visit or are you locked out forever?

[Assistant]
Why Egyptology in particular? Are History, Classics, or Anthropology/Archaeology not of interest to you?

A big part of the game of academia is finding your niche. Few people can decide exactly what they wish to do so early. If you really want to make a contribution, why not study a place and period that has had less attention?


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

[User]
European Master's Advice: 1 Year MSc or 2 Year MPhil

Hi everyone, this is my first post on Reddit as a whole and I apologize if this is not the appropriate thread.

 I am currently an international (Asian citizenship) second-year student in an Economics programme at a globally Top 50 university in Europe. Our economics programme is three-years long and has a math-intensive approach. My long-term goals are to attain a PhD at an American university (preferably in East Coast) to either enter academia or join an international organization (IMF, World Bank, etc). My current GPA is respectable (equivalent to a 3.7+ in the US scale), and I am planning on signing up to be a research intern at the university this summer as well.

I believe I can maintain my GPA and have decent extracurriculars (volunteering and data-related work), so I am looking at universities where I can get a scholarship for the Master's (financial conditions are okay, but saving money is appreciated). Based on my understanding, terminal MSc.'s in the US are not really meant for people that want to continue in the research-oriented world (and also have a reputation for being cash cows), whereas getting accepted directly into a grad school as an international is quiet rare, and though I think I have a good portfolio overall, I am not a prodigy-type student who will buck the trend.

Because of these reasons, I am more inclined to continue studying in Europe as most top-ranked universities (LSE, Bocconi, Barcelona GSE, etc.) offer scholarships to internationals and have pretty good placement records in both international organizations and universities. However, they differ in terms of the length of the programs they offer; Bocconi, Tinbergen and Stockholm SE have intensive 2-year programmes whereas Barcelona GSE and UvAmsterdam have one-year programs. Based on the program descriptions, the one-year programmes focus more on coursework and educating the students about theories and all while the two-year programmes incorporate an internship and/or research opportunity, which may be helpful as related experience on the resume when applying to PhD programs. With all that in mind, I would like your opinion about which type of education is more suitable.

Additionally, if you have any other schools to recommend, please do let me know. Thanks Reddit :)

TL;DR -- Undergradute economics student who wants to get a PhD in the United States wanting to know if two-year research intensive MPhil programs in Europe are worth the extra year compared to similar one-year MSc.

[Assistant]
If you are set on an M degree, go to the place with the best international name. The US academy only sees reputation based on historical prestige.

Source: American with European MSc and American PhD.


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

[User] ELI5: How does "3 in 1" shampoo/conditioner/body wash work?

[Assistant]
They don't work well.

Shampoos and Body Wash are both variants of soap. They are both designed to strip dirt and oils from the hair and body, though body washes will also normally have an exfoliant in them to help remove dead skin as well. These mixed products tend to have fewer oil removing agents and no exfoliating agents so they do the job of shampoo and body wash more poorly than they would otherwise do.

Conditioner is designed to add back some of the oils removed from the hair by the shampoo, reduce static as the hair dries, and the like. It does not work at all in the combined products because the shampoo agents just remove anything the conditioner was applying.


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

[User]
What does it mean to be tidal locked to something?

I am under the understanding that the moon is tidaly locked to earth, what does that mean and why has this arisen?

[Assistant]
Tidal locking means that the same face of the Moon always points toward Earth.

This occurs because tidal forces--the difference in gravitational tug from the Earth between different parts of the Moon-- cause small distortions and stretches in the shape of the Moon. These distortions dissipate the moon's rotational energy, slowing its rotation until eventually ~~it stops.~~ its rotational period is equal to its orbital period.


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

[User]
Does electricity flowing through a transmission line create any measurable pull on the lines?

Please correct me if Im wrong, but electricity wants to return to the earth, so does that have any pull, so to speak, that can be measured?

[Assistant] Not in the way you're imagining. Current flowing in a conductor creates a magnetic field. That field can be repelled or attracted to the Earth's magnetic field. The Earth's field is usually stronger. That will cause extremely small forces on the wires.


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

[User] [DC] can anyone just create their own lantern corps?

[Assistant] You need an almost impossibly powerful being who feels one emotion in particular more than any other being in the universe. You can then contain that being in the power battery of a corps and use it to power the rings of your corps. You also need to make sure its an emotion nobody else has used.


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

[User]
Where does the water go in drought?

Im from Germany, and like many places in Europe, we lose a lot of water this summer.
In school I learned there is and was always a fix amount of water on this planet.
So my question is, when the soil is dry, the rivers are draining and there is no rain, where is all the water?

[Assistant]
The ocean.

It's a more complicated cycle than what we're taught in school. Everything is connected.

Ordinarily water evaporates from the ocean. As the air moves it cools and condenses over land (th, and releases the water as snow or rain. During the colder months it freezes (snowpack, glaciers, etc), largely at higher altitudes, and collects in lakes and aquifers.

As temperatures rise, in many places water still evaporates into the air, but it doesn't cool enough to release the water, causing high humidity- this is linked to why deserts are hot and dry and tropics are hot and humid).

Simultaneously, rivers come from somewhere and move to the ocean, and that somewhere is the snowpack and glaciers mentioned earlier. As it melts during hotter months it slowly releases water into streams and those form rivers, which dump out into the ocean, where the cycle of evaporation starts over. If the air didn't cool enough to form enough snow or snowpack, then the next summer there won't be as much left in reserve to melt and run into streams. And to compound the problem, temperatures are erractically rising too fast sometimes, causing large amounts of snowpack or glaciers to break and melt and flood all at once in early spring instead of slowly throughout the year.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do so many brands of energy drinks, and sometimes even coffee, just put me to sleep right away?  I dont think I have ADD or anything else that could cause reverse reactions.

* Red Bull makes me zonk the eff out asap

* 5 Hour Energy Drink used to work, but now only the maximum 5 HR Energy works *sometimes*

* Monster *may* work, *sometimes*.

* Rockstar and Redline usually work.

[Assistant]
If you're already tired, caffeine won't work too well. Since you're five, I'll just put it this way.

In your brain, there's something called adenosine. You know those shaped blocks with squares, circles, diamonds and stars? Your brain has ZILLIONS of little holes shaped like that, and adenosine is like a block that's shaped like a star. So it fits in the little star-shaped holes. Inside those star-shaped holes are buttons that tell your brain that you're sleepy. (There's a lot of other kinds of buttons too.)

When you drink things like coffee or Red Bull, they have caffeine. Caffeine is also like little star-shaped blocks, but they're uhh... really fluffy. So they don't push the sleepy buttons in your brain. So you don't get tired. However, if there's already a bunch of adenosine blocks ALREADY pushing your sleepy buttons, they're taking up all the star-holes in your brain and the caffeine is too late. If the caffeine gets there first, then they won the race and block the buttons in the star-holes, so you don't get tired at all.

But then you can't go to sleep and you drive your mom and dad crazy.

On the other hand, if you're not tired at all and caffeine makes you go to sleep, maybe you have really sensitive sleepy-buttons.


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

[User] What did Kierkegaard mean when he said What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?

[Assistant]
You should also state where you got the quote from, in this case it's Kierkegaard's Either/Or (p. 44).

In the book Kierkegaard writes about the aesthetic life, in which a person gets their personal joy and extracts mainly pleasures. And the ethical life, where one thinks critically about his or herself in contrast with the civic life.

For Kierkegaard someone who finds themselves in the aesthetic life for too long will find themselves in despair, noticing the limits of that sphere of life.

What Kierkegaard alludes to is the idea that people often hide their true existence. Someone who laughs a lot could instead be crying on the inside using laughter to hide sadness.

The book challenges the reader to look at itself to find a hidden face, and to look into others to find a hidden face.

The title is also saying that we should do best according to our freedom, either/or, either live aesthetically or ethically, there's no Hegelian dialectic that reconciles all. It concerns the existential search for the meaning of life and how to live.


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

[User]
Why is it that many equations are so simple?

It seems as if a large proportion of scientific equations are extremely simple; several equations are purely a case of **a=b*c**, or something similar. Is this because of the way we have developed our understanding of all these units and values, or just because of the way the universe is?

[Assistant]
They're not. But we often learn about the simple ones first because they are simple, and create simplified approximations whenever that gives enough accuracy & precision to be useful.

If you want to look at enzyme kinetics you're dealing with rate equations. If you want to get into modeling something like a disease outbreak it's partial differential equations.


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

[User]
ELI5.How forensic analysts match a bullet to a gun?

How do ballistics/forensic analysts match a bullet from a victim or found on the scene to the EXACT gun that fired it?? I mean a 9mm bullet can be loaded into any 9mm firearm right? So how do they know exactly which gun that fired it? How do they match it?

[Assistant]
Quite honestly poorly.

Studies in recent years have shown that ballistic analysis is highly flawed and unreliable.

But to answer your question. The barrel of a gun has grooves etched into it called rifling. These grooves are used to spin the bullet when it is fired. That spin makes the bullet travel straighter.

The theory is that if you have two bullets fired from the same gun, the grooves created by the rifling should be identical.


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

[User]
[Angel] When Angel first rose from the grave, why was there mist coming from his and Darla's mouths?

In the scene where Angel first rises (The Prodigal, S1E15), Darla and Angel are in a cold graveyard. There's mist coming from their mouths, but why would there be if they don't breathe? It's not just when they talk, so why would they be breathing if they didn't have to?

Angel, maybe because he's fresh, fine. But why would Darla breathe?

[Assistant] Vampires don't  *need*  to breathe, but they *can*. How else could they talk? They require the ability to suck air in and out of their lungs in order to help them masquerade as normal humans. All vampires clearly breathe, despite not needing to for survival. Now, the real question here is this: how did they steam the air when they are not warm like humans? Vampires, though cold, dead creatures, gain temporary warmth from fresh blood or environment.  From this we can fathom: Darla had been eating recently, and Angelus had been a fair bit warmer in his grave before emerging into the cold night air.


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

[User] [sci fi in general] If you are engaged with a hive mind, is it polygamy or not? The partner is a single individual (the mind) but also several thousand bodies (the hive)

[Assistant]
Its not polygamy . Its still one being with one mind and therefore only count as one person .

A human is composed of multiple cells that are all alive and separate yet we are still one being .

The mind makes the person not the flesh .


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Do Hogwarts students have general education courses?

I realize they have a History of Magic course and an Arithmancy course, which are somewhat close. It's hard to believe that courses such as English or other language courses aren't offered..

[Assistant]
Of course. They're taught in a wide variety of different forms of magic, everything from charms to divination.

None of that Muggle stuff, of course-- what's the point of learning something if just anyone can do it?

By way of further elaboration, think back to the traps guarding the stone. Snape's, the one with the potions and the fire, was deliberately set up the way it was because most wizards don't have a strong formal education in anything but magic and consequently aren't very good at logic puzzles or critical thinking.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do the cameras in race cars seem to ALWAYS be pointing at the right thing at the right time?

Does every car camera have it's own operator?

Whenever there is a crash in nascar or similar the camera ALWAYS seems to be pointing in the right direction, even if the crash only takes half a second, far too short of a time for somebody to switch to the camera controls, then move it around to get the crash in shot?

[Assistant]
They have wide angle cameras (360 degrees in some cases), the production team can "zoom" or crop the wide image from the camera into a narrower view emulating a regular lens.

The production process for live races is pretty impressive.  There are multiple editing teams who are in charge of different cameras.  One editing team may be dedicated to the on-car cameras, another does the track side cameras, another does the "floating" eye in the sky cameras, and another does the correspondent/interview camera feeds.  All of these edited feeds go to a master editor, who switches between them to create the mix of different views that goes out on TV.  The master editor relies on the sub-teams to capture whatever is interesting or important from their cameras and put it onto their feed.  If there is a crash, the master editor can switch to the on-car sub-feed confident that team has the most interesting view of the crash pulled up.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is chewing on ice thought to be a symptom of iron deficiency or anemia?

[Assistant] Its thought that chewing ice in anemics sends blood rushing to the brain, making them more alert. Pica (craving/chewing things that aren't food or otherwise have no nutritional value) is linked to an iron deficiency - its not totally clear why for some substances.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are the most common reasons countries "decide" to become another, and how? E,g. Castile-Aragon to Spain, Prussia to Germany, etc.

***EDIT: Bonus points, explain Austro-Hungary/Spanish Habsburgs?***

[Assistant]
They merge with another country.

Prussia merged with other German principalities and united as Germany.  Spain was formed through marriage and conquest.

To unite a new kingdom made of dozens of former nations, they rebranded the country with a new name.


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

[User]
ELI5 disposal/recycling of electric vehicle batteries.

At some point when all vehicles are electric how do we as a planet get rid of the batteries that will eventually require replacement?

Edit: what Im getting is that EV are awesome after they are made until end life; but mining the Lithium for the batteries is worse for the land(arguable) and the recycling will end up like the current model where eventually they will stop and the sizable batteries will stack somewhere. Did I miss something?

[Assistant]
We recycle them. Both Lithium and Lead Acid batteries can be recycled very well and very completely.

When you charge and discharge a battery, different chemicals move between different places in the battery, and between being in a solid state and a liquid state. After a while, the solid state crystals become weirdly shaped, and after that point it is difficult to charge and discharge the battery any more. Thats when the battery is dead. But this is just a physical problem, not a chemical one. The chemicals themselves dont change, they are just in weird crystalline shapes. So we take the batteries, and take the chemicals out, separate them, melt them into new molds, and make new batteries that have correctly shaped solid structures inside them again, and then they work great again.

This recycling process works very well, and it is the reason that when you buy a new car battery they give you a refund for the old car battery, because they then recycle that old battery into a new one.


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

[User] ELI5: I keep seeing studies that say vegetables have less nutrients compared to those 100 years ago. Does this apply to organic vegetables? Is there a way to ensure youre getting nutritious food?

[Assistant] Yes, it also applies to organic... organic just means whether chemicals were used as pesticides or not. Many of todays produce was selectively bred for longer shelf life, heartiness when being shipped long distances, often at expense of taste and nutrients.


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

[User]
Is light reflected off matter or is light absorbed and then released?

Are my curtains red because all other light is absorbed and (mostly) the red wavelengths are reflected, or does the fabric absorb the phiton and then release light of a red wavelength?

[Assistant] Its reflecting the red light and absorbing the other colors, this is how pigments work which are how most everyday objects get their color. If a material absorbs and then emits light its either fluorescent (emission is almost instantaneous) or phosphorescent (emission is delayed).


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

[User]
ELI5: How did STDs and STIs get started?

Was it some sort of mutation within a population or a species?

[Assistant] STDs are viruses of the plant and animal kingdom that prove problematic (to say the least) when spread to new hosts.  HIV as we all know was an infectious disease in monkeys that spread through handling their blood during food preparation.  Herpes was a virus in sheep that spread.  When Lewis and Clark voyaged across America they contracted stds from Native American women which they showed no signs of--simply because they had adapted to them.  When these viruses infect a new host that has no antibodies (or w/e) to them, the signs show up.  This is why some people can be carriers without symptoms while others get itchy dick.  It's very scientific.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do U.S. judges repeatedly have to declare "Same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional"

Why do U.S. judges repeatedly have to declare "Same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional"? Do the different states expect their state to get a different result than other states on this?

[Assistant]
They are federal district judges, and they have certain areas that their decisions are enforced over, those are their "jurisdictions".

If a federal judge in one district rules one way that doesn't mean a federal judge in another district can't rule differently.

>  Do the different states expect their state to get a different result than other states on this?

Well the appeals court judge that covers ohio ruled in favor of the state bans, so yeah.

The fact that there are conflicting rulings at the district court level is the reason the supreme court is going to make a final decision on the issue this summer.


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

[User]
eli5: How do QR codes work?

How are QR codes able to direct me to a website/ fill out correct information on blank fields?

[Assistant]
QR codes are a really cool way of encoding information in an image. You'll notice of to look at one, there are a few obvious landmarks that all QR codes share, the large nested squares in 3 corners, and the smaller nested squares in the final corner. These landmarks allow the decoder to determine the scale and orientation of the QR code.

Once that's determined, the remainder of the QR code is a lot like binary, it's a grid of squares which are either filled or unfilled, like binary 1s and 0s (this is a simplification of the actual encoding mechanism which is quite complex and allows for a bunch of redundancy, which is why you often have a company logo over the QR Code, obscuring some of the grid, but it still works)

The decoder then reads the "binary" message from the grid, and it comes out as a URL to a website or an app, or some instructions that the reader so can act upon.


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

[User] ELI5: Why doesn't the 4th Amendment protect people from mass surveillance?

[Assistant]
> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There are a few key words here that were left open to interpretation. Notably things like "unreasonable" and "probable". If the courts decide that something is not "unreasonable", then it's fair game. Likewise, if they decide a situation gives "probable" cause, then it's fair game. Nothing on the Bill of Rights or the Constitution really elaborates on what those words actually mean, so courts have to decide as best they can what fits the intent of that amendment, and others.


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

[User]
What did McLuhan mean when he said that, in the electronic age, action and reaction will happen virtually simultaneously?

As I understand it, it ties into his whole point about our shifting perception of space and time according to the specific form/attributes of the new emergent media in the electronic age. But how can action and reaction occur simultaneously? How can our consciousness ever move beyond a sequential, causal understanding of our world? Is that even what he means?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Assistant] Because we are all connected through our cellphones and computers, and rarely more than a few feet from some kind of device with instant, always on, access to the internet, we learn about things as they happen, and tend to react immediately to the thing that's happening. The more plugged in someone is, the shorter the time between event and reactions can be. In some cases, you have people reacting as though the causal event is over and they already know everything about it, even though said event is still taking place.


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

[User]
ELI5: Worker Unions.

I have never understand unions/employers during strikes, cause about contract negotiations. Employer offer new contract union rejects it. Why then employer can not disband(fire) employees(or let them continue to strike) and hire new union(workers) that are willing to agree to offered contract?

[Assistant]
The company can do that.   The problem is that all the workers are united in order to strong-arm the company into meeting their demands.

The company can totally fire them all and hire new workers who aren't part of that union.   However,  for skilled trades,  that means the entire staff needs to be trained ,  and all the guys who actually did the work are part of the Union and you just fired them,  so who is going to train these new dudes?

Even without that problem,  training the new staff or hiring that many people takes long enough that production  will decrease significantly,  likely costing the company much more money than just giving the  union workers the raise they asked for.


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

[User] [Star Wars] The Empire has seemingly conquered the whole galaxy, who would a consular ship be visiting?

[Assistant] The Empire hasn't conquered the whole galaxy. They control a large chunk but not all of it. There's independent nations outside the empire like the corporate sector and Hutt space. There's independent worlds and systems. And there's plenty of different worlds that while part of the empire are autonomous. Diplomacy doesn't end just because everyone is part of the same government either. A consular can still go to visit and negotiate with allies instead of resorting to edicts and laws forcing compliance.


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

[User]
ELI5:How does being tired lead to irritableness?

I'm in my finals week in law school this week, and I haven't had a proper sleep for a long time.

I'm usually extremely patient, calm, happy and fun. However, at the moment I have no patience for any BS and the slightest thing can set me off.

What biological reasoning is there behind this? ELI5 please :)

[Assistant]
One of the more "evolutionary modern" functions of the brain is restraint. We can suppress primary reactions like irritation and anger because we can reason why that would benefit us. However, it takes some energy to use this function of the brain and when energy is low or your brain is tired from not getting too much sleep, this just doesn't work that well anymore.

There's only so much energy to go around and when it's scarce it's appointed to more vital functions. In short because being alive is more important than not being an a**hole ;)


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

[User] ELI5:Why does a cheesy bean and rice burrito cost less than a bean burrito at Taco Bell?

[Assistant]
The prices of things aren't always directly connected to the cost of making them.  This is one of those cases.

The bean+rice burrito is a newer item & part of a promotion while the bean burrito is an old standby.  They know that the people who have been ordering bean burritos for 30 years are going to keep ordering them regardless of the 20c price difference but they're trying to get new customers drawn in with low prices.

Just to speculate about some more complex reasons...

When you're running a restaurant, you need to consider the food costs of the store as a whole, not just on a per-item basis.  Maybe they've decided they *must* have rice on the menu so they can use it for high-profit items but they're having to throw a bunch of it out when it dries up (as opposed to beans which you can keep fresh by just adding a bit of water) so they came up with the bean+rice burrito to sell more rice.  In this case, the rice is effectively "free" since it would have ended up in the trash.

Ultimately, every "value menu" at fast food restaurants is there to get you in the door for products they make little to no profit on in the hopes you buy something fancy or a soda that has a high profit margin.  Breaking even on a $1 burrito is good enough, since they're going to have the restaurant open anyways.


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

[User]
I see gay marriage as an equal rights issue and all other viewpoints should not matter. Because of that, I think it's hypocritical for people to have gay friends yet be against gay marriage. CMV

I know "gay marriage" related topics are very common on CMV. And I'm not asking people to change my viewpoint to be anti-gay. But I believe there is 0 basis for being against gay marriages.

So I had an argument with my friends and I was telling them how it was hypocritical for people to have gay friends yet be against gay marriage. They retorted by saying that you can have differences with your friends and that anti-gay marriage proponents see gay marriage as less of an equal rights issue and more of a cultural issue. I don't think personally that differing with your gay friend on the issue of gay marriage is something that can just be buried for the sake of the friendship. I think it is a fundamental human right for someone to be married and be happy with another human being. You can't be friends with someone if you don't support them in having the same rights as you do. It's like how can a black man and a white man be friends if the white man supports having segregated bathrooms. Extreme analogy, yes, but I hope you get my point.

[Assistant]
It's pretty easy to have friends with whom you disagree.  For example, consider any meat-is-murder vegan who is friends with an omnivore.  Would you call them a hypocrite on the same grounds?  It's certainly a rights issue, albeit not a human rights one.  What about an atheist and someone deeply religious?  Suppose the atheist thinks we should remove all the religious tax exemptions and accommodations for the religious?

People bury a lot of things for the sake of friendship, and that doesn't necessarily make them hypocrites.  It just means that they feel the good outweighs the bad, and that perhaps, in time, the other person might be persuaded to change their mind.


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

[User]
ELI5: How the data transits online from USA to EU (for example)

I'm familiar with the principle of bits to convey data (with copper cables first then optical fibers), and I know 99% of international traffic comes from cables in the ocean but I would like to know how everything turns out to work when, say you send an e-mail from London to New-York, how can the ridiculous amount of data in the world transit through a few cables?
Hope it's not too complex to be explained.

[Assistant]
There are routers. Routers are made to connect to each other and to your regular everyday computers. They keep a list of who they are directly connected to.

So when you send a message, it gets split into little chunks, goes to your local router, who then passes it to the next router, who does the same, until it gets to the destination.

There is a pathfinding algorithm that finds the best route for each little chunk to take. They each have an id so that the pieces can be put back together in the right order. Each chunk is put in a special packet so that routers can tell where and how to deliver it.

They don't all take the same path to the destination. So one chunk could take the undersea cable, another through satellite, and another going through cables to Africa, then to Europe.

As others have said, there are a lot of cables and they can carry a lot of data, and relatively speaking an email is not a lot of data.


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

[User] [Futurama] What are the laws concerning suicide booths?

[Assistant] You wanna kill Yourself? Go to a booth. It pretty simple. If you mean what would happen if say you stuffed someone into one and activated it? Probably nothing because every suicide booth has an AI. Bender dated one. It probably wouldn't activate if the person inside didn't want to die.


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

[User]
[Star Trek]you have an outstanding EMH, ours can barely hold a laser scalpel One of the Equinox crew said that when he came on Voyager. Wouldnt all EMHs have the exact same medical skills?

EMHs are mass-produced.

[Assistant]
If it's not the EMH, the difference might be stemming from the computer it's running on.

I can only guess, but the Voyager might simply have a better copmputer system. Better response time, courtesy of the bio-neural circuitry; larger memory space due to the long-term exploration missions profile; and maybe just a overall more powerful processor capability, as it is a bigger ship.


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

[User]
[Genreal SciFi] Most inefficient/dangerous form of FTL in SciFi?

What is the most inefficient or outright dangerous forms of FTL in SciFi?

what comes to mind straight up has to be Warhammer 40k warp drive with ships often getting lost in the warp appearing years after the entered the warp or falling pray to inhabitance of the warp when the Gellar field fails.
Another would be Dune simply because it being quite unsafe without a navigator and even with it there the cost of the Spacers guild plus the cost of making a navigator in the first place which needs QUITE a bit of spice.

[Assistant]
Gotta say that the the Warp drives in Warhammer get an undeserved bad reputation. It makes the Imperium, consisting of three quarter *trillion* planets and an unknowable number of soldiers, work.
Stealing a paragraph that explains it a lot better than me.

> Humanity is only able to leverage its numbers and make war on a galactic scale because the reliability of its warp travel. Yes, sometimes ships are lost to the Warp or arrive two centuries too late. However, sometimes every successor chapter answers a call and arrives to bail out Baal or Terra all at once. Sometimes crusades of hundreds of ships go cleansing a path hundreds of star systems wide. No other race on the galaxy has the same combined numbers, reactiveness and coordination, and it is owed to the Astronomican.
The last time Mankind was unable to make use of Warp, the first intergalactic empire Mankind had (This was before the Age of Strife) fell apart, entire planets lost contact with each other, Terra became a shitpit (And THAT forced the Emperor to come out of the shadows and begin the Age of Strife), AND it was even smaller than the Imperium of Man, AND that time period didn't have all the nasty shit that plagues the galaxy today.

>^(Also warp travel being what it is sometimes it fucks up in a beneficial way and the fleet arrives several years before it left.)

>In all seriousness, the lore depicts response fleets arriving even while invaders are still off-loading troops or after the battle has peaked but before it can swing either way. This implies Imperial Warp travel is usually very reliable and extremely quick. The rapidity of the Great Crusade itself also supports this.


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

[User]
Why are the right/left factions in so many countries seemingly in roughly the same proportions?

It appears that in democracies, and not just Western democracies, there is a rather similar equipoise between voters who are right-leaning and left-leaning.  The center of the political discussion in a great many countries around the world seems to be in a similar place.  On a host of issues such as same-sex marriage, taxation, defense spending, labor and business regulation, pornography regulation, etc., many countries seem to have the same policy debates contemporaneously.   Countries as different as Canada, Israel, India, the U.S., France, Mexico, Australia, Chile, Poland, or Greece all seem to be debating in a roughly similar place.   There are some outliers (e.g. the U.S. doesn't have universal health care vs. Scandanavia has a much more robust welfare state).   But in general, although there are many individual *people* in each of these countries who have extreme views on these subjects, there don't seem to be any democracies in which the population as a whole has a view that is wildly out of step with the center of the policy debate in other countries.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that I'm guessing that there might be an "innate" tendency for human societies to generate a right-left split in politics that is roughly evenly matched.   Is there any evidence for or against such a proposition?

[Assistant]
The most common explanation is the Median Voter Theorem, based on Anthony Downs' *An Economic Theory of Democracy* (1937).  Assume that you can reduce the complexity of political opinion down to a single-dimensional spectrum.  This spectrum is culturally-dependent and ultimately arbitrary; all that matters is the fact that voters in a particular political space place themselves relative to other voters according to this spectrum.

Second, note that to win an election, the basic threshold is quite literally 50%+1 of the vote. Given this logic, political parties (or coalitions) will try to position themselves in such a way as to appeal to that 50%+1 voter--i.e. the voter directly in the middle of the political space, or "Median Voter".

In this way, parties tend toward policy convergence--if the Republicans are winning the median voter on taxes, Democrats are forced to respond, even if they would prefer not to, or risk losing.

The single-dimensionality to politics is essential here because it allows the parties to moderate their platforms more than they would otherwise be able.  As Paul Frymer (1999) shows in *Uneasy Alliances*, many groups on the party fringes, who would tend to extremes, risk becoming completely irrelevant if they defect.  Just look at how Nader voters in 2000 probably led to a Republican victory or how Progressive voters in 1912 led to a Wilson victory. This gives parties the flexibility they need to ignore their own fringes and move more toward the center than they otherwise would.  Parties know that these extremes have nowhere else to go.

Now, let's go back to the 50%+1 standard.  Certainly parties often hope for landslides that show that the median voter is moving in their direction.  But landslides aren't what they're cracked up to be.  They can reflect a candidate's weakness (Sarkozy vs Le Pen in France), the legacy of imperialist/historical division (the ANC in South Africa), manipulation of the election (the PRI in Mexico in the 1970s), or even poor campaigning (Goldwater in the US in 1964).  Political parties are not looking for long-term supermajorities--that means fewer benefits for their core voters.

Ultimately this gives voting blocs an incentive to look at the other party, and for the other party to offer something to potential voters to bring it to victory, thus reestablishing a 50/50 equilibrium between the two parties.

In sum, the logic of elections is to have a coalition that is perfectly half of the population to maximize the benefits you can distribute. This leads to two, just about equally-sized coalitions or parties.

In general, "right" and "left" are fairly arbitrary--and for the purposes of the Median Voter Theorem are completely arbitrary. But the reason for the substantive policy sphere is similar in most of the countries you list (India is a bit different) is most likely because of policy convergence (Krill 2005), a fancy way of saying that politics doesn't happen in a vacuum, and that countries look toward each other to see what they're debating and dealing with.  Globalization and harmonization of economic (and/or social) regulation may be accelerating this process.


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

[User] ELI5: How does the water of an oxbow lake stay there despite it being cut off from a supply of water? What stops it evaporating like a giant puddle?

[Assistant] It's cut off from the river as a supply of water, not from any source of water. There can be groundwater that's coming across underground from the river. There can be runoff from the land higher than the lake that will drain there instead of into the river. Water is one of those insidiously persistent things. If there's a route to a lower spot or an area of lower pressure, the water will find it's way there...


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

[User]
What colour are Neutron stars?

Assuming we have a magic shield that blocks out all non-visible light, and a human eye (human optional) within viewing distance, what colour would a neutron star appear to be?

Would there be a shift in spectrum emissions because of gravitational effects?

[Assistant]
**Short answer:** White. Neutron stars are simply white hot.

**Long answer:** Surface temperature of a neutron star is in the neighborhood of 1 million K. This has a peak blackbody spectra around a few nanometers, well below the 400 nm or so cutoff of the visible spectra. The visible spectra is just going to be an enormous blindingly bright wall of mixed light.

If you put on really really really thick sunglasses, you should be able to see the preference for blue. And even though the light will be redshifted by about 25%, that shouldn't really effect the spectra you see all that much. For every photon that's redshifted out of the range of human sight, another will be redshifted in from the ultraviolet, so it should more or less look the same, whether or not you consider general relativistic effects.

If you wait many many many billions (trillions?) of years, they'll eventually cool to a few thousand Kelvin, and their black body curve will begin to peak in the visible spectra, so the white/blue hotness will fade to a red hotness, before eventually they turn black with the heat death of the universe.


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

[User]
[ghost busters 2] i ate some of that goo, am i going to be alright?

my crew and i had to go and move the statue of liberty back to the island. while we where cleaning the goo off of the inside i got curious and tasted it. boss got pissed and called poison control but they had no idea what to do or even if they should do something.

[Assistant] It's okay, raw ectoplasm is spiritually inert. It'll work its way through your system in a few days. You'll be fine unless a major supernatural event occurs really really soon. Just to be safe (and because they bill by the hour), the Ghostbusters may want to keep you under observation for a while.


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

[User]
Is the mass use of disinfectant and other preventive cleaning measures in households across the world right now going to cause an increase in disinfectant/drug resistant bacteria and viruses?

We hear all the time about bacteria becoming drug resistant by over prescribing antibiotics, can the same thing happen with viruses or bacteria and disinfectant?

[Assistant] Alcohol and alkaline products *physically* disrupt proteins and especially the fatty acids that make up the cells membranes and viruses capsides. It is much much harder (but not impossible) to develop a resistance to that.


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

[User]
Do babies in the womb dream?

I mean of course it would have to be at a more advanced stage where the brain is developed to a point but considering pre-born babies do not have any perspective on ... well anything, do they dream?

[Assistant]
in short: No clue, probably technically yes but the dreams would not be like what you have.

The fetus (in late pregnancy) is asleep. That is, its brain shows the same  kind of oscillatory activity as an adult brain in either REM or slow wave sleep stages. Iirc the fetus is kept sedated by the hormones from the mother so it constantly alternates between sleep stages and is never awake until birth (btw this is a big difference in developement of a full and pre term babies).

While the brain has some predefined structure and function for lower level processing, most of the "higher functions" comes in early childhood trough processing sensory input. The newborn brain is not conscious in the same way you are. It is more like a overconnected neural network waiting for pruning to make it usefull.

Dreams develop a bit similarly to consciousness. Adults have more complex dreams than children. It has been suggested that this is connected to visuospatial ability to imagine things. For example Foulkes et al. has studied child dreaming and concluded that contrary to popular belief children in early childhood do not really experience vivid visual dreams like adults do. Of course this is really hard to study as we would be essentially asking children to describe mental states before they even have a good concept for differentiating between self, others and outside environment. Children simply aren't very aware of their mental states (again, consciousness develops during childhood, it's not something present at birth).

A fetus essentially doesn't have ability imagine anything visual so the dreams would be completely static. No emotional experiences would also make the dreams emotionless. So while its brain technically does what your brain does when dreaming, it does not experience dreams like you do.

However, like i said, no clue really. This is not easy to study. We cannot put an EEG cap to a human fetus. We cannot ask it what it felt. We basically extrapolate from child studies and study some animal fetuses we can put EEG on.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Assuming you had enough of the stuff, how effective would a Beskar-plated ship be?

Beskar seems to shrug off most things shy of extended lightsaber contact. How effective in combat and mobility would it be if say Din Djarin's ship or a typical starfighter were covered in Beskar plating?

[Assistant]
It would be very durable, the beskar would probably be probably be immune to all but the very largest turbo laser weapons, if not even that too. However, it might still be weak to some weapons, like ion weapons, that could still disable it.

Also, there is also the fact that not *everything* on the ship can be made from beskar. Stuff like thrusters, weapons, sensors, windows, all the electronics and fuel and ordinance(and the pilot!) , not only do all these things create openings in your armour where the ship can be damaged, its also things that can be damaged, destroyed or detonated, either by the kinetic impact of all the blasters hitting you, or by the heat conducted by the beskar from all the hits.

So yes, it would give you the single most durable (also single most expensive) ship in existence, but it wouldn't make you invunurable.


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

[User]
[Avatar:TLA] Given that Azula was supposed to rule the Fire Nation and be subordinate to Phoenix King Ozai; did Ozai have any plans as to who should be the puppet rulers of the other three Nations?

Thats it. Thats the question.

[Assistant]
Ozai eas bullshitting a position for Azula to "hold" so she wouldn't go completely off the deep end.

He never meant for her to be the legitimate ruler of anything---HE was Phoenix King, and no other rulers would do.

We wasn't going to conquer the Earth Kingdom, he was planning full scale genocide of all non Fire nation peoples (he'd probably kill colonists too tbh).

This was a stupid plan, obviously, since the sheer amount of animal plant and human death would result in a natural backlash so powerful the entire Earth would be consumed in apocalyptic warfare with the spirits.


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

[User] [The Flash] Could the Flash look into a mirror and blink so fast he could see his face with closed eyes?

[Assistant]
The answer to any question which asks if The Flash fast enough to...  the answer is yes. Even if the answer does not make logical sense. It is still yes.

He is faster than instantaneous teleportation. He is fast enough that he can appear to be two separate people talking to someone at the same time and they would not notice.


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

[User] ELI5: How is it that we put salt in ice cream machines to make the ice colder, but we also put salt on our sidewalks and streets to melt the ice?

[Assistant]
Because you're not making the ice colder in the ice cream machine.  In both cases your goal is to make liquid water colder, but the reasons for wanting colder liquid water are different.

In the case of the ice cream maker, there's always at least a thin layer of liquid between the cream container and the solid ice, so colder liquid water means more heat transfers out of the ice cream and into the liquid water (so the ice cream freezes fast enough to freeze the air bubbles into the mix which is why ice cream has such great texture).

In the case of the sidewalks, colder liquid water means more ice melts and flows off the sidewalk and melting continues at lower temperatures, reducing the slipping hazard.


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

[User]
What would I see if I make a breakthrough between the two slits in the double slit experiment so it looks like a "H"?

Would the top and bottom part give the interference pattern and the middle part act like one horizontal slit so the light will show a line there? Or would the whole thing behave like one slit but with a weird form so I don't get an interference pattern at all?

[Assistant] It will depend on the exact geometry. If the breakthrough is thin then the result will still be dominated by the two slits and you get a slightly washed out double slit pattern. In general the pattern at the screen is the Fourier transform of the slit pattern. For the double slit you only need to care about one dimension which makes it easy to analyze, for more complicated patterns it's getting more complicated.


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

[User] ELI5: If the South Carolina church shooting is determined to be domestic terrorism, will the government go after the white supremest leaders who radicalized the shooter or are they protected by free speech?

[Assistant]
Depends on what the leaders said, and what can be proven that they said.

ISIS is an organization that is quite open in their message of violence and hatred. If the white supremacist leaders were directly encouraging their followers to commit violence, they did so in a private venue. Should clear evidence surface to indicate that they were directly promoting violence, they can be tried for collusion, conspiracy, and all sorts of other stuff.


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

[User]
ELI5 How does grass make pollen?

I cant find any answers online, all I find is articles about allergies. I thought maybe the grass didnt make pollen until it grew very tall and flowered but these allergy articles talk as if grass makes pollen no matter what stage of life, they talk about mowing your lawn and allergies. Unless you havent mowed in a year your lawn isnt going to flower.

[Assistant] It depends on what type of grass it is. In particular a lot of common lawn grasses like couch will flower when still quite short. For wind pollinated grasses it can be hard to even tell when they are flowering too unless you look closely - because they are pollinated by the wind rather than by insects they've never evolved the need to have colours, etc to attract insects so their flowers are roughly the same colour as the rest of the plant.


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

[User]
Does quantity of viruses/bacterias on initial infection even matter since they will replicate anyway?

Simply: is there any difference between being infected by 1 specimen and 1000 specimens of HIV virus for example?

[Assistant] Yes, there is a difference. Infection is not a yes/no question, there is a certain probability that any given virus or bacterium will infect a cell. One pathogen is likely to be cleared by the immune system, while with 1000 some have a chance of overcoming the innate immune system. (Those numbers are made up just for explanation and differ from pathogen to pathogen). This of course also continues in the replication stage because if one cell is infected it is likely cleared while if 1000 cells at once are infected the immune system might not be fast enough to clear them out before they can release replicated pathogens.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between fantasy and science-fiction?

[Assistant]
It can be something of a spectrum with significant overlap, but principally, Science Fiction takes an existing scientific principal and expands on it in to explore the consequences, possibly hand-waving the specifics of the egineering, but generally holding to the accepted laws of the universe with specific scientifically justified exceptions.

Fantasy includes clear impossibilties that are not even attempted to be justified by modern, real science, but instead are justified internally by "Magic", where "Magic" is an aspect of the in-story universal laws are fundamentally different than our scientific understanding of the real world.


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

[User] ELI5:What is a DDoS Attack?

[Assistant] basicaly sending a lot of trafic to a destination you intend to take down, there is so much trafic the destination can handle before it gets cloged and legit users cant access, imagine like its a highway, be it 10 lines or more no matter how big, if you sudenly start moving thousands of cars on it trafic jam will happen.


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

[User]
CMV: The US should have federal licensing for health care professionals (MD/NP/PA/RN/RT/Pharm)

Health  care providers are required to be licensed in every individual state  they practice in (exception: "compact" states mean that if you live in a  compact state, you can practice in every other compact state for  nursing)

I'm an NP, and it costs  \~400-500 to maintain my license every two years where I currently am. I  have practiced in two other states as well, but have let those licenses  lapse because of the cost of maintaining.  For doctors, it is even more.  (Plus we both have specialty board licensures to maintain)

Obtaining a new or reactivating an inactive license takes anywhere from 2-6 months.

The requirements for each state are nearly identical. You are required to have

* the requisite degree
   * Entire sealed college transcript is also needed, which is a pain in the ass
* the requisite testing board being passed
* Money
* Proof of identity
* Fingerprints (for background check)

This  process can be held up for many reasons.  For example, in TX, my  license took longer because my "pathophysiology across the lifespan" class was taken earlier than my other nursing courses and they missed it  on my transcript and in CA it was held up because they thought I didn't  have microbiology, because they didn't notice it at the bottom on the other side of my transcript. (granted, my transcripts were more confusing than many, as I graduated from the same school undergrad and  grad, but my undergrad was a different subject and had a lot of transfer credits)

Some states will have  specific classes needed for "continuing education" (usually a narc  prescribing class for NPs) and a few like OH have additional supervision requirements when you are new to the state, no matter how long you have been practicing. (OH requires an externship of 500 hours for  prescribing, even if you have 20+ years experience in another state).  And at least for NPs, depending on your specialty, that extra CE has  nothing to do with any part of your specialty, and costs $200+.

The  practice laws do not vary greatly from state to state, they are more subtle differences, and more  importantly, it is up to the individual provider to be aware of the laws  in the state they practice in.  The tests we take are standard across  the nation.  There is no difference in the NCLEX in OH vs TX vs ND.  My  specialty certification is also nationally based.

The problems with the current system are:

* Expense needed to maintain multiple state licenses
* Easier for people who have lost their license to switch states to potentially continue giving dangerous care
* Inconsistent discipline/treatment of nurses with addiction
* Difficulties in moving to another state and starting work quickly
   * This is especially problematic in situations where getting health care providers to where they are needed could be vital
* Sheer  frustration factor - I have a special calendar with all my licenses,  expirations and reminders. I still use it for licenses/certifications  that are just for the one state I'm licensed in, but it used to have  three state licenses, my national certification, my BLS/NRP, and other  annual requirements.
* Duplication of bureaucracy creating more cost and less efficiency
* Difficulties if you live on a state border, potentially requiring two licenses
* Difficulties potentially with telemedicine that might cross state borders

Potential complaints about national licenses:

* State nursing boards would lose power/staff/jobs
   * They could be at least partially converted to local branches of federal offices
* States rights?
   * I mean, I guess.  But if we are one country, the license requirements are the same, it's a hard sell
* The change would be complicated
   * But, jobs, right?

I  honestly cannot think of any reason why having state-based licensure  for medical professionals would be better than a national system.  So,  change my view!

[Assistant]
Because different states have different views on infractions, and there does not currently exist a federal body to govern sanctions and exclusions.

And before you say they should do that instead, creating such a federal body would be outside of the scope of the Constitution and would never achieve Congressional approval, let alone judicial review.

Also, while the requirements for each state may be nearly identical, they are not ACTUALLY identical (for example nor every state requires fingerprinting).

Each state has its right to set its own standards, and again unless you centralized those standards they are not equivalents.

You already provided the best and existing method to address this - the compacts and reciprocity agreements.


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

[User]
When did you buy a house and how did you afford it?

I hope I am not positing on the wrong sub, please let me know if I am. I currently set on pursuing a PhD , followed by post docs and hopefully a more permeant position. For those of you who did pursue that track, when did you buy a house and was/is it difficult to pay for it? It feels like paying rent for 5-6 years for phd then like 4 years for post doc is a lot.

I know there isn't a lot of money in academia, and I have already weighed my pros and cons and decided to pursue it for the time being, but I just want to make sure I can afford a house.

Thank you!

[Assistant]
Most PhD students and postdocs do not buy a house.

Academics often have to move for each stage in their career, so the economics and stability of buying don't always make sense if you expect you can't stay put. Until achieving a faculty job, most academics are also very poorly paid. So affording a house within a reasonable commute is out of reach unless the student has help from parents, a better paid partner, or savings from previous jobs.

If you do successfully become a tenure track Assistant Professor, you will be able to afford a house in most markets. Can't make promises for, say, NYC, San Francisco Bay area, or Boston/Cambridge where starter homes are >$1M today.

Different disciplines will also pay differently. A typical Professor of Medicine will make much more than a typical Professor of History.


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

[User] ELI5: How far up into space must one go before a compass stops working, and what do they use at that point for navigation?

[Assistant] In the sense of it being a tool for navigation it would stop working pretty quickly, like before you leave the atmosphere. it might point north but that doesn't help you in a space ship. Once it leaves earths magnetic field it wouldn't do anything at all (no idea how big earths magnetic field is but farther than the moon)


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

[User] [Star Trek: TNG] What does the crew bet with when they play poker?

[Assistant] You know how people back in the 20th century would play 'penny-ante poker'?  It's kind of like that.  The point is to play the game, not to acquire wealth.  Just think of the chips as points, and you're going for the top score.


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

[User] ELI5: Why was there so much hatred towards Armenians in the late 1800's/early 1900's? They were victims in two notable massacres/genocides resulting in the deaths of roughly 1.8 million Armenians.

[Assistant]
Sort of like the Jews, they were the trader and merchant class in the Ottoman empire. So they were everywhere in small numbers, dealt in money, and were involved in a lot of other transactions. Poor peasants resent the more urban merchants (a classic trope), plus they were Christians in a Muslim empire. Armenia also used to be its own country, so as nationalism rose in the late 1800s, there were Armenians talking about getting their own country back.

When the strain of WW1 was destroying the Ottoman Empire, they were an easy scapegoat. In smaller towns, they could be attacked in order to take their money.  And on the larger level, the Turks could blame the Armenians as the 'enemy within' (and also push them out of their homes and take their money)


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

[User] ELI5: Why doesn't stomach acid eat through your stomach when you die?

[Assistant]
When you are alive it eats through your stomach lining, but your body is constantly replacing that lining.  Your body is also producing more acid, because acid doesn't stay acidic forever - when it "eats" a ~~lower~~ higher pH substance the acid's pH is ~~lowered~~ raised.  Acids and bases cancel each other out and become water + salts.

When you die, you stop producing lining and also stop producing acid.  The acid in your belly gets "used up" on the existing lining/surrounding tissue and doesn't burn a hole through the floor like Alien.


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

[User] Can a Gas Giant have a moon within its Atmosphere?

[Assistant] I would say no.  First, any moon that close would be well inside the Roche limit and would be torn apart by tidal forces.  Also as you get closer to the planet you need to move faster to maintain an orbit.  You would have to be traveling at several km/s, that would produce severe aerodynamic drag and heating of the object, so it would eventually spiral inwards and sink (crash?) into the center of the planet.


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

[User]
What is random about Random Access Memory (RAM)?

Apologies if there is a more appropriate sub, was unsure where else to ask. Basically as in the title, I understand that RAM is temporary memory with constant store and retrieval times -- but what is so random about it?

[Assistant]
It's called random-access memory because the memory can be accessed at random in constant time.  It is no slower to access word 14729 than to access word 1.  This contrasts with sequential-access memory (like a tape), where if you want to access word 14729, you first have to pass words 1, 2, 3, 4, ... 14726, 14727, 14728.

Edit: Yes, SSDs do this too, but they aren't called RAM because that term is usually reserved for main memory, where the program and data are stored for immediate use by the processor.


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

[User]
Will paint dry in space?

Paint is liquid and solid, and the liquids would usually evaporate to leave the solid colour on the wall. Does that mean that vacuums would affect the way that paint dries?

Or does the energy from the sun still cause the paint to dry?

[Assistant] Yes, paint "drying" is the release of the volatile solvent from the paint.  An analogous term is "off-gassing".  On earth, if you want to "off-gas" a solvent, you put the part or article containing the solvent into a vacuum chamber.  The lower pressure causes any volatile material to (whether it is a petrochemical or water) boil off at a much lower temperature, leaving only the solids.  Its the same with paint.  So, in fact, the process should be much faster in space, but I'd expect the process to be nearly explosive, resulting in spotty coverage, as the boiling would be extremely violent...  ;)


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

[User]
Do you reject your hypothesis if the variable is not statistically significant, even though the coefficient had the sign you predicted?

My experience reading most articles has been that if a variable's not statistically significant, you just say that it's not statistically significant, period. I've been trying to read more on how to report/interpret results that aren't statistically significant, but I haven't really found an answer regarding whether you confirm/reject your hypothesis that you set before you do your analysis.

For example, my first hypothesis is that there is a positive association between exercise (independent variable) and happiness (dependent variable). Let's say that the coefficient for exercise is positive, but the exercise variable is not statistically significant (p-value higher than 0.05). Is this hypothesis of a positive association confirmed because of the positive coefficient, or is it rejected because of the p-value?

[Assistant]
> Is this hypothesis of a positive association confirmed because of the positive coefficient, or is it rejected because of the p-value?

The *null* hypothesis is *not* rejected due to the large p-value. This means that the observed results are reasonably explained by the null hypothesis, so we can't reject it as a possibility.

The specific observed sign of the coefficient does not change this. If there was no effect (i.e. the null was true), the observed coefficient would still have to take on *some* sign by random chance. It could easily end up with the same sign as your alternative simply by random chance - it's basically a 50/50 chance under the null (assuming a null of 0).


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

[User] Are moths negatively affected by streetlights?

[Assistant]
Short answer, yes. Streetlights can dramatically reduce the distance that a nocturnal moth will travel in its life, as well as make it easier for predators to catch the moth.

Many moths are nocturnal, traveling at night to reduce the risk of being seen and eaten. They're attracted "around" streetlights, not specifically to them, because they are a bright object that resembles the moon to them. Over millions of years these moths have evolved to navigate by keeping the moon, normally the brightest night-time object, at a fixed angle to their direction of flight. It's so distant that the result is the moth flies in a straight line. So prior to streetlights, a nocturnal moth navigating by moonlight can fly significant distances away from the location of their cocoon, which help to spread its genetics further, covering more territory where there are potential food sources. This results in a less at-risk species.

Streetlights overwhelm the moon and are right next to the ground, and they light up the area next to them. So if a moth tries to navigate by keeping the brightest object fixed at a specific angle to its direction of flight, it just ends up going in circles, often with a lot of other moths like it. As a result the moth doesn't fly very far, so the species doesn't benefit as much.

Further, the swarms of brightly lit moths at night, and that rest near the streetlight even through the day, can attract predators. The streetlight itself can be a structure where spiders can build webs. So a visible bunch of moths in one small area means more will not survive to lay their eggs.


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

[User] [Syar Wars] Was space travel always so accesible? Did most planets advance around the same time? Before it was accesible, did most planets think they were alone in the universe?

[Assistant]
We know very little of the early period of the Galaxy, what we do know comes from legends...

Before the Republic, there was the Infinite Empire. A warmongering with technology beyond understanding. Using the force, they were able to power their amazing technology. They, along with a few other select races, were the first to travel using hyperspace.

They used this ability to take over a large portion of the galaxy, but their progress was eventually halted and they faded into obscurity.

True Hyperspace technology was independently created on two separate worlds, both residing in the Galactic Core. They were the human-inhabited Corellia and the Duros-inhabited Duro.

The two civilization eventually met, and together founded the Galactic Republic 25,000 years Before the Battle of Yavin.


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

[User]
Can someone defend this Levi-Strauss quote for me?

Whatever may have been the moment and the circumstances of its appearance in the ascent of animal life, language can only have arisen all at once. Things cannot have begun to signify gradually.

I think I get the logic to this: that since words only have meaning negatively through difference, the image of a gradual process of pointing and grunting adding to and refining itself through the ages misses the point that a symbolic structure has to already have existed for such a development to be possible. But this quote still makes my brain hurt and I just instinctively want to say, but still the words themselves gradually came into being, we watch it happen in real time, and the words themselves are fucking language!! What am I missing? Are words themselves really that inconsequential to Levi-Strauss? Can the language that arrived all at once really only mean to him the fundamental I/ other,  this/that distinction?

[Assistant]
Levi-Strauss isn't talking about the content of language (i.e. individual words, phrases etc.), which of course evolve and change over time.

He's talking about the fundamental nature of language, the very act of a signifier, of symbols being used.


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

[User]
How would you educate your child?

In the US, we are aware that the public education system, K-12, is not running optimally. Lack of funding, irrelevant curricula and stifling of creativity are just some of the problems facing our schools.  As a person who is familiar, or even involved, with academic pursuit, how would you choose to educate your child? Private schooling? Home schooling? Public school? Private tutors? Please let me know your thoughts.

[Assistant] Whatever the state of the public education system as a whole may be, you should evaluate your local public school option first.  There are some very good public schools out there that are not irrelevant, underfunded, or stifling of creativity.


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

[User]
When animals leave their parents to establish their own lives, if they encounter the parents again in the wild, do they recognise each other and does this influence their behaviour?

I'm thinking of, for example, eagles that have been nurtured by their parents for many months before finally leave the nest to establish their own territory. Surely a bond has been created there, that could influence future interactions between these animals?

[Assistant] In domestic felines, its documented that daughters may share or overlap territories with the mother. Some even share a nest. This to me shows they do recognize one another, as outsiders are generally not tolerated.  How much they tolerate one another varies, but they do tend to tolerate familiar cats more. Its not really proven yet if cats with similar DNA tend to get along better, but its been suggested.


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

[User]
Do neutrons bound to stable atoms decay the same way protons do over long timescales?

As in do the protons in an atom have to decay first untill the atom becomes an unstable isotope, making the neutrons decay into protons, and then the newly formed protons decay again. Or can neutrons decay into elementary particles directly in a similar way protons can?
I know that the existance of proton decay is not confirmed, and some scientist may even say its unlikely. But does the hypothesis also include bound neutron decay?

[Assistant]
A nucleus containing protons and neutrons fills two sets of quantum states, one for neutrons and one for protons. You then calculate the total energy for that configuration.

Now you check what would happen to the energy if you fill the same quantum states with one more proton and one less neutron, plus an electron and an (anti-) neutrino. If the total energy is less than what you originally had, one neutron will beta decay to a proton.

It is the total energy of the system that decides if the system is stable or not, not the properties of the individual constituent particles.


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

[User]
I believe that prayer does nothing to change the world. CMV

Prayer as an act of reaching to a deity for help or comfort has no appreciable effect beyond what can be achieved by normal positive thinking.

Praying to end world hunger or to get a job has no effect unless you or someone else makes the decision to achieve the goal. These goals could also just as easily be achieved without prayer.

Edit: I do not believe in the non corporeal nature of prayer. I do believe in the effects such as positive thinking giving someone a better understanding of who they are a what they can do.

[Assistant]
Prayer isn't designed to directly change things but give people the strength to accomplish things themselves or set into motion the events that would allow them to do so.

Obviously this could change based on religion but the goal of prayer isn't to just "change" things.


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

[User]
[MCU] SPOILERS! So about Magic, technology, Asguardians and the Sorcerer Supreme...

In the beginning of Dr Strange, the Ancient One comments on the fact that the Sorcerer Supreme combats Magical threats to Earth, and leaves physical threats to normies, formerly SHIELD, and now the Avengers.

But in the MidCredit scene, the Sorcerer Supreme is questioning Thor about the danger of Loki, to which he replies he's handling personal business.

Is this not a physical threat?
Asguardians are supposed to use advanced technology, not Magic.
So does this mean that Asguard uses both Magic and Science, and unlike what we previously thought, is Loki a magic-user?

[Assistant]
One, Strange isn't particularly bothered by what is and isn't his role. Sure, his pals tended to focus on otherworldly consciousnesses that sought entry to our realm in order to devour our shrieking souls, feasting upon our pain in order to fuel the forges of cosmic misery, while the Avengers and such dealt with hordes of aliens and large monsters than punch things very hard, but what's the point of being the fucking Sorcerer Supreme if you can't write your own rules from time to time?

Strange considers Earth in general, and New York in particular, his domain. If something encroaches upon it, particularly something on the level of Loki, who already nearly destroyed the earth once, you can be damn sure Strange will take an interest.

There are plenty of people who can deal with alien armies, but only one relatively small group, the Kamar-Taj, who can deal with reality warpers. Strange is confident enough, or arrogant enough, to believe he has the resources to deal with *both*.

Two, the line between magic and technology is intentionally fuzzy in the MCU. The Ancient One told Strange that the magic he was learning could be considered code rather than spells, techniques for rewriting the operating system of the universe. Magic still has laws and rules and implements, just like Tony's arc reactor or Thor's hammer.

The primary differences are the medium, the knowledge of the inner workings, and occasionally, the sentience behind the effect.

Tony's technology deals exclusively with physical constructs. He basically built a battery. It's a really good battery, but it's still a battery. It's made up of stuff you can find on earth and assemble in a cave, if you're smart enough.

Thor's technology deals with stuff that we don't have the means of manipulating yet. Materials forged in the hearts of dying stars and contained effects of quantum systems.

Is a hammer that can summon lightning any more magic than a fist-sized device that can power an entire building? What would a man from a couple of hundred years ago think?

The medium of the Ancient One is ... the soul? The astral form? Our minds? She teaches her disciples to manipulate a thing that neither Tony nor Thor have access to.

The knowledge is also fuzzier. Tony knows his arc reactor intimately. Someone forged Thor's hammer, and it could theoretically be done again, if you had the blueprints and the means. But the Ancient One's disciples don't exactly know *why* their spells work, they just know that they do.

Finally, the Ancient One's magic sometimes involves invoking a sentient entity in order to accomplish a feat. Her long life isn't because of a spell she worked, but because she tapped into some *other* entity's magic, or technology, or whatever, in order to extend it.


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

[User] ELI5: Recently my hometown got 9" of snow, and the forecast was 8-12 inches. How can this (and other weather) be predicted so accurately so far in advance?

[Assistant]
Centuries of record keeping helps us see patterns and trends, decades of tracking weather patterns and results and feeding into ever-improving computer modeling, better data collection using radar and satallites, and every day we understand better the sciences behind weather which allows us to improve our computer modeling and amount of data we can track and document.

And for all that we still get it wrong.  A lot.


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

[User]
[Destiny] If respawning isn't just a game mechanic, and Guardians get revived in-universe, why do the enemies even bother trying to fight them?

Sorry if I'm missing something I just started really learning about the lore and stuff. But like the guardians are going to keep coming back no matter what right? Why would anyone dare oppose immortal people?

[Assistant]
>Why would anyone dare oppose immortal people?

They're immortal, not un-killable... and they aren't *omnipotent*. Kill one guy 500,000 times, or kill 500,000 people. Why does *that* matter? There aren't many humans left, and there are significantly fewer Guardians to protect them.


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

[User]
[Marvel] With the sheer number of telepaths in the Marvel Universe, how was Otto Octavius able to remain Superior Spider-Man?

You'd think that, with such a drastic change to Peter's behavior, one of the many telepaths or magicians he's friends with would take a look inside his head and realize he wasn't himself. Or, at the very least one would let their mind brush up against his and feel that he wasn't himself.  How did he manage to convince everyone he was Peter?

[Assistant]
Many Marvel telepaths feel it's 'rude' to read minds without permission and refuse to do so. Plus, it wouldn't be the first time Spider-Man had a dramatic change in mood.

What's confusing is that he met Rachel Grey, who tended to read minds without permission all the time, but it's possible she was refusing to do so just to annoy Wolverine.


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

[User] Since our bodies can eradicate cancer cells to an extent, why can't we drastically mutate the antibodies that kill the cancer cells for people who have cancer? Or will it create a risk to autoimmune diseases?

[Assistant]
It's not just antibodies that are required to kill a cell. In order to eliminate cancer, the body needs a strong T cell response, amongst other things. As the other poster mentioned, CAR T cell therapy involves taking T cells from a patient, transforming them to have a cancer specific receptor, and then returning the cells to the patient. There are other strategies that are being studied, like cancer vaccines, to generate specific, strong immune responses against the tumor.

However, having something that will target the cancer is only part of the battle. Many of these therapies have shown limited efficacy against solid tumors. The reason is that it is hard to infiltrate the tumor and the microenvironment around the tumor is typically anti-inflammatory, essentially turning off cells that come to kill the tumor.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did the imperial fleet retreat after the destruction of the second Death Star?

How were the rebels able to have a party on Endor when they were still outnumbered by a massive imperial fleet? Wouldn't it have made more sense to retreat immediately after destroying the Death Star?

[Assistant] The fleet (and the entire Empire) only managed to hold themselves together in such amazing organization because of Sidious' Sith battle meditation. He essentially mind-controlled the entire galaxy. When he was killed (which was possible because he had stretched himself too thin controlling so many forces at once) the connection snapped and the fleet fell into chaos.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are rockets launched at a 90 degree angle instead of a tilt like for missile

Why rocket launched in an upright (90 degree) instead of let's say 45, 65 or 70 degree. Don't projectiles at a 45 degree travel further such for missiles.

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question.

[Assistant]
Two reasons,

1. While youre right rockets need to start traveling horizontally to orbit, they also need to escape the atmosphere, and the thickest part of the atmosphere thats going to cause the most drag is closest to the ground. So rockets launch straight up to get out of this heavy resistance area, and then start their turn where the atmosphere isnt going to impact them as much.

2. Also theyre generally much much heavier than a missile, to build a contraption to support the full weight of a Falcon 9, as well as guide it gently up the ramp, all while standing up to all that force, would be outstandingly difficult and expensive. Without giving much benefit. Most missiles that are rail launch are thousands of times lighter than a rocket.


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

[User] Why do sodas use carbon dioxide and not other gases such as nitrogen or oxygen?

[Assistant] Carbon dioxide is used in fizzy drinks because it's more soluble in water than nitrogen or other potential suitable gases. You can dissolve ~1.75g of carbon dioxide in one kilogram of water at around 20C (just a little under room temperature), compared to about 0.02g of nitrogen per kilogram of water at the same temperature, and for oxygen you can dissolve about 0.04g in one kilogram of water at 20C. So, out of the common, cheap, nonpoisonous gases that you could use, carbon dioxide is by far the most soluble.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do insects/arachnids with such tiny brains have lightning-fast movements and reflexes compared to larger organisms?

[Assistant] Weight increases cubically while size increases linearly. This means that the power to weight ratio of smaller creatures is much higher than larger ones, and this allows them to accelerate their relatively lighter bodies much more quickly.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the german economy so much more robust than in other EU countries?

Also why did germany recover so fast/easily from the 2008 crisis and did take such a little dent during the crisis?

[Assistant]
I believe Tony Blair (former PM of the UK) asked This very question to the current PM of Germany. The answer was '...because, Mr. Prime Minister, we still make things in Germany.'

This anecdote goes a long way towards explaining why Germany is such a powerhouse in Europe. German exports are highly prized for their quality, even though their products might not be price competitive with say, China.

The German economy is based on a solid manufacturing base with well compensated workers, while the economies of other European nations tend to be focused on other things like Banking/Finance, agribusiness or Insurance which can be more prone to market fluctuations.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does ingesting grapefruit and grapefruit juice interfere with my anti-anxiety medication?

Hello all, just started taking buspirone and I noticed on the warning label that I should avoid grapefruit and grapefruit juice. Why and how does that effect a medicine that works on my neurotransmitters?

[Assistant]
There are a group of enzymes known as CYP450, and are responsible for the breakdown (metabolism) of a lot drugs.

Other drugs and food stuffs can interact with these enzymes, either speeding the metabolism up (by promoting the body to increase the number of a particular enzyme) or slowing down the breakdown / reducing the number enzymes that breakdown a particular drug

This happens because some drugs or food stuffs promote new enzymes to be made. Others damage the current enzyme population rendering them unable to metabolise by damaging the enzyme protein which is known as denaturing an enzyme. This requires your body to make more enzymes to replace the damaged ones which takes time.

Grapefruit juice is an inhibitor of some of these CYP450 enzymes, and as such, less metabolism of drugs can occur. In extreme circumstances, this can lead to overdose as the body does not have the capability to remove drugs from itself.

In ELI5 style - Say the body has some miners within itself (enzymes) that fall ill and can't work if they are given grapefruit juice. These miners are responsible for taking out things the body is given, such as medicine. If there are less miners, less medicine can be removed and so more remains for the body to use. This can harm the body as drugs are developed to be active for only so long, so warning labels are placed on meds.

TL;DR: Grapefruit juice stops the body from breaking down some drugs, potentially to the point of overdose or toxicity.


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

[User]
What happens when you blue shift into a gamma ray so much that it should turn into a particle anti particle pair?

I was wondering what would happen in a scenario like this. Once a photon gets enough energy it turns into a matter antimatter particle pair, and when you move in the direction of something that ejected a photon, that photon blue shifts for you to keep the speed of light constant, gaining energy. So what would happen? How could it be a particle pair relative to you, but a photon to an outside observer?

[Assistant]
Whether or not pair production occurs can't depend on your frame of reference.

For that reason, a single photon by itself can't undergo pair production, there has to be at least one other particle in the initial state. It could be a heavy nucleus, or another photon, but whatever it is, there has to be an energy of at least 2mc^(2) in the frame where the total momentum in the initial state is zero. (m is the mass of whatever type of particle is produced.)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do toys that are low on battery slow down and change pitch instead of stopping completely

^

EDIT : Well jesus christ on a bicycle! This post blew up. Thanks to everyone for helping me understand my simple issue!

[Assistant] It's low voltage. Imagine if the toy were powered by pressurized water instead of electricity. As the water feed tank empties (akin to low batteries), pressure drops, and the device performs sluggishly.


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

[User]
[DC] How can the Life Equation and Anti-Life Equation both Exist if they are mathematical proofs of the value of living/not living?

If they are both mathematical proofs that directly contradict each other, how does that work? How can life simultaneously be worth living and not worth living?

[Assistant]
Gdel's Incompleteness Theorem can be informally stated as

>"Any consistent formal system*F*within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete; i.e., there are statements of the language of*F*which can neither be proved nor disproved in*F*."

The value of living in the DC universe is presumably one such statement in the formalism employed by the life/antilife equations. Most likely the set of axioms each is based upon differ, leading to contradictory results.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How powerful is Nightmare exactly?

I was reading some early Doctor Strange comics, and in one issue it's shown that Nightmare, a relatively powerful demon from the dream dimension, can abduct the souls of mortal people at will and trap them in their own bad dreams. In another issue, he can even abduct Doctor Strange himself unless Strange recites an incantation before going to bed each night.

Why isn't Nightmare more of a threat to the world if he can do stuff like this?

[Assistant]
Nightmare's power seems to scale wildly.  There are real limits on it, like him not having much power over the waking world or outside his own realm.  Conversely, in his realm he can draw on power that scales dramatically based on what dreaming people are feeling.  He can even hold beings like Eternity under his power.

In terms of rank, Nightmare doesn't seem to rate as high as cosmological beings, old ones, or even Mephisto.  He competes for power with other beings who deal in fear, like the Dweller-in-Darkness.


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

[User]
[MCU] How the Nine Realms stand in relation to the rest of the universe?

So, the Nine Realms are planets in the MCU, much like Xandar, Sakaar, among others. But why they are so far removed from the rest of the universe? They clearly know about and even interact with other beings either from outside the realms, or outside the realms (Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok), but seeing the interstellar communities in both GotG, you don't see Asgardians, or even a reference about them.

Same deal with Asgard. Why they didn't help the Novas at Xandar? Why they don't have an alliance?

[Assistant]
From the illustrations they gave us, they seem to be withing a single galactic supercluster.  Over all that space, the Asgardians are connected to and concerned with 9 worlds.

Xandarian's aren't advanced enough to be let into their little norse tree club.


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

[User]
What makes GPUs so much faster at some things than CPUs, what are those some things, and why not use GPUs for everything?

I understand that GPUs can be exponentially faster at calculating certain things compared to CPUs.  For instance, bitcoin mining, graphical games and some BOINC applications run much faster on GPUs.

Why not use GPUs for everything?  What can a CPU do well that a GPU can't?  CPUs usually have an instruction set, so which instructions can a CPU do than a GPU cannot?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
GPUs are faster for 2 reasons:

* they are much simpler cores (missing features see below) and thus smaller and more can fit

* GPUs do not try to maximize IPC (instructions per clock); in other words they suck at single thread sequential execution of instructions, only problems that can be efficiently multithreaded are suitable for GPUs

* they are SIMD machines. When you compare a proper AVX CPU implementation of an algorithm with a GPU implementation, the performance difference of GPUs already is more reasonable. When compared to a simple CPU implementation that does not take advantage of 256bit wide data words with AVX, the performance difference to GPUs appears much larger, because SIMD is really a requirement for proper GPU algorithms while it is not the most commonplace approach taken with CPU code - comparisons are usually between unoptimized CPU code and optimized GPU code and the performance difference is thus exaggerated.

There is a large set of features that is geared towards single thread IPC throughput in CPUs (the reason for that is that most programs are single threaded):

* out of order execution (including register renaming, data dependency conflict detection, ...)

* branch prediction

Then there are a boatload of features in CPUs that make them suitable to run a modern operating system:

* interrupts

* multiple privilege levels

* sophisticated virtual memory management

* connectivity to a more complex set of support chips on the mainboard

* virtualization

Each core on a GPU is in essence a very simple SIMD CPU core. Because they lack sophisticated management functions they could not execute a modern operating system. Because programs for GPUs are harder to write they are not used for everything. Because most code executed on a CPU is hardly performance critical GPUs are not used for everything.

When we are talking about straightforward parallel code that is performance critical to the application then GPUs are used for almost everything; if the programmer takes the little extra time to do it right. They are for example used for everything graphics related. They are used for almost everything in the high performance computing community.

The sheer amount of code that a computer executes that is not really performance critical is way larger than the really critical parts, so when you want comfort and do not care about speed then a CPU is just much quicker to program.


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

[User]
[MCU] Is the history of UFO and alien abduction sightings different in this version of history compared to our own?

So in the MCU, it's confirmed that alien life not only exists, it's extremely common throughout the universe, and they make frequent contact with Earth. This is obviously different to our own timeline, where alien life hasn't been confirmed to exist at all.

Prior to Thor and The Avengers where the cat is completely out of the bag, what was the UFOlogy community like? In the MCU, there don't appear to be any "common" aliens like the Greys, the Reptilians, or little green men, so do alien abduction victims instead discuss how they were harassed by blue skinned humanoids like the Kree instead?

[Assistant]
MCU alien sightings and abductions have a chance of being real - not a 100% chance, but a chance.

As we know, the MCU's cosmos is complex and full of life. Asshole life. Jerk life. Life you know will be rude to your grandmother and knick the silverware. The kind of life you wonder how it got off its own planet, much less got to yours to start mutilating the cattle and tormenting the townies for kicks.

As such, It is not surprising that alien interactions on earth are a thing.