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

[User] Eli5: What is the purpose of the Raspberry Pi?

[Assistant]
Sometimes you have a project that needs the ability to do the full logic of a computer, but you don't want to devote a whole computer to doing it. Historically, this usually meant something called a *microcontroller* - a tiny computer chip built into devices that runs on very little power. But microcontrollers aren't very powerful and aren't very hobbyist friendly, because they're tiny and (historically) a bit difficult to program.

So the Raspberry Pi is something between a microcontroller and a full PC: it's powerful enough to run small web servers or emulate old games, but much cheaper than a full modern computer, so it's a good option for building into larger projects. For example, people build arcade machines using them, with the Pi emulating a game and wired up to the controls on the outside of the case. A lot of its uses are just "it's a very cheap low-power computer you can use for anything that isn't performance-dependent".

The original purpose was actually just a very cheap lightweight computer for poor nations, but it became really popular because of hobbyists.


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

[User]
[DC] Why not just Boomtube Doomsday to the furthest possible Galaxy? space expands FTL and even if Doomsday is FTL he'll take forever to get back.

Wouldn't this save a lot of trouble having to fight him each time?

[Assistant]
He always seems to find his way back

And on top of that, he's too powerful and scary for bad guys to just leave him.

Case in point, they sent him to the end of time and Time Trapper grabbed him before he was completely obliterated and brought him back.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do ghostwriters ghostwrite when they are clearly talented enough to make a name for themselves?

I mean there are known songwriters that don't sing also some people are ghostwriting entire books for famous authors.

[Assistant]
Some ghostwriters are already famous authors, and write for a paycheck. Some might be modestly successful, but an "auto"biography from someone famous is likely to make a lot more.

Also, some writers like their subjects and want to write those stories. People line up to write for Presidents and Politicians.

There's also less risk to your reputation, and some writers like the opportunity to take some literary risks or break the mold they are known for.

And, of course, others do it to get writing "credits" under their belt. Manuscripts from nobodies end up in the circular file. But the new book from the guy that ghostwrote the last Kardashian Sutra is going to get some curious glances.


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

[User]
Why have we not seen a fracturing of the Democratic Party similar to the ongoing conflict within the Republican Party?

Why is there no tea party of the left?

[Assistant]
There was a fracturing of the Democratic Party between 1964 and 1992.  Working class whites became disenchanted with the party's outreach towards minorities and the social programs they believed disproportionately benefitted non-whites.  The old New Deal coalition fractured, with minorities, union members, and academics at odds with these mainly Southern whites.

Richard Nixon capitalized on this divide in 1968, with his Southern Strategy, reaching out to the disaffected working class whites.  This strategy worked well for the next 20 years, with the GOP winning all but one presidential election.

The Democratic Party controlled the House for that entire time, but was afflicted by constant bickering between its factions.  As the GOP is now learning, the House is a terrible place from which to communicate a national message, due to the sheer number of members and their relative extremism as compared to either the Senate or the White House.


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

[User]
[Dungeons and Dragons] My seductive ways have finally caught up with me...

Wellp, it's finally happened. Out of all those peasants, guards, bounty hunters, thieves, innkeepers, nobles, shopkeepers, orks, mimics, dragons, and doors that I've seduced into helping me and my party with my adventures against Kikkkikarikkkaldigganikkan and his evil hordes of minions...

...I end up getting a letter from a *Red Dragon* about how I now have a child to help raise.

Some context - I'm just a humble human bard with jokes corny enough to sell at the farmer's market. It's not a bad lifestyle, and to be honest, it pays the bills. So after a one-night dance with the resident dragon in the abandoned castle of the *very* late Sir Donoggan and his fifty thieves in the valley between the bleeding mountains, I figured my friends and I were in the clear to make off with the loot and adventure somewhere else with a disproportionately smaller abundance of flames, skulls, zombies and murderous lych-fueled furnishings.

Only *now*, I'm being told by a courier (who was evidently paid by the aforementioned red dragon a total and generous sum of being allowed to live) that I have a daughter that I need to raise and look after.

So I come to you fair fellow of the lands, one with words of wisdom and wonder. Tell me - what must I expect in raising this daughter? What will she look like? How can I help her blend in to my meager world of soft squishy and humble humanity? Will she attract other dragons? What will I need to feed her? Will she or her mother try to murder me in my sleep? Can you stop looking at me like that? - Seriously, it was like, only two doors and a rough relationship at best (they kept getting in the way). What problems may arise as a result of her presence? Should I keep her away from any specific members of the party? How can she help with our adventures? Will she outlive me?

Most important of all - how can I ensure she lives a happy life?

I'm normally not worried, what with having the company of Buff Ramstock with his many debts to some big guy in the sky, a darkly clad person that always seems to be around when our very important and very expensive world saving artifact suspiciously and suddenly isn't, and a spindly book-bound lad that can vaporize entire legions of orks just as quickly as he needs rescuing from a scraped knee... but!... None of them have really actually *fought* a dragon, thanks to me and my way with words.

Speaking of which... Would you happen to be busy tonight? I hear the fields around these parts are gorgeous in the moonlight, and I'm itching to try this silver ring of smooth-talking....

[Assistant]
The first thing to remember is that nobodys ready to be a parent, even if they think they are. Do your best, love her, and dont give up.

The second thing to remember is that there is no such thing as too young to make your first unholy pact with the beings of outer darkness.

The third thing to remember is child seats. You cant just sit her in a regular jousting saddle; get a special boosted one with extra support.


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

[User]
[Wednesday] Where do the Addams families moralities fall?

I just finished the new Wednesday Addams show on Netflix, and Im a bit confused by what the Addams consider morally right vs wrong.

For example Wednesday spends a lot of the show trying to solve the murders and prevent the destruction of the school, yet she attempted to kill a pool full of highscool boys in the first 10 minutes.

Or how the family and others view Gomez killing the other student. Even the family members seem as if they dont want to kill people and that the students murder is wrong, yet the dad seems disappointed that nobody thought he was capable of committing murder in the first place.

So I guess my question is, is there a consistent set of morales the Addams family has?

[Assistant]
The Addams have a morality based on what they can survive. Uncle Fester survives more electric shocks than a typical human would, Wednesday enjoys being tortured, Morticia keeps carnivorous plants that nibble people who don't establish dominance, and so on. They simply have the naivety to believe that everyone can survive what they do.

Using that as a basis, Wednesday was just tormenting the boys at the start of the series as retribution for bullying her brother. Every one of them was a highly experienced swimmer who saw her approaching. The only one who failed to escape the piranha was the one who was too stupid to know to run. She may claim murderous intent afterwards, but she did something that every member of her family would have survived.

In contrast, stabbings, falling gargoyles, and monster attacks would be fatal to an Addams so are known by them to be wrong.

As for Gomez wanting to be thought of as capable of murder, not even being considered capable of it is him being told that his family believes that when the chips are down he would probably let them die rather than do what is needed. Being such a loving man who cherishes those he holds dear and wants to do right by them, that would hurt. It's not even machismo. It's just wanting his family to think that he would be there for them.

So in the end, their morality is based on their experiences and beliefs as everyone else's is. They're just highly durable.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we associate mint with being a "cooling" flavor and spicy foods with having a "hot" flavor despite them having no actual effect on temperature?

[Assistant]
Capsaicin from chili peppers binds to hot sensors in the mouth, nose, and lungs, which besides fooling the brain into thinking there's *actually* fire (there's not) are a powerful irritant, causing a cough response and nasal irrigation (runny nose), as well as some degree of tearing (like endearing) from the eyes in an effort to flush out the chemicals.

Menthol and other cool flavors bind to cold receptors in those same areas, leaving somewhat of a fresh taste in the mouth as well as decreasing saliva production. The nasal passages open up, allowing easier breathing.


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

[User]
[40k] Assuming the "goal" is galactic domination, how can the various races achieve this?

I'd love to see what you guys think about how each of the races would be able to destroy the rest, thanks!

[Assistant]
Tyranids- OM NOM NOM, and one (or more) of the other factions kill the Necrons or the Necrons stay apathetic.

Necrons-They choose to actually do something.

Eldar- Eldar Gods kick the shit out of Slaanesh.

Chaos-Tzneetch wants to win.

IoM- The Emperor somehow revives (either by dying and reviving or the vast amount of Psykers sacrificed 'fixes' him), and the few remaining Loyal Primarchs are recovered. Then, new Crusade and lots of dead factions.

Tau- They get ignored for a few more millennia.

Dark Eldar- Slaanesh somehow dies as does everyone else?'

Orks- WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHH!!! In other words, they win by being stubborn bastards to kill completely.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] In the Clone wars we see a Separatist parliament with a lot of idealistic figures. Were none of them freaked out by the fact someone as insane and violent as Grievous was the head of their military?

Considering that the confederacy of independent systems had a full on parliament and a fair chunk of separatists are shown to be decent people how did they not get freaked out by that, or question having him in command? Dooku I understand, he at least keeps up the appearance of being a respectable statesman but Grievous is a terrifying, brutally violent at the drop of a hat massive cyborg with a penchant for sadism and commits war crimes before breakfast. It's not like they couldnt have known, he was a pretty infamous figure at the time.

Did none of the ostensibly good separatists take issue with that?

[Assistant]
Probably no more or less bothered than people of the Republic were to have creepy-as-fuck Wilhuff Tarkin on their side. Or any of the stuffed-shirt-sociopaths in the intelligence corps. Or Bric and El-Les. Or indeed, an army of identical brainwashed clones.

War makes strange bedfellows. Villains are on both sides. Evil is everywhere.


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

[User]
Where do birds go to die?

I was thinking about this today. I don't know anyone who has ever seen a bird fall out of the sky dead? It seems to me that birds would die of natural causes and in my 32 years I would have seen a dead bird fall from the sky. Do they know far in advance that they are dying and then go somewhere to die alone?

[Assistant] They usually become too ill or too weak to fly, so they tend to land somewhere safe to sleep a never ending dream as all living things must eventually do. There's also a lot of fatalities due to predators though.


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

[User]
How does the body build tolerance to caffeine?

In addition to building tolerance to its mental effects, how does the body become tolerant to its diuretic effects?

[Assistant]
By regulation of the number of receptors sensitive to caffeine on the cell membrane.

Caffeine functions by inhibiting adenosine receptors in the brain, which we believe is involved in our biological clocks. After prolonged exposure to caffeine, the cell tries to return to homeostasis by *increasing* the number of adenosine receptors present on each cell's membrane to compensate for caffeine's effects. This results in the need for more caffeine to achieve the same effect on the brain as before, and can lead to withdrawal symptoms once the baseline caffeine level is removed.

Of course, there's more to it than that, but that's the crux of the idea.


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

[User] When you diet and exercise, where does the fat you burn physically go and how?

[Assistant] We actually breathe it out. Their results, published in the British Medical Journal, reveal that 22 pounds (10 kg) of fat turns into 18.5 pounds (8.4 kg) of carbon dioxide, which is exhaled when we breathe, and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of water, which we then excrete through our urine, tears, sweat and other bodily fluids.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do certain criminals get punished for 200+ years instead of just life?

[Assistant]
There's a few things at work here.

Prisoners can get "paroled" - which means that, if they behave well, they can get their sentence reduced.  If you're sentenced to 200 years, you're still serving 100 years, even if you behave well enough to get *half your sentence* taken off.

Part of it is that people are often sentenced for breaking many laws at the same time they committed a "single" criminal act.  Each of these carries its own prison sentence.  This means that, even if a criminal gets one of the charges thrown out in appeals court, they still have to stay in jail.


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

[User]
ELI5: why are they flying people infected with Ebola all over the world to hospitals?

What is the reasoning behind relocating infected Ebola people around the world to hospitals rather than keeping them quarantined in the  area where the infected already are? I understand wanting to move your citizens back home, but wouldn't that increase the chance of pandemic outbreak?

[Assistant]
Patients being flown to first world industrialized countries will be treated in a highly contained and adequately equipped medical facility which may be able to save the individual. Secondly, those who are performing the treatment in the US may well learn some things from this outbreak that will help the CDC, which is located in Atlanta.

The threat to the US and other countries is not bringing an infected patient to the care of professionals. The threat is someone flying into other countries with the disease unknowingly. It is not about saving one life, it is about studying and learning that can only happen with our technology. The disease is already here technically. The CDC has it in highly secured labs for study.


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

[User]
How does beta decay transform a proton into a neutron and other particles? Aren't neutrons more massive?

I was researching about fusion, especially with Hydrogen into Helium and was wondering how the beta decay even occurs/happens when neutrons are larger than protons yet somehow the protons transform into neutrons and other particles?

[Assistant]
In a beta-plus decay, it's not a single neutron which is decaying into a proton, it's an *entire nucleus* decaying into a new species.

While a free proton can't decay into a neutron, beta particle, and neutrino due to energy conservation, an entire nucleus can decay to a species of lower mass by converting one of its protons into a neutron.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why hasn't Algae Fuel caught on yet?

For those of you don't know, Algae Fuel is just that: Oil made from algae. It works just like gas or diesel when refined, meaning it doesn't require engine modifications, unlike ethanol. Natural gas, propane and ethanol all seem to very popular, so why isn't Algae fuel?

[Assistant]
Interesting bit from the wiki:

> TheUnited States Department of Energyestimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles (39,000km2), which is only 0.42% of the U.S. map, or about half of the land area ofMaine. This is less than17the area ofcornharvested in the United States in 2000.

Essentially, it seems it's coming down to commercial viability. Looks like operating costs are still too high for widespread adoption.


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

[User]
[Fantasty] Holy hell, I just walked into town and there's a guild for theives. Why isn't anyone doing something about this?

I hear runors there's a guild for assasins as well and these things are prevelant in this country. What kind of nation is this?

[Assistant]
These people don't just function as normal robbers, taking whatever they want. Often they function more like thieves for hire, stealing specific items on behalf of interested clients.

Said clients tend to be very wealthy and powerful and, in the interests of repeat business, help to keep the law off the thieves guild's back.

There's also the 'safety in numbers' and 'the devil you know' principles at work. Since the thieves guilds tend to act by strict rules (no killing is a universal staple) and act to eliminate freelancers who may be more violent in their actions.


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

[User] ELI5: How does the brush bring shine to a shoe after polishing and conditioning?

[Assistant] When you glob on the polish with the applicator brush it fills in all the nooks and crannies. When you use the polishing brush it removes the excess and buffs the remaining polish into a shine. The hair on the polishing brush is so fine and tightly packed that it gives it that works similar to a buffing rag for autos. For a mirror shine on black leather add a little heat and rebrush or use a very soft cloth.


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

[User]
I've heard that GPS satellites have to compensate for relativity to stay accurate. What specifically do they have to compensate for?

Is the difference in time due to them being farther from our gravity well or does it have to do with the speed that they are moving?  Or is there something else?

[Assistant]
It's a combination of both of the factors you mentioned. Without getting into too much math, here's the breakdown:

- The stronger the force of gravity, the slower time passes for you relative to someone with weaker gravity.

- The faster you move, the slower time passes for you relative to someone moving much slower.

When you take into account how gravity is weaker in orbit as opposed to here on Earth, and how the satellites move much, MUCH faster than we do here on Earth, factor in that difference and that's what you use when calibrating the clocks on GPS satellites.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why exactly is Voldemort afraid of Dumbledore?

Throughout the series Dumbledore is explicitly said to be the only Voldemort fears. Why exactly is there fear? I get that even his most strident detractors will generally acknowledge that Dumbledore is one of the greatest and most powerful wizards of all time and that hes at least worthy of respect. And in the limited interactions we see of Tom and Dumbledore prior to Toms first fall it seems that Dumbledore is always one step ahead of Tom and knows more about his true intentions and character than Tom would like to be seen, but why is that Dumbledore is the only one Voldemort FEARS instead of respects or considers to be on his level? I could see Voldemort maybe being a little anxious of him since Dumbledore seems to be aware of the horcruxes Tom had made and that should Dumbledore identify and find all of them he would be able to defeat Voldemort for good but unless Im mistaken, its not until pretty deep into the seventh book that Voldemort realizes the horcruxes are being hunted and some had already been destroyed. So what exactly is it that made Voldemort fearful of Dumbledore? Is it just Dumbledores immense wizarding power?

[Assistant] I think you answered your own question in your analysis.  Dumbledore is powerful and Voldemort fears anything more powerful than him.  You have to keep in mind that Voldemort was in constant terror of death.   He wasn't brave, no matter how cocky he acted.  He feared death more than most people, and Dumbledore was one of the few beings that could absolutely kill him if necessary.  Indeed, he pretty much did kill Voldemort through his influence on Harry Potter.  It was a very specific situation that required Harry in order to put Voldemort down for good, so Dumbledore couldn't do it single-handedly, but he was the prime mover.


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

[User] ELI5: If we were able to achieve such phenomenal speeds with the Concorde, why has commercial air travel not replicated this (without the fatal flaws)?

[Assistant]
Breaking the sound barrier and flying faster then the speed of sound adds a lot of drag on the airplane. This means you need bigger engines and more fuel to travel supersonic. This means the ticket prices for the Concorde were much higher then for big subsonic aircrafts. In the 70s when the design of the Concorde started this made sense. The extra cost was well worth it for busy celebrities, wealthy and business people. However what brought down the Concorde was computers and the Internet. You no longer need to have breakfast in New York and Lunch in Paris because you already talked to the people in Paris in a video conference. And when given the choice of spending three hours in economy class or six hours in first class most people will just bring their laptops on first class to get some entertainment and work done.

There is a small market for supersonic travel. The fastest passenger aircrafts today is private jets and there is some plans to make supersonic private jet aircrafts. If you can afford to buy and operate your own jet then you are likely not so much interested in the operating cost and supersonic travel might be an option you are willing to pay for.


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

[User]
Can you increase how long something glows in the dark for?

I was wondering if the brightness/intensity of light absorbed by something glow in the dark just contributes to the brightness, or also the amount of time it stays luminous for. Do different colours of light make the glow more intense?

[Assistant]
Luminescence is the phenomena of light being absorbed and then emitted by an atom (or a molecule).
To understand it, we need to recall that materials are made of atoms and electrons orbiting around them. Electrons can be in various energy states, the ground state is where the electron is in most of the time; and excited states, which the electron given sufficient energy, can jump to for a short amount of time, it later falls back to the ground state.
Also need to recall that different colours of light are equal to different energies.
Light (electromagnetic wave) shone on an atom gives energy to an electron orbiting that atom, the electron jumps to a higher energy state and a photon (light) is absorbed, the colour of the absorbed light is dependent on the atom, basically it equals to the difference in energy between the excited state and the ground state.
Later, the electron falls back to the ground state and emits the excess energy in a form of light, this is the glow you see.
Light absorbed and light emitted do not necessarily have the same wavelength (colour, energy) since sometimes there are other excitation processes involved, such as phonons (vibration of the lattice of the atoms) which absorb some of the energy.
The length of time the material stays luminescent (fluorescence lifetime) is dependent  on the internal excitation process of the emitting atom, some materials have complex excitation processes where the electron falls from the excited state to ground state not directly but involving phonons and so they stay luminescent for longer, this is called phosphorescence.
The fluorescence lifetime is also dependent the environment of the atom. For example it can change if the material is in air, water, ethanol, etc...

So to your questions, high intensity (brightness) of incident light will result in high intensity of emitted light. Higher intensity means more photons are absorbed, more electrons are excited and fall back to ground state emitting more photons.
Regarding the different colours of incident light, the incident colour need to match the differences in energy bands of the material, so if the material happen to be excited by a specific wavelength, changing the colour of incident light to match this wavelength will cause the material to emit light but shining other colours of light on it would not cause any effect.


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

[User]
[Dune] How was the emperor still in power?

I'm not the most knowledgeable person on Dune lore, but from how it has been described to me, various houses, such as Harkonnen, was richer than the emperor. Yet he doesn't seem to be a puppet, and his word has seemingly significant sway. This leads me to ask, how was he still in power, if other houses could in theory wage a successful coup d'tat?

[Assistant]
The emperor controlled the most powerful military force in the known universe. If the entire landsraad turned on the throne there's not much he could do to save himself but the Sadraukar would be sure to wipe out much of the aggressors. So many of the landsraad would be defeated by the emperor's forces that only a handful of houses like Harkonen or Atreides could even hope to survive the affair by sacrificing smaller houses to achieve their goals. In effect the major powers of the landsraad happily payed a tithe to the emperor and went about their affairs without worry. Trying to topple the corrinos without a trump card would end with much of the lesser houses wiped out and even possibly the greater houses. Breaking the kanly rules could speed things up but no one would trust anyone willing to commit war crimes afterwards.

The way the universal tripod works is that the space guild controls all travel between stars. Then the houses control all the planets and stars but rely on the guild to get around. The emperor is just the adjudicator in disputes. He recieves a tithe and can make a few decrees but ultimately his role is just to stop others from going too far in their personal affairs or breaking the laws of the jihad and kanly.


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

[User] How was Pi "discovered" and how was it plugged into formulae correctly? How was it able to be used before the invention of calculators?

[Assistant]
Take a length of rope. Tie one end to a pole and to the other end attach a stick. Pull the rope taut and use it to draw a circle in the sand. Measure how many rope lengths the perimeter of the circle is. Get the answer "roughly six" (so about three times the *diameter*). Be happy for a while. Quoting the Old Testament:

I Kings 7: 23,
> And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about

(KJV).

Time passes, more measurements are made because people are curious and besides more precise values for the perimeter-diameter ratio are useful in engineering, architecture, astronomy and whatnot. Come up with approximations like 25/8 (Babylonia ~1800 BCE), 256/81 (Egypt ~1600 BCE), and 339/108 (India ~500 BCE).

In the 3rd century BCE, Archimedes proves the inequality 22371 <  < 227 by inscribing and circumscribing a circle with regular 96-gons. In the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy gives the approximation 377/120, the first one accurate to three decimals. By the sixth century, Indian mathematicians know the value of  to five decimals, and the Chinese to seven decimals.

After that, no further progress is made until the 13th century (probably because nobody needed that much precision anyway) when Indian mathematician Madhava discovers the infinite series for  and uses it to calculate an approximation accurate to 11 decimal places. Circa 1600 van Ceulen computes 35 decimals, in 1789 Jurij Vega 126 correct decimals, and in 1841 William Rutherford 152 correct decimals. I'll quote Wikipedia for the ultimate result before electronic computers:

> The English amateur mathematician William Shanks, a man of independent means, spent over 20 years calculating  to 707 decimal places. This was accomplished in 1873, with the first 527 places correct. He would calculate new digits all morning and would then spend all afternoon checking his morning's work. This was the longest expansion of  until the advent of the electronic digital computer three-quarters of a century later.


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

[User]
What are the main types of thinking one should know?

We've got epistemological thinking (how do we know what we know), critical thinking, creative thinking, and combinations of both critical/creative thinking like Edward de Bono's six hat thinking.

Are there any other types of thinking an aspiring philosopher should know or be aware of?

[Assistant] That classification of thinking seems kinda silly. If you want to find out "types of thinking an aspiring philosopher should know or be aware of", you'd probably be best off reading philosophy and observing the authors' thought processes.


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

[User]
[Batman] What would happen if Batman made a 'private' prison for the Joker?

Its a holding cell near the bat-cave so Bruce can keep a constant eye on the Joker. The joker is supplied with food and water, and has a toilet and bed, but nothing else. The cell is made with the best security technology Batman has access to, and the only people who know about it are Batman, Robin and Alfred. And the only person who has security access is Batman himself. Can the Joker escape?

[Assistant]
Most likely someone like Hush or Owlman would attack the Batcave and release him just to fuck with Batman.

Without outside interference probably not, but Joker may have the strongest plot armor in comics.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Why didn't Barty Crouch JR make the graveyard portkey an everyday item that Harry would just pick up like a toothbrush?

[Assistant] Voldemort wanted to operate in the shadows for as long as possible. In ootp Sirius said Harry thwarted his plan by surviving the encounter and alerting Dumbledore right away to his ressurection. The plan was for voldemort to kill Harry and transport his body to the start of the maze, giving the impression that he died in the tournament and not arouse suspicion. If harry was kidnapped and killed at any other time it would be more obvious what happened.


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

[User]
Eli5: Why is it that whenever we hear about "defense spending" it's always on offensive things like weapons? Is there not a way to make actual defense the priority instead of offense?

I could be missing the point about military spending, and the five-year-old in my head asking the question does just want forcefields over every country in the end.

[Assistant]
Turtling up just means you slow down your defeat - or at least make it a drawn out mess until your attacker runs out of money or gets bored.

The best method for stopping an attack since prehistoric times has been grabbing a big ol club and krumping whoever is harassing you. Of course if you screw up your krumping strategy you *might* spend the next twenty years throwing lives and money into a bottomless pit in a desert on the other side of the globe.

Edit: also calling it the "defense budget" instead of the "attack budget" has better PR looks.


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

[User] Does Neurodegeneration occur in unsupervised Artificial Neural Networks?

[Assistant]
Short answer: no.

Long answer: neurodegeneration can often be associated with neurons dying.  Artificial neural networks doesn't really have neurons but instead have software representations of what could be described as neurons.  These software neural networks don't decay and often stop learning after their training phase.  In constantly learning neural networks, you often hit some kind of learning wall where the networks stops getting better and can degenerate into a less efficient AI (once you've had the very best results with the networks more training can only yield worse results).


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

[User] ELI5: How is it that a certain event can change our brain chemistry, such as giving us anxiety or other ailments. But we cant easily change it back?

[Assistant]
There are a few major problems with fixing your brain chemistry:

1. It's easier to break something than to fix it. This is true of all things, not just brains, because there are more ways of being "broken" than there are of being "fixed." The human brain, being so delicate, is also prone to breaking more when you attempt something rather than getting better.
2. Brain chemistry is super complex and often involves a cascade of effects. Some of those effects can't just be undone. There's no such thing as the opposite of anxiety down at a chemical level, for example.
3. The side effects of your chemistry being broken - i.e. all the mental symptoms - often make your behavior change in such a way that you're prevented from recovering. This is partially why it's an *ailment* and not just a *mood,* after all.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do the underground pipes that deliver water for us to bathe and drink stay clean? Is there no buildup or germs inside of them?

Without any regard to the SOURCE of the water, how does water travel through metal pipes that live under ground, or in our walls, for years without picking up all kinds of bacteria, deposits or other unwanted foreign substances?  I expect that it's a very large system and not every inch is realistically maintained and manually cleaned.  How does it not develop unsafe qualities?

[Assistant] The water supply contains sanitizers once it has been treated for use. If you have a sealed system that you're constantly pumping sanitized water through, it's unlikely to get contaminated barring some failure of the sanitation or the piping itself.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the coldness in drinks get exemplified after chewing mint flavoured gum?

[Assistant]
When you eat something, the chemicals that give food its taste hang around in the mouth until they're washed away. This is why things have an aftertaste. The "washing away" happens naturally when you produce saliva and swallow it, but you can also speed up that process by downing a glass of water, for example.

What happens with chewing gum is that the chemical called "menthol" that gives the gum its minty flavour hangs around in your mouth and gives you that feeling of fresh breath. When you drink something, the drink picks up the menthol and washes it all around your mouth, triggering the minty feeling everywhere. So, it's not the coldness of the drink that gets enhanced, it's actually the rinsing of menthol all around your mouth. The downside to this is that, because you've had a drink, you're accelerating that process of washing away the minty menthol, and so that feeling of fresh breath won't last as long after the drink.


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

[User] ELI5: McDonald's unmistakble smell.

[Assistant]
The reason that McDonald's (or any other fast food joint's) restaurants and foods have such a distinctive taste/scent can be summed up in a single word: consistency.

Fast food companies are incredibly fastidious when it comes to their product. The patties have to be of a very specific thickness, weight, fat/lean content, etc. The fries have to be of a fairly uniform girth. Hell, they even measure the dispersal of sesame seeds on each bun.

So they deliver all of that remarkably uniform food to their franchises, who prepare them with identical equipment, much of which is specifically designed to cook specific food items.

So the result is a distinct, brand-wide smell/taste.

Source: A few long conversations for an acquaintance who used to be a meat supplier for small/mid-sized fast food joints, and a pair of friends who worked in procurement and QA for McD's in Europe.


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

[User]
[Civil War] tony really loses his patience

Quick and maybe stupid question but what if tony had come to the airport fight with Veronica? Would anyone even want to try fighting him at that point?

[Assistant]
If Wanda wanted, she could rip apart Veronica piece by piece until Tony ran out of pieces.  Scott could get inside Veronica just as easily (or even *more* easily) as he did against Tony's normal armor, and cause damage internally.  Falcon is probably faster and more mobile in the air than Veronica, though he probably wouldn't have many options for damaging the thickened armor.

Basically, Veronica was specifically designed for one purpose, and one purpose only: to fight the Hulk.  Against other opponents, especially against multiple opponents, Veronica's lack of speed and mobility could be fatal flaws.


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

[User] [Animorphs] Why did Ellimist give Tobias the choice between becoming human OR retaining Animorph powers? I mean, if you already decided to intervene, why not just make him a regular human Animorph?

[Assistant]
Because he realized what Tobias wanted wasn't *really* to become human. Tobias didn't have a good home life, and it's been a while, but isn't it implied Tobias at least partially on purpose stayed over the two-hour limit?

Also, the Ellimist isn't an omnibenevolent god. He is a gamer from an extinct race playing a game against another godlike being. He is on the side of life and peace, not the side of individual happiness.


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

[User] ELI5: What is that puddle mirage I see off in the distance usually on roads?

[Assistant]
As you say, it's a mirage.

When it's very hot, the ground gets heated by the sun. The ground then heats the layer of air closest to it, by conduction. Given time, the hot air will rise - but initially, the air near the ground is hotter.

Light from the sky, as it travels to your eyes, has to travel through the highest layers of air first. It then moves into the lower, hotter layers of air. As it crosses this boundary, it changes speed - and when a wave changes speed, refraction will occur, which means that the light wave will change direction - or bend. So when the light from the sky reaches your eyes, the direction it's coming from is not from the sky, because its course has been bent.

Your brain sees the light from the sky, and it appears to be coming from the ground in the distance. The only explanation your brain can find for this is that there is a puddle in the distance, and that you are seeing the sky reflected in the puddle.


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

[User]
On what topics have philosophers reached a general concensus?

Some background on me so as to explain why I'm asking the question: I've taken two undergraduate level philosophy classes, one general introductory course and another on Existentialism. My question stems from the fact that in both of these classes we examined various thinkers and their selected works, taking apart their arguments and dissecting how they thought about different topics. Sometimes works from different authors would be put into conversation with each other, but for the most part my classes focused on each philosopher individually. This leads me to the question, on what topics have the general philosophical community reached a conclusion? All these different writers have all this discourse on various subjects; do they ever all come to an agreement?

[Assistant] Philosophers (like everyone else) are in a general consensus about most things: what happens to a rock if you let go of it, what color oranges are, how many seconds are in a minute, etc. If there's a general consensus on some topic, though, philosophers don't study it, because what would be the point? So every time you study a philosophical issue, it's one not everybody agrees about, because if we all agreed, there wouldn't be much reason to study it.


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

[User]
ELI5: how does canning/preserving stop a substance from aging?

Is it mostly a matter of just depriving the contents of oxygen? Why does that work?

[Assistant]
What destroys food is mainly microbes like bacteria

The goal of food preservation is to make that food as unpalatable to bacteria as possible.

Storing cooked food in vinegar (pickling) for example makes an environment that microbes can't survive in.

Sealed cans prevent bacteria from getting in, and the food inside is cooked and pasteurized to kill off any microbes inside.

Flour, rice, pasta, etc uses another technique which is drying. The water content of that food is so low that microbes can't survive.


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

[User] Is it unhealthy for parts of the body to fall asleep?

[Assistant]
Yes and no. Depends on the degree. If a normal person, you won't let something fall asleep enough to actually damage it. You'll move it. However, with the compression of blood vessels and nerves, there is some risk of injury if prolonged.

One example of this is "saturday night palsy." People pass out drunk with their arm in a weird position, it falls asleep, and they are too drunk to move it in their sleep. They wake up with nerve damage.

A second example of this is during surgery, when you are paralyzed and anesthestized. If you are mal-positioned during surgery, you can wake up with damage from nerve compression. This is a very common lawsuit in anesthesia (second to chipped teeth).


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Did Obi-Wan die and get consumed by Ben Kenobi, from a certain point of view? And is this what Owen mean when he said "Obi-wan doesn't exist anymore. He died about the same time as your father?"

The Obi-Wan of the Clone Wars was cheerful and made a lot of jokes while after the duel with Anakin, he became depressed. Did Obi-Wan become Ben at the same fateful moment on the high ground that Anakin permanently became Vader?

[Assistant] I suppose the first point is metaphorically arguable, but not the latter. For starters, Owen Lars never knew Anakin was Darth Vader; Obi-Wan told him Anakin had been killed and that was that. Believing the jedi responsible for Anakin's death, Owen forbade Kenobi from seeing Luke and lied to the child in order to keep him from falling victim to the same fate that his father did (as far as Owen knew).


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

[User] ELI5: Why did Hitler honor Switzerland's neutrality?

[Assistant]
Switzerland was not a threat to Germany (it remained neutral for centuries), it has few natural resources, it was not in the way (you can go around it), and capturing it would be really hard (population is armed, trained, and motivated, and mountains perfect for defense)

In addition, Germany was buying Swiss optics for its weapons (and so did Allies), all the Nazi leadership had money stashed in Swiss banks, they were a useful as a diplomatic channel and spy waypoint.


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

[User] ELI5: How do GPS apps such as Maps or Waze know the new formation of roads after construction?

[Assistant]
It first important to understand how Google Maps gets all if it's data. Some of it's data is pre-programmed into their systems. This is usually used as initial data, especially for testing. Google provides many more features, however. They also show traffic and other information for your daily traveler.

A few years back, Google acquired Waze and they use data from the Waze app to enhance Google maps. Waze is backed by a community of users who report cops, traffic, accidents, etc. But Google also injects tracking into their software. Google can access the speed of your car by checking it's locations at two different points and dividing it by the time between those two points. If the speed limit on a road is 50 mph, but every car on the road using Google maps is moving only 10 mph, then there is obviously traffic.

Using the same technique Google will track a cars movement. If a car is going off course, then Google will ignore the data, but still store it for later use. If 50 cars go off course, Google's map algorithm will detect this as an unknown road. Google will run several Artificial intelligence tasks to determine what is going on and will adjust their data accordingly.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Clone trooper weapons on the black market post Clone Wars?

How many weapons used by the Clone Troopers like the DC-15A rifle and DC-15S carbine end up on the black markets of various planets post Clone Wars?

[Assistant]
Im sure weapons circulated around the black market since it isnt exactly profitable for an arms dealer to sell to only one person. Just like how Remington doesnt just sell M4s and M16s to the US. In fact it was shown through out the show that Republic Security Forces both Coruscant and otherwise use the same weapons, and since those Security Forces are normal humans its safe to assume that the weapons are easily accessible to those who arent just clone troopers.

After the Order 66 when the Republic was reorganised into the First Galactic Empire, and most Security Forces were either replaced by storm troopers or given new updated equipment, Im sure there was a surplus in obsolete Republic equipment.


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

[User]
Should physicians spend more or less time in research?

I've noticed an increased push for physicians to work on research. Why is this happening?

I would have assumed physicians would want less research demands, so they can focus on treating patients.

[Assistant] Im research faculty in a medical school. Most physicians arent qualified to do research. Those who are, often have trouble because academic institutions need clinical income more than they need a half-time researcher. There is definitely a push to get research and clinical faculty to collaborate so were on the same wavelength. We all share the goal of helping people, but they are very different career trajectories.


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

[User] ELI5: If trains can be automated, why don't we just eliminate human error instead of paying an engineer (driver) $150,000+ a year for the risk?

[Assistant]
Because then we're risking automated/system failure causing an even larger catastrophe.  The human engineers are there to make sure the machine doesn't just blindly follow it's programming.

That's also why they are paid so much.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Who would you say is Starfleet's admiral Thrawn?

[Assistant] Picard. He studies artifacts all the time, and has a pretty good understanding of other cultures. He generally prefers diplomatic solutions over excessive force. Thrawn is basically Picard thrust into a universe where the Federation does not exist.


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

[User]
In space, are all stars (blue, red, yellow) visibly white?

For example if viewed from an equal distance in space, would a blue giant star appear the same color as a red giant star? I know white is not a color but for the sake of the question forgive me.

[Assistant] If you get *too* close, they're all going to look blindingly white due to overloading your receptors. Otherwise, yes, they do have discernible hues, even as seen from the Earth with a naked eye. For example, the red supergiant Betelgeuse looks quite distinctly reddish in good viewing conditions, even despite the fact that our low-light vision is almost completely monochromatic.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do services such as Spotify and Overdrive make sure that you don't permanently download their material?

Certain services, such as Spotify and Overdrive, allow you to download music or books. But you can't keep these files: Spotify, for example, would never let you keep them unless you continue your premium subscriptionor else you could just download everything, unsubscribe, and then have all the music in the world. So how do they make sure that usersdespite having downloaded the content alreadynot simply keep it for themselves?

[Assistant]
The files are not in a standard format. You couldn't just take the files and play them using another media player app.

The Spotify player knows how to decode the files into a normal audio stream and then sends it to your sound card. If the process used to encode the Spotify tracks was known, then it could be reverse engineered and a conversion utility could be made. That of course would break the  Terms and Conditions contract you agree to as a user and could also be illegal based on the laws of where you live.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do humans use face muscles (clenching teeth, making angry eyes, eyebrows going down) when lifting something heavy, even tho it's unnecessary?

[Assistant]
It's because tension equals strength. Clenching teeth especially increases force production because it increases tension in the body. The same way that doing the valsalva maneuver increases tension and strength. The face muscles is not something everyone does (even the teeth clenching) but tensing them usually means tensing the neck too which causes more stability.

The more tension added to the body the more you'll lift. You can see this during a bench press where leg drive doesn't actually lift anything but using your quads to produce tension in the legs increases your force production by a large margin. Another example is an overhead press where squeezing the hell out of your quads and glutes will make you lift overhead more.

But yeah adrenaline also increases if you're getting in the zone by clenching and tensing your face.


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

[User] [Metal Gear Solid] When and why did Ocelot start working for the Patriots?

[Assistant]
He was recruited by Major Zero along with Big Boss, Sigint, Para-Medic and EVA, to found a successor organization to the Philosophers, the Patriots. The goal was to realize The Boss' dream of a unified world. Ocelot personally, probably just wanted to work with his BFF, Big Boss.

However, Zero and Big Boss would have a falling out due to differences in interpretation of The Boss' will, especially after the Les Enfant Terribles project. Big Boss went off on his own to create Militaires Sans Frontires.

The last contact Ocelot had with Zero was after MSF was decimated, the two reluctantly worked together to create a body double for Big Boss (the events of MGSV) out of a desire to keep Big Boss safe.


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

[User]
Why is rear locking differential better than four wheel drive?

Is it better in all situations (off road vs snow vs ice vs etc.)?

[Assistant]
A differential allows for the driving wheels to spin at different rotations per minute therefore allowing a car to turn corners. This is because the inside wheel in a turn has less distance to cover than the oudside wheel on the vehicle in the same turn.

Think plastic coffe cup on it's side. It will roll in a circle / turn because the bottom is narrower than the dinking end of the cup. What a differential essentially does is give power to the wheel with the least resistance. This is a desirable trait in wheels on a road surface, because otherwise the driving wheels start to squirm and bounce.

In mud however this is not, because when a drive wheel looses traction and starts to spin the power of the engine will just be sent to the spinning wheel and therefore not adding to the traction of the vehicle. To overcome this some cars can lock their differentials to ensure that both wheels will start churning at the same speed giving a lot more traction to the vehicle.

On a side note: don't lock your diffs on a road surface (if your car has the option). That is, unless you really like your mechanic, and like to give him, or her, fist fulls of money.


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

[User]
ELI5: Other than customization, what exactly does Android excel in over iPhone and iOS?

Please be as non-biased as possible.

[Assistant]
I would say the key things are android's integration with google software, although Apple recently developed their own cloud and whatnot google still has better maps, docs, etc.

Another thing is memory, you have to pay a lot more for a 64 gig iphone and there is no expandable storage.

Then there's the removable battery and the use of widgets.

Customization encompasses both the software and the choice of phone. Apple has just the iphone.


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

[User]
Why did Plato/Aristotle come along when they did? Why not sooner? And how much self-awareness did they have about being the "Fathers of Western Philosophy?"

Why did Plato/Aristotle come along when they did? Why not sooner? (It seems random that they just decided to create Western philosophy right there; why didn't it happen much earlier? Or much later?)

And how much self-awareness did they have about being the "Fathers of Western Philosophy?"

[Assistant]
>Why did Plato/Aristotle come along when they did? Why not sooner?

There were plenty of philosophers predating Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece. Socrates was the most famous but there are many others, collectively known as the pre-Socratics. There are also many pre-Plato philosophers in other cultures.

>It seems random that they just decided to create Western philosophy right there; why didn't it happen much earlier? Or much later?

Plato and Aristotle did not create Western philosophy alone. They were both substantially influenced by predecessors, and what they contributed to was not Western philosophy, but rather ancient Greek philosophy, which later became (among other things) Hellenistic Greek philosophy, which later influenced (among many other things) what we now call Western philosophy.

>And how much self-awareness did they have about being the "Fathers of Western Philosophy?"

Less than zero. Not only did they not think of themselves as fathers of Western philosophy (which itself was a category that did not exist and could not have existed until they had both been long dead), they didn't even think of themselves as fathers of a philosophical traditional grater than a subset of what we now think of as Greece.


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

[User]
[Avatar: Aang and Korra] Why are combustion benders giants?

Do they need big bodies to create the energy beams?

[Assistant] It's just a form of fire bending, a technique that appears to be passed down through this larticular family. They both know combustion bending because they are family, and they are both huge because they are family.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between moral and ethics?

[Assistant]
While both morals and ethics are ways to categorize both "Right" and "Wrong"- the difference is the perspective from which the judgement is being made. In short, morals are beliefs from an internal or personal perspective- while ethics are beliefs from an external (community, culture, religion, etc) perspective.

A good way to tell the difference is by looking at moral dilemmas vs ethical dilemmas and which parties are commonly involved. A moral dillema is most commonly an internally driven conflict- where the individual must make a decision based on their own contradicting views.  An ethical dilemma in contrast generally involves two separate parties disagreeing on what would be the correct moral choice.  Ethics will generally encapsulate the agreed morals of a particular group- while morals themselves are the individual beliefs that make up those groups.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Why do some Space Marines choose not to wear helmets in battle?

In many depictions of Space Marine battles, it's not uncommon to see officers and others without helmets. While some few have undoubtedly lost their helmets in battle, others have not. Forgoing a helmet seems to be a choice. Why? Doesn't the lack of a helmet lower a marine's survivability and thus their ability to do their duty to the Emperor?

[Assistant]
There are several reasons why a Space Marine might go helmetless into battle. Some Chapters allow it because it projects an aura of fearlessness and invulnerability, both inspiring nearby troops (usually the guard) and demoralizing enemies. Some marines believe that their augmented natural senses will give them an edge in combat that would otherwise be nullified by the helmet.

More often however, modern artists in the Empire prefer to depict marines without their helmets because it allows an average viewer to better identify with and understand the nature of the glorious acts being portrayed. You can bet that when Marines purge a Necron ship they are all wearing helmets (Necrons have little need for atmosphere in space) but the paintings commemorating their heroism will show them helmetless for effect.


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

[User]
How is Kosher salt different from regular non-iodized salt other than crystal size?

This is really more of a food science question but I feel chemistry is the right tag  since a 'food science' flair doesn't exist. Are there other trace metals that lower the sodium content like Himalayan salt? Or am I missing the reason people pay more money for a larger, less refined crystal of the same chemical composition (it's not like they're diamonds)

[Assistant]
Nope. Both mostly sodium chloride but Kosher salt is usually made with no non-clumping agents due to its larger mill size (so no need).

It got its name because they used to use it to kosher meats. Finer salt would absorb into the flesh so they used the larger mill (because it served the same purpose, to remove surface blood but could easily be washed off) and called it kosher salt.


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

[User] If the human eye was a camera, what would its resolution be? (in pixels)

[Assistant]
Asked many times before, here's a response from ColloidMan5000
>The typical modern digital photo camera has an approximate resolution of 10 MP, and an HD movie has a resolution of approximately 1 MP, so with the CCD they are recorded with there are 10 million and 1 million individual colour sensing 'bits' respectively. On the other hand, the human eye has an average of about 90 million rod and cone cells (collectively) which each perceive colour, so on that basis you could say that our eyes have a resolution of 90 MP. However, there are a variety of abberations in the cornea of eyes which reduce this effective resolution, and that is where the uncertainty creeps in.
Alternatively, you can think about what the actual resolving power of the eye is, viz., how small of an object can you see. From about a meter away from something, you can relatively easily see an object 0.1 mm in size, although obviously the further away the object is the harder it becomes to see, so we shall assume a working area of 1 square meter at which such a resolution is feasible. Dividing one by the other we find the resolution to be approximately 100 MP.

Later noted was the fact that there is no universally accepted method of determining this resolution.


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

[User] ELI5: What happens to stomach acid when we drink while eating? Does it dilute?

[Assistant]
Yes, but your stomach can absorb water pretty well so the dilution doesn't last long.  Drinking water with your food actually helps digestion because churning food with a liquid breaks it up better than without (your stomach "churns" food to a degree.  The liquid component gives more surface area for enzymes to contact it the food.

This is why liquid diets are preferred for the very very weak and sick; they are absorbed faster.


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

[User] ELI5: How do racing pit stops work in terms of position in the race?

[Assistant]
You lose your position, and have to regain it - but of course, the same is true of the other teams as well, so it evens out.

Now - if you can get by with one fewer than everyone else, you may have a considerable advantage.


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

[User]
[DC] How does Superman steer in mid air?

He's not just leaping and then becoming ballistic. He can change direction, change speed, stop mid air, even enact a force larger than his own mass to push objects. What force is being applied to counter momentum and gravity? How does this mechanism compare with other Supers who fly?

[Assistant]
I think it's explained as being the result of Kryptonians being able to manipulate gravitons to some degree under a yellow star.

Regarding other heroes. Hawkman & Hawkwoman fly with wings (Or Nth metal, depends on the version), Martian Manhunter uses his telekinesis, Green Lanterns use their rings which can do anything they can imagine (Provided they have the will), Shazam is magic etc. There's quite a lot of explanations for heroes flying.


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

[User]
ELI5: Do animals think cars are other animals? Do they think humans are riding cars like they would a horse or do they understand the concept of man-made machines?

I almost hit a deer today and it made me think, I wonder if that deer thinks my car is a big scary animal barreling towards it?

That then lead to, I wonder if they think cars and trucks are another type of species that humans ride like they would a horse? Are there some animals that are aware of what is machine and what is life and others that aren't?

Help end this question pondering tornado spiraling through my head and please, explain like I'm five!

[Assistant] Watch a coyote try to cross a highway sometime - classic canid-appeasing-bigger-scary-animal body language. Head low, tail low, ears back, spine sort of hunched up, walking on their tippietoes all "I.am.not.a.threat.I.am.not.a.threat.I.am.not.a.threat." Most of the smarter canid species at least - dogs, wolves, and coyotes - think cars are enormous, unpredictable creatures with VERY strange relationships with humans. Dogs chasing cars aren't usually doing it for shits & giggles, they're usually either trying to herd it or defend their pack against it.


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

[User]
[General] Why do ghosts like stacking chairs?

I was just watching the movie Last Shift, which included a scene where the main character looked into a room full of office chairs, looked away for a second, and then looked back to discovered they had been stacked in a bizarre and improbable manner. Having watched a lot of horror movies, this specific type of behavior has been demonstrated in a variety of sources, perhaps most famously in Poltergeist, but why? With so many options for ghostly shenanigans, why stack furniture? It just seems like a lot of effort for something that, while definitely creepy, sits fairly low on the scare factor, as stacked chairs are not particularly frightening  compared to throwing things or showing your ghostly appearance or singing a creepy song.

[Assistant] When you're a ghost you have a whole lot of time on your hands. So, when you have the opportunity for some fun you want to make it last, you want the full experience, the foreplay. Sure, you could go right in with everything dialed up to 11, but then your playthings are dead or gone and you have decades to wait for the next group to move in.


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

[User] [Game of Thrones] Did the Night King have plan B for breaching the Wall if dragon never appeared in the North?

[Assistant] If it's true that Bran broke the Wall's magical barrier by passing through it with the Night King's mark, then the Army of the Dead could just breach the Wall conventionally, scaling it en masse and opening the gates, or smashing through the gates with brute force.


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

[User]
Thought experiment: Could a spinning blade rotate so fast that it would feel like a solid surface and act like a solid disc?

I've wondered about this thought experiment for a while.

The blade could be imagined as a line with a defined length. Would the situation be possible theoretically since the radius spins so fast that the empty space is essentially filled?

Theory aside, could this be possible in real life? Maybe the object could be a pie slice angle so that more space is filled as it rotates?

Edit: Thanks, all! I appreciate the comments. I had always thought of this as Newtonian, but failed to realize the possibilities of a quantum mechanical explanation.

[Assistant]
Well the thing is that in order for such a blade to rotate fast enough that you couldn't cut yourself on it, it would have to be rotating at something like the characteristic vibrational frequency in solids, which is around 10^12 per second (a common estimate for the attempt frequency of regular reactions).

The speed of light is 3x10^8 m/s, which means that the radius of your circle would have to be less than around 0.1 mm, and more realistically at least 10 times as less to start to mimize relativistic effects at the tip.

So basically not practically, but it might be "possible" for extremely small systems.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Spacefighter Size

So, assuming that the scale for 40k intersteller warships is such that a battleship is 10 Kilometers or so long, essentially the scale in the Rouge Trader RPG sourcebooks, how big would a Fury Interceptor or Starhawk Bomber be?

I've seen the figure of 60-80 meter nose-to-tail thrown around, but I have been unable to track down a source on that. On the other hand, Battlefleet Koronus says that an atmospheric craft takes up half the space of a void craft of the same rough type. Given that a Thunderbolt Fighter is ~15m long, this would suggest a Fury to be in the ~30m range. Given that a Fury has nothing comparable to a thunderbolt's wings and so forth, I am pointedly ignoring the square-cube law.

Given the size of 40k warships, it large fighters would make sense, but taking into account the longer time frame of void battles, and the fact that Starfighters and bombers don't appear to mount Titan-grade weaponry, I'm not really sure what would be appropriate.

Thoughts?

[Assistant]
Ok here are some stats taken from Lexicanum:

Thunderbolt (atmospheric fighter): 14.2m long

Fury Interceptor (void fighter): 60-70m long, depending on variant

The size of the craft has little to do with the armaments, and more with the fact that it has a crew of 4 and the significant life support and crew space that entails. Then there is the fact that it has massively larger engines. Lex notes a thrust output of 60,000 foot pounds, roughly three times that of an F16.


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

[User]
In the even of an explosive decompression, why would pilots change altitude slowly instead of quickly??

Hi,

So, wouldn't you want to equalize pressure as soon as possible? That would mean like more oxygen, not having stuff flying around, etc.

However, I read somewhere that experienced pilots do this slowly as possible instead of quickly. Why?

Is it cause of pressure sickness? I thought that occurred in divers cause they absorb nitrogen gas, how does that happen for people in a pressurized cabin? Do other fluids potentially expand?

[Assistant] The standard procedure is to put your oxygen on and then initiate an emergency descent. If there is a risk of  structural damage you will end up descending slower so as not to stress the airframe. With an explosive decompression the odds are high that there will be structural damage.


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

[User]
CMV: Should presidents have a civics test before they run

I think that before they can run, every presidential candidate should take a civics test, or some type of test to make sure they can legitimately do there job, as the further we go on, the more presidents dont do there job, come to useless conclusions, make useless bills and overall know less about leadership and situational awareness then people before them. If Kanye west can run for president, and maybe even win, when why cant we at least make sure they can at least know what to do in hard situations like what if a country trade embargoes the us, what will the president do, if something like civil unrest starts up again, they need to at least have the basics to head the on the right path, i know Im not talking about this clearly, so Ill prob clear a lot of things up if anyone has questions.

The test should be as unbiased as possible, and should not limit anyones political views.

Im sorry if this is not the type of post yall want, but I wanna hear arguments against this and see what everyone have to say.

[Assistant] Remember the bigger picture with ideas like this: Who makes the civics test? If implimented this would just be a tool of the president's opposition. Immagine the oppertunities for this to be manipulated.


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

[User]
ELI5:How does Facebook target-advertise the very product I just looked up in Google/other websites, despite me being logged out of my account at the time?

**It would be really helpful if you read the text below**

This has happened on numerous occasions, but now it's getting kind of disturbing. I deleted my account a while back, and created a new one for the sole purpose of joining my college's Facebook group in order to stay up to date with homework/exam dates etc. I literally have no one on my friends list nor do I have liked any pages with the said account. And here I am watching at my "Suggested Post" containing a product by SEO-MOZ (a website about SEO marketing), just after I looked them up (learned about them from Reddit), Downloaded their free PDF, and skimmed through some of their webpages. AND I was logged out of my Facebook account when I did that. How the heck?

**BTW,** this can not be a coincidence because as I said, it has happened before. I was once looking for a SPECIFIC protective case for Samsung Galaxy Note 4, called "Spigen Tough Armor" (logged out of my Facebook account as said above), which by no means is popular enough to be separately advertised on Facebook, and here it was, in "Suggested Posts"..

**EDIT:**yay! First time reaching the front page!

[Assistant]
Some ads on Facebook are placed via Facebook Exchange, which allows advertisers who have compiled their own user data (via tracking cookies) to show ads on Facebook.

For example, say you are on a computer that has never been logged into Facebook, and you go to nike.com. The site places a cookie on you, so anyone with visibility to that cookie knows you've been to nike.com. An advertiser can then go to Facebook Exchange and say "show a nike ad to any user with a nike.com cookie" without Facebook ever knowing you were on nike.com.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why are cars built with a speedometer that goes much higher than almost all legal speed limits?

I was driving my mother's car down the highway today and noticed that while the maximum set speed limit is usually 110-120 Kilometres per hour, the car itself is supposedly able to travel at 240 Kilometres per hour. As far as I am aware, it is not actually legal to travel that fast anywhere in Australia, so why are cars built with the ability to do more than twice the speed limits?

[Assistant] I remember this question was already answered if you search for it.  Long story short it's about engine efficiency.  You wouldn't want to push your engine to the max to reach the speed limit, it would be operating at its limits which isn't efficient.  You would want the engine to be working around 50-60% when cruising at the speed limit which most cars do.  Other factors such as engine gearing have an effect too.  That's basically a a rundown of what was the previous answer was.


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

[User]
Can Negative Mass exist?

Some of you might know that according to the news, some fellas have been able to successfully create a liquid with atoms that accelerate as if they had Negative Mass (backwards instead of forwards).

I'm no physicist but even I know the mind boggling weight that such a discovery carries and that the very Second Law of Newton just gets thrown out the window in this circumstance.

So does such a breakthrough add evidence that Negative Mass can exist?

[Assistant]
There are no known elementary particles that have negative mass.

However, with a large number of particles like in fluids and solids, you can observe some peculiar emergent effects that *look like* negative mass.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes the temporary burn mark left in the eye after looking at a bright light?

[Assistant] Cells in your eye are responsible for reporting light to the brain through changes in pigment. If they receive too much light, they use up all the pigment and need a moment to reset to their natural state. During that time period, they report inaccurate information.


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

[User]
I think it's economically and socially irresponsible to have children right now. Please CMV.

First I want to explain *why* I need this view changed: I like children, a lot. So does my live-in boyfriend and soon to be fiance, and we've been discussing having them a few years down the line. We're financially responsible, and net in about 30K a year together. No food stamps, just simple living, etc. This would be an adventure we'd take in our late twenties, and we're only early/mid twenties now.

The problem is, when I look at the future, I am absolutely terrified for any future kids of mine. I certainly can't afford a degree for them, I can barely afford one for ME. I find our public school system lacking and the job market lacking any more. Connections were the only thing that got me this job, I don't think blindly fishing works anymore.

I'm very happy about the advancement of medicine, antibiotics, hospital care. I know my child will be healthy... but happy? I'm not sure.

Racism, classism and other bigotries still run rampant. Violence is everywhere, I can't walk around at night comfortably without packing heat. We're both white, so I suppose I shouldn't worry about the racism bit, but what if I have a gay or lesbian child? What if they're mentally ill? What if they're smaller and weaker? I feel like I can't protect them.

This may seem strange but I am sincerely already scared for a child I don't yet have... But I would love children and so would my boyfriend. Please give me some hope, or tell me what I can do to stop problems before they start.

Note: I live in the Pacific Northwest, U.S.

Biggest concerns:

* horrific job market

* even worse public school system

* inability to pay for college

* archaic society

EDIT: Just realized I should probably add this. I'm going to work now, but I'll be back online in about eight hours or so to answer replies.

[Assistant]
The economy is cyclical. Past recessions and depressions have ended, and this one will, too. You can't guarantee that your children won't hit one just as they're entering the job market, but it's equally likely that they'll hit the middle of a boom cycle and get great jobs right away.

Who knows where education will be, twenty years from now when it's time for your kids to go to college? Everyone is saying we need reform - maybe that reform will come, and cheap and free schooling will be widely available. Even if that doesn't happen, vocational school is always an option, as are scholarships, community college, and doing something that doesn't require any sort of degree. Public schools are a highly local thing - no matter how good or bad the system is, there's always examples of the opposite. If that's your top priority, you'll be able to move to a place with good public schools.

Society is not that bad and it's getting better. You think that racism and sexism and other social ills are bad *now*? What about when your parents were your age? Almost no one was openly gay, abortion was illegal, being openly racist was fine, and there was more violent crime than there is now. Seriously. Look at the statistics - we think we live in a violent madhouse because that's what's all over the media, but the world (and our country) is the safest it's ever been and only getting safer.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] Why did Tywin find Tyrion guilty?

Why did Tywin Lannister find Tyrion Lannister guilty of killing King Joffrey despite knowing Tyrion did not do it?

[Assistant]
\- Tyrion inadvertently killed his mother by rupturing her birth canal with his malformed head. Tywin lost his only love. He hates Tyrion and blames him for it, he emotionally tortured him for years already.

\- Tyrion is a misshapen dwarf, by the standards of Westeros, unfit to be a heir to the Lannister name. Tywin hated to lose a heir, but now that Jamie is out of Kingsguard due to injury, he can be Heir again, so Tyrion is politically useless. No need to keep him alive.

\- the second reason for keeping Tyrion alive, his marriage to Sansa (and thus taking over the North) was nullified by her escape, and the fact that Boltons effectively took over the North anyway.

\- Tyrion is as smart (if not smarter) than Tywin, but is a loudmouth arrogant wisecrack who disrespects his father and everything he stands for. Tywin *hates* being disrespected, because he remembers how his father, Tytos, allowed constant disrespect and it almost destroyed their House.

\- Tywin actually does not know for sure that Tyrion is not involved somehow. At this point, he smartly suspects that it was either Olenna or the Martells, or maybe Sansa somehow, but he cannot rule out Tyrion's involvement.

\- Tywin's hands are tied, sort of. Everybody in the court had heard Tyrion threaten and disrespect Jofferey, and Tyrion is almost universally hated by just about everyone except Littlefinger and Varys (both of whom have no way to clear his name or help him officially, and it would not even be their intention). No matter who is actually behind Joffs death, Cersei and the Court and even most of the common folk want the DEVIL MONKEY dead.


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

[User] [Game of thrones] What would have happened to Jon Snow if he had not gone to join the Nights Watch?

[Assistant]
As far as things not at the wall, Jon would likely have stayed at Winterfell with Rob, Bran and Rickon.  When the war broke out there are two possibilities.

(1) He joins Robs host and ends up dead at the Red Wedding.

(2) He stays in Winterfell to help Bran and Rickon.  If he stays when the Iron born attack Winterfell someone competent, either Jon or Rodrik will still be there and lead a better defense until the other returns from Torrhen's Square meaning Winterfell probably never falls.

At the wall Jon never finds out about the Wildling invasion coming but that probably doesn't change much.  The wall even without Jon would probably held the one night needed for Stannis to arrive with his cavalry.  Without Jon though the wildlings don't receive mercy and are probably slaughtered.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did aristocrats prove their identity back in time?

Let's assume a Middle Ages king was in a foreign land and somebody stole his fancy dresses and stuff. How could he prove he was actually a king? And more specifically, how could he claim he was that certain guy?

[Assistant]
* Seals and insignia, sometimes on rings. These were used to stamp official documents.
* Knowledge, like how most of European nobles knew Latin and could read.
* Nobles went to events and got to know each other.

If a noble got mugged in a strange land, they would be going to a local sympathetic noble or merchant. They wouldn't be heading to a local bar full of drunks to proclaim they were king.


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

[User]
ELI5 how insurance companies can claim an incident is an "act of God."

Just curious as to how an insurance company can say an event is an "act of God."  Especially in the United States where the pot is mixed with different religious backgrounds.

[Assistant] It's a legal term, and essentially refers to unforeseeable events for which nobody can be held responsible. It could just as well be called flibbolugy, the fact that it refers to God is legally irrelevant.


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

[User] [Avengers] So, Natasha couldn't be brought back but what about a perfect clone with all here memories and make everyone forget she is a clone?

[Assistant] There's a lot of sins to unpack here - from denying the clone her right to make her own memories and chart her own life, to erasing the original Natasha's sacrifice and leaving her forgotten and unmourned.


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

[User]
[Hellsing/Yu-Gi-Oh] Millennium gets ahold of the Millennium items. How bad is it?

Additionally, would they be required to play children's card games in order to utilize the power, and if so, what sort of tactical changes must they make in order to fully utilize this? Does it not work if Hellsing refuses to play children's card games? What sort of advantage at them does being a vampire give you? Would the world be any more protected from Millennium's attack on the world with Yu-Gi-Oh characters in it?

[Assistant]
Well, with no special connection to the Shadows or Ancient Egypt, it's not *that* bad. Granted, access to all seven *would* allow them to summon Zorc if they wanted.

To use them, and their magical powers, they have to win them from their previous owners, or be willingly given them by the same. Usually, the (modern) method of contest is a card game. But it can be any contest.

Once activated, Millennium certainly becomes stronger. They can see the future, influence chance, remove souls, control minds, all kinds of fun stuff. But, if they are ever challenged to a game, and defeated, those powers are lost.

Vampirism grants all kinds of advantaged in this regard, however. You can challenge people to a game of "how far can you put this sword into your chest" and win almost every time!

However, Millennium's problem isn't something the Millennium Items can solve. Alucard will still kill everyone without regard for their magical powers, as long as they don't summon Zorc or have access to the three Egyptian God Cards.

A world with Yu-Gi-Oh! characters in it wouldn't really be any better protected from Millennium, because they attacked swiftly and ruthlessly, and only a few people have the power to summon real, actual monsters. Unless they launched their attack on a city with one of these people in it, the result shouldn't be different.

If they *did* attack a city Yugi happened to be at, he could technically strike their blimps from the sky with godlike monsters and challenge the Major to a game of some sort - if he still had the Puzzle. Otherwise, there's not a lot anyone could do.


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

[User]
[DC] Are there still people who think that Batman is a myth even after the inception of the Justice League?

Plus, in this age of cameras and phones, YouTube and social media, total anonymity is probably downright impossible now.

[Assistant] Usually people start out thinking he's an urban legend. Then they start thinking it's someone hired by a rival criminal organization. Then they assume there's an entire group of people, each of them calling themselves Batman because he covers so much crime in the city every night that it's just not possible. Then the robins show up. Eventually a bunch of supers come together to form a Justice League and there's some weirdo dressed as a bat calling himself Batman standing next to Superman.


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

[User]
A Kant inspired thought experiment

I have been reading Critique of Pure Reason, and as I am trying to understand the transcendental aesthetic I thought of a scenario that seems to support Kants ideas of space and time. The scenario goes like this:

I imagine myself floating somehow with absolutely nothing in my line of sight. Therefore all I am seeing is blackness. Even though I have no way to sense anything, I still have some sort of understanding that I am HERE at THIS moment. Therefore time and space do seem to be pure a priori intuitions.

What are the issues with this thought experiment that I could be overlooking? Am I fundamentally misunderstanding the idea of a priori intuitions?

Edit: it appears I misunderstood Kant. If I truly had an idea of space without any external representations, then I would be experiencing space in itself, as an objective thing, but this contradicts Kants claim that space is simply our pure external intuition. So without any external phenomena, space would lose its meaning to us, and we would be left with internal intuition only, namely time.

[Assistant]
In this thought experiment the problem is that you are presupposing that you are floating and that you have a line of sight - i.e. you are presupposing space and time. It might work better to say that you can't *not* presuppose space and time (but that's not what this thought experiment seems to prove - it just seems to prove that once you have *already* presupposed space and time they exist).

What Kant says is that the fact that you have this understanding that you exist, this automatically and necessarily presupposes things such as the subject, and therefore the object, and the objective, and therefore the idea of separation, and space and time. The transcendental unity of apperception itself implies unity through time and in space.

He does have similar(ish) lines of argument to yours, though. The one that comes to mind is where he argues that we simply cannot imagine a lack of space. We can imagine a lack of things *in* space, but not a lack of space itself.


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

[User]
Are US soldiers supposed to be celibate?

Up until the Vietnam War, US soldiers cavorting with prostitutes has been very well-documented. In current military engagements, is this still the case? Or are US servicemen and women required to not have sex during their tour?

[Assistant]
Sex during combat deployments are considered a no-go unless the couple is legally married. Hiring of prostitued is also considered to be unlawful, therefore a no-go. These are the official rules.

In reality though, as long as these activities do not disrupt order or operation, they are usually ignored.

Source: 10+ years in the army w/ 3 Iraq tours.


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

[User]
ELI5: why does adding a proton completely change the properties of one element to another.

It it only because of the extra electrons? Do the protons actually do something?  Does adding neutrons add any properties other than then possibility of a decaying isotope?  I don't get how for example a proton changes carbon to nitrogen and all the properties than includes (solid to gas, black to colorless)

[Assistant]
Two atoms will find their most stable positions relative to each other by how the cloud of electrons around them interact and this makes up most of their interaction under the conditions we find here on Earth. The number of protons affects the behavior of the electron clouds with more protons attracting more electrons.

All of the properties you discuss, such as the properties of their phase changes or coloration, are electrical in nature and largely come from the interaction of these electron clouds. For example, the color of a substance is a result of which wavelengths of light the electrons of a material will absorb, which is in turn a result of the density of the electron cloud around the nucleus, which is in large part a result of the charge of the nucleus which is dependent on the number of protons present.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do all modern bullets require a casing? Isn't that just a waste of resources (metal)?

Not a gun person so I'm not sure. Looking for info, please feel free to point out things that may be obvious to someone who isn't educated on guns.

EDIT: Maybe I need some clarification on how a bullet actually fires in a modern gun. Not afraid to admit that.

[Assistant]
The casing keeps the propellant inside so you don't have to load it like an old timey musket by placing the powder in and then place the bullet in.

Caseless ammunition has been developed but it's been a bit disappointing and doesn't work as well as was hoped.


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

[User] ELI5 why we feel refreshed after a workout, but feel tired after a work day at office?

[Assistant] Exercise releases chemicals called endorphins which "trick" your body into feeling less pain and gives you a positive feeling.  If you feel like crap after a day of sitting at the office it's most likely due to mental fatigue or food you've eaten.  When you are not moving your body slows down your calorie burning rate so you're going to get less energy from the food you eat.  Try moving around more and stay hydrated.


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

[User]
Is psychoanalysis supposed to be predictive?

I'm taking a class on Freud and Lacan next semester, and I've been pretty confused about psychoanalysis as a discipline in general. I understand that it's different from psychology, and that it has to be read in a clinical context etc., but it still seems to me that there is a basic question of whether what psychoanalysts like Freud and Lacan described is 'correct'.

For example: both discuss the Oedipus complex (though in very different ways), but the question I have after reading about it is, 'okay, so does this actually happen?' It's the same thing with the mirror stage in Lacan: is the sense of one's 'self' developed through, for example, something seen? And in the paper on the mirror stage Lacan even references empirical studies, suggesting to me that he's really trying to get at the truth of childhood development. But in other places he says what he's doing is *specifically not* developmental psychology!

I suppose I'm confused about what one is supposed to take away from psychoanalysis in terms of how it correlates to reality. Freud believed he was describing the structures of the human mind correctly, and I think Lacan did too: that is, he truly believed our unconscious minds are 'structured like a language' and so on. But is it? How could we ever know?

[Assistant]
Do you mean predictive in terms of behaviour? If that is the case then no, that is not the purpose of the discipline.

Usually psychotherapy is used as an exploratory tool used in the setting of the relationship between the patient and the therapist with the goal of uncovering the patient's relationship with the world. In a sense you're not after what is objectively real in that relationship, but what is subjectively real for the patient and how he navigates his mental landscape. Both Freud and Lacan put forward a vocabulary and some methodology that made that navigation a bit easier and primed the therapist to recognise certain patterns.


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

[User]
Is there a star that orbits a much larger star?

This popped in my head because I was wondering if the orbiting star had orbiting planets would these planets have temperature fluctuations from both stars? To make my question clear imagine earth was a star orbiting the sun, would the moons temperature raise significantly when I between both stars?

[Assistant]
Yes, there are lots of stars that orbit other stars. We are finding that so called 'binary stars', where two stars are in orbit around each other, may well be more common that solitary stars like our own Sun.

For instance, the nearest 'star', Alpha Centauri, is a complex of three stars - two stars somewhat smaller than our Sun that orbit each other closely, and a third, smaller one that is probably in a distant orbit.


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

[User]
ELI5: what shorting the market is.

My understanding is that it is betting against the market...

[Assistant]
Normally you buy a stock because you expect its price to go up.

If you think a stock's price is going to go down, you can "short" the stock.  What this means is you borrow shares from someone, sell those shares, and then plan to buy them back once the price has fallen, in order to hand them back to the person who lent them to you.

So, yes, shorting is betting against that particular stock.


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

[User] ELI5: why are Anti-Cancer drugs so expensive?

[Assistant]
Cancer is a tremendous collection of wildly different conditions, each of which can require the development of very different cancer drugs to either treat or prevent.

Some anti-cancer drugs exist now and are very expensive. Others have yet to be developed, with many of those in their research and testing phases now. When they're available, they will be very expensive too.

They're so expensive because they're being developed by private or public companies who have a responsibility to their own shareholders and owners to make a profit. To make a profit, the price you sell something at has to be greater than the price required to create it.

And this is the problem: the price to create and sell an anti-cancer drug is **ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS**. Here's the steps:

* research and development to identify possible treatment vectors

* animal testing

* safety testing

* clinical trials on volunteer patients, often over years.

* approval from government medicinal and drug organizations

Every one of those steps takes time and costs a lot of money, and your new drug could fail at any one of those stages, meaning all of that money you spent you get NOTHING for.

So companies in the anti-cancer drug business charge a lot because they have to pay for the drug they're producing, plus finance all the drug variants that are in development, and cover the lost costs of all of the drug variants that didn't pass their tests... and still earn a profit for their shareholders.