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

[User]
ELI5: How signals, be they cell phone signals or data through internet lines, are transmitted along their medium without becoming overwritten or scrambled by other signals also travel through the same medium.

If data is transmitted through pulses that designate 1's and 0's, how do you get multiple signals going through undersea cables or whatever without totally scrambling the data?

I feel like I'm completely misunderstanding how data transfer works.

EDIT: Thanks for the responses. lex418787 in particular. I think I understand cell towers now, but can anyone  explain the internet's system to me? I can see that different frequencies make sense for the cell's radio waves, but does the same apply to electricity?

[Assistant]
There are two main ways.

One is called TDMA (Time-division multiple access).  In this scenario, everyone that's on a particular cell-tower takes turns transmitting data.  You might get 1-2ms, and then the next guy gets 1-2ms, and so on in a big circle.  The turns happen so frequently that you don't notice it happening.  Naturally, if you have too many people then the circle gets too big and people start to notice the degradation of quality.  So what really happens is the cell tower doesn't let too many people join the circle, the newcomers just get "Service Busy" or "Service Denied" on their phones.  GSM phones use TDMA (AT&T, T-mobile, etc.)

The other is called CDMA (Code-division multiple access).  In this scenario, each user gets an orthogonal code to use.  Think about an xy-graph.  You can move a dot in the X-direction (left & right) without affecting the Y-direction (up & down).  So, you could have 2 users, one person moves in the X-direction, and another moves in the Y-direction (kind of like the knobs on an etch-a-sketch).  Both people can send data at the same time without affecting each other.  In the real world, there are many many different codes, and the cell tower can differentiate between all of them.  Phones detect which codes are not in use, and when you make a call your phone uses an unused code.  However, there are still more phones than codes, so if too many people try to talk then they'll get the "Service Busy" message.  CDMA phones work on Verizon, Sprint, etc.


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

[User]
[Dc comics] Are all kryptonian heroes holding back like Superman?

I still remember that Episode in the Justice league cartoon where Superman finally let loose against Darkseid and was whooping his ass, not even allowing Darkseid to counter attack. One blow and Superman sent him flying with a blow that even had the ground breaking up and nearby windows shattering.

Is every other Kryptonian hero, Supergirl, Power Girl, Superboy, (Krypto the superdog?) holding back like Superman or is Superman the only one who is *really* holding back? If Superman stopped holding back against every powerful villain he faced from the be start would he defeat them easily or quickly or would he end up actually just killing them with a simple Overpowered punch/blow?

[Assistant]
Supergirl: Is holding back, but isn't as good at it due to less practice.  Because of this, her average output is actually higher than his.

Powergirl:Yes holding back like he is, and has near as much experience.

Superboy: Holds back agaisnt squishy humans, but not much in general.  He is only half kryptonian so his peak output is much lower.

Krypto: Intelligence level varies by continuity.  In ones where he is smart enough to hold back he generally is.  In others, you can just assume his peak output is lower.


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

[User] [Star Wars] So you mean to tell me that no one ever noticed that Anakin and Padme were spending so much time together? Even sleeping in the same apartment. None of the people coming and going would talk about Padme and the Jedi?

[Assistant] There were plenty of rumors, as she was a prominent senator and he was a prominent Jedi. But scandals among senators were nothing new, so nobody thought much of it. And Im sure if somebody tried to blackmail Padme about it, shed just dig up some dirt on them to keep them quiet.


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

[User]
[40k] The warp is separate from our dimension, right? So if I jumped through a warp portal on a planet will I pop out on a warp version of that planet? How do planets get into the warp?

Bonus: Im a daemon how the fuck do I find a psyker to inhabit?

[Assistant]
During powerful warp storms the veil between Realspace and the Empyrean gets thinner, so the Warp starts bleeding into reality. In extreme cases the veil can rupture and planets or even entire systems get sucked into the Sea of Souls. That is relatively rare though. There are no "mirror versions" of planets inside the Warp.

Bonus: You spend your days looking in the Warp for a soul powerful enough to shine like a beacon and then start working on eroding his mental defences until you can slip in and take control. Daemons don't really possess people though, they get either involuntarily bound into them by powerful sorcerers to make use of the daemons powers or use the psykers as entrances for a physical manifestation into realspace.


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

[User] ELI5: How is it possible for soccer players to bend shots?

[Assistant]
It's called the Magnus effect. A bend shot has a lot of spin. The spinning motion combines with the linear movement. The speed of the inside of the curve is less than the speed on the outside of the curve. So the ball moves into the direction of the spin.

*Edit: As many have pointed out, the way the spinning ball interfaces with the relatively still air creates the curving movement. This is affected by the speed of the ball, the surface characteristics of the ball, the rotation and direction of spin, and other characteristics of the ball. This can be seen in soccer, basketball, golf, tennis, table tennis, and other round ball sports. Bowling and curling are slightly different because the ball or rock is interfacing with a solid (wood lanes or ice) instead of a fluid (air).*


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

[User] ELI5: What is Steve Jobs bias?

[Assistant]
The Steve Jobs bias is thinking the gap between how you envision users will use your product - and how users actually use your product is lower as opposed to reality

In other words you think you understand how your customers will use your product, when you really don't.

The trap in industry is giving consumers only what they think they want. Building a product based on customer suggestions and seeing how they use it, vs you telling them how to use it.

The most successful products are those that innovate new ideas and drive the market, while products that customize themselves to suit specific requirements of customers are doomed to obscurity.

That was one of the secrets of Steve Jobs and Apple's success is they didn't sit around waiting for consumers to show them direction on a product, they steered consumers in the direction Apple wanted to go.

Don't build a cellphone based around how people are using it now, build the device and interface that you want people to use instead. Don't build a better flip phone because that's what everyone is used to, build a smartphone that will change how they use the device entirely. Now everyone and their dog owns a smartphone and flip phones have gone the way of the dodo.


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

[User]
Is it possible to develop our night vision?

Let's say, if someone is locked in a dark room during several months (with food & water), and then gets out, would his eyes be able to see in the dark at night?

I read somewhere that when you stay a long time (months..) in the dark, it could take at least 1 day for your eyes to be able to see in bright light. Does it mean that your eyes can still see perfectly only at night, so that it's possible to develop your night vision?

Maybe I'm totally wrong, I would like some thoughts/facts about it. Thank you!

[Assistant]
It is not that easy. While our eyes do in fact get used to seeing in dark places it won't be easy for them to see perfectly. We have a series of light sensitive cells inside our eyes. Some of them get "burned out" when looking at bright light, but they quickly heal when no longer exposed to light. This causes us to "get used" to dark places. While they may take even a day to get completely healed, there can be no further improvement in their work after that.

So long story short: not really.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does applying lotion to very dry skin hurt?

One thing I've noticed having dry skin is that when it gets really dry, like from being out in the cold or excessive hand washing, is that applying moisturizing lotion can be painful. The pain is generally short lived, but it's still odd to me that doing something good for my skin causes pain.

Why does this happen?

[Assistant] lotions have a bunch of water like stuff, and a bunch of oil like stuff, and keeping it together is hard, so lotions, especially the cheap kind, have some alcohol in them to help keep things together.  alcohol on damaged skin hurts like a bitch until it's evaporated off.


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

[User] [Marvel/DC] If The Batman and The Joker were part of the Marvel universe how would their conflict play out against the backdrop of that particular universe's heroes and villains and politics?

[Assistant] Someone kills Joker pretty quickly. Marvel heroes are a lot less unified than DC and don't respect territory.  In a crossover Batman had to save Joker from Castle and Frank would eventually just shoot him with a sniper rifle when Bats isn't looking.  That is assuming that Ironman or Doom don't just nuke him from orbit or Xavier doesn't mind wipe him.  Marvel heroes are willing to get their hands much more dirty than DC. Also, Canada is going to try and use him in their weapons program and get into all kinds of evil stuff in the process because Marvel Canada gonna Canada.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Are there ways to use unicorn blood without the negative side effects?

Let's say that I find a unicorn, and feed it something laced with either drugs or some kind of potion to make it go to sleep. I then take a syringe with a needle to extract some blood (not too much, don't want to kill it). After an hour or so, the unicorn wakes up and goes about it's day like normal. Will this work, or will the blood still curse me?

And if this doesn't work, are there other methods to get unicorn blood without the negative side effects?

[Assistant]
Yes, although you wouldn't get its life extending properties either. It's all tied to the act of killing the unicorn, taking its life in a literal sense.

There is in fact a market for humanely extracted unicorn blood. It's a very expensive potion ingredient.


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

[User]
ELI5: Despite both being highly totalitarian, how are Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia polar opposites in political ideology?

Nazi Germany was far-right and Soviet Russia was far-left. Despite this, both were highly oppressive, totalitarian dictatorships. What made their ideologies so unable to get along with?

[Assistant]
Nazism was a nationalist movement, meaning that they were all about the (mythic, idealized) German people and German state. They were all about taking care of the German people first (and, obviously, horrible anti-Semitism and racism and so on) because they believed that Germany in particular was better than everybody else.

Meanwhile, the ultimate goal of Communism is a stateless society where the working class owns the factories and stuff and there's no need for top-down control. In this philosophy, the Soviet Union was actually an intermediate stage-- basically, "we're going to control everything until you guys realize how great Communism is and rise up to overthrow all the other governments." (Obviously the USSR in practice would probably not have given up control at some future point, but that was the justification for its totalitarian governance.)

So Nazism says "GERMANY IS THE BEST NATION AND THE GERMAN PEOPLE ARE THE BEST" and Communism says "NO MORE NATIONS, ALL PEOPLE ARE EQUAL." Boom, ideological clash.


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

[User]
[Marvel/Xmen] If mutants (depending on their power) access an alternate dimension, do mutants of similar powers access the same dimension, or their own unique dimension? If shared, can you drain/overload a dimension?

Based on the concept that powers, such as Cyclops/Havok - kinetic red force, tap into an alternate dimension of pure 'whatever their skill is', do they share the same dimension when they access identical substances?

Based on the technological advances such as evidenced in the Deadpool from X Origins: Wolverine and the sentinels from X: DOFP, it seems certain skills can be replicated and implemented into other people (depending on whether the person accepts it). If the dimensions are shared, is it possible that if some psycho actually sits down and implements one such mutation into as many people as he can (i.e. like a billion or so), that they all tap into said dimension simultaneously and drain it? or are these dimensions infinite?

[Assistant]
AFAIK Scott Summers (Cyclops) and his brother both access the same dimension and thus are also immune to each others powers.

I can't answer the other question though. I'd say no they cannot drain it but something inside tells me it would be possible.


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

[User]
Does a filled anti-bonding orbital signify a lone pair?

I was just wondering what these electrons were doing, if they weren't bonding. I mean I know they are anti-bonding, but are they also technically lone pairs since they don't bond to anything?

[Assistant]
Electrons don't really 'do' anything. They just occupy orbitals. Some of which have density in-between the two atoms and are thus called bonding, and some which don't (for symmetry reasons) and are thus anti-bonding.

An anti-bonding orbital doesn't necessarily correspond to a lone pair. And you'll liable to get confused more than anything if you mix Lewis theory with MO theory.

Look at HF and the fluorine atom, then its 2s electrons and four of its p-electrons don't participate in bonding. You have one sigma bonding orbital that's occupied and four _non-bonding_ orbitals, which are neither bonding or antibonding, but essentially still atomic orbitals as there's little overlap. It's a similar story with water, where one p orbital and the 2s orbital are non-bonding, while the other two p-orbitals are bonding to water.


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

[User] Spacetime can be streched and bend. But can it vibrate? If so, does it has resonance frequency?

[Assistant]
> Can it vibrate?

Vibrations of spacetime are called gravitational waves.  They have been detected indirectly by observing the orbits of binary neutron stars: The orbits lose energy as the stars emit the waves.

There is no resonant frequency, because they are not confined to a cavity (a "resonator").


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

[User]
When applying to jobs, should I apply to multiple software positions at the same company at the same location, or would I essentially be spamming HR?

Trying to figure out what the best method of pursuing a job is right now. Wasn't sure if it would give me any leg up as long as they see that I applied to the company, and I thought someone here might have some guidance for me.

[Assistant]
Don't spam them, but if there are multiple positions at a company you feel you are qualified for then send a resume for each. If you're really feeling motivated add a tailored sentence or 2 in a cover letter that explains why you're good for THAT position.

But you don't want to be annoying. Whoever is reviewing resumes will likely pick up on that. And if you're spamming the reviewer will say to themselves "man, this person is annoying" and will ignore anything with your name on it. Reviewers are people, often told by their boss to review hundreds of resumes. They're looking for the right experience with respectable presentation and a polite interaction to determine if they want that person to be around in their organization every day for years. Be cool, be nice, be motivated.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] So, what happens if someone is holding on to me when I shoot a phaser at them set to vaporize?

Do I effectively vaporize myself too?

What about the phaser being set to stun?  Does it stun me too?

[Assistant]
It's a matter of energy dispersion.

A phaser dumps energy into the target. It only vaporizes at very high output levels. If the target is nominally armored for energy dispersal (like most Klingon, Breen, or Cardassian armor) you'll see a spark or puff of smoke as the armor absorbs and disperses the blast, but the target will still sustain significant damage. If the target was wearing normal clothing, they would likely be vaporized.

The standard Starfleet handheld phaser "pistol" has sophisticated targeting systems. Vaporization is not the preferred result, so the phaser quickly scans the target and determines the appropriate output for either stun or kill. It is capable of differentiating a single target even if it is holding another body. This helps to prevent energy dispersal into a ship's bulkhead or deck.

Depending on the intensity level, the secondary target may sustain a phaser burn.

Disruptors, on the other hand, perform a different operation. A disruptor affects the weak nuclear force and causes molecules to disintegrate. As such, a disruptor can more easily vaporize a target.


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

[User]
[Jurassic World] If DNA is obtained from mosquitoes in amber, where did the DNA of an aquatic animal like Mosasaurus come from?

I mean, sure, there's a chance that a mosquito could have landed on a mosasaur and drained its blood while it was out of water, but that seems really unlikely. However, I've heard DNA can also be obtained from fossils. Is that true, and is that how Jurassic World got enough DNA to clone one?

[Assistant]
In the original book, amber was just one of the ways they got DNA.  They also could sometimes get it out of fossilized bone marrow.

I would also guess JW has a lot of money in finding DNA.  Amber mines, bones, and frozen or preserved specimens.


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

[User]
Why does an excess of neutrons make an atomic nucleus unstable?

From what I've learned on the net, larger nuclei are less stable than smaller ones. This is apparently because larger nuclei have more protons, meaning that their compounding repulsive forces eventually overcome the strong nuclear force that 'glues' a nucleus together.

So why is it that increasing a nucleus' size with just **neutrons** also causes it to become unstable? Additional neutrons are not supplying any additional repulsive forces like protons would, and as far as I know, more nucleons should bring with them more strong force 'glue' to hold the nucleus together. I.e, the nucleus ought to grow *more* stable.

Is there any explanation for this? Is it an unexplained phenomenon? Thanks for your time!

[Assistant]
For very large nuclei the models become more complicated and nuanced, but for intermediately sized nuclei a relatively simple model called the shell model works pretty well.

According to the shell model protons and neutrons in nuclei occupy energy levels similar to the electron energy levels in a hydrogen atom. However, since protons and neutrons are distinguishable fermions, the tower of energy levels they occupy are independent. This means that the lowest energy levels can be simultaneously occupied by neutrons and protons since they aren't indistinguishable.

If you add lots of neutrons to a nucleus, they are forced to fill up increasingly higher levels, while there are lower levels available to protons. The nucleus can therefore lower its energy by converting neutrons to protons via beta decay, and this is why these neutron rich nuclei unstable.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is easy to fall asleep on the couch unintentually, but harder to fall asleep when you move to your bed?

[Assistant]
Sitting down on a couch and telling yourself that it's now time to fall asleep doesn't result in quickly falling asleep. Same for a bed.

Lounging comfortably on a couch for a while until you drift off to sleep is a natural process. Same for a bed. :)


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the circulatory system handle/adapt to the loss of an extremity or limb creating apparent dead ends in the veins?

It doesn't seem like the blood would be able to circle back to the heart anymore if you lost an arm or something similar.  Do doctors have to rewire the veins somehow?

[Assistant] Veins don't connect to arteries.  Both connect to capillaries.  When the limb is cut off, the veins and arteries running to the cut off part are capped off at the stump (to use a plumbing term rather than a more medical non-ELI5 term).  The blood is distributed to the capillaries in the remainder of the body, and the artery -> capillary -> vein loop is preserved.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do current generation solar panels only operate at ~30% efficiency? What stops us from achieving 100%?

[Assistant] 100% efficiency would basically mean the solar panel is a black hole.  Any light that hits it disappears and is entirely converted to electricity.  The panel itself wouldn't get hot (because the heat is solar energy being converted into infrared), it wouldn't get worn or erode or degrade from the sun, it wouldn't reflect any light, etc.


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

[User]
If we found a way to reverse a hashing function, would that make them ultra-compression algorithms?

Given that in principle, a hashing function is meant to produce a unique output for any input, would that mean if you could reverse the hash, you could reconstruct a huge input?

[Assistant]
A hash is **not** meant to produce a unique output for any input, it simply can't.  The number of possible inputs is much, much, much larger than the number of unique outputs.  This is the *pigeon hole principle*.

For a good hash function, the output space is so large, that in practice, the chances of having two actual existing inputs with the same output is quite small.  These duplicates exist, but finding the collisions is extremely hard.

In fact, for any file you have, there are billions upon billions (actually much much bigger) of other possible files that would yield the same hash value, but you're just very, very unlikely to ever bump into one.


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

[User]
[Supernatural]Why do the angels carry those blades?

Why do the angels carry blades that can kill them?  Prior to events in the show, there has never been a reason for them to kill each other and they express shock that an angel even can be killed.  Why carry blades that can be taken from them and pose a danger to them and their kin?  To kill other things?  Weaker blades that can kill anything but don't even phase angels exist.  To fight Lucifer?  Only Michael was expected to do that, and the "sword" there wasn't literal.  Why does every single angel need to carry one?

[Assistant]
Because in the world of Supernatural, this makes them a "nuclear power", so to speak. You see how terrified demons and monsters are when they hear about Angels - it's because the weapons of heaven can kill literally anything. (Minus a couple of specific people.) You don't fuck with a group who can all casually dust any evil lord you ever met.

As for why they aren't designed to not hurt Angels, well, occasionally they need to be used for that. Angels go rogue, or need to be taught discipline. Also, they're big on honour, so if you get stabbed with your own blade, your fellow Angels will probably just think you deserved it.


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

[User]
How do planes turn?

Seems like a simple question, right?  The wings generate lift, and when you bank, some of that upwards lift gets redirected towards the direction of the turn.  But if that was the case, shouldn't the plane just sideslip in the direction of the bank?  The rudder would correct for this in a normal plane, but I built a Versa wing a few years back without the wing-rudder-things and it still turned (however poorly), which seems to contradict this explanation.  There also seems to be a requirement of some component of "backwards" lift to keep the plane in a turn.  Can someone please explain this better?

[Assistant]
If you apply ailerons and no rudder, you _do_ sideslip, just as you describe, in the first instant. However, now instead of presenting the nose to the oncoming air, you're presenting the side of the airplane (or at least, an angle of it). This increases drag, but also produces an inward force from the air pushing into the fuselage. There is considerably more fuselage area (not to mention the rudder itself) behind the center of mass than in front of it, so a turning force is produced around the center of mass.  The term pilots use for this is "weathervaning."  The geometry of the airplane is intentionally designed so that you naturally turn into the relative wind.

Pilots sometimes make use of this method of generating extra drag.  Normally you want a low drag airplane for speed and efficiency.  But if you're approaching a runway and you're too high and/or too fast, you want to add drag to descend and get slowed down.  Large airplanes do this with movable aerodynamic surfaces like spoilers.  But in a small airplane, it's not uncommon to turn the nose using the rudder, so you are moving sideways through the air, and then use opposite ailerons to hold a steady course.  This is called a forward slip.

I don't understand what you mean by backwards lift. Assuming zero wind and perfect rudder coordination, the horizontal component of lift produced by the wings is always directed towards the center point of the turn.


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

[User] [Avatar/legend of korra] if bending is only a manipulation of the elements rather than generating said elements how do fire benders use their powers when there is no source of fire to draw upon?

[Assistant]
Firebenders do need their element to be present, but they thing they manipulate isn't just fire, it's actually *heat*, fire is just the most basic way they manifest it. The sun acts as a constant and powerful, albeit distant, source of heat. This is why they are less powerful at night, and lose their powers completely during a solar eclipse. Also why the "coolers" at the boiling rock prison are effective, they keep all the heat away, preventing firebending. Zuko was able to firebend despite that because of Iroh's "Breath of Fire" technique, which allowed him to use the heat from his own breath.

EDIT: This is why all the talk about breath control is important, firebenders draw in heat with their breath, and then expel it through their limbs as fire.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does it take babies such a long time to learn basic motor skills compared to animals that are able to do it close within a month or even as soon as they're born?

[Assistant] The human brain is amazingly complicated, more so than that of pretty much any other land critter. In order for that to work, we need big heads. The problem with this is that the human pelvis is too narrow to squeeze out a baby if the baby's head were much bigger than it is, so the brain is less developed at birth for humans than for other primates. Less development in the brain means human babies need longer to learn everything they need to grow up and be successful humans. Language is literally a huge part of our brains, and it takes a long time to sort out, never mind walking on two legs besides that.


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

[User] [All]What are some examples of the bad guy being 'right'?

[Assistant]
Before he was the cyborg we all know him as,  General Grievous was a Kaleesh.

Before the Clone wars, the Kaleesh had spent the last four generations being enslaved by a technologicaly superior species known as the Huk.

Having had enough, Grievous along with other Kaleesh decided to form an army to drive the Huk from their worlds, eventualy pushing them back to their homeworlds.

Losing on every front the Huk petitioned the Jedi for aid, who responded by decimating the Kaleesh armies, effectively ending the war.

The Jedi blamed the Kaleesh for the war and imposed embargoes on them and forced them to pay reparations, leading to their economy colapsing and hundreds of thousands of Kaleesh starving to death in extreme poverty.

And if that wasn't enough, the Huk went straight back to enslaving millions of Kaleesh. And the Jedi didn't lift a finger to help them.

Who is the *real* villain here?


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

[User]
CMV: Choosing to have no children to "save the planet" is terrible reasoning

To start off, let me say that there are plenty of good moral reasons to not have children, like choosing to adopt because of all the neglected children already in the world, or maybe you have some genetic disease you don't wish to pass on (although I would never advocate for someone do to so).

My problem is the specific view held by rich (by world standards) liberal westerners who espouse the notion that them not having children is morally good because it limits overpopulation. I believe this is a ludicrous idea.

For starters, rich, western countries do not have a problem with overpopulation. In fact, it seems to me that many have the opposite problem; too few babies. If each person in a country has on average below 2 children, then the "population pyramid" will begin to tip over. This, and the lengthening lifespan of people thanks to advancements in medicine, means that in several decades the vast majority of people will be retired elderly people who need a pension and the workforce will be much smaller. I think that, from an economics standpoint, this is not desirable.

The problem when it comes to overpopulation is poor countries with lots of people. The good news if that as people get richer and more educated they *choose* to have fewer children. And the really good news, poor countries ARE becoming richer and more well educated. People are being pulled out of poverty now faster than ever in history! If you really cared about overpopulation, your goal should be to help make the world more rich, not have no children.

Finally, I'd like to address the idea that there are already too many people on Earth, and that we need to decrease the human population drastically in order to not destroy the planet. Firstly, I don't think this is possible, given how the population pyramid will flip on it's head and the consequences of that. Secondly, I think this would be a poor solution anyway. The solution to global warming and the destruction of out planet is not to downscale society, where we all live off food grown in our backyard and refuse to use any technology because building that Iphone used child slave labor in Cambodia or wherever.

The solution is massive societal change in how we make and use energy, how we dispose of our waste, how we build technology, how we do everything basically. We need to find a way to live in harmony with nature, not diminish our presence in it. And how do we achieve this? With technology, science and engineering. We need smart people working hard to solve all the problems that humanity currently faces as well as all the problems it will face in the future. In other words, we need more babies dammit! More babies who will grow up to be the next Elon Musk or the next Boyan Slat and make huge positive change in the world by being clever and working hard on the right problems.

So, that's my view and I would like to have it challenged.

[Assistant] You forgot about immigration.  The fewer children born in rich countries, the more immigrants from poor countries they can take.  So the result of a rich American having 2 fewer kids can be "no change to number of kids growing up in America but two fewer kids growing up in India".


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

[User]
[American Gods] what is the minimum number of believers and worshippers for a 'god' to be manifested?

[American Gods] what is the minimum number of believers and worshippers for a 'god' to be manifested?

[Assistant]
I think its less about minimum numbers than devotion and level of sacrifice.

Most Gods, especially very very old ones, manifested after an entire tribe believed in them. As time went on people met new tribes and converted to other gods, and those Gods that grew in followers and level of devotion grew in power and the others who were left by their tribe faded away(there is an opening of an episode that details this).

That said it probably takes a community of undetermined size (your gut feeling of what makes one) to manifest a god; but ONLY if they actually literally believe in that god, and pray, sacrifice, worship in earnest.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does one understand how fast a computer will be simply by reading the specifications, like a clock speed of 3.3GHz?

For example does Moore's lore actually make computers twice as fast in the allotted time? Or does it simply increase an arbitrary number that doesn't increase the functional speed of the computer? I guess the overall arching question here is, how can one make sense of these numbers and fully grok computer specifications' implications on practical and functional performance?

[Assistant]
Moore's law specifically measures the number of transistors on a silicon chip will double every 18-24 months. Transistors are little switches that turn on and off very quickly, and are one of the main components that are required for a computer.

A clock speed simply measures the rate of which these transistors turn on and off.

So clock rate does not have everything to do with speed, the architecture of the chip is very important. The best way to measure and compare two chips are to actually run software benchmarks on both and compare the performance.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Would you be able to contain the Incredible Hulk by housing Bruce Banner in an Adamantium box?

Let's say you're housing Bruce Banner in an Adamantium box, or more fittingly a coffin, perfectly fitted on the inside as a cast of Bruce Banner's exact shape. If/when Banner transforms into the Hulk would he be completely contained or would he somehow be able to break out of the box?

Granted I don't know too much about the Hulk, if this wouldn't work what would contain him?

[Assistant] He might not be able to break it, but with enough strength he could at least bend it. Then you'd end up with a Hulk decked out in a form-fitting suit of adamantium armor, and that doesn't sound like a good time for anyone.


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

[User]
Is it possible to buy land and solar panels, harvest solar energy, and sell it back to the grid at a profit?

If you can get a 2 sq meter solar panel for 400 dollars that produces .3 kW, with about 7 hours of daylight you could make 20 cents per day at 10c/kWhour.

That's about 75 dollars per year per panel. So for an acre (4000 sq meters), if you filled a sizable fraction with panels (1280 panels taking up 2560 sq meters), you would harvest about $95000 dollars of electricity a year.

The start-up cost is about half a million dollars + installation (DIY?), so that's about the same as a decent suburban mortgage - naively you could live off the profit.

Show me where I'm wrong?

[Assistant]
I work at electric utility company in Ontario, not to crush your dreams but:

1. You will never get 7 hours of day light. Good solar panels usually assume 15-20% duty cycle meaning expect them to produce 20% of your .3kW constantly throughout the year (less than 5 hours a day).

2. The more panels you have the lower the rate per kWh we give you in cash.

3. You can DIY installation but you can never do connection by yourself. Solar panel outputs DC current which requires an inverter to feed back into the grid. Special meters should also be put into place to monitor your output. Lastly we check the distribution transformers capacity meaning you might not even get your huge project approved.

4. Hello maintenance costs?

It highly depends on where you are and the local policy in place. Nonetheless, if you do the math right, it is profitable in terms of present value. However the initial investment is fairly high and the payback period is looking at something around 10 years on average.


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

[User] Eli5: How come the icecaps in Antarctica are so high above sealevel?

[Assistant] They are on top of mountains. Antarctica isn't one giant iceburg, it's a continent, just a very cold one that has a lot of ice on it. That's part of why the ice caps of Antarctica melting are an issue, because the water from those ice caps will now enter the ocean and raise the sea level.


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

[User]
[Firefly] Where are all the Chinese people?

I realize this may be casting oversight... but it seems pretty genius to have all these former Earthlings speaking Mandarin, yet the whole idea falls short when they're underrepresented otherwise. I suppose some people are supposed to be mixed (i.e. the surname Tam) but that hardly explains anything.

[Assistant]
The Chinese were one of the largest contributors to the Exodus, and settled mostly on the core worlds. They make up a significant portion of the Alliance.

They're probably rarely seen out on the fringes because they have, racially, become so heavily associated with the Alliance core.


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

[User]
Why do atoms bond over electron pairs, but not over single electrons?

It seems to me that given the fact that protons and electrons attract eachother, it should be possible for two atoms to bond using only 1 electron. Right? So maybe you could have 2 hydrogen atoms, one of which has 1 electron and the other has none, still forming a bond together using just the one electron? If that's not possible, why not?

[Assistant]
They can and do, but molecules like that are usually only found in outer space due to their extraordinary reactivity. The dihydrogen cation binds two H atoms with one electron, but it is not particularly stable. H2^+ can react with H2 to form the trihydrogen cation, H3^+ which is more stable with its three-center-two-electron bond, and observed all over the universe.

You would be able to produce either hydrogen cations only in a confined plasma under vacuum on Earth, otherwise it would react with the oxygen in the air and form water.


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

[User]
ELI5:What Exactly is Fascism?

How is it different from Communism, specifically?
I can never find a good explanation on the internet.

[Assistant]
- Fascism is always nationalistic, whereas communism is "international" (edit: the practical forms of communism of course didn't give too many fucks about this)

- communism demands a planned economy, whereas practical Fascism worked closely with the capitalistic elite

- unlike traditional reactionary (extremely conservative) ideologies fascism in Germany and Italy did use some inherently socialistic ideas, like government controlled unions, public healthcare, public welfare

- while both ideologies are inherently militaristic, the ideological motivations for this are different: Fascists seek to conquer, while communists seek to spread their ideology.


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

[User]
[Dark Souls] Does civilization exist, or are people living in some weird apocalypse?

In the Dark Souls games, everyone you meet wants to either kill you without explanation or else they're so apathetic it's depressing. Also, nearly every structure you see is overgrown or in ruin.

Is it like this everywhere? Do actual cities still exist, with normal, functioning people? Or is everyone just a melancholic wanderer, living out their last days before they're eventually turned into a hollow or killed by some horrible monster?

[Assistant]
You see, each rekindling keeps civilization stable for thousands of years, it's only once a few millenia it gets this bad. Undead are the first sign the fires are waning, it can be centuries before everyone starts going Hollow.

By the time you begin your quest the whole world is hopeless. Attempts to contain the hollow and undead failed, the great Lords have succumbed or sit upon their crumbling thrones. Any civilization left has cast you away so they can continue their life until undeath takes them as well.

You are witnessing the last sparks of the Age of Light. But all it takes is a single ember to light it again.


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

[User]
[1984] how does one go about overthrowing big brother?

What does a person need?

[Assistant]
All hope lies with the proles, they're the only part of society with the man power necessary to overwhelm the military forces of The Party.

Imo  The Party can't have the control they claim over the whole of Oceania. Look at the size of the Americas and the population density there and it would be impossible for them to exert the same amount of control they had over Airstrip one. It's co platelet possible that life outside A1 isn't that bad, or in reality The Party only control A1.


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

[User]
[Red Dwarf] Rimmerworld?

How did Arnold manage to clone himself without any of his original genetic material? At this point wouldn't he have just been a light bee and a program?

[Assistant] The hologram technology behind Rimmer is actually a lot more advanced than it seems. He isn't just a holographic projection but a full simulation of a human body: Light bee technology utilizes a copy of the deceased's entire genetic code combined with other things like brain and body scans, along with artificial intelligence programs that simulate their personality to create an exact holographic replica of the former crew member. This explains why he's susceptible to conditions such as an "electronic aneurysm", which is what got him into that mess in the first place. The terraforming machine simply accessed his genetic data from the light bee core.


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

[User]
Do hair and nail supplements actually work?

My aunt is asking for recommendations and I had a google search asking if they actually work, and the results showed that they *may* increase nail thickness but unless youre not well nourished, they wont make much difference. But Im hoping someone from this community might be able to share some information or sources? Aside from my aunt looking for recommendations, this has been something Ive wondered about before. Thanks for any help (:

[Assistant]
If you look at the ingredients it is just vitamins, and if you eat a balanced diet you already have all the vitamins you need, so excess is just removed in your urine.

They technically work if you are malnourished, as they would contain the vitamins and minerals needed for hair and nail growth, but they are just placebo for normal healthy people.


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

[User]
What are the potentials of Antarctica?

I hadn't realized that Antarctica was once warm and temperate. There could be tons of fossils there. We've used it to study the level of carbon in the Earth, but imagine if we could look deeper? The continent also has an ancient lake (Vostok), which could still have extremophile bacteria / viruses and organisms. Opening it could contaminate the lake, or the earth.

What other potentials for Antarctica are there for research?

[Assistant]
> Opening it could contaminate the lake, or the earth.

Maybe the lake, but not the earth.  The extremophile bacteria would be easily outcompeted by ordinary bacteria (who don't have to spend energy supporting all the bells and whistles that the extremophiles use to survive in harsh conditions).


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Why does each Doctor attach themselves to a particular earth time period?

The Doctor can (and does) travel anywhere in time and space, with one notable exception. When visiting modern day earth, each Doctor only ever seems to visit a particular time period, interestingly in chronological order of their regenerations. From 1 in the 60s to 12 in 2015.

He holds this pattern fairly rigidly as well, never crossing in to the other regenerations' territory, and only choosing companions from one time period. The war doctor didn't even know what cup-a-soup was, for instance. At the risk of answering my own question, could it be that the Doctor uses earth's timeline as a means of anchoring himself and providing a sense of linearity?

[Assistant]
He doesn't. You may be interested in Big Finish, a Doctor Who production which makes up more of the Doctor Who lore than the TV Series itself. Featuring primarily the Fourth to Eighth Doctors, though now incorporating the Third, War, and to a lesser extent, First and Second Doctors, with small stories for the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh (the three of whom are all taking Winston Churchill through time and space).

Just as an example, the Fifth Doctor comes to own a house in London, however, it's the Eighth Doctor who actually ends up living there for a while during WWI.


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

[User]
[MCU] How is Dr Strange's magic different from Loki's?

They dont look similar at all. If we believe Ancient one's reasoning of magic, what does Loki do?

[Assistant]
There's more than one way to acheive an effect - just as there's more than one kind of technology there's more than one kind of magic.

Dr Strange uses mandala magic that was brought to Earth by Agamotto, but that doenst mean that's the only way to interface with whatever backend systems involved in magic. We also canonicaly know that asguardians use magic, so their magic must look/be different.

Just like someone solving a problem with an electronic device vs someone solving it with a chemical reaction - it's all tech, they just look wildely different.


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

[User]
[Rick and Morty] Where did Rick get his knowledge of science from?

Rick has frequently expressed a strong distaste for institutional education, so where did he learn so much about science and technology?

[Assistant]
It's not really discussed as to why he's very intelligent but it's assumed that he's just gifted. This is supported by him being a genius in all dimensions/universes; regardless of what happens to him in each dimension/universe, he's still a genius.

However, there is a theory that he uses this seeds from s01e0? That give morty super intelligence to maintain his intelligence.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] how would planets without flora like Tatooine and Hoth have breathable air?

Admittedly I don't know much about this sort of thing but I thought that without plant life, there wouldn't be enough oxygen to support animals.

[Assistant] Most oxygen production comes from single celled organisms like algae. There is probably a desert algae that uses a brown pigment to collect sunlight. If moisture vaporators are economical, no doubt single celled organisms have figured out how to extract the required water from the air, or maybe even break down sand to extract the required components.


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

[User] [Santa Claus] There is nothing in the Book of Genesis about the creation of elves. I think that means they're not people? They will either lumped in with animals or Santa made them in on his own? So my question is, eating elves cannibalism or are they not human?

[Assistant]
Elves are not people, this is correct. It is incorrect to think they were not mentioned in Genesis though. They are the Nephilim, the children produced when a Son of God and Daughter of Man reproduced.

To try and eat such a creature would be a foolhardy task, for their souls are not mortal ones. Their souls are twisted things, merging the unbridled holiness of Heaven with the unclean sin of this Earth. To even be in the presence of such a creature would be enough to make most physically sick, but to consume their flesh would almost certainly burn you from the inside out.


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

[User]
[My Hero Academia] I slacked off in middle school and as a result couldn't get in a hero school. Got my life together now, can I still get a hero's license?

I had pretty bad grades in middle school due to a bad home life. I graduated a regular non-hero highschool but ended up just working as a cop. I'd really like to be a hero, but I'm not sure if I could get a license now. Is there an age limit? Could I work part time for one? Am I going to have to pay oop for the next 3 years or can I get a stipend/scholarship?

[Assistant] Most likely not. Their world is restrictive and stacks the deck against the unlucky and regular people. The people in charge are holding society back to keep the status quo, so making it easy to get a hero's license is a big problem for them.


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

[User]
Is there an empirical method to calculate the surface area of an irregular solid?

Archimedes (apocryphally, at least) provided us with an empirical method of calculating the volume of an irregular solid using water displacement.

Is there any analogue for surface area? It would be nice if there were a method that doesn't rely too much on technology (I kinda want something that could've been produced by the Greeks), but I'm interested in any solution that doesn't use any kind of calculus / convergence of approximations arguments.

If there is no analogue for surface area, is there some kind of proof or heuristic argument that there can be no such method?

[Assistant]
You could take a can of paint would form layer of certain thickness, submerge the object in thispaint, take it out, and see how much paint is missing. Divide by thickness and there you have surface area.

This would rely on the paint consistently forming layer of specific thickness, and while it's roughly true for all paints, it's not ever gonna be exact.

Mathematically, even if you had ideal paint, you also run into the problem caused by the shoreline paradox. You cannot compute shoreline of any real object. Similarly, surface area would be subject to changes as the thickness of your paint varies, ultimately requiring infinite amout of paint for paint that has no thickness.

Mathematically, this is best explained as shoreline having dimension higher than 1 but lower than 2. Length applies to 1-dimensional things, area to 2d objects. Similar to shoreline, any real object would not have 2d surface, it would be slightly nudging towards 3d with small cracks and such, not enough for it to be volume, but enough to cause shoreline paradox to be relevant.


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

[User]
Silly question I'm sure, but what exactly is "dark matter" and why is it important?

I greatly enjoy reading about the time, space, and the universe. It's amazing how complicated it is and how little we know of it. However, while I find the information interesting, I don't necessarily understand it because I have no in-depth knowledge of physics and other jargon that always pops up.

So, I was be much appreciative if someone could kindly explain to me the subject of dark matter in simple-man terms. Thanks!

[Assistant]
Dark matter is *matter* that's *dark.* It's one of those cases where physicists call something precisely what it is.

It's *matter* because it *gravitates.* That part's fairly obvious, really. But we don't call it *dark* because we can't *see* it  although that's true. We call it dark because it can neither emit nor absorb light, because it's *electromagnetically inert.*

Because it's electromagnetically inert, it doesn't *collide.* If race cars were made of dark matter, the races would be very boring because crashes would be impossible. (As would steering, and the cars themselves, but it's just a metaphor.) Dark matter is *transparent* both to ordinary matter and also to *other dark matter.* Which means if you have a particle of dark matter with some amount of momentum, it's just going to keep going in a straight line forever and ever, because it'll never *hit anything* to knock it off its trajectory.

Because dark matter has this property  this *collisionlessness,* this *transparency*  it tends to exist in large "clouds" around galaxies, clouds poetically called *halos.* As galaxies formed, some ten-ish billion years ago, matter collapsed toward points of higher density. The stuff that interacted  non-dark matter, or *baryonic* matter as we call it collided a lot, shedding kinetic energy and thus falling into lower-energy orbits around these densities in the intergalactic medium. Over a long time, galaxies formed, complete with stars and all that rot, because baryonic matter has a tendency to stick together and do interesting things.

Dark matter, on the other hand, was oblivious to all this. It just kept orbiting the galactic centres the way it always had, sleeting through anything in its path like water through a sieve.

But it still gravitates! And *how,* does it gravitate! Something like three parts in four of all the gravitating matter in the universe is dark matter, and it shows. Dark matter keeps galaxies stable, and there's a good chance that it helped them form in the first place by creating density without interacting.

If you're interested, read up a bit on galactic halos, and also on the Bullet Cluster. Pretty much everything you need to know about dark matter  except, of course, *what it actually is,* a question that we haven't yet answered  can be learned from the Bullet Cluster.


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

[User] ELI5: In retrospect, why was germany left largely unscathed from the 2008/2009 financial crisis?

[Assistant]
The crash came from an excess of bad debt.  Folks had been writing loans to people that can't pay, and eventually ran out of capital to keep writing loans when too many folks didn't make their payments.

It was really a team effort.  Banks shouldn't have been writing multiple mortgages to folks that work part time at McDonalds, and folks that can't afford $1200/mo shouldn't be taking out loans with $1500/mo payments.  Easy lending makes economies do whatever they're going to do faster.  If times are good and everyone is making payments, the economy grows very quickly.  When times get tough, it crashes quickly.

Germany's banking system kept restrictions on lending practices, and this was reinforced by their culture that didn't borrow what they can't pay back.  They never really had a crisis of capital where the banks were out of cash to lend due to lack of payment.  The downside here was that their economic growth was restricted during the boom times, but also restricted during a crash.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it so hard to cure rabies once you get symptoms?

I've never understood why having symptoms means your death.

[Assistant]
Rabbies attacks your central nervous system, so if you're showing symptoms it's already too late as the central nervous system controls many vitally critical functions.

Think of it as trying to put out a fire after it has already burned the building down.  At that point if even you put the fire out there's nothing left to salvage.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the space time continuum?

[Assistant] Because space consists of 3 dimensions, and time is 1-dimensional, space-time must, therefore, be a 4-dimensional object. It is believed to be a 'continuum', or constantly continuous and unbroken, because so far as we know, there are no missing points in space or instants in time, and both can be subdivided without any apparent limit in size or duration. So, physicists now routinely consider our world to be embedded in this 4-dimensional Space-Time continuum, and all events, places, moments in history, actions and so on are described in terms of their location in Space-Time.


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

[User] ELI5:Why are video games so expensive in Australia?

[Assistant]
All the reasons people are giving is the reason prices started out higher.  Shipping a product overseas, higher minimum wage, etc.
But really though, the prices are higher because enough people are willing to pay it.  They are willing because these prices are what's normal to them.  It's not like the prices just went up a week ago, the prices have always been expensive and so people don't protest the price by not buying the game they want to play.  Complaining about the price does very little.  Actually not buying it is the way to get things to change.  Video game companies (like everything else) exist to make money.  Sure, the artist and individual people enjoy making their art/whatever but the company itself exists to make money.  If it doesn't make money, it stops existing.

If you could bottle tap water and sell it for $20 a bottle.  And people would buy so much you sell out, why would you lower prices?  Hell if you keep selling out, you would raise prices!

This is the origin of a lot of sayings like "Put your money where your mouth is" or "Vote with your wallet."

Remember the price on nearly every single thing in the world is determined by what people are willing to pay.  Cars, hotels, pizza, cell phones, etc.

So until people stop paying the prices, they will stay the same.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] How successful was Quark?

Was he doing well, or was it a mistake to leave home to run a bar?

[Assistant]
Quark was either a miserable failure or he hid his success well.

1. He paid no rent and no maintenance. That's huge. His only costs were materials and labor and he was known for paying cheaply for substandard equipment and offering miserly rates for his employees.

2. He continuously complained of being in debt.

So, if we take his complaints at face value, then he either:

1. Barely managed to break even on running a business without having to deal with some of the most significant cost expenditures;

2. Managed his own finances very poorly, wasting away his profits on failed investments;

3. Was extremely successful but lied about it to stave off the FCA or other financial predators;

Keep in mind that he did have a keen financial mind. He was able to untangle and manage the finances of a Noble Klingon House; handled trade negotiations between the Federation and the Kammara; and successfully ran an arms dealing business (albeit temporarily).


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

[User]
ELI5: how do ocean animals navigate in their 360 environment?

I know dolphins and whales have sonar. But how about fish, jellyfish, giant squid, sea turtles etc? They have no visual points of reference like us land animals, they can literally travel in any direction (vs. our fairly linear plane of movement; although Im assuming at least that they can sense gravity and therefore know up from down), and yet can navigate so confidently that, for example, animals like sea turtles can return without fail to the same location year after year to lay eggs.

[Assistant]
Most of them still use vision and touch (feeling currents.... like how you can feel a draft of air when someone goes by) for navigation in the near field. For farther navigation, a lot of sea animals either have natal recognition (e.g. salmon which remember how to get to the streamheads where they were born, and use olfactory (smell) or magnetic cues to help) or use electromagnetic fields similar to how birds migrate. Theres a lot of different sensory organs that are used in different ways by different animals, but its all the same concept, really. Fish swimming in schools use lateral lines which are sensitive to the tiny electric impulses sent out by animal movement to avoid collision and navigate in the school.

Rambled a little... hope that answers your question?


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

[User]
Why don't we know the size of the entire universe?

We know when it started and how fast it expands, so why are we unsure about how much 'space' there is beyond our observable universe?

[Assistant]
The Big Bang isn't an explosion of matter within space - it's the expansion of space itself. If the Big Bang was a classical explosion within some large or infinite space, you would indeed expect all the matter in the universe to be contained in a sphere, about 13.7 billion light-years in radius.

However, the expansion of the universe is actually about *everything getting apart from everything else*. This works even if the universe is *infinite* in size. It's possible that the universe has *always* been infinite in size. We don't have great constraints for the extremely early universe. We know that the universe was once denser and more compact, but it could still have been infinite in size at that point.

To measure the size of the universe, we have to measure its curvature, which is connected to the expansion rate. We see no curvature, which is consistent with an infinite universe. However, a small (positive or negative) curvature is within the uncertainties. That is, the universe is either infinite, or so big that we can't (yet) tell that it isn't infinite. Unfortunately, if it *is* infinite, then we will never be able to prove it - no matter how precise our measurements get, it'll always be possible there's a tiny curvature that's too small for us to see.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does water boil when in a vacuum.

[Assistant]
Water molecules are bouncing around with enough energy that they can move past each other.  This is why it is liquid.

Air molecules are bouncing around with enough energy that they can detach from each other.  This is a gas.

The air molecules bouncing around on top of the water molecules puts enough pressure on the water molecules that they cant escape the surface.

In a vacuum this pressure does not exist, so the water molecules escape the liquid surface.  This is boiling.

If you want water to boil in air, then you need to add energy (heat) to the water to give the molecules enough bounce to push through the air.


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

[User]
CMV: The United States is deteriorating similar to the Roman Republic

The past few years has shown increasing internal political and social instability in the United States. Furthermore, the foundational institutions and principles of the United States is on a clear down swing, with significant amounts of people in positions of power in the government themselves causing severe dissension.

Many of the norms previously taken for granted will be questioned. For example, now that there is precedence, any time something like an incumbent president loses or even any real close election, there will be allegations of fraud and wrongdoing as expedient concessions become less common. At some point, these allegations may/will succeed. Or if a president gets elected, but Congress is in control of the opposing party. Some state legislators have already proposed eliminating the popular vote of the presidency in their state. Every tight election will have an undercurrent of risk that it will be declared fraudulent and thrown out. This of course, was an almost unthinkable worry 8 years ago, and at some point the undercurrent will become real.

All this leads me to believe the US is essentially experiencing the same decline the Roman Republic and other similar states have experienced in the past. The US may still exist in the future in name, but if it does, it will not have the same principles and political structures as it did in the past, similar to the Roman Republic to Roman Empire. This demise may happen quickly like the Weimar Republic, but more realistically may happen slowly over many years/decades like Rome as various standards and institutions get eroded. I am not saying US' deterioration is 100% analogous to the Roman Republic, since obvious much differs. But to borrow Mark Twain, history is currently rhyming.

I hope this is not the case and I am being pessimistic. CMV

Edit: To clarify, my analogy is referring to the beginning of the decline of the Roman Republic starting maybe around 135 BCish. Not the actual civil war era of Caesar significantly later.

Edit 2: Some commented wanting more specific examples of parallels between the Roman Republic and the US. Now, I am not an in-depth expert on Roman History, so please CMV and correct me if I got anything wrong.

Instead of obviously subverting the Roman Republic, the things the Roman politicians did were often technically 'by the books' up until the end, but they just violated unwritten norms and weakened Republic institutions. For example, Tiberius Gracchus. During Tiberus time as tribune of the plebs, several norms of the Roman Republic were violated to pass his somewhat moderate Lex Sempronia Agraia. For example, the sacrosanctity of the tribune with removal Marcus Octavius, or how he ran for re-election against the Roman norm of limited tenure that existed at the time. After this tenure and death, assassinations and political violence grew significantly in the Roman Republic, and killing tribunes etc. were far more common. This institutional decline and norm failure is directly responsible for the chaos and fall in the later years. I can see strong parallels between this institutional weakening and norm breaking with what is occurring recently in the US.

Another example is how bad precedence also started building up, such as under Sulla. While Sulla in fact did quickly return his dictatorial powers after his mandate was done, one could say things like his march on Rome set precedence for the future to follow. Pompey is said to have once said If Sulla could, why cant I?, and I can see future politicians in the US say similar things when referring to precedence set now.

Now obviously, this is just an analogy of how norm breaking, precedence setting, and institutional weakening and lead to a Republic's downfall. The specifics of the Roman Republic is quite different from the US Republic, they are nowhere near the same. And I highly doubt the end years of the Roman Republic will be repeated in any way in modern times. However, the pattern of norm weakening and bad precedence setting seems to be very analogous. If I am wrong about the history I have described, please let me know.

[Assistant] Youve explained why you believe the US is collapsing and the weakening of the American political system, but you havent explained why and how this is similar to the fall of the Roman Republic. Could you elaborate a bit more on the parallels between these two situations, and why the Roman Republic specifically?


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

[User]
[Marvel] How do I convince my racist grandma that Captain America is just like the X-Men?

My nana loves heroes like Captain America and Reed Richards, but at the same time she's constantly watching Jonah Jameson spread fake news and Will Stryker get on every Sunday talking about how mutants are sent by Satan. She even donates to them. Lately she's been sharing anti-mutant conspiracy theories on facebook and Liking posts that talk about "M\*tie scum", and doesn't seem to accept that the heroes she loves aren't any different.

[Assistant]
It is actually nearly impossible to convince her that he's just like the X-Men because Captain America was *made* by American Scientists, rathen than just born with the gene, which is something the public is aware of and she could point out to as the difference.

Honestly, even if you could, it is very likely that she would make an exception for him for being "one of the good ones", with decades as an stablished national hero.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Is aftetlife in Slaanesh's realm actually pleasant for mortals/their souls who enter it? Is it torment, or is it pleasurable?

Thank you :)

[Assistant] It's torment. While some people might find enjoyment in the excesses of pleasure and sensation for a little while they'll eventually be driven mad by it. The cenobites of hell raiser are a good example of what trying to live in slaansh's world is. Just constantly craving and hunger for more until you're so numb to everything you seek out others to share the sensation with just to feel some kind of pleasure yourself. And that's assuming you even get to be the one turning the wheel. Most likely you'll be taken by some demon of the ruinous powers and they'll do so many unthinkable and unspeakable things to you while enjoying themselves. And just maybe you won't be shredded away into nothingness and get to be some lesser imp of chaos yourself after a few centuries of being a rape/torture toy for the demons. Then maybe you'll get to go after the next mortal soul that comes through the warp and take out your pleasure on them if they have a dim enough soul to not attract a more powerful demon or Slaanesh herself to them.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Since Vibranium absorbs vibration, and heat in matter is essentially vibration, could Vibranium wine stones keep my drink perpetually chilled?

Also: Why dont all Vibranium weapons have frost all over them? Arent they freezing every airborne water droplet that bumps into them? Is there any mention of hydrophobic coating applied to Captain Americas shield?

Also also: Wouldnt the Black Panther suit/Panther Habit give the wearer massive frostbite, especially since its so form-fitting? Is there any mention of insulation against this?

[Assistant] Everything we've seen so far seems to indicate that Vibraniums absorption/reflection/shunting properties kick in above a certain threshold. How evenly that works across all versions/applications of vibranium isn't known.


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

[User]
CMV: Cultural appropriation is a ridiculous idea

Culture is simply the way a group of people do everything, from dressing to language to how they name their children. Everyone has a culture.

It should never be a problem for a person to adopt things from another culture, no one owns culture, I have no right to stop you from copying something from a culture that I happen to belong to.

What we mostly see being called out for cultural appropriation are very shallow things, hairstyles and certain attires. Language is part of culture, food is part of culture but yet we dont see people being called out for learning a different language or trying out new foods.

Cultures can not be appropriated, the mixing of two cultures that are put in the same place is inevitable and the internet as put virtually every culture in the world in one place. Were bound to exchange.

Edit: The title should have been more along the line of Cultural appropriation is amoral

[Assistant]
when people talk about cultural appropriation, it's one of two things, usually:

1. Members of a dominant culture *financially profiting* off of things created by another culture, while members of that other culture are not able to get nearly as much money from it.

2. Members of a dominant culture take up something associated with another culture but are ignorant or disrespectful about it, and thus the item or practice in question is changed.  Let me use a dumbed-down example here.  Let's say dreadlocks are important spiritual symbols in Jamaican culture.  White fratboys might think dreadlocks look awesome and get their hair styled that way, completely not knowing about the spiritual stuff.  there is *nothing inherently bad about this, in and of itself*.  The problem comes when dreadlocks more and more catch on among fratboys, to the point that they're seen primarily as a fratboy thing... *even among Jamaican-Americans*.  White fratboys can innocently strip another culture's symbol of its meaning, but it's much less likely to happen the other way around.

One thing that's in common about both of these situations is that neither is based on "don't do that thing because it's not yours."

Also, both are mostly critical about *a set of affairs*, not the moral character of specific individuals.  If Jimmy is a white dude, the point is not whether or not Jimmy is a bad person, it's that there's an imbalance in cultural status.  White individuals learning to be careful about not taking up something they see willy-nilly is *a* way of addressing this problem, but it's not the central issue.


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

[User]
CMV: It's unethical for car companies to limit certain capabilities of a vehicle via software.

For example, during a hurricane, Tesla unlocked long-range battery capabilities in an over-the-air upgrade to it's fleet. This was the ethical choice to make, but there should have never been a software limit in the first place.

Similarly, imagine if a car manufacturer artificially limits a vehicle's maximum acceleration speed through software. Say you are on the road driving, and the person behind you switches to the left lane revealing a semi-truck speeding towards you whose brakes have failed. There are vehicles to your left and a cliff to your right. You have nowhere to go. If you stop you will be ass-packed. Your car is mechanically capable of accelerating fast enough for you to narrowly escape collision, but an artificial software limit prevents you from doing so and you die.

Software limits should only be in place to prevent the user from performing actions that would certainly cause failure (like switching into reverse while on the highway at full-speed), not from doing things that MIGHT be unsafe in some circumstances (i.e, accelerating very quickly)

[Assistant]
>Software limits should only be in place to prevent the user from performing actions that would certainly cause failure (like switching into reverse while on the highway at full-speed), not from doing things that MIGHT be unsafe in some circumstances (i.e, accelerating very quickly)

Software limits are a form of risk mitigation. The company felt there was a risk in the user accelerating too quickly, and mitigated that with a software control.

AS long as the mitigated acceleration is what is communicated to the owner during car purchase, its not a problem. If you had bought a car that had a hardware control (such as not being able to accelerate that quickly due to a less powerful engine), you would be equally dead.


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

[User] [Coming to America]What's Zamunda like now? How has it changed since the wedding?

[Assistant]
After the wedding the king is unfortunately assassinated in an international diplomatic meeting.  His son dons the costume of the guardian of his land and seeks vengeance.

He tracks the man he believes to be the murderer and is forced to fight many other powerful warriors from different countries and even different times.  Ultimately he learns that he is being manipulated and the killer he seeks is not the brainwashed assassin he thought.

He brings the true assassin to face international justice, a man whose family was killed by the other warriors.  His new allies need refuge from the international storm that's brewing, so he grants them a safe haven in his kingdom.

Plus, they've got all the vibranium.


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

[User]
[Xcom]What is the point of biologic units like sectoids or mutons

Biologic units seem to have a lot of disadvantages over robots. They are squishier, need training, can panic, cant be turned off, etc. They do have some advantages over robots in that they are smarter, cant be hacked and the raw materials are cheaper. But no one is going to hack all robots at once, and the codex also cant be hacked. And if you need the smarts there is no reason against using andromedons and archons.

The ADVENT troopers and faceless do play important roles but i see no reason to use the others. Especially when you can spam chryssalids instead. The chryssalid is a beast so no training is required and it does the replicating all by itself so no assembly required.

So why would the elders bother with those instead of robots/cyborgs with the occasional chryssalid swarm?

[Assistant]
I don't know what to say dude if you didn't figure out their roles very, very quickly. Sectoids are psychically enhanced units that can throw entire teams into disarray if used right. Mutons in most cases are insanely tough and can cause massive damage during berserker raids.

You won't find robots that can do their very specific roles and are not nearly as common. Chrysalids are also not very bright and have little tactical ability.


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

[User]
Why is forest height on mountain ranges so uniform?

Trees, even the same kind, can vary so wildly in size, yet on mountains the foliage forms a lumpy blanket instead of a patchy beard. What's up with that?

[Assistant]
Generally forests are trees of about the same age. Fire or logging.

In old growth, where the trees are not generally all the same age or type, there's still strong pressure against being 'the tallest'. Lightening and wind. There is also pressure against being the shortest, no access to light. So they all end up generally about the same height.


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

[User]
ELI5: What actually is instant coffee and how different is it from normal coffee?

Yes I understand instant coffee is instant but how is it possible to make coffee out of these water soluble flakes? If you were to compare these two cups of coffee would they be almost identical in terms of "coffeeness?"

[Assistant]
Producing instant coffee starts in pretty much the same way as making a cup of coffee from beans.

They start with green beans, and roast them. Then they're ground, and mixed with hot water. It's then strained to get rid of the ground coffee. This basically gives you liquid coffee - the sort of thing that you might actually make from beans and drink.

The liquid is then frozen, and the solid is ground into flakes. It's then put into a vacuum, which drives the water off, leaving you with flakes of instant coffee which will dissolve if you add water to them.


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

[User]
ELI5: If we could get every single person on the planet to quarantine themselves in their houses for a period of 10 - 14 days (or however long it would take), could we eliminate most/every virus or bacteria?

I'm talking about communicable illnesses that spread through air, bodily fluids, and infected surfaces (not STDs, autoimmune, cancer, etc). So if we gave every sick person a chance to recover and not infect anyone around them, would the microorganisms behind the diseases just die and be eradicated forever?

I obviously realize this is implausible, just had a thought and am wondering the science behind it.

[Assistant] Randal Munroe (author of XKCD) answered this in his book "What-If" (great read by the way). Even if you gave everyone an airtight suit for several months, you would always have someone with a compromised immune system harboring the infection without actually being sick, ready to re-infect the general population after the quarantine period expires.


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

[User]
[Thor ragnarok] sakaar time

Everybody says that hulk was green for 2 years on sakaar.
Was it though?
Sakaar time seems quicker than real time.
Like loki jumped from the bifrost 30 seconds before thor and it was 2 weeks earlier on sakaar.

Was hulk the champion for a much longer time than 2 years?

[Assistant] Sakaar time to real time is not a linear conversion.  Grand Master makes reference to time there being "weird" so it's possible Loki's 30 seconds equaled two weeks and however long ago Hulk disappeared being 2 years are both true.


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

[User]
Why does my mouth taste so nasty when I wake up?

At what point in the night does my mouth go from minty freshness to open ass? And why?

[Assistant]
When you go to bed at night and fall asleep, every part of your body also gets some rest. In your mouth there are little saliva factories that we call "glands". These factories work slower at night and produce less saliva, hence the dry mouth when you wake up.

Now, the saliva is a very cool liquid that contains a lot of things like oxygen and enzymes. All those things keep your mouth clean and destroy food and bacterias that live in your mouth.

These little bacterias (which are really small animals, kinda) multiply really fast if there is no saliva in your mouth and they can get really smelly. So if you sleep 8 hours and your mouth dries up, let's say, for 5 hours, the little bacterias multiply on and on and build up stench in your mouth.


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

[User]
[Nineteen Eighty-Four] It's 2017. What's different, if anything?

It's been 33 years since the events regarding Winston Smith.

[Assistant] Newspeak upgood. Oldspeak fully rectified as of Year 90 postrev. BB prevails. Airstrip One prevails. Eastasian forces are in full retreat across Africa. Rocket strikes in London down 40% post last period. the 17th Five Year Plan is in total overfulfillment. 20,418 units grain from miniplenty. Misquote. 19,218 units grain from miniplenty. A 12% surplus over previous numbers. Oldthinkers confessed, selfcriticized on viewscreen. Goldstein cornered by our brave forces. Eurasian forces in full retreat across Africa. Oceania prevails. BB!


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

[User]
Why is Spinozas God considered to be a God while the Tao isn't?

From my limited understanding, Spinozas God and the Tao seem to be very similar. They encompass all things, they're the reason why everything happens the way it does, and they are both the one underlying "thing" or substance for all of existence. If these statements are correct, what makes these two different? If they're both the cause of all things, and reside from, and within, themselves, why do we call one a God and the other an "abstract concept?"

[Assistant]
*Dao* is actually quite different from the way you have described! By clearing that up, hopefully its differences with Spinoza's God will be more obvious. Some key differences:

1. *Dao* does indeed encompass all things (the *wanwu*), but it is not exactly the 'reason why everything happens the way it does'. That will hopefully make sense after reading the next few answers.
2. *Dao* is not an 'underlying' thing, certainly not in any sense of transcending the world. It is completely immanent within the *wanwu*. If you took away the *wanwu*, *dao* would not be left over. This is a confusing point, because texts like the *Daodejing* emphatically describe *dao* as **both** the mother of the *wanwu* and **constituted** by the *wanwu*. Chapter 62 is a good example of the latter: "*Dao* is the flowing together of all things". It might seem contradictory to describe *dao* as both engendering the wanwu AND emerging from them. How can it be wholly immanent if it is the mother of all things? One reason is that the sense in which it is a 'mother' does not involve actually *causing* things to come into existence (more on causality later), only nurturing the process of their transformations. Furthermore, the *Daodejing* cautions that we are not supposed to be defining *dao* in the first place - certainly not in a way where we can expect clarity and freedom from contradiction. This is because *dao* is *wuzhuang* ( formless). We can say *dao* engenders the *wanwu* and we can say it emerges from them, but we can't say one of these descriptions is more correct than the other.
3. *Dao* is not a 'thing' or 'substance' exactly, either. It is a process - or more specifically, a propensity toward change inherent in all things. That propensity has certain features (e.g. it is cyclical, and it oscillates between *yin* and *yang*), but is otherwise formless. Keep in mind that the rest of the things in the Daoist cosmos are not 'things' either, but processes. In fact, *wanwu* is more accurately translated as 'The ten thousand processes'. *Dao, tian* and *wanwu* are all processes - it's processes all the way down. There is no 'substance' at the bottom.
4. Dao is not the 'cause of all things' because there was no concept of causality in early Chinese philosophy - certainly not in texts like the *Daodejing* and *Zhuangzi*. The closest equivalent to causality is *ganying* (  *resonance*), but it is still different from the Western concept of causation in many ways. It wasn't fully developed until the Han dynasty, either.
5. *Dao* is not an 'abstract concept' either. In many ways, it is the arguably furthest thing from it! The repeated theme of texts like the *Daodejing* and *Zhuangzi* is that *dao* can *not* be apprehended in an abstract manner, whether through language, logic or any kind of abstract reasoning. Instead, *dao* can only be understood through experiencing it, through living it. The *Zhuangzi* in particular repeatedly mocks scholars that try to understand *dao* in an abstract manner, whilst celebrating characters like Cook Ding, the bellmaker or the wheelmaker who understand *dao* by *living* it. This is a major difference between the God of Spinoza and *dao*. Spinoza's rationalist approach would have been strongly rejected by all of the Daoist philosophers.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we use Latin for scientific names?

[Assistant] Back when this scientific name thing started with genus and species, Latin was the language of the educated and academic class. So they used Latin. Keep in mind, there was a time in Western Europe when people spoke lots of languages, but only wrote in Greek and Latin.


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

[User]
What is energy?

One hears quite often in chemistry and physics classes about different forms of energy: kinetic, potential, thermal, nuclear, chemical, etc. But at a very base level, what is energy? From what I've seen, energy is not so much a thing as it is as characteristic. For example, gravitational potential energy seems to... describe how an object would behave based on its relative distance from a certain height? I don't know quite how to phrase it.

Tldr, what is energy? Is there a such thing as pure energy? Or is energy a concept used to simplify things, conceptually or mathematically?

[Assistant] It's a quantity that is conserved in systems that are the same over time. This comes from Noether's theorem, and that shit is complicated. The important thing to note, as I've said often, is that energy is a quantity that things have, not a substance that things are or are made of. There's no "pure energy."


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

[User] ELI5: When jump staring a car, why is it important to connect negative to ground, instead of negative to negative directly? Shouldn't that be the same, electrically?

[Assistant]
It is, but when you make the final connection of them all, there is a risk of arcing, which you don't want to happen near a battery that can produce explosive gases.

That's also why you connect positive first. If you drop the positive onto either car chassis accidentally, there will be a spark if the negative is already connected.


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

[User]
[The Lion King] When Mufasa asks Scar to help him from falling into the gorge, would Scar even be physically capable of pulling his larger brother from the edge?

This movie's rather sketchy in regards to the artistic licenses taken with lion anatomy. I'm looking at you opposable thumbs that seem to appear and disappear at will.

[Assistant]
possibly, yes, if Scar dug his back-paw claws into the ground, braced agains tthe edge of the cliff and Mufasa also kicked himself up at the same time.

Lions are extremely strong for their weight - it would be dangerous, sure, but doable.


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

[User]
Eagles have "sharper" vision. What's it look like?

I've always wondered this. The say an eagle can see a fish swimming under the surface of the water from a mile up in the sky. I've wondered, what's this look like? Is the eagles vision more 'zoomed' in, compared to ours? I realize this is a silly question, but I figured you guys would know.

[Assistant] No, it doesn't seem they are more "zoomed in" because they still need the peripheral vision that most organisms need (you need to see competitors, predators, and potential prey).  Instead, their fovea (the center of the eye that is packed with an increased number of cone cells) have something on the order of 5X as many cells - allowing them greater acuity - and often more rod cells (percentage-wise) than we have.  Think of it rather than zoomed in, they have increased resolution.  Some birds of prey also have more than one fovea.  Also, at least some birds of prey can see into the UV spectrum (i.e., they can see more "colors" than we can).  How these colors are perceived we will probably never know. They may also have increased neural processing for visual information, allowing them more computing power for that increase in resolution of the image (to stretch the analogy).   So rather than the zoom analogy, think of resolution and the ability to make out detail. If you try to make out detail out of the corner of your eye, you can't because our fovea are in the center of the eye and that's where we look for making out detail.  Raptors can just have sharper resolution of that detail.


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

[User]
Do Tectonic plates ever change in size and or break apart?

Are the plates different now compared to the time of Pangea?

[Assistant]
Yes.

Plates breaking apart is known as *rifting*, and is the process that creates new oceans with their ridges. For example Africa and South America were once on one plate, that then rifted about 100 million years ago, forming the South Atlantic Ocean between.

Plates can join together as a result of continental collisions. The join is known as a *suture*. An example is the Iapetus Suture which runs through eastern North America, Ireland, and Great Britain, marking where the Iapetus Ocean closed around 400 million years ago; England and Scotland were once on two seperate tectonic plates before they joined along that suture.


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

[User]
Is this Facebook post accurate?

"If I had a pole in my hand that could reach to the moon, and on the moon was a button that I needed to press... using my pole, it would take about 2 weeks for the other end to push the button."

*sorry I couldn't think of a more fitting title.

[Assistant]
The speed of sound in steel is 6,100 m/s.

The moon is 384,400,000 meters away, on average.

It would take 63,000 seconds for movement to travel the length of the rod, or 17 hours.

So no, not quite.  The original creator of that thought was probably incorrectly using the speed of sound in air, which would give a value of 13 days.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are free trade agreements

How come we still have to pay large tariffs and duty on countries where we have free trade? I went to France and bought a wheel of eppoisses cheese for like 4 euro. But if I want to buy it where I am in Canada now it's around 20 dollars. How can average people benefit from these agreements because I really don't think they do.

[Assistant] Free trade agreements are contracts between countries that allow goods to be imported without tarrifs or with reduced tarrifs. In the case of two countries with similar economies they allow goods to be imported cheaper and the cost savings are theoretically passed onto the consumer increasing purchasing power and economic output. With developing countries it tends to be a mechanism to lower manufacturing costs then import the goods back without penalties. CETA, Canada and Europe's potential trade deal has not been finalized so you are still paying for the cost of the tarrifs. That's why it's more in Canada.


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

[User] ELI5: How do helicopters tilt in 4 directions with 2 propellers?

[Assistant] The propellor controll mechanism, called a swash plate, can change the angle of attack of the rotor blades depending on where they currently are. So you can just make the blades at one position have a higher angle of attack, so they'll produce more lift when they're in that position than if they're not, and so the helicopter tilts.


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

[User] ELI5: How can European companies like Zara afford to produce their clothes in places like Portugal and Spain, while American companies rely on sweatshop labour to sell at the same price?

[Assistant]
Zara is somewhat unique in the fashion industry in that it owns its entire supply chain.  Most clothing companies will hire factories to make their clothes according to patterns, and then have a distribution and logistics company handle the process of getting the actual clothes to the country they're going to be sold in, and sometimes also to the individual retail outlets.  This allows economies of scale to come in, for example, a factory making t-shirts for fifty different companies in Bangladesh can make those shirts much cheaper because they can order fabric in more bulk.

So what advantage does owning the factories convey?  Well, there's an element of cost saving in full ownership, the factory and the distributor aren't taking a cut for profit, but the main advantage is quicker turnaround.  If all the factories in your supply chain are set up to supply you and only you, you can set them up exactly how you want them, you can set the rules in the factory you can set the distribution network to prioritise getting you merchandise *fast* instead of *cheap*.  Which means that unlike some companies who have to design their Summer 17 range about a year out guessing based on trends what will be popular in time to get their stuff made and shipped from Asia, a company like Zara can wait til the start of summer, see the trends, design clothes based on those those trends, and have their designs manufactured and in store within a week or two.

What about non-fashion items, though?  Plain t-shirts don't change much at all year to year.  If you buy a red t-shirt, you'll probably be wearing it still in 2 years time.  For those items you don't need speed at all.  You also don't need to be unique.  So for that stuff there's no reason not to order from Asia, and sure enough even Zara will order their bulk non-fashion clothing from those factories.  For stores which specialise in offering cheap clothing (e.g. Primark here in Europe), all their stuff will be made in places like bangladesh because it doesn't need to be fast and it doesn't need to be good, so you can just focus on as cheap as possible.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] What is the difference between charms, spells , curses and hexes?

[Assistant]
A spell is a general term for any magical incantation.

A charm alters an object's inherent qualities. Transfiguration alters an object's form.

A jinx, hex, and curse are all negative-affecting spells. The name depends on its level of severity (jinx is a nuisance, curses are powerful dark magic)