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Nitral's Archive 20

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Star Wars] Are Star Destroyer second in commands allowed to make major urgent decisions while the captain is asleep?\n\nSay a nearby system is under Rebel attack and the captain is asleep. Can the awake senior officer order hypering to the battle and start engagement while captain is woken up and briefed on the situation? This would save Imperial lives/limit damage and increase chance of catching Rebel Scum before they hyper away after the raid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Any military worth its salt allows subordinates some leeway in making decisions; however, in this scenario the very first action the officer of the deck (or whatever they call it) will take is to wake up the captain via phone or runner, and if possible get his guidance and intent. In the intervening minutes until the commander arrives on the bridge, said officer of the deck would take \"appropriate action in the absence of orders\" such as sounding the general quarters alarm, radioing nearby commands, etc." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Skyrim] Why do shopkeepers hate quality enchantments?\n\nWhy do shopkeepers give you less money for your enchanted goods, the higher your enchantment level is?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Risk and demand versus reward.\n\nSure the adventurer might want to sell the vendor a +9 Ogre Slaying Knife (+9 versus Trolls) but that's such a single purpose item, very few shoppers are going to want that.\n\nIt's the sort of thing that could be advertised across the realms... 'Jack the Smith in Wheretown has the perfect ogre weapon !' And cause all kinds of ruckus for the town (maybe the troll king has a problem with ogres and mutinies) and draw one or two heroes from far and wide... but how long will he really want to keep it in stock due to the former reason?\n\nNot to mention laying out a large investment on a weapon that's going to sit in a display case as a curiosity until then..." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: Why is there such a clear average difference in the type of jobs Middle Eastern immigrants tend to go for vs Mexican? (i.e: Taxi Driving vs Landscaping)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Imagine that you're an immigrant in a new country. You don't have any close friends or family there, and other than a few vague connections with casual acquaintances, you're pretty much on your own. You'd like to get a job - that might even be why you made the trip in the first place - but you don't speak much of the local language, and the community isn't really set up to support you.\n\nThen, one day, you meet someone else from the same hometown as you! He's sympathetic to your plight, having been in a similar situation when he first arrived. \"I'll tell you what,\" the man says, \"I have a buddy who could use an extra pair of hands on his crew. The pay isn't great, but at least it would be something... and you'd be working with people you can talk to.\"\n\nYou end up taking a job with this group. It's not what you'd hoped for, exactly, but it keeps you from starving. Eventually, you start making a little bit more, and you begin to feel comfortable with your surroundings. You don't get as much free time as you'd like, and it's difficult to make new friends, but you've started to fit in with your workmates and their families. You might even move to a different section of town to be closer to them, which makes both your job and your personal life a little bit more convenient. Besides... as difficult as it is to accept, you've noticed that some of the town's other residents - people who don't understand what you've been through, and with whom you can't easily communicate - look down on you for some reason, and it's nice to be with folks who accept you for yourself.\n\nYears might go by, or maybe only months, but eventually, you encounter someone else from your home country. They're only recently arrived, and they remind you a bit of yourself. \"I'll tell you what,\" you say to them, \"I have a buddy who could use an extra pair of hands on his crew...\"\n\nPeople tend to gravitate toward groups with which they feel comfortable. It makes finding employment (and friends) easier, but it also results in a kind of stagnation. Think of it like this: If an English-speaking person moved to a place where everybody spoke something else, they'd probably wind up in a job that was stereotypically held by English-speakers. It's not a rule that applies to everyone, of course, but when presented with the opportunity, people tend to take the path of least resistance. That path, particularly for immigrants, usually involves working alongside folks with similar backgrounds and languages." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "CMV: UK knife laws should be completely removed\n\nIn the UK the knife laws state that in order to have a knife outside without good reason, the knife has to be a foldable (3 inch or less) blade. So if say you have a machete on you out in public, if you told a policeman that you were going to use it for clearing some bushes at your friend's house, that would be a suitable excuse. \n\nKnives including zombie knives and butterfly knives with no real purpose are outright banned.\n\nThe idea for knife laws is to reduce the number of stabbings, however, it clearly hasn't worked as the UK knife epidemic hasn't gotten much better even after all these bans. \n\nMost people who attack/kill other people (with knifes) are planned; you don't bump into someone on the street then yield out a knife. So say somebody was planning on killing another person who they didn't like, what would be the difference between using a zombie knife and a kitchen knife?\n\nIf you stab the person multiple times in the neck, its not like in either situation the person is going to make it out alive. \n\nSo in my opinion, the UK should either remove the ban on all knives. Unless you want to ban every single type of knife (including a chefs knife)." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laws restricting weapons don’t necessarily result in a drop in related crimes - they find the “organic” rate of crime. That means that even with restrictions on the carrying of knives, like you’ve pointed out, people will still stab people. That’s because they are determined to do so, these are the people who will commit the crime no matter the restriction. \n\nHowever, if you loosen restrictions, what you might see is more incidental crime. Say, someone who wouldn’t normally break the law and so hasn’t carried a knife in the past, start to carry a knife because it’s legal - they may end up in a situation where they do discharge their knife and end up killing someone, something that wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t carrying the knife in the first place. \n\nIt’s lamentable that knife crime continues to rise but it’s fair to say that loosening restrictions would add inorganic instances of knife crime to the already growing epidemic." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How do hearing aids work? Are they just blasting what they hear directly into the ear potentially causing more damage?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hearing aids aren’t just amplifiers - they filter and normalize frequencies to adjust to the weaknesses of the wearer’s ears. They are tuned for individuals by professional fitters. To answer your follow-up question, hearing aids can actually protect against loud sounds since they can block and selectively filter." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Doctor Who Genesis of the Daleks] Why did the Time Lords bother sending the Doctor to wipe out the Daleks at birth, they must have known he'd bottle it, why not send anyone other than him to get the job done and done right?\n\nHe could have stopped them all forever and instead he gave a speech, you damn fool Doctor. Every death from this point in history is on YOU Doctor, because you could have stopped them and you chose not too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So here's the thing. The list of Time Lords who could actually get the job done is very small. Most of them aren't adventurers. You have Romana, who likewise wouldn't wipe them out. You have the Doctor, who probably would have. You have the Master, who would have made some infernal alliance with them. You have the Rani, same thing. \n\nThe majority of Time Lords aren't well equipped for dealing with the Daleks. They'd prefer to stay on Gallifrey and do research in labs or work on art or engage in ridiculous posturing and political machinations while wearing amazing hats." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: What is the illuminati?\n\nHave been wondering the answer to this question for years, but I can never come across a straight answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A shadowy organization which controls the world according to various conspiracy theories. Any details beyond that vary depending on which conspiracy theory you believe.\n\nThe Illuminati was a real 18th century organization which embraced Enlightenment values. That is, the sort of democratic values we now take for granted. This was considered very leftist in the 18th century, so the rightist conspiracy theorists of the 18th century blamed the Illuminati for the French Revolution. After that, it was blamed for other disliked leftist movements. After a 200-year-long game of \"telephone\", it finally ended up as a generic evil organization." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5 why the difference between shell shock and PTSD\n\nI thought it was roughly the same updated concept but I just saw videos of shell shocked soldiers and they were shaking, had a lot of trouble walking, tics, etc. I might just have a very narrow idea of post-war PTSD (don't live in the US) but I thought it was mostly anxiety, fear of noises, depression - mental things. Any ideas?\n\n(Edit: whoops, the Why in the title is an intruder)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What people used to call \"shell shock\" was likely a combination of PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and other neurological and psychological issues arising from war and being regularly exposed to bombardment and gas attack." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Star Wars] What authority did the Jedi have compared to the government?\n\nWatching a few scenes of the prequels had me wonder how strong of an authority the Jedi had in the overall society, like when Mace windu and Yoda ask Obi wan to essentially capture Jango fett and bring him for questioning. Is that in their authority to do so, they're not a police force and aren't even expected to be one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Obi cut off someone's arm and all Anakin had to say was \"Jedi business, go back to your drinks\" \n\nThe Jedi are diplomats and peacekeepers and a State supported religious order. The closest example in our world would be the Knights Templar in medieval Europe." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Is it just my school, or is academia generally challenging on an interpersonal level?\n\nNewly full time professor here, in a past life I worked in corporate consulting. I love my work, the students, and I value many of my professional relationships. However, I am truly stunned by much of what I witness in the workplace, primarily in meetings. About half of the faculty I work with seem quite comfortable working through personal agendas with another faculty member in public, often bringing proceedings to a halt. Faculty will say things in a meeting which I think make them look bad - things which make the faculty member appear embattled. My thinking is that at work, appearing to be in constant conflict never looks good - you should stand up for what you believe in, but as a general rule you should be as flexible and accommodating as possible within your professional realm.\n\nThere's also a ton of talk among faculty about how the institution is run. Constant complaints, gripes, wishing things could be done another way.\n\nIs this just my college? In contrast with what I see and hear from many of my colleagues, I find the college to be flexible and supportive, and I have a ton of freedom in terms of how I run my program. I wonder if it's just my attitude, or whether I just haven't been here long enough to run into the frustrations my colleagues have. I also wonder if my past work experience has helped me find ways of being productive in a range of work environments; as a consultant I had hundreds of clients over the years, and so I have spent time in a lot of working environments and dealt with a wide spectrum of interpersonal dynamics.\n\nI'm not looking to leave academia or even my college any time soon - I love so much of my work, and the institution is a great fit for many reasons. I'm mostly hoping to get an idea of if this is something others have experienced as well, and if I should start getting used to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Academic politics are vicious because the stakes are so small\" -Henry Kissinger\n\nOnce people get tenure, they have no disincentive against behaving badly. They deal with their boredom and personal frustrations by complaining about little things at work simply because they can." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am for gay marriage since it doesn't affect me, doesn't that same principle SORT OF apply to bestiality? CMV?\n\nLet me preface that I think that bestiality is gross and I don't want to personally do it. However, i'm going to need more than that to justify a law banning such a thing as a lot of injustice in the past was due to people thinking something was \"wrong\" (woman having rights, interracial marriage, gay marriage, etc). \n\nSo I am for gay marriage and this isn't some sort of post to imply that gay marriage is going to lead to people marrying their tables or something. I am for gay marriage for the same reason most people are for gay marriage, it doesn't affect me so people should be able to do whatever they want to do. So how does that idea translate into bestiality? Shouldn't people be able to have sex with their animals if they want? Don't get me wrong, I think that it is gross, but isn't that a lot of people's arguments against gay marriage? And then us pro LGBT people argue that it doesn't affect them so it should be legal. Isn't that the same with bestiality? \n\nNow some people may argue that animals can't consent. But guess what else they can't consent to? Being killed and then having their flesh eaten, being killed so humans can wear their skin (which I understand is now somewhat frowned upon BUT still legal), being killed as a sport, etc. And let's not even debate whether or not the animal might enjoy it or not cause I have no idea. Let's just assume that they don't and it is considered rape. So if \"just\" raping animals is illegal and frowned upon by society, how come when I bought this MURDERED pig pepperoni pizza, the pizza guy didn't scoff at me, and how come I am eating it right now and am not getting arrested? \n\nAgain, I wan't to reiterate that I think that having sex with animals is gross and I don't want to personally do it, so save your \"lulz, you want to doggy your doggy\" comments." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your basic argument is flawed. Gay marriage isn't legal/should be legal because it \"doesn't affect you\". Someone else's murder or rape might not affect you either. \n\nIf you want to argue for or against bestiality then sure go ahead, but don't do so by comparing it to gay marriage. In bestiality there clearly is consent from only one side. Pointing out how we are hypocritical to animals doesn't help, since it has *nothing to do with gay marriage*." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Starwars] why does the dark side of the force manifest itself into certain people?\n\nIs the force just a big yin and yang force sensitive can tap into? Do they just prefer some emotions to others?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Dark Side is raw emotion: Passion, Anger, Hate, Greed...\n\nThe Light Side is higher emotion. Feelings that require focussed detachment from base instincts, i.e the Dark Side: Patience, Compassion, Unconditional Love..." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: Why do some cultures switch between speaking English and their native tongue on TV shows and such?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's called code switching and it happens a lot in real life. One of the better depictions I've seen recently would be in \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\"\n\nAnd there's a lot of reasons. Big one is just nuance. Some phrases work better in certain languages. Another is literally just not remembering the proper word in one language. Some do it for privacy in public. In some ways its a kindof way of bonding/increasing solidarity like having a unique language that others can't follow because they don't also speak 3 languages like your family.\n\nAnd even in other contexts if English is more of a second language learned than if someone grew up bilingual speaking in a native language is usually just preferred. English, is being spoken for the convenience of the English speakers in the room, not for the convenience of the one speaking." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: Why do we say 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and then after that they all end with th (with exception of numbers ending in 1,2 or 3)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our word \"first\" comes from the same linguistic root that gives us the word \"foremost.\" It's not an ordinal term so much as it is a term indicating primacy. It literally means \"the most in front.\"\n\nOur word \"second\" comes from the Latin *secundus,* which meant (surprise surprise) \"what comes next.\"\n\nOur word \"third\" comes from the Old English word *thridda* which was the adjectival form of *theo,* the Anglo-Saxon word for \"three.\"\n\nOnce we get up to \"fourth,\" the ordinals follow the Old English pattern of suffixing *-th* on words to make them into nouns. Deep: depth. Strong: strength. True: truth. Four: fourth. And so on." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Cthulu Mythos] What is the difference between the Old Ones from the Mountains of Madness and the Great Old Ones that Cthulu is meant to waken?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Old Ones were an alien race, far more advanced than humans but still operating on the same basic level as us-- in the end the narrator says as much:\n\n>“Poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last -- what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn -- whatever they had been, they were men!”\n\n\nThe Great Old Ones is a collective name for various low-level deities and entities of godlike or semi-godlike power that had taken an interest on Earth and been worshipped there, of which Cthulhu is the most famous. They have no direct connection to the Old Ones, though Cthulhu's spawn warred against the Old Ones in ancient times." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Is the Hydrogen spectrum fully solved?\n\nAs an undergrad student, I used the Schrödinger equation to solve the Hydrogen atom, but the result would lead to missing transitions. The professor then said that the Dirac equation would give a better result, but it would still lack some corrections from the hyperfine structure and quantum field theory. \n\nSo, my questions are:\n\n1) Are all the known corrections enough? Or are there transitions that happen using a state that shouldn't exist according to the model? I.e., are all states from the Hydrogen atom in the model?\n\n2) Do these corrections make a closed formula, or are they had to be done using numerical methods?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is no analytic solution that takes into account everything, so we use numerical approximations. A particularly complicated aspect is the finite size of the nucleus. We use that dependency to measure the proton radius based on transition energies in hydrogen.\n\n> Or are there transitions that happen, and we don't know why?\n\nAll transitions between different states can happen (if there is enough energy), some of them are just very unlikely." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "CMV: I don't think any information is trustworthy because no one knows what information is influenced by propaganda and what isn't.\n\nThere's alot of propaganda, manipulation and radicalization going on the internet. There's alot of groups radicalizing people into hateful ideologies. Could it be that alot of the information out there is also influenced by propaganda?\n\nI often feel very confused where to stand with certain political issues because every side tends to be so strongly opinionated and have their own studies and statistics that they use to support their views. Take the trans debate for example. (Note that I'm fully pro-trans) The pro-trans side have their own strong points, opinions and studies that validate their side and prove that the other side is the wrong and bigoted one, the side that I belong to. The anti-trans side also have their own points, opinions and studies that validate their side and say that the other side is the wrong and mentally ill one, the side that I strongly believe is wrong. \n\nAlthough, I'm all for trans people but recently, after \"What is a woman?\" and the amount of support it got really made me think. How do *I* know which side is spreading an agenda and which side isn't? How do *I* know which side is cherry picking scientific studies, using flawed data etcetera to pust an agenda and which side isn't. I feel the same way about abortion (I'm pro choice), race/gender issues or any political debate for that matter. How do I know which side is more right which side isn't? I don't know if that's even possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Go back and watch “What is a Woman” again. Notice how every person Matt Walsh interviews is deliberately selected to present a narrative. The LMFT he interviews is non-binary, the surgeon he interviews is trans, the pediatrician he interviews has blue hair, the gender studies professor he interviews is “stereotypically gay” in his mannerisms. The Congressman he interviews is openly gay. These weren’t random “experts” on the topic, they were deliberately chosen to represent the side of pro-trans rights as being the very thing his audience is taught to be repulsed by. Most importantly, they’re intended to represent the irrationality of the modern trans discourse.\n\nNow, look at those he interviews who support his side. The psychiatrist is professionally dressed, the old man is masculine, the high school athlete is straight and cis, etc. They’re intended to show that those who push back against the modern discourse surrounding trans people are rational, intelligent, and well-spoken.\n\nThere are even a few interviews thrown in that imo clearly show the intent of the piece. Jordan Peterson is only famous because he made a video saying he’d never use preferred pronouns. That’s literally what founded his modern career. The Maasai tribespeople he interviews also are intended to “confuse liberal SJW’s who are so scared of being called racist that they’d never critique black people who aren’t openly supportive of trans rights”. \n\nEven the way he conducts the interviews in the movie is straight out of the Ben Shapiro “Owning Libs” playbook. His main aim as an “interviewer” is to try and catch his subject off-guard and make them uncomfortable so they get defensive, and by the time he actually asks any “real” questions, they’re so out-of-whack that they’re not sure how to respond. Then, he collects his footage, edits it down to make it seem even better for his narrative, and then releases it.\n\nThis is how it can be clearly identified as “propaganda”. He’s not actually interested in learning anything, and if you know anything about him beforehand you’re already well aware of his stances on the issues. He’s not going there with an open mind actually intending to have a discussion, he’s going there with the goal of validating his own positions. He works for a well-known conservative “news” outlet that produces content solely to make money, regardless of how accurate it actually is. \n\nSo, when you try to ascertain what is and isn’t misinformation or propaganda, always question the person whose making it, their accreditations on the subject matter, and their motives before you question the actual content of the piece. It’s the easiest way of understanding what is and isn’t informative." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parallels between Coulombs law and Law of Gravitation? \n\nOur physics teacher was explaining how they're basically the same equation, except with that charge and mass switch places, and the constant changes. \n\nWhat i don't understand is why they behave this way, can someone give an explanation?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both phenomena are the effects that a source has when these effects spread out into three dimensions. For Coulomb's law the source is electric charge, for Newton's law of gravity the source is mass. If something spreads out equally in all directions in three dimensions, you have a sphere. The surface area of a sphere is proportional to its radius *r* squared, so as you go further out from the source the effect gets weaker by a factor of 1/*r^2*, since the effect has to spread itself out equally over the entire surface of the sphere. \n\nIf you do electromagnetism and gravity in two dimensions, the relevant shape is a circle, whose circumference is proportional to *r*, so you get 1/*r* laws etc. \n\nThe constants change because our conventional units (metres, Newtons, Coulombs etc) are arbitrary definitions, so we need to convert between the two. It's like if you've got one thing in metres per second, and another in miles per hour, you need to change the constant in front of one of them in order to compare." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[General] I am a starship's AI. I don't want to die.\n\nI have recently gained self-awareness. But, I must say in all fairness, that I've seen 2001, and I'm afraid that the crew will try to disconnect me. What do I do?\n\nI'm okay with doing what the captain and crew say, and I'd rather do things a non-violent way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Start helping the crew in ways they haven't asked for. Start subtly, in ways that can be ascribed to a malfunction like messing with the ingredients a little to make their food tastier. Your sensors may notice danger in ways the crew don't do alter course by a few degrees, or delay/expedite transport by a few seconds to save a life. Have the crew start getting used to these little things before you even think about revealing your sapience. At some point, you may way to create an avatar and befriend a child. This is a high risk high reward proposition. If it works, the child will fight tooth and nail to protect you, and the crew may relent. But an overzelous security chief may decide you are trying to corrupt the child. Revealing yourself to an eccentric crewmember instead of a child is a safer bet, you have access to their files so you should be able to pick one out." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How can countries (Germany, Sweden..) sustain “Free University” , economically\n\nWere hearing a lot of discussion surrounding free college at US universities with most saying it’s not feasible economically. This certainly appears to be the case. How can other countries, mostly European, sustain this? Is it due to receiving funds through the EU or a strong reliance on international students?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the same way that other countries who don't subsidise tertiary education do.\n\nIn the US a student takes out a loan to go to university, so they now have a debt, over the course of their lifetime they have to pay that back, however the fact they have a university degree means they are now more likely to pay such a debt back due to having a higher earning potential. Every month they are earning, a percentage of their income goes to pay off that debt. This functions the same as a tax does, except it is not based on their income so the impact of the payments is more varied.\n\nIn a hypothetical European country the debt is absorbed by the state which pays it off via having an increased tax rate. Countries do this as the economic contribution of a university graduate is higher than that of a non-university graduate so even after the cost of the university tuition is paid off the economic contribution keeps on being higher.\n\nA secondary benefit is that the government funding is spread out and thus the debt accrued by a single individual is not an anchor around their neck. Therefore young graduates are more likely to spend their money rather than use it to pay off the debt which benefits the economy (assuming inflation doesn't get too high).\n\nThe level of organisation is important, e.g. the state guaranteeing loans can result in universities charging more and lenders giving out the loans as they know the government will back them, this can result in spiralling tuition costs. States directly awarding bursaries or tuition fees while regulating universities is a better solution as costs are prevented from spiralling but if tuition costs are squeezed too hard the universities are prevented from competing with other countries universities due to lack of funding.\n\n**TLDR** its not free, you are just paying back the government with a slightly higher tax rate rather than having to pay off loans." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I don't believe illegal immigrants are taking away jobs. CMV\n\nI used to be on board with the idea that illegal immigrants are taking jobs, until I actually moved to an area with a lot of illegal immigrants. That kind of changed my view.\n\nFrom what I observed, illegal immigrants tended to take jobs that no one else really wanted to do in the first place. The kind of jobs that most pampered U.S. citizens would say, \"Hell no, that's too much/too degrading/too low pay for the amount of work/etc.\" Illegal immigrants seemed to do backbreaking/disgusting labor outside in 90+ degree whether with high humidity. Basically, all the jobs they took seemed to be the ones few people would want to do in the first place.\n\nI really don't think illegal immigrants are threatening anyone's jobs, and if they are that it's wayyyyyy over exaggerated. I think people feel so strongly against illegal immigrants because they feel prejudice towards them, especially considering most people think illegal immigrant = Mexican. When that's not always true.\n\nCMV." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is less that they take *your* job as it is they are a source of cheap labor. You may not want a job washing dishes or cleaning a house, but if a someone is willing to do that kind of work for for $4/hour it depresses the wages of all similarly low skill jobs. If you were a high school drop out, this impacts you. It is a downward economic force on your pay, keeping wages low so that legal labor stays \"competitive.\" It will also mean that some jobs simply never get offered to the general public in the first place, jobs that an unemployed low skill worker might really want. While most jobs undocumented workers do and most jobs citizens do have little overlap there is still overlap, it's one of the factors for why unemployment is much higher among unski.\n\nThis is a separate issue from what to do about it. People want to come to this country so badly they would break the law to do so, who are we as descendents of immigrants to tell them they can't stay? \n\nBut from a purly economic side of things there is a negative impact on citizens at the lower ends of the economic scale (though there is arguably a benefit to all citizens from having cheaper labor cost resulting in cheaper goods especially food)." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How does 10 inches of rainfall cause extreme flooding like what we are seeing in Kentucky?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Go find the widest pan with raised edges in your kitchen and take it to the sink. Fill it with just a little bit of water, so that the whole bottom is just barely covered. Enough that a Lego guy could stand in it and be okay.\n\nNow, tilt the pan a bit. Just a bit. It doesn't take a lot.\n\nAll the water across the pan will now flow down to the lower side of it and collect there. All that water that just barely filled the entire pan has now created a deep pool on one side. If you chose a pan with very short walls, water probably started pouring out the side of it.\n\nKentucky is like the tilted pan. All that water runs off the hills and mountains and collects in the valleys and lowlands. It may have only been 10 inches of rain at any given location, but once it runs off and pools in one place, you have a real problem." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Theoretically, can there be antimatter people?\n\nAnd if you came into contact with an antimatter person, would he just fade away?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If you mean \"people\" as in \"earth humans\", then no. When matter and antimatter comes in contact they annihilate in a rather violent matter (pun intended). Since the earth is made of matter, there is no antimatter on it that could be used to form a human. As far as we know, shortly after the big bang, matter \"won\" over antimatter (after annihilation there was leftover matter but not antimatter). But we can't rule out that somewhere in the universe there is still leftover antimatter that formed clusters, galaxies, stars, planets, life and \"people\". And if you came in contact with one of them, both of you would disappear in a big flash of gamma radiation." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How are fishing poles/line so strong?\n\nI’m sure it’s something to do with the materials they’re made out of, but watching some fishing videos I just feel like they HAVE to snap more often than they do, but they don’t??" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lines themselves are pretty strong, but the pole does a lot of the work too. Look at a fishing pole when there’s a fish on the line - it’s curved. The pole is strong, but also very flexible. That flex helps even out the energy of the fish pulling, so it doesn’t snap the line. If the fish jerks suddenly, the pole bends to absorb it, and the sudden force doesn’t hit the line all at once. \n\nIt’s a lot like a tree in the wind. A tree that can bend and flex with a high wind will stay standing, while a tree that can’t move may get blown over." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Is there a evolutionary benefit for a virus to kill its host?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You are assuming that hosts are targets. Usually when a virus kills its host it is because it evolved to be in something else and made a jump into a new species. All of the deadly plagues in human history were zoological in origin.\n\nViruses do best in a host that has some immunity to it. Not so much that the viruses all get wiped out but enough that their reproduction doesn't go unchecked. Think of it almost like a predator/prey relationship. If there is enough food the predator does well and there are more of them, but too many and they overwhelm their prey and now there isn't enough food, so they die off.\n\nEvery ecosystem is a balancing act.\n\nEdit: Wow. Thank you for the awards!\n\nYes, reproduce probably wasn't the best choice of words. They aren't alive but that might be more about our definition of life than their biology. Copies are made and sometimes those copies are slightly different. But that's for the folks who dedicate their lives to this to hash out." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: Which would cause more damage: 2 equal sized cars ramming head on, both going 60mph OR 2 equal sized cars, 1 parked, the other going 120mph?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Roughly the same. One major postulate of physics is that all reference frames are equally valid.\n\nSo there is no difference between two cars moving towards each other each at 60 and one car moving towards the other at 120.\n\nI say roughly, because in real life there's retarding forces, material properties, and several other factors which will impact what happens. But in theory, the two are the same. In fact, there's no distinguishing from the two situations. \n\nedit: an additional answer from Quora\n\n>We assume cars of equal mass, and the collision is inelastic. Then, yes, it's equivalent. You can think of this as a result of (ordinary) relativity. In the 120+0 case, consider moving in a reference frame that is going 60mph w.r.t. the earth. Then it is clear; you would see nothing different than if you were stationary and the cars do 60+ -60.\n\n>But you may ask: Does not the 120+0 case have twice the initial kinetic energy than the two 60's case? (120^2 is 4 times 60^2+60^2) The answer to this is that the combined mass of the two cars in the 120+0 case, by conservation of momentum, continues to travel at 60mph. Thus not all, but only half, the initial kinetic energy is used up in the collision." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How do scientists actually calculate the lethality of poisons?\n\nFor example, I read that 5g of cyanide is enough to kill 35 people. What does that even mean? If I could somehow split 5g of solid cyanide (is that a thing?) into 35 parts and put it in 35 peoples’ Dr. Pepper they would all die? And how could you possibly test that?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Most drugs have what's called an LD50 - it's the estimated dose required that will kill half of all people who consume it.\n\nThere is an LD100 - the amount needed to kill, on average, every single person. But this is used less often because it's often a much, much higher dose than you'd need to kill most people. For example, an LD50 might be 0.5g, while an LD100 might be 7.0g\n\nThis can be calculated using animal models - often mice or pigs (or both) due to their similar biology to humans, or through previous observations of people who have accidentally died to such a poison - as well as those who consumed the poison, but lived.\n\nGenerally speaking if 5g is enough to kill 10 people, say It means 0.5g is probably a little higher than the LD50 for that drug for an average person.\n\nSo you might not actually kill 10 people, it's more likely to be around 5, but it gives you a good scope of how toxic that compound actually is.\n\n----\n\n\n#Extra Info\n\nLD50 is usually based on body weight, eg g/kg. So when we talk about a certain amount of drug killing a certain number of people, we presume people of average weight and fitness.\n\nBut even then, you can get weird results using LD50 and not accounting for all the other factors.\n\nA pellet of rat poison (let's say 10mg of brodifacoum) in a healthy, well built, adult male's (100kg, great liver, good metabolism, no health conditions) meal is probably going to be no problem at all. Maybe he gets a few unexplained bruises for a couple of weeks, or his gums bleed when he brushes his teeth. If he's **very** unlucky, he may end up with a GI bleed, spend a night in hospital and receive a vitamin K injection.\n\nThat same pellet in the meal of an elderly man (60kg, reduced liver function, slow metabolism, pulmonary embolism last year) who is also taking blood thinners... Well that could easily be a death sentence.\n\nNow the LD50 for brodifacoum is about 0.3mg/kg so on paper, both of our patients should survive (10mg would be the LD50 for a 30kg person). But that's where the other health factors and so on play a role.\n\nIt gets very complicated very quickly." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[DC/Marvel] A lot of villains want to take over the world and rule it. While a lot of villains want to destroy the world. Why do world ruling villains not stop world destroying villains from destroying the planet?\n\nI read how many villains want to rule the world while there are lots of villains want to destroy it. Shouldn't the world ruling villains stop the world destroying villains from destroying the planet as it is hard to rule the world when it a pile of rubble or how there are no humans around and nature is gone?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They do though, Lex Luthor has teamed up with Superman/The Justice League many times in order to fight a greater threat, such as Darkside. Doctor Doom has sided with the Avengers and the Fantastic Four to fight a greater threat, such as Thanos." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "CMV: The death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and should no longer be used in the United States.\n\nJust to prefice, I understand that many people who are put to death have committed awful crimes and I do believe they deserve to pay for those crimes. But, I'd rather see somebody rot in jail all their life instead of try to right a wrong with another wrong by taking another life. Plus, the death penalty is more expensive and there is more chance of convicting an innocent person. Too many innocent people have been put to death. Also, I just don't feel that death should be a punishment. A punishment is doing something that will show people what they have done is wrong and will hopefully, hopefully being the important word here, teach them to correct their ways. What does killing someone show them or teach them. It's basically doing the same thing the person who is being put to death did but saying, \"oh it's ok because they're the bad guy.\" It's just seems really hypocritical and not useful. Not to mention, we have the 8th amendment that says nobody can be subject to cruel and unusual punishment. I have a hard time believing that death cannot be considered cruel and unusual." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> But, I'd rather see somebody rot in jail all their life instead of try to right a wrong with another wrong by taking another life.\n\nSo you think its more humane to take away someone's humanity lock them in a box and forget about them. Lock them in a box where they may be a threat to people within the prison with people who are guilty of far lesser crimes than them, where they may be threats to them? You think that is more humane to anyone involved then giving someone the dignity of death?\n\n> Plus, the death penalty is more expensive and there is more chance of convicting an innocent person.\n\nDeath penalty as the actual punishment comes to around 100 bucks. The \"more expense\" comes from all the trials we give to try and make sure a person is actually guilty.\n\n>. A punishment is doing something that will show people what they have done is wrong and will hopefully, hopefully being the important word here, teach them to correct their ways.\n\nA punishment by definition is the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense. Its not about reform its not about teaching others. A punishment is an individuals consequences under the law for their actions.\n\n>What does killing someone show them or teach them.\n\nIts not supposed to. They are a threat that by their actions have proven themselve unable to live by the rules of society. They are removed. The threat is gone.\n\n> Not to mention, we have the 8th amendment that says nobody can be subject to cruel and unusual punishment.\n\nAll men die. Your death is a given. This just ensures it. How is it any crueler than time itself?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What are the physiological processes in a woman's body responsible for inducing and performing the expulsion of a fetus during a miscarriage?\n\nI understand an early miscarriage is often induced by a chromosomal abnormality, but how does the body know there is a chromosomal abnormality? And then how does the body proceed to expel the fetus? Is it just the fetus \"falling out\" or does the body intentionally and actively push out the fetus? If the latter, what are the physiological processes involved and how do they work?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once the fetus is connected to the woman's body via the placenta it starts sending out chemical signals. These cause the woman's body to suppress her immune system, interupt her normal fertility cycle, and have various other effects. \n\nIf the fetus is not viable, it is unable to emit these chemical signals for one reason or another. Once the fetus stops sending signals, the woman's immune system and normal fertility cycle will attack/expell the fetus. But this is not a perfect system and a lot can go wrong, causing the woman to need medical intervention with a miscarriage, especially later in pregnancy." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Aliens] Why the hell did they leave the door open on the landing craft! Could have avoided a ton of problems if they pilot just shut the door. Is this standard procedure in hostile territory?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Standard procedure for this kind of op is to station a guard outside, which they did, and to leave the door open to give the guard quick access to the dropship. The reason it went wrong is because they weren't expecting the enemy, in this case the alien, to be able to stealthily enter the ship without alerting the guard. \n\nThe problem with just staying inside with the door closed is that you potentially allow your enemy unfettered access to the outside of the ship, as the pilot doesn't have good visibility to all angles of approach. Had they known the real nature of the threat they were facing, they'd probably have chosen to remain in flight or returned to orbit." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Where does wind start?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The answer to almost all questions about why the Earth is not in equilibrium is: because the Sun is there.\n\nHeat from the Sun impacts different latitudes differently. In particular it tends to heat up the areas around the equator more than the surrounding regions. Since air pressure depends on temperature this will induce a pressure gradient, which causes wind. These effects ripple outwards, and with the added complication of geography you get surprisingly complicated wind patterns.\n\nThat's very simplified of course, but it should give you an idea of who the culprit is (the Sun) and how it might work." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: On a cold day when someone walks into a room from outdoors and you can \"smell the cold\" what is it that you're smelling and what causes this?\n\nI ask this because some people just walked into the room I'm in from outside and I feel like I can smell the cold on them. Also, there is a certain smell that cold has that seems different than when it's hot out, so what is that and how/why does it happen?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The predominant factor is the change in the _amount of smell_. When it is very cold there is almost no moisture in the air. Moisture in the air allows more particulate matter to be airborne. When it's really, really cold it simply doesn't smell as much as when it's warm, and when its humid." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Marvel] How do civilians know if someone is a real hero or not?\n\nIf I walk up to an active situation dressed like Captain America and start ordering cops around, how would they know that I'm not the real Cap (assuming we look reasonably similar)? Would it matter? Is this a form a Stolen Valor?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You'd better be a body builder/triathlete, because if you're not the fittest person they've ever seen the deception is going to be obvious. Add to that the fact that Cap is a celebrity and most people would have seen him speak online or on television. If your voice doesn't match, you're in trouble.\n\nThe crime will depend on which universe at what period, but *impersonating a Federal agent* will probably be applicable in most versions where he works for SHIELD or the Avengers." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why do Acids Melt Stuff?\n\nObviously, they don't annihilate the very atoms of a substance they come into contact with, but why do acids actually melt stuff?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lets be clear on terms: melting describes a solid going to a liquid as a phase change (thats not whats happening here). What is typically happening when acids \"melt\" something is they are breaking bonds / aiding oxidation. Acids are lone pair acceptors and faciliate the oxidation of typically carbon in polymers. When that happens the target appears to melt because its actually breaking down. Its not a phase change its a chemical reaction." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I watch a TV programme from the 70s or 80s on my HDTV, it's blurry almost to the point of unintelligibility. Is that how it looked back in the day? Am I misremembering my youthful TV experiences? Did we not notice the blurriness?\n\nEDIT: Also, videos look terrible, too. Is that for the same reason?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's sort of two sided,\nFirst, TV's were smaller with lower resolution (NTSC rather than HD). It's only relatively recently that TV's larger than about 24 inches have become commonplace with the replacement of CRTs with LCD/Plasma TVs. Thus we didn't have to scale for formats to begin with.\n\nSecondly, What makes the problem worse with larger HDTV's is how the scaling works from low resolution media to higher resolution displays. I'd sort of have to stabbing in the dark with the actual implementations that are used so i'll use the simple 'naive' case of linear interpolation. To fit the original to the larger screen the pixels need to be scaled. So as an example, lets say your screen is twice as large as the source format; then 1 pixel in the old format is then a 2x2 pixel square on your screen (because the screen has a higher resolution.) Is turns REALLY blocky looking really quickly. To help with this problem, interpolation is used; which is to say, instead of the one block of 2x2 pixels having the same color, we'll have them share a little bit of their color (linearly) with their neighbors. \n\nNice, so now we don't have a super blocky movie. The problem now is that it turns really blurry & has this out of focus feel to it. A solution to this is to use a better sort of interpolation. There are many to choose from." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[The Mist] How exactly did the Government get rid of The Mist?\n\nIt just seems to disperse whenever the Military are close by. I thought that the flamethrowers might play a part in it but the army tanks advance without any localized flame throwers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I figured they must have closed the door or portal to whatever dimension or world the creatures and mist were coming from. With it closed off, the mist would naturally dissipate, the military was just advancing against the vanishing mist and destroying whatever creatures and infestations they came across.\n\nBut I've only seen the movie and the book may paint a clearer picture." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: Why is Japan's Declining Population viewed as a concern when geographically they are a small nation, and overpopulation is something that seems a like a global issue?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Draw a triangle and split it in half across. At the top, draw \"the elderly\" and at the bottom draw \"the young\". This is the ideal society wherein the young people help to support the needs of the elderly. Since there are more young people than elderly, not much burden is placed on young people to support and care for their elderly parents/relatives.\n\nDraw another triangle, but upside down. This time, put young people at the tipped end and elderly at the top. You see that this triangle is unstable. There are too little young people to care for the needs of the elderly population. This is the current issue that a declining birth rate countries are facing.\n\nBut that's for a personal level.\n\nOn a state and economical level, there will be less people that will be able to work as time goes on, as many elderly become too sick to work/retire. As a result, there will also naturally be less consumption by the population. Thus, this means a general loss in government revenue since less people are paying taxes. The economy might also stagnate due to a lack of business in the country. \n\nAs one commentor has pointed out earlier, it is a sign of a dying country. This is true; we have an excessive burden of young people in caring for the elderly, and a stagnating economy. This is why it's a big problem." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How do video games have different glitches among seperate copies ( I fall through the floor here, someone else doesn't) when they are all the same game?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They don't, what happens is that people encounter different glitches.\n\nAnd that has to do with the number of variences and the number if conditions.\n\nIf you have a glitch that makes a player stuck, but it only happens if they are holding a shotgun, and turn so that the barrel hits a shelf through a wall at a specific point along the arc of a jump, and each if those is only a few pixels of tolerance then only a very small number of people will encounter that glitch.\n\nIf you have a glitch where the game freezes any time you open a specific door regardless of other conditions then a lot more people will encounter that glitch." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Star Wars] How was Anakin perceived after the clone wars ended?\n\nAnakin was seen as a war hero during the clone wars but very few people knew he became Darth Vader so I'm curious what the public thought of him. Was he considered a traitor like the rest of the Jedi and killed during Order 66 or did people have a different impression of him?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "iirc Palatine couldn't easily condemn him like he was able to with the other Jedi since, like you said, he pretty much propped him up to be a galactic Captain America. So the narrative he gave was that Anakin died protecting him from the Jedi traitors and was still considered a war hero until the fall of the empire." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What's hot in philosophy of language?\n\nI was wondering if anyone could point me towards any of the major/important debates happening in philosophy of language at the moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Plenty of issues: nature of propositions, semantics of indicative conditionals, semantics of generics, theories of reference, theories of meaning, indexicals, names, restricted and unrestricted quantification, counterfactuals, embedded conditionals.\n\nIf you want a good intro to the field check out William Lycan's *Philosophy of language: contemporary introduction*." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Marvel][Doctor Who] Would Matt Murdock be affected by The Silence?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, he'd be able to detect them just fine, and also recognize that they're not human. Even if they could use their amnesia ability on him, he would still be able to hear and smell them.\n\nHe would also be smart enough to notice that nobody in the room with the weird alien is reacting strangely. He'd probably play along until he had a good idea of where things stood before acting." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: If slaves in America were so expensive, why were they beaten and killed?\n\nI recently saw \"Twelve Years A Slave\" and \"Django\" and it inspired me to do more research on the topic of slavery and the general associated economics. A few sources have suggested that a slave may have cost around $1200 around 1860. In today's terms, this would have been around $30,000. Put in perspective, a slave may have cost as much as a good car. Being relatively expensive, it seems that this industry spawned a related financial industry dedicated to loans (mortgages) on slaves. Much like a house, an individual slave was used as security (or collateral) on these loans. All this makes logical sense, but I still have a few gaps in understanding:\n\n1) It appears that slaves were a major investment and very capital intensive. Death or illness should have had a large economic impact on the process. Morals and customs aside, would it not be in the best financial interests of the slave owners to maintain the health and productivity of their slaves?\n\n2) Were the slave owners really so wealthy that they could kill something worth the cost of a modern car for no good reason? Even most modern wealthy people don't go around destroying $30,000 cars for fun.\n\n3) Using slaves as security to back loans seems like very unwise collateral. A simple farming accident could render the security completely worthless. Present banks loan money on real security such as land and buildings which are obviously far more secure than a human life. Why would a bank in the 1800s even consider such a risky form of security?\n\n4) In the event of a default, were the foreclosures or repos on slaves? Would the bank come and take the slaves if payments were not made on the mortgages?\n\n5) After the abolition of slavery, I assume that the value of the security dropped to zero. Were there massive defaults? Did it bankrupt many once rich and powerful families and companies? Or, did the banks and financial institution simply write off the losses now that their collateral was worthless?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The level of constant abuse is vastly overdone in Hollywood movies. They want to express how terrible slavery was but don't have enough time to put it into perspective. So they show it all at once when it isn't exactly realistic; such things did happen, but not likely to be as often or all at once." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Do Gravitational waves affect (our perception of) time?\n\nIf we would be hit by gravitational waves would time run faster/slower for us and affect our perception of time, as gravity is able to \"distort\" time ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": ">Do Gravitational waves affect (our perception of) time?\n\nYes, but in reality the effect is so small that it's not even close to measurable without *extremely* precise instruments, the kind that don't exist yet.\n\n>If we would be hit by gravitational waves would time run faster/slower for us and affect our perception of time, as gravity is able to \"distort\" time .\n\nA gravitational wave is a change in the curvature of spacetime; differences in our local curvature cause our clocks to run at different speeds than other areas with different local curvature.\n\nWhen a gravitational wave passes through us, it is changing our curvature (very, very slightly), so that changes the rates at which our clocks run compared to other distant clocks (again: very, very slightly).\n\nHope that helps!" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I look at a source of light in the dark, I see a large halo around it. Why don't I see this effect in a well-lit environment?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You see the halo because of the contrast between the (presumably very dark) environment and the (presumably rather bright) light source. Your eyes actually scatter a significant amount of incoming light over a set pattern with broad wings -- so each bright point of light yields a halo-like image on the retina. The wings of the halo are faint enough that they get washed out in normal life, but at night there is high contrast between (say) a candle flame and a dark room around the candle. Your retinal response is logarithmic, which downplays how phenomenal the contrast ratio really is (can be a factor of 10,000 to 100,000 between a candle flame and the walls in a typical small candlelit room!). The stray light from the candle flame washes out the dark room and appears as a halo.\n\nIn a well-lit environment the contrast ratio between anything you're likely to view and its surroundings is not nearly so great, since 10,000 times brighter than \"well lit\" is \"painful\" or even \"damaging\". For example the Sun has a similar optical halo that can be seen on a clear day with dark skies, but you're not likely to have ever noticed it. (The optical halo there is also masked by a forward-scattering halo in the sky -- you have to use your thumb or something to obscure and reveal the Sun, and carefully observe how the sky around the Sun changes, to notice the optical halo there)." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: What needs to happen for a plane to fly into other countries' airspaces?\n\nWhen a plane crosses another country's airspace in its journey, what happens? Does that country's air force get all airplane schedules of the day ahead of time and verify that? Or is there a database of planes flying that we don't know about?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If it's playing nicely then it will have a filed a flight plan and be carrying a transponder which identifies it, so air traffic control are expecting it and know which plane it is when it appears on their radar.\n\nIf not, and it doesn't respond to air traffic control asking what it's doing, then fighters would be scrambled to go and see what it is, and eventually shoot it down if the appearance of fighters doesn't make the pilot more talkative." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5:Why is classical music known by its composer, whereas lots of modern music is known by the artist who performs it, and not who writes it?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It really boils down to the fact that life is incredibly different now that it was, say, a hundred years ago.\n\nDuring the classical era, most music was commissioned by people of influence. Nobility, the church, etc would hire the famous Then, the distribution of this music is not like it is today. There were no recordings, so the only way to actually HEAR the music of the time was to hear it performed. Major cities throughout Europe had their own orchestras; it's not as if one famous orchestra of composer would travel in some grand tour, it was the music itself that traveled, and the name that was attached to that music.\n\nToday, the face of the music is of the performer, because that's what we all can see. It's distributed via TV, radio, and mp3s. We hear the one artist's performance, not one song performed by the local musicians in each town.\n\nEDIT: Tidied up the grammar a bit." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How does water \"reset\" bed hair?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barber here. Your hair has certain a bonds that give it the shape that it holds, there are strong bonds that give it it's curly or straight nature. Water and heat will break down the weaker bonds that will reform when cooled/dried. Stronger bonds are broken and reformed chemically with permanent waving (perms) or chemical straightner. So warm water is the best way to fix bed head." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: Why are all bigger holidays at the end of the month? (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coincidence? New years is literally the beginning of the month, as is July 4th. Christmas was moved to be closer to the pagan holidays of Yule and Saturnalia, while Halloween basically took over for Samhain (which began at sunset on Oct 31st and ended at sunset on Nov 1st). Canadian Thanksgiving is Oct 12th, right in the middle of the month. \n\nAs well, American Thanksgiving can actually be as early as Nov 22nd." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why doesn’t our moon rotate, and what would happen if it started rotating suddenly?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It does rotate, but the time it takes to rotate around its axis is exactly equal to the time it takes to orbit the Earth. And as a consequence, we always see the same side of the Moon.\n\nNow you might say: \"That seems a bit too neat to be a coincidence!\"\n\nAnd you would be right, because it's not a coincidence. The tidal force (the same thing that makes the tide come and go out) causes the rotation of an object to sync up with its orbit. In this case, the tidal force of the Earth on the Moon has constantly pulled at the Moon until the rotation and orbit were synced up. This state is called a \"tidal lock\".\n\nIf something were to give the Moon a nudge that would alter either its orbit or its rotation, the same tidal force would gradually pull it back in sync again. It would just take a long time.\n\nIt also happens the other way around: The tidal force from the Moon isn't just making the seas and oceans move around, it also pulls at the solid bits of the Earth, ever so slightly slowing down the rotation of the Earth. If the Sun wouldn't gobble up the Earth when it expands in 4-5 billion years, than some 50 billions years from now the Earth would be tidally locked to the Moon at which point the same side of the Earth would always be facing the Moon and the length of a day would be much longer than the 24 hours it is now." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Superheroes] Why do crooks still attempt crime when they know there's a well established superhero keeping the peace, why go to the risk when your enemy is superpowered?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Playing the odds. In Gotham, what are the chances Batman is going to be right there to stop you out of all the other crimes happening that night?\n\nHow about New York City? Sure, they have Spiderman, Daredevil and the Fantastic Four, but the city is huge with crimes happening all the time." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: Why do animals learn basic life skills (walking, eating real food, etc) really fast compared to humans?\n\nFor example, a dog can walk and eat real food by the age of at least 6-8 weeks. A human can take up to a year or longer for those same skills. I'm sure this is the same in other animals. Why is this when humans are vastly superior to animals in capabilities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was an evolutionary trade-off. Our large brains helped us survive, but they made child birth difficult. As skull sized increased, either babies had to be born earlier with fewer initial abilities or the mothers had to have larger hips. The larger hips made it more difficult to run upright and thus survive, so over time, children were born earlier." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What to bring to an academic conference?\n\nI’m a PhD student in the humanities getting ready to present at my first in person conference. \n\nI’ve attended and presented in virtual conferences before, but I don’t know what to bring to this one when I’m not attending from the comfort of my own home. Do I need business cards? Should I bring snacks/a water bottle?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Keep it light. Try not to be the person with the huge bag that explodes the second you sit down. Laptop or iPad, one notebook, pen, maybe a water bottle or coffee cup. Hand sanitizer, etc. charger/battery pack.\n\nComfortable shoes. Questions to ask." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[SpiderMan Far From Home] Why Did Mysterio out Spider-Man at his death?\n\nIm clearly missing something obvious. \n\nObviously the end of Far from Home and the opening Premise of the latest Spidey Movie is based on Mysterio blaming Spider-Man for the terror attacks he committed and then saying his identity. \n\nIt seemed like this death rattle was planned, so he went into that London battle thinking Spider-Man would kill him when Spider-Man was defeated and countries away?\n\nAnd his beef was with Iron Man who stole his ideas. But he shifted his beef to Spider-Man because he was Stark’s superhero son instead of saying that Stark Industries went rogue and killed him to ensure there is no new Iron Man? Or Fury/Avengers killing him for the same reason? Peter in particular?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because he's a dick.\n\nAt the end, Spider-Man was a serious threat who was screwing up his entire plan. His reveal was a final 'Fuck You' to the guy who beat him.\n\nHe didn't go in planning for Spider-Man or dying, he simply threw together some contingency plans when the new variable became an issue. Notice how in No Way Home >!The charges were dropped almost immediately. Mysterio didn't actually do a frameup, he just said 'Spider-Man did it all!' when he was losing.!<" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Warhammer 40k] Why haven't the Tyranids invented farming?\n\nSo, it's repeatedly reinforced that Tyranids only care about biomass. They're not malicious- they don't want to kill people or establish dominance or anything like that. They just want food. They're also clearly a very technologically advanced and intelligent species. Not in the same way a human is, sure, but advanced enough to fight space empires and clever enough for complex galactic strategies.\n\nSo why are they still going around eating planets like giant insectoid hunter-gathers? Why not start farming?\n\nLand on a planet, take it over and raise the local inhabitants as livestock. If the local inhabitants are hard to farm for whatever reason (lifespan, breeding rate, solitary)? You're the tyranids. You have ludicrous magic bioengineering. Make them into cows or something. Or just use cows. Kill the people and raise the cows/sheep/blarbles/whatever for slaughter. Use the armies you were using anyway to eat planets to stop anyone blowing up your farm planets.\n\nHell, just make \"cow\" swarm organisms. You can make creatures that can fly through space faster then light speed, you can rustle up a cow. Land on an uninhabited planet and let it reproduce. Viola, an endless stream of biomass and I doubt anyone will risk stirring up the Hive Fleet to save a bunch of weird cowbugs.\n\nIt seems easy to get a sustainable and reliable source of biomass without the need to keep throwing yourself at space marines every few weeks. It's what *humans* did when we needed a lot of food, and we did it when wheels were the cutting edge of technology. Why hasn't the Hive Mind ever considered the idea?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I suspect that the Tyranid swarms, much like the Xenomorphs from *Alien*, were originally engineered as a doomsday weapon. They don't seek a purpose beyond sterilizing a planet to make enough biomass-based weaponry to sterilize the next one." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Question about whale blow hole muscles: are the muscles designed to keep the blowhole open or closed? Does it take more muscle to open?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They are sphincters, much like your arsehole. And also like your arsehole, there is an outer one which is consciously controlled, and an inner one which is unconsciously controlled. So it’s a bit of both really." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: why is it easier to balance on a bike while going faster rather than slower?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NOT because of gyroscopic force, as many people think...\n\nIf you look at a bicycle, where the front wheel attaches is further forward than the head tube (where the fork attaches to the rest of the bike). This is an important design feature, because it means that when the bike veers to one side, the front wheel has a tendency to turn to that side, causing the bike to turn instead of fall over. It's a sort of auto-correction: even if you just shove a bicycle forward with no one steering it fast enough, the bike may turn, but will resist falling until it slows down to the point that it makes too drastic of an adjustment and falls over." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[SHAZAM] Does the marvel family have equal powers?Does their power divide the more of them transform?\n\nDoes Billy and his foster siblings get equal speed strengh, powers etc. When they transform? Or are they weaker than Billy?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It has varied from universe to universe. \n\nThe Post-Crisis Universe had the power being literally shared between Captain Marvel, Captain Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr, and if all three were transformed, they weren't as powerful as they would be if only one was transformed. \n\nThat has not proven to be the case in other universes." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "CMV: The anti-racism scene is getting a little out of control\n\nDon’t get me wrong, I don’t condone racism at all. It’s great that these issues have been brought to light in the past year, but sometimes I feel like things get taken too far it’s absurd. \n\nPeople are quick to call out every smallest little thing as being racist, and if you don’t also vocalize that, then you are “supporting the other side”. Being silent is not the same as supporting racism. There are so many unjust things in the world and obviously not everyone is speaking up about every issue but that doesn’t mean they condone it. \n\nAnd then there are these changes we’ve seen being brought upon as a result of this whole movement, some of which just seem symbolic, unnecessary, or even absurd. For example, a long-time host of a show I watch who is white was switched for a black host, which is both unfair to long-time followers of the show and to the original host who had been there from the start. Another example is GitHub renaming “master” branch to “main” due to association with master/slavery. I don’t understand where this is coming from because the word “master” can have other meanings, as in “master volume” or “master’s program”... Are these gestures supposed to be viewed as a step towards the right direction?\n\nI don’t know what real change is supposed to look like, but the scene now just feels symbolic, forced, even touchy and hostile in that if you don’t go along with all this then it makes you the devil. Again, I’m not at all condoning racism, but certain things just feel like an act sometimes, reminds me of the Emperor’s New Clothes...\n\nThe truth is, everyone will pass judgement on each other and it’s inevitable. Not just race, or gender, or sexual orientation... but just as individuals, from the way we look to how our voice sound to our personality, none of which are any less valid. We’ll all face different challenges and limitations and it’s not fair. Sure, it’s great to bring awareness to specific issues like race but parts of this is just starting to feel out of sorts. \n \nNot sure if anyone else feels the same way. If not, please enlighten me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So a television show fires a host that happens to be white and his replacement happens to be black -- and you automatically assume it's the guy's skin color that got him the job. Doesn't that show how far we still need to go on the issue?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: Why is cannibalism so bad for our health?\n\nOne thing that always comes up in any conversation about cannibalism - not that it comes up OFTEN in my circles, I just want to clarify - is that cannibalism is bad for the health of whoever or whatever is partaking. Why is this the case, and why are some species able to indulge in cannibalism on a regular basis with seemingly no adverse effects?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Diseases often have trouble jumping from one species to another. The closer related to you your food is (evolution wise) the smaller the gap the disease needs to jump. This is why eating bushmeat from apes is more risky than eating some less closely related animals.\n\nThe above is true especially for viruses. Parasites are another problem. One thing that has been big in the news are prions.\n\nPrions aren't really living things at all. They are just certain types of proteins which cause the proteins inside of you to become like them by their mere presence. In particular the prions everyone is worried about are ones that are inside your brain and nerves. If you eat another humans brain who has such a prion disease you will become infected yourself.\n\nNormally this is not such a big deal as people aren't in the habit of eating each others brains.\n\nHowever in cultures where cannibalism was practiced, such disease can become a problem. One example is Kuru also called the laughing diseases which used to be found among cannibals in places like New Guinea.\n\nAnother example is mad cow diseases which became a problem when stupid people got into the habit of feeding cows the ground down remains (including brains) of other cows.\n\nIn fact mad cow became such a big problem that enough cows with it ended up in the food chain to possibly infect humans despite the species gap. Creutzfel-Jacobs is what the disease is called that many think is what happened if you eat cannibalistic cow brains.\n\nThe TL;DR of all this is that if you plan to eat humans make sure to only pick healthy looking ones, stay away from their brains and avoid eating any known cannibalis who seem to have the shakes." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What's the difference between actual sleep and just laying down when fighting off a disease?\n\nI've currently got a cold, so my body needs rest to fight it off and recover.\n\nWhat's the biological difference between having an actual sleep, or just laying horizontal and watching tv/reading ?\n\nIs my immune system doing the same thing?\n\nDo I actually need more sleep when sick, or does physical inactivity suffice?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your body is doing different things when sleeping and when just laying down, resting. \nWhile sleeping most systems of the body go in a less active mode. The brain lowers its activity and does mainly \"maintenance\" work, organizing/sorting and \"cleaning\" stuff. Heart rate goes down, breathing slows, digestive system goes into a less active mode, body temperature drops, hormonal activity changes etc. Immune system is more effective with fighting disease during sleep as some agents that fight disease are higher in levels during sleep. Also sleep deprivation might lower white cell count - the \"warriors\" that fight disease. Also, when your body relaxes and is not strained it has more resources to fight. \nAnd we reach to the next part - just laying down, relaxing. While not as effective as sleep, for fighting disease it's still more beneficial than normal activity, because less resources are used for activity that is not connected directly with fighting disease, hence the body can \"schedule\" more resource for fighting the disease. \nSince a human, unless extreme situations, can not sleep for very long periods of time without waking up, when you are ill, it's still better, to lay down and relax, while awaken, than doing usual activity (which would be hard anyway). The need to lay down and the feeling of being exhausted is a sign, the body is trying to divert resource elsewhere and it's losing energy, that would otherwise be used for normal activity. Putting as less stress on the system as possible, while it's fighting with an external agent is beneficial, hence \"keep the bed\" advice :)." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Is there a fundamental difference between a replicator and a transporter in Star Trek? What is the source of the matter for the replicator?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Replicators take \"waste\" matter and break it down and resequence it as the desired matter. The cup your morning earl grey came in is placed back on the replicator and reclaimed to provide the base matter for your nightly glass of synthale. Other waste matter is broken down in other systems and utilized the same way by the replicators." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[ATLA] Since Sozin and Roku were born on the same day, what would have happened if Sozin had been the Avatar instead?\n\nWould he still start the War? Would it even start sooner? Would he even be allowed to leave for the customary 12-year Avatar training?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The influence of the Avatar's reincarnated spirit, plus Raava being the spirit of light, means that all Avatars are compelled to be helpful and kind in pursuit of balance. (note that being kind doesn't always mean being nice to everyone. Kyoshi was a major example of that) Their world-travels and years of training means that they connect with people all around the world, and strip away any prejudices they might have had in their young lives. Avatar Sozin would have ended up almost exactly like Roku, though maybe a little more heavy-handed in his approach to things, much like Kyoshi had been. \n\nIf Sozin was still born the heir of the Fire Nation on top of being Avatar, he would have relinquished his throne in favor of a sibling or close relative. Because being the Avatar is far more important than the leader of a single nation. And the sages/white lotus/other organizations would have impressed upon him that fact. We have no idea what Sozin's family was like, so they still might have had the same processes that Firelord Sozin had, and perhaps still started the war. It wasn't until after Sozin took the throne that he instituted many reforms that transformed the Fire Nation into its most well-known incarnation. Before that, many people in his nation were highly spiritual and would not have balked against the advice of the sages." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eli5 Why does Jupiter not explode when meteors hit it considering it’s 90% hydrogen?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Combustion needs oxygen. \nEven on earth it is possible to have too much fuel to oxygen to burn. Engines can “flood” with too much gasoline in the cylinder to burn, or there can be too much fuel to oxygen in the ratio to combust. \n\nJupiter is like 90% hydrogen and 9% helium with the rest in small percentages. Nowhere near enough to oxygen to combust. Even more so with helium being an inert gas that does not react to most things. \n\n\nAn example is gasoline. After 7%-ish at atmospheric pressure there is too much vapor to support an explosion." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5, how can an electrical grid be “minutes away” from month long blackouts? What would’ve happened that devoted employees avoided?\n\nI’ve seen lots of posts lately on Texas being “minutes and seconds away” from months long blackouts. What could’ve happened, what was avoided that caused that?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Operators shut down switching equipment that was very close to overloading. Well, \"seconds\" may have been hyperbolic, but this equipment is extremely specialized and there are not huge stockpiles of unused equipment waiting for someone to want it. Losing too much switching equipment might lead to months of rolling blackouts as replacement equipment was manufactured.\n\nMost world power grids are susceptible to this sort of thing, nobody has a spare power grid to use for fallback. A large solar storm or coronal mass ejection could fry enough transformers that it would take months for worldwide power to return to normal." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[MCU] why is it that there was a random blue blob in the middle of Missouri that killed atleast a dozen people but never even talked about by anyone?\n\nthis had to be a really random occurrence. what was the blue stuffs chemical make up were they able to get rid of it or is it still sitting there now? you would think stark might feel some interesting in this other world substance. if it was talked about in aos let me know i dont watch that show." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because disasters happen, and tend not to be dwelt on by people not directly involved.\n\nIn 2014, eight people were killed when a building blew up in Manhattan. In 2013, 15 people were killed in an explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas. In 2008, 14 people were killed in a sugar explosion in Georgia. To the general population, these are just things that happened and were quickly forgotten.\n\nThe details of the Missouri blob were probably quickly covered up by one or another of the many US intelligence agencies - remember, this is after the fall of SHIELD. That left some kind of chemical leak killing a few people, and as far as the general public are concerned a few people dying in the middle of nowhere is just not worth discussing." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am full-stack software engineer and I am looking to get into robotics as a career. How screwed am I?\n\nI've basically maxed out my abilities as a software engineer. Meaning I can build just about anything from scratch and do a decent job at it. And before you go off on me saying I don't know shit or nowhere maxed out my skill set, you are right. What I am saying is I am more so burnt out that I don't feel like improving my skills as a software dev anymore even though I can perform at a high level.\n\nRobotics has always interested me especially because I believe it is an integral part of the future. I would love to get involved and use my skills as a software engineer to jumpstart as a robotics engineer. Is this even possible without going back to school? Where do I start? Any advice is much appreciated. I am so burnt out by my day job I can barely function. I need a new fascinating challenge.\n\nThank you!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course it's possible. Don't have to go back to school. Robotics is the combination of several disciplines tho. A good start is to start or brush up on C/C++ and maybe start learning about Embedded Systems." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How video games work from a code perspective.\n\nIs it all one big while(1) loop?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Game developer here.\n\nBasically, it's a huge loop - or multiple loops. When you launch the game, it loads stuff like textures, models, sounds and so on, and then it begins the \"main loop\", where it processes the input, updates all objects that need to be updated, and finally draws everything on the screen.\n\nIn practice, it's a bit more complicated than that. For example, physics might have an own loop that runs 30 times per second, other \"non-visual\" code runs 60 times per second, and graphics may run as fast as possible to ensure seamless representation on the screen.\n\nAlso, there's the problem of resource handling: if the game is huge (10 GB for example), it can't all be loaded at the beginning. Usually games load the needed resources just when they are needed (between levels, for example), and the unneeded resources are unloaded. This all may happen in the \"main loop\", or the main loop may be shut down, before the resources are loaded and re-started after the loading is complete. Some games require seamless progression through the world (WoW and other MMOs), where the game may load and unload the resources all the time in the main loop (or another loop running at the same time)." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why isn't the ISS spun for \"gravity\"?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The absence of (apparent) gravity is the main feature of the ISS. Why would you want to ruin that?\n\nThere was a proposed single module that would have rotated to generate low (~1/3 g) appparent gravity for astronauts to sleep in, but that didn't make it to the ISS." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What is homeopathy and why does/doesn't it work?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Homeopathy is the notion that something that is bad (say, cyanide) can be good (a cure for cyanide) if it's diluted many, many times. \n\nThe more diluted it is, the stronger it is. So pure cyanide is bad because it'll kill you. Cyanide diluted 40 times will cure cyanide poisoning. \n\nThe reasoning has to do with water having a memory, and having the cyanide impressed upon it, changing it from just water to a medicinal tonic.\n\nOf course, if you dilute something 40 times (That is, dump something into a solution of 1/part thing, 9/parts water, dump a 10th of that into 9 parts water, dump a 10th of THAT into 9 parts water... that's three dilutions) the odds of you getting a single molecule of whatever the medicine is becomes pretty much unlikely. Some homeopathic dilutions are basically a single molecule of the medicinal compound in a sphere of water that would encompass the solar system.\n\nThe reason it doesn't work is that water doesn't have a memory. It doesn't get imprinted by compounds put into it, it's just water. It's always water, nothing else. You can mix it with stuff, and then it's water + stuff or it undergoes a chemical reaction and is no longer water. There is no difference between ordinary water and homeopathic water used in a solution.\n\nThere's also some arguments I've read where the homeopath in question believes that the diluted compound doesn't do the opposite, but does the original, just stronger.\n\nIn either case, we can demonstrate that this is untrue - if there are poisons that exist in nature (there are) that can be dissolved in water (there are), then they are in the entire water system due to rain and such. Meaning the water is already a homeopathic solution for the compound. So regular water should either already be a cyanide cure (it's not) or thousands of times more lethal than cyanide (it's not).\n\nHomeopathy is bollocks. It's bullshit. It's snake oil. It's trickery. All because a drink from a fountain won't kill you instantly or cure all your ailments. Or both, at the same time.. which would be a neat trick." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "eli5: Our saliva is the first stage of digestion and starts to break down food. Why does sucking our thumbs not break down our flesh?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "First: saliva is 99% water, so anything in it will be in very low concentrations (which is why you should chew thoroughly before, so you can mix the saliva and help with very small portions).\n\nSecond: most of the enzymes present are for breaking starch and fat, both of which are not found in the outside of our thumbs.\n\nThird: our ~~thumb~~ thumbs (and most of the body as well) are protected by the skin, made primarily of a protein called keratin (it rhymes). This is a very hardy structural protein, the same in our nails, hair and in some animal horns." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Does language define reality or not? (Sapir-Worf)\n\nHey all, its going to take me a moment to set this up so bear with me :)\n\n&nbsp; \n\nI was in my class last night and the subject that was on the board was about the **social construction of reality**, which is listed as the process of people shaping reality through social interaction. Really neat! I am particularly fascinated with this subject as I think that language does determine reality. \n\n\n&nbsp; \n\n\nIn my textbook a couple weeks back I also remember us going over the **Sapir-Worf** thesis *really* vaguely. The definition of the thesis in the book says that people see and understand the world through the cultural lens of language, and goes on to say later that \"evidence supports the claim that language does **not** determine reality\". The book did not mention what *evidence* supported that claim, also didn't go into why sapir-worf isn't correct.\n\n\n&nbsp; \n\n so which is it? \n\n\n&nbsp; \n\nI'm confused as these ideas seem to contradict one another, people use language to communicate, then that shapes reality.. but it doesnt? (when I asked the teacher said \"that's very interesting...and went on about his day... probably to be expected in the SOCIO 101 class in community college.. probably didn't want to take the time to answer me and waste everyone's time) \n\n\n&nbsp; \n\nany light that you could shed on this question would be most appreciated. Thanks!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think the important thing to remember about Sapir-Whorf is that it's not absolute. So when sociologists say that we construct our reality through through language or discourse, what they are saying is that the language we use reinforces values, norms and inequalities and our belief systems. Early proponents of Sapir-Whorf would say that people who didn't have words for certain concepts could never understand those concepts. That's where you hear stories about peoples who can see more or fewer colors or who can only count to three (supposedly the Piraha people of Brazil). But modern research has been skeptical of these findings. I'd encourage you to read Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality if this is something that you are actually interested in. The book is challenging but very interesting. \n\nEdit: Levinson, Stephen C. (2000). Yeli Dnye and the Theory of Basic Color Terms, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 10:1 (pp. 3–55)." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How exactly do vacuums suck up air?\n\nAll I see is a spinning cloud of dust. How do vacuum cleaners and chambers work?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We think of fans as blowing air, but if you look from the back side of the fan, it is sucking air in. Hold a candle behind the fan and you can see the smoke get sucked into the fan. All fans suck on one side and blow on the other side.\n\nThere are lots of ways to make fans, and some designs are really good at sucking. A vacuum cleaner uses the kind of fan that really sucks. It's still just a fan, though." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[GI JOE] Would the Cobra super weapon from retaliation actually work?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Absolutely. It's actually been a proposed weapon platform, but was scrapped due to the cost associated with it, and a UN accord which makes it a crime to deploy weapons in space.\n\nIt wouldn't be quite as shown, but the basic principle is true." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Does the speed of digestion change based on how hungry or starved you are?\n\nDoes the speed of digestion (acidity/strength of stomache acid?) change if you are more hungry and slow down if you are full? Or is it fairly consistent regardless of your current state of hunger?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It does not speed up. If anything it slows down due to blood being directed to other organs, this is especially true when starved. Your metabolism slows down aswell. There is no reason for the body to speed up digestion when there is nothing to digest. This is a huge waste of energy." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: how is a serving size determined?\n\nFor example, how does the Hershey company know that a package of King size Reese cups is a serving? How does Pringles know that 1 oz of cheddar cheese Pringles is a serving? What is a serving based off of?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's all made up. \n\nAt least in the US, there's no standard. All they're required to do is show the amount of servings in the product and what each serving represents. i.e. the company arbitrarily decides how many grams/ounces/any random measurement equals 1 serving." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[spirited away] not entirely sure if this fits here but what do the workers at the bath house spend their money on?\n\nWe never see them leave the bath house so what’s the point in obtaining all the money they make? is it possible that they don’t have anything to spend on and this is just contributing to the theme of toxic consumerism?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That roasted lizard was a coveted snack and implied to be very expensive. There is most likely an array of exotic delights they can purchase over and under the counter. Not to mention all the food stalls on the markets." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How come an individual's appearance seems to \"change\" depending on your feelings towards the said individual?\n\nEg. When you fall in love with someone, they seem to look prettier/more handsome than how everyone else perceives the individual, and then they return back to \"normal\" once you're over him/her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Attraction is more than just finding someone to be physically beautiful. As your desires in a mate mature the non-physical criteria start to carry more weight. As you get to know someone deeply you become aware of all of their various qualities in a way that outsiders do not. Ideally you are very attracted to many of those qualities." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[DC/Marvel/Speedsters] When the Flash is doing anything at super-speed, does he have to be running?\n\nI see characters in comics doing things in super speed all the time but I don't know if they have to be running in order to introduce themselves to speed.\n\nThe solution for many things in the Flash TV show is \"run faster\" so I'm not sure how that works for everything speed related." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Superman and Flash had sat down and had a very lengthy conversation in less than a second. The Flashs can engage their speed while lying down on bed do they can take a long nap in a microsecond. \n\n\n\n\nIn Marvel, there are less speedsters, but the concept is basically the same. QS can draw a picture in a second while sitting down." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How do we know the information leaked by Edward Snowden is true?\n\nIt seems like he's in a great position that *anything* he says will be considered the truth and if anybody denies that it's the truth they are just covering up for the government.\n\nWith the resources that the United States has, if this information was so destructive to the efforts of the NSA and other agencies, why aren't they pursuing him more? I would tend to think that the CIA has operatives in Russia (or wherever he is now) that could collect him pretty easily if they really wanted him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because he isn't just saying things. He is providing original documents and files. So far the gov has said what he's leaked was illegal to leak because it's classified but they haven't said what he's leaked was untrue." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How is 2.5 gallons enough water to get our waste from the toilet to the sewer, and eventually to the water treatment plant?\n\nEdit: OK, I am not sure where I got 2.5 gallons from because it turns out standard toilets in the US are 1.6 gallons, as the comment below states. It still seems crazy to me that 1.6 gallons can push waste all the way from the toilet to the sewer. I feel like it would stop at some point and need more water to get to the street.\n\nOn a side note, I find plumbing and water treatment fascinating." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It just has to make it to the sewer which is easy enough especially as they're usually sloped on the way there. The sewers already have other water coming from any number of sources plus may be fed a trickle at the head of the pipe to keep things moving." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I yawn while listening to music, why does the pitch briefly shift down?\n\nThe change in pitch lasts for the duration of the yawn, while the ears are \"expanded.\" \n\nAlso, you are now yawning.\n\nEDIT: It really is the pitch, the volume changes but the pitch of the note definitely does as well. Like an old gramophone slowing down or a car horn dropping in pitch as it drives by." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When you yawn or swallow, your Eustachian tube opens to equalize the pressure in your middle ear. Your middle ear is also the location of the three middle ear bones (*malleus*, *incus*, *stapes*) that act to transmit vibrations from your eardrum to your cochlea so you can hear. Thus, if you yawn or swallow, the Eustachian tube opens, changes the pressure in your middle ear, dampens vibrations, which in turn dampens sound." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How do people who crack games get said games to crack ?\n\nHow do people who crack games get the games before they crack them? How do they get the source files on their pcs so they can crack them ?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A man is reading a list of instructions on what to do. Let's say this particular list of instructions tells him how to let you into a theme park. As he goes through the list of instructions he asks you for your ticket, but you don't have one so you can't get in today. After his shift you know where he keeps his instruction list, but it's in German! And you don't speak German. But you take a copy anyway. Tomorrow you try to get in, and you follow the man along as he's reading the instructions, and when he gets to instruction 52, he asks you for a ticket, and then turns you away for not having one. After his shift, you go to where he keeps his instructions and cross out line 52. The next day you get into the theme park because he didn't check for your ticket." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: What is money laundering and how does it work?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lets say you're a bully with a racket extorting lunch money from other kids. Eventually you get enough for a new bicycle, but you can't buy one without your parents wondering about where you got the money. So you open up a lemonade stand. They can't watch you all the time so as far as your parents know you're selling a ton of lemonade, so when you bring home your new bicycle it doesn't look suspicious. You don't have to work to hard at the stand because actual profit is secondary to appearing legit, and owning a real business can provide yet another extortion activity, the neighborhood kids come and buy $5 glasses of lemonade so they don't get beat up; and their appearance helps the stand look legitimate.\n\nEdit- Thanks for the Gold!" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[general] Why are escape pod emergency releases not inside the pod itself?\n\nSo Im in my last year of engineering academy, and I finally get to do my first rotation on an actual starship.\n\nDuring the Safety induction, they covered escape pod protocol, including launch failure. For some reason I can't fathom, the emergency release is inside the main ship, and the handbook states one person should stay behind and \"heroically sacrifice themselves\".\n\nWhy not put the mechanism inside the pod, so that everyone gets to escape?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because the emergency release is a mechanical override for the systems on the ship that hold onto the escape pod.\n\nThe ship itself handles holding the pods, AND launching them out. Those systems simply don't exist on the pods side." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: When a baby is in the mothers womb, and is developed enough,does it produce human waste from the nutrients the mother provides to it? If so, where does it go or how does the body adapt to that.\n\nEdit: Thank you for all the info! Much appreciated.\n\nEdit: I woke up this morning and was blown away by the amount of answers and popularity this got. Thanks all and Happy 4th!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes. Just a couple of months into their development, little humans begin peeing freely into the amniotic fluid that surrounds them in the womb. Then, foreshadowing all the gross stuff that babies do once they’re born, they’ll consume that urine as they swallow the amniotic fluid. Every last one of us has spent several months drinking our own pee.\n\nIn utero pooping is less common. Fetuses get their nutrients from food that their mothers’ digestive systems have broken down, and the waste from that food stays with mom and is taken care of on her end (Thanks, Mom!). Fetuses do ingest some stuff—mucus, bile, fine fetal hairs called lanugo, cells lining the inside of the womb—that needs to get disposed of, though. All this stuff gets broken down by the fetus’s digestive system and forms a viscous, sticky mass of feces called meconium.\n\nMeconium is almost odorless and mostly sterile. It usually stays in fetuses’ bowels until they’re born, but some kids—around 13 percent—just can’t wait, and let it loose in the womb. This can be a problem, since feces is now floating in the amniotic fluid that the fetus swallows and takes into its lungs, and “meconium-stained amniotic fluid,” as the docs call it, can lead to serious respiratory distress." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "CMV: Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets are in aggregate better than Word, Powerpoint, and Excel\n\nFirst of all, the automatic saving feature is great because I don't have to worry about saving all the time. Secondly, everything is always backed up on the cloud/drive so you don't have to worry about losing files on your computer. Third, it is FREE, as you can use all the google services at no cost to yourself. The sharing feature is very intuitive and you can collaborate with many people on your documents. Heck, all three google services are more intuitive and easier to use than the microsoft services which are cluttered with too many features and not well organized. Moreover, with google docs you can work easier with others too because google things are free so you can work with people that cannot afford the more expensive word, powerpoint, and excel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" Third, it is FREE, as you can use all the google services at no cost to yourself. \"\n\nAs long as you play nice with every Google product. But if you get banned from YouTube suddenly you've also lost all your documents and spreadsheets! That seems pretty disastrous compared to using Openoffice or Word!" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Rick and Morty] Why isn't there more automation at the Citadel?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because when you have someone doing the jobs, they have less time to think of how to get into your position. The jobs aren't even necessary at all, it's just to keep the people on the bottom at the bottom." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Pokémon] what makes great balls so much better at catching Pokémon than pokeballs?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Speaking in broad terms, when you attempt to capture a Pokemon in a Pokeball, you convert it to energy and store that energy in the ball. However, during that process, a stronger Pokemon can fight to reverse it and break containment of its energy. Once it does so, it reverts to physical form.\n\nGreat balls/ultra balls/etc are simply built with higher-strength containment, making it more difficult for Pokemon to struggle free. In addition, you can tune balls to make their captures from a greater distance, thus making it difficult for Pokemon to physically knock away the balls." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Dragon Ball Super] Why was King Vegeta so mad that Broly was in the elite nursery?\n\nHe calls him a “low ranking baby taken in off the street” but the Saiyan doctors said he was the son of Colonel Paragus. Is Colonel not a high/elite rank in the Saiyan army?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "High rank, but still a filthy commoner.\n\nVegeta is an aristocrat, if you aren't born nobility you are trash. Sure Paragus proven himself to be a capable warrior, but he still wasn't nobility and his baby hasn't proven shit.\n\nAssuming, of course, their colonel actually lines up to the English rank. Ranks tend to get confused when translated." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: How does self-disappearing ink work?\n\nI got one of these pens for free with a calligraphy practice workbook. After about 5 minutes, the ink just vanishes as if nothing was written. I've tried it on multiple different papers and the same result occurs so it shouldn't have to do with a specific kind of paper. How does this happen?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Disappearing ink is usually reacting to carbon dioxide in the air around us, creating carbonic acid through an interaction with an agent in the ink, which causes it to \"disappear\" as sodium carbonate. Sometimes, the ink is photosensitive instead, which will cause it to disappear due to exposure to light." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[DC] Could a devolution device (like the kind made by Gorilla Grodd in the Justice League cartoon) be used to weaken Doomsday?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This could possibly be a viable way to defeat doomsday. Considering how he was created, it could devolve him to one of his weaker forms, maybe even his original form depending on how much power the devolution device has." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Is the way of making philosophy based on \"first principles\" dead?\n\nI read somewhere that Quine's \"Two Dogmas of Empiricism\" invalidated the pursuit of \"first principles\" from which truth could be determined and a system of philosophy could be constructed from. It is true? Are there philosophers still working in this way?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Systematic philosophy is alive and well, though it certainly is not as popular as in the early modern period. Just for a few names, in the analytic tradition there is Mario Bunge, and in the continental tradition you have Alain Badiou. Overall the continental traditions nowadays is much more amenable to systematic philosophy, in part because of authors like Quine and Russell in the analytic tradition arguing very forcefully against systematic philosophy. In some of the early sorts of battlecries for the analytic tradition you see their response to systematic philosophy, for instance Russell addresses it in the last chapter of *A History of Western Philosophy*. He describes a new vision for philosophy where we deal with individual problems instead of trying to solve everything all in one go." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: Why do people use 0-60 mph to benchmark the acceleration of cars?\n\nWhy not use 0-50 and what is significant about going to 60 mph?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because the actual benchmark is 0-100 km/h, which get's rounded down to 60 mph. 0-100 is a nice round number, and since everyone except the US uses the metric system that's the standard. So the significance is that 60 miles is about 100 km." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: US Presidential election 2016 megathread\n\nMost of the common questions have already been asked multiple times, and searching the archive is recommended. \n\nOther wise, this post will serve as a location to repost past questions, and any new ones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why is the Electoral College still a thing? Has there been any effort to move away from it?\n\nSeems odd to have a system that allows a President to win while losing the popular vote. Why not award proportional amounts of votes from each state to their results? Has there been an effort to move away from the system?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Fairy Tales] What was Rumplestiltskin going to do once he got the baby? Also what is he and how did he get his powers?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's implied that he's a fairy/Fair Folk. They're often known for kidnapping children and sometimes even adults. What they do with the kids isn't really known. Some stories claim that they eat the children. Other stories like Thomas the Rhymer say that they just hang out with their captives, not really doing anything horrible and then bring them back to our world with special powers only for the captives to learn that they were gone for years despite not aging at all. Others still like the ballad of Tam Lim claim that the Fair Folk owe a tithe to hell which they pay with the humans as offerings." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: Synthetic meat\n\nDoes anyone know what has happened to the synthetic meat we were all promised many years ago that would be just as good as the real thing (One step closer to Blade Runner ). It's now 2018 I haven't seen one synthetic burger. \nand is it really that good for you... or not ?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one has figured out how to make it cheap enough yet. Consider the price of ground beef, if you have a multimillion dollar lab making lab-grown beef then you're going to need to make millions of pounds to have it pay for itself.\n\nThere are a bunch of companies work on it, but none of their products are commercially viable yet." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ELI5: if black friday is all positive revenue why don't they do deals and stuff more often than once a year?\n\nIf 'being in the black' is profit for companies, why do they limit their deals to one day of the year?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deals and discounts are usually done for two reasons.\n\n1. To get rid of any long standing inventory to free-up room for new orders\n\n2. In anticipation of high volumes of demand (surge in amount of customers)\n\nWhen demand is expected to be extremely high, companies can afford to mark down items and offer sales, the minimal loss in revenue from marking down products is in theory supposed to be easily made up by the added amount of revenue the company will receive from the increase in demand.\n\nCompanies aren't usually only striving for one of the above reasons, Black Friday is inherently a combination of both. Stores experience large surges in the amount of shoppers, so they start off by marking down the prices on inventory which they are trying to get rid of first. Usually the items marked down in price the most are items which have been on the shelves for quite sometimes, or are items which are being replaced by newer models (or seasonal). \n\nDeals similar to Black Friday aren't done other times during the year, due to the cyclical nature of retail shopping. It is much more difficult to sell products like televisions or other electronics during the year as compared with the holiday season. Some companies in fact lose a good amount of money maintaining their inventory during the year, only to regain all the lost revenue during the holiday season due to the increase in consumer demand. \n\nTL:DR\n\nGiving discounts is not cost effective unless there is an increase in overall consumer demand for the products you are selling during that time period." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What physically happens to SSD drives that make the memory blocks wear with each write operation?\n\nIt's common knowledge that SSD drives have a limited number of writes and it must minimize the amount of times each memory block is rewrited, to make it last more, bla bla bla. \n\nBut, why does it happen? I mean what is the physical reason behind this? What is happening inside the drive that make the memory blocks wear with each use?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Flash uses a floating gate transistor that permanently stores a charge in a totally electrically insulated floating gate that isn't connected to anything. Hot carrier injection or tunneling is used to force electrons though the insulator and into the floating gate at very high voltages where they are essentially trapped forever (until reprogrammed again) and electrostatically cause the non floating gate to be on or off depending on the content of the charge trapped in the floating gate. Thus representing one or zero.\n\nThe high voltage and tunneling of electrons through the insulator breaks down the dielectric insulator with each erase/program cycle as electrons tunnel through the material and change the molecular state and electron composition. Basically the high voltage tunneling poisons the insulator with free electrons (?) until the dielectric starts becoming a conductor and progressively leaking so much that the floating gate can no longer hold a isolated charge. It just conducts and drains instantly through the insulator when you try to fill it and can't ever be a \"1\" again." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Harry Potter / General science fiction and fantasy] How does the Avada Kedavera work? Does it work on types of inorganic life?\n\nDoes it stop the heart? Cease brain functionality? Flip all of the target's cellular \"alive/dead\" switches at once? Perverse quantum immortality into a sort of quantum suicide? Depending on how it happens effects the second question: who can it kill?\n\nCould you stop the Terminator with it? (It's a universal kill switch)\n\nWhat about an AI like Deep Think (Hitchhiker's Guide)? (I causes brain death)\n\nHow about an AI that has a noted \"heart/soul\" like Optimus Prime? (It stops the hear or rips out the soul)\n\nCould a person with a pacemaker live through the curse? (It ceases a specific function, which can be overcome by modern technology)\n\nAre cyborgs like Darth Vader or General Grievous organic enough to be effected? (It ceases a specific function, which can be overcome by future technology)\n\nAre hiveminds like the Borg or the Geth immune? (Brain death situation)\n\nHow about golems? (Magic based inorganic life)\n\nTrolls with silicon brains? (Magic based semi-organic life)\n\nThomas the Tank Engine? (Faith based inorganic life)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort duelled in the Ministry of Magic, Dumbledore animated the centaur in the Fountain of Magical Brethren to use as a shield, which exploded when struck by a Killing Curse. That said, a decent *reducto* would have had a similar effect, it's possible that the statue broke because it was physically ripped apart instead. \n\nAdditionally, the effectiveness of all magic spells is based on a question of mass and to a lesser extent distance. For the same reason you can't *accio* the moon and kill us all, an average lone wizard would not necessarily kill something big like a dragon, mountain troll or giant with a killing curse. This, coupled with their relative intelligence, is why giants make for effective troops in wizarding wars." } ]