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

[User]
[Harry Potter] My child just returned home to our "muggle"home after his first year at Hogwarts and told me about slave labor thedre. How is this okay?

So my kid(12M) just finished his first year at Hogwarts and he was telling me all about his time there. He then mentioned this organization that was a joke on campus called SPEW and it was focused around providing rights to elves. This piqued my curiosity and I asked why would elves need a rights org?

To my horror, it's a known practice that Hogwarts uses elves as slaves to cook their food and other tasks. Creatures who are apparently meek, intelligent, and even have their own magic are being forced into menial labor. I inquired more about it and my son told me, "It's okay, Dad. They **like** what they do. An elf actually yelled at me for trying to give it some clothes."

At this point, I was beyond confused as to why my son needed to give clothes to these creatures. He then told me about the humiliating practice of dressing these creatures in rags and that clothes signify freedom to them. Pardon my french, but where the fuck did I send my son? What message is this supposed to teach him?

How can I as a parent request for some ethical oversight for this school? Could I even make that request since I don't have magic?? I'm even considering pulling him out of school and sending him to regular school.

[Assistant] Look man, hob goblins literally run the financial sector. It might seem like the fever dream of a racist, but this is their way of life. The elves have been broken down into a slave caste, and goblins are denied wands. *Something* mustve happened in their past, but as muggles we both lack the context. Teach your kid values when hes home, and just hope he doesn't get bullied for being magically mixed.


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

[User] ELI5:ELI5:After watching Captain Phillips, and hearing the true story that inspired it, I was left dumbfounded by the obvious question: Pirates have been a thing for nearly a millennium, why would there not be a defense plan by default?

[Assistant] There is, and it was demonstrated in the movie. Hoses, and calling for assistance. Even the best plans can fail, however. The stories that we remember, and are worth making a movie about, are when those plans *don't* work.


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

[User] [ELI5] WHy do you sometimes not feel a cut when you get it?

[Assistant]
Pain really is all in your head in a manner of speaking.

So when a body part is damaged, nerves at the site of injury send signals up to your brain where it is processed and interpreted as pain.

Normally this serves as a warning system to bring our attention to what is being injured so as to prevent it from being injured more.

However for things like very minor injuries (small cuts, bruises and so on) if the brain is already preoccupied with a task, these signals basically get ignored.

The more concentrated you are on the task the more likely you are to ignore the signals.

It's why a lot of the time we won't feel the pain until we actually see the cut, because it's only at that point our focus becomes the injury.


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

[User]
SETI: If a copy of our planet were 100 light years away, what are the chances we would have detected it?

Imagine a mirror copy of our planet was orbiting a Sol-like star some 100 light years away. Could current astronomers detect our own planet? What would we be able to deduce about our own planet from that range? Could we detect the actual planet using techniques being used to find exoplanets right now? What electromagnetic emissions would we see? What does SETI think about it?

So that we can ignore the timey-wimey relativistic components of this question, let's also say that this mirror-copy is 100 years further along into its timeline. That is to say, if we look through our telescopes at our theoretical mirror-planet, it appears to us to be modern-day, completely current Earth.

Extra Credit: What's the maximum distance from which we would be able to detect life on our planet?

[Assistant]
> Could current astronomers detect our own planet?

Almost certainly not. Same answer if it's 10 light years away.

We could only detect the planet itself with current technology if its orbit happened to be oriented just right so that it transits its sun as seen from Earth, and we happened to be watching that star with a telescope like Kepler.

It might also be possible to detect their existence if the inhabitants of that planet directed a powerful radio signal at us using their equivalent of Arecibo, and we happened to be listening in that direction with a similarly huge radio telescope at the moment it arrived.

But the chances of either of those things happening by accident are pretty close to zero.

> Extra Credit: What's the maximum distance from which we would be able to detect life on our planet?

With current technology, much less than a light year. We'd have to be within the same solar system.


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

[User]
What is happening to my body when I have a "sinking feeling?"

Whenever I see a police officer in my mirror, my heart will immediately skip a beat. I may even have temporary chest pain or a sinking feeling in my stomach. I might even start feeling warm. This is applicable to more scenarios than just this one.

What is it that is happening that creates this feeling? Is it physical, or is it all mental? Does it mean anything?

[Assistant]
It's mental *and* physical. Also: be aware that your brain *is* a part of your body, so anything that happens there is also "physical", actually.

It starts with a trigger that you get from the outside. For example you seeing the cops. Your brain recognizes this as a stress signal, as a signal of: "Oh man, trouble ahead". *Then*, your brain starts to influence the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys (via nerves) to produce adrenalin.

Here comes the physical part: Your body produces adrenalin. Your heart may or may not skip a beat, but it sure gets the signal to start beating faster and with more power. You start to breath heavier and quicker so that you'll get more oxygen in your blood. Blood goes to your head and your extremities (muscles) to make your ready for fighting or fleeing. Blood goes away from your stomach or intestines. It was there to help with digesting your food and taking up the nutrients, but right now that is not your main concern - you'll have to make do with the nutrients you've got, digestion will come later again, if you make it. In very scary situations, some people shit their pants or empty their bladder, which helps your body to become lighter and more able of running away or fighting. You start to sweat so that when your muscles will start to produce heat, they will not overheat (this will make you feel warm).

All this is there to prepare your body to fight for your life, or to run for your life. In situations where this is necessary, this automatic reaction has saved lives, and lots of them. If people are in real danger, this helps them focus, and have the strength and stamina to do what they have to do. (People afterwards often say they didn't know they were that strong). You are here, because lots and lots of your ancestors have been in dangerous situations and the fight or flight reaction saved their ass...

But if it is an inappropriate reaction, for example because you cannot fight or flee (for example *after* a car accident) or because there is nothing to fight with or flee from - this automatic reaction is rather useless. Still, we have it because of the other situations where it *is* useful.


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

[User] ELI5: how is it possible people can create things like working internet and computers in unmodded Minecraft? Also, since they can make computers, is there any limit to what they can create in Minecraft?

[Assistant] Minecraft provides the fundamental elements required to build a computer: circuits (wires), logic gates, memory and a clock, as well as mechanisms for input (programming) and output. With these basic building blocks you can theoretically simulate a functioning computer, though there are practical limits to how easy it is to build it and how fast it can process instructions.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it easier for children to learn new languages over adults?

[Assistant]
Brain plasticity.

Children's brains are more plastic than adult brains--meaning, it's easier for them to change, not that they're made out of plastic.

One of the benefits of this is that children are less set in their ways, and can learn new things more quickly. This makes sense; children spend their entire childhood learning the things they'll need for adulthood. Language is one of those things, and while a child is still in its language-learning phase, it's much easier for that child to pick up a new language than it would be for an adult to do so.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does dust affect the computer?

Additionally, why does it seem like the performance increases when I clean the dust out of my PC?

[Assistant] Dust makes the system hotter, both by directly insulating the cooling surfaces and by restricting airflow. If you remove the dust, the cooling system can run more efficiently, which lets the CPU boost its clock rate. Dust *literally* makes your system slower.


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

[User] What determines what surfaces a given pen can write on?

[Assistant] It depends on the type of pen. Ballpoint pens atleast need a surface that the ball can roll against instead of sliding over because the rotation of the ball puts down ink. The surface also has to be able to absorb or hold the ink in some way or else it would just rub off.


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

[User]
CMV: I don't see a point in having so many pronounces to choose from

I don't get why people need other pronouns when there are already they/them, she/her, he/him for them to choose from.

 As someone whose English isn't their first language it's so frustrating. I feel bad for those who already struggles to use she or he correctly now they have to be mindful and learn other pronouns? Plus some of them r hard af to say Xe/Xem, Ze/Zir... Xie/Xem. I hope English as an additional language people don't have to learn this any time soon... it just seems in inconvenient.

I don't have a problem with trans/NB people btw, it's just the pronouns, ik someone irl who uses 3 pronouns (includig Xie) and I don't see why...

Edit: just noticed title says pronounces and not pronouns*

[Assistant]
The point is to create room in our social hierarchy for people to explore themselves and the idea space of gender and gender expression, so that we can learn more about ourselves and our society an converge towards better norms in the future.

The more exotic pronouns are never going to be mainstream, they're never going to be adopted by more than .00001% of the population, mostly tens exploring their identities and activists/artists exploring the bounds of our culture and social expression.

Theoretical physicists need equations and models that deal with 12 spatial dimensions when considering the most in-depth questions of their field and the nature of the universe, but the average person will never really need to think in  more than 3 dimensions at a time.  The fact that the average person only needs   dimensions doesn't mean we should abolish all higher-dimension equations that theoretical  physicists want to use, and the fact that they are using them doesn't inconvenience or invalidate the experiences of normal people.

Similarly, that .000001% of people who are exploring the outer boundaries of self-expression and cultural norms need the flexibility to try out new constructs an ideas, and attaching these new ideas to the established framework of pronouns is a necessary step, like attaching the idea of higher-level dimension to established mathematics and equations.

In their hands, these are useful exploratory tools, and the fact that average people will never need them  doesn't mean they should be taken away form the explorers who do.  Nor does the use of these exotic terms by the explorers invalidate or impinge on the experiences and needs of average people.


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

[User] How do paleontologists distinguish between a new species and a rare/unique mutation when discovering remains?

[Assistant] They try through certain specialities who differ from species to species. But: They still do a lot of mistakes. When you get a bit into it you will see how often fossils were missinterpreted, 1 species named twice or noticing one fossil, which was thought to be a different species, is the juvenile state of another one.


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

[User]
If a superconductor has 0 resistance, will a current not cause the superconductor to heat up?

I'm thinking about how if you have a very high current going through a small wire, the wire heats up and starts to glow orange, but if a superconductor has no resistance, then none of the energy is lost, so no heat would be produced, right? Or am I missing something?

[Assistant] With small currents, no heat would be produced. In fact, in a superconductor, you can have a loop of wire with no battery in it but with current flowing. However, there is a maximum current at which materials cease to be superconducting, which would cause energy to be lost to heat at large currents.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] What is the common factor with all pokemon that allows them to be captured in pokeballs?

I mean if I throw a pokeballs at someone it will bounce off correct? Same if I do the same to a cat or dog. Is it something genetic? And how was it discovered?

[Assistant]
Pokemon, when evolving turn into glowing energy and change their shape. Also, many pokemon can shoot and use some sort of energy blasts (or other supernatural forces).

It stands to reason that something about the physics of pokemons bodies is energy and pokeballs (and the apricorns that pokeballs are based on) can cause pokemon to revert to energy form.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Do we know how far back the Weasley family line goes?

Both Voldemort and Harry can trace their lineage back to one of the Peverel brothers is their a concurrent Weasley ancestor we know of?

[Assistant]
Looked it up, Arthur's mother was a Black. There is some indication that his father Septimius was a seventh son and there is a very small indication that he may have been a branch member of the malfoy family (only that there were two characters that had the same name and were contemporary, the one related to malfoy one has no information about him and no listed direct descendants and the weasley one was married to a black)

This would explain why the malfoys dislike the weasleys so much, they are a rebel family line.


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

[User]
Can two separate events happen at the EXACT SAME time? [i.e. two raindrops hit the ground]

My family has always argued over this issue, it's one of our dinner table topics. My brother and I think it is possible. My Dad and one of my other brothers think that if you were to slow down time infinitely, eventually you would witness one happening before the other.

[Assistant] The funny thing about simultaneity in light of special relativity is that if two events seem to occur at the same time in one frame of reference, you can go to another frame where one occurs before the other or vice versa.


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

[User] [Rick and Morty] Why did Rick freaked out when he saw the cob particles?

[Assistant] We absorb matter to replace the matter lost from decay and add it to ourselves. If they were to stay on that planet they would have eventually replaced all of the particles in their body with corn, thus turning into corn themselves.


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

[User]
ELI5:What makes certain wine unbelievably expensive?

So like, why do some wines, made in recent years, sell for over $10,000 but wines made from vineyards just down the road, which experienced near identical weather conditions, sell for less than $50.

Is it entirely down to the manufacturing process, and if it is, how can the price gap be so wide? Or is it more down to the name a vineyard has.

If anyone actually has any experience working in a vineyard and can explain the process better than wikipedia, that'd be swell.

[Assistant]
The price gap is supply and demand, for certain prestigious brands.

So first of all, wine comes from grapes; and grape quality is dependent on many factors. Weather of course, but also soil, water, light, heat, and grower skill/decisions. AND of course, the actual grape vine.

Old vines produce less fruit - thus, smaller production, BUT generally more concentrated and intense. Younger vines produce more fruit, but you have to prune them - the amount of pruning affects the concentration and quality of the juice you get. If your options are 'n' cases of wine at $60/case (wholesale) or 'n/3' cases at $120, you're probably going to prune sparingly to get as much juice and wine as possible, without creating garbage. On the other hand, if you can make truly great wine and have a name for yourself, then the options are 'n/3' cases at $1000, or 'n' cases at $1000 - for a year or two, and then the price per case drops down to $100 because nobody trusts you anymore.

Then you factor in the slope of your land and composition of the soil (acidity, water retention or runoff), the light, the use of pesticides, mulch, etc..

So now you have some amount of good-quality grapes. How do you make wine? Do you make wine that's going to mature over 10-50 years, or wine that's going to be drinkable about the time it hits the market, late next year (like about 90% of the wine sold)? The former leads to more expensive wine, and is harder to sell - BUT if done well, can establish you over time as a top-notch winemaker. Or drive you into bankruptcy even sooner.

So this pretty much determines the pricing for most wines between $8 and $80. Above that, things get...complicated.

If you're in Bordeaux for instance, your vinyard is likely ranked by the government. Your wine has to meet certain standards of quality and composition, and much of it is historical. There are, for instance, only five first-growth houses, and only one of them was not defined as such in 1855. (Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, which got promoted in 1973). If you're one off those, or one of a limited few others who have a similar cachet, you can pretty much name your price. The thing is, most of their wine is sold on futures at auction, so basically it's "as much as someone is willing to pay."


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

[User]
[Marvel] Who is the more disliked amongst superheroes: Deadpool or The Punisher?

Superheroes, especially those with higher morals, appear to seriously dislike The Punisher and Deadpool. However, out of the two, who is the more disliked -- and is the other actually liked at all?

[Assistant]
Easily the Punisher.  Deadpool is actually liked by SOME (albeit few) heroes.  Domino typically likes him, Cable grew to like him, Captain America recognizes the pain Deadpool's been through so while not seeking out his company he feels bad for him instead of hating him, Spider-Man kind of likes him, members of X-Force didn't hate him much, even Black Panther sees value in Deadpool.

The Punisher is actively despised by most heroes and is regarded mostly as a villain by them. Very few will be ok with him.  Moon Knight likes him, and Daredevil can put up with him. Captain America strongly disapproves of him, Iron Man hates him, Spider-Man doesn't like him.


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

[User]
Eli5 Why is it so easy for us to tell the difference between a real voice and a recording of a voice?

For example, how do our ears easily discern that someone talking in a room is actually there vs the dialogue coming from a television is not physically there?

[Assistant]
The speakers on your TV arent expensive and dynamic enough to perfectly replicate the complexities of a human voice - the sound wave is flattened and compressed with a lot of the peaks and valleys and low bass removed or simplified.

If you had really good recording equipment and really good speakers you could absolutely fool the ear, but the little one-inch speakers and shitty mixing software on a tv cant do it.


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

[User] [MCU] If Ego's fungus growth thing had grown across the Earth, would the Eternals and/or Arishem have been intervened?

[Assistant]
The Eternals? Possibly. The problem is that they don't have instant communication or transportation, so assembling the full set of Eternals would have been difficult, and given the rate of expansion, it probably would have happened too fast for them to be able to intervene effectively.

So, basically, we'd have an ineffective round of defense by the Eternals all acting individually, who would have lost, Ego would have suffocated the planet.

Arishem? He'd get around to it eventually, but the Celestials operate on such grand timescales that it's possible that he'd show up again years later to check on how Earth is doing and go "Aww crap, Ego. Wasn't someone supposed to take care of that guy?"


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

[User] ELI5: Why are European curbs 3-5 centimeters tall (and don't destroy tires) while American curbs are 6 inches (15 centimeters) tall and shred tire sidewalls.

[Assistant]
American curbs are there to protect pedestrians, protect drivers from driving off the road, protect landscaping beyond the curb, to retain and direct storm water in the road. The height is just easier to use in a design phase due to it being 0.50 feet rather than 0.33.

Curbs 3-5 centimeters are tripping hazards, not ADA compliant and serve little purpose from a storm water standpoint.


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

[User] Does a Jedi feel any resistance when their lightsaber cuts through matter, or does it feel the same as cutting through air?

[Assistant] Yes, the denser the material, the more resistance it offers. A wrist consisting of flesh and bone offers almost none, but a durasteel bulkhead or blast door would offer considerably more. There are even some materials that are so lightsaber resistant that they can stop multiple blows, Mandalorian iron being one example.


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

[User]
[LOTR] What would happen if a human stowed onboard a ship headed to Valinor?

Would the elves still be able to get there?

[Assistant]
Sure, the elves could still go. A human on Valinor doesn't really break it. Humans just either wither or become monsters.

In the *Akkalabeth* it is written

> And were you so to voyage that escaping all deceits and snares you came indeed to Aman, the Blessed Realm, little would it profit you. For it is not the land of Manw that makes its people deathless, but the Deathless that dwell therein have hallowed the land; and there you would but wither and grow weary the sooner, as moths in a light too strong and steadfast.

and in *Morgoth's Ring* it says

> ... or else the fa would in loathing and without pity desert the hra, and it would live on, a witless body, not even a beast but a monster, a very work of Melkor in the midst of Aman, which the Valar themselves would fain destroy...


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

[User] Eli5 what is a liminal space?

[Assistant] Generally speaking, it's an area that is used to get between two destinations. Think, hallways, atriums, etc. Not destinations in and of themselves (nobody's ever going to the hallway, they're using the hallway to get somewhere), but places you need to go in order to get where you're really going.


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

[User]
ELI5 how Thorium reactors are cleaner than regular Uranium reactors

The way I see it Thorium reactors only works because it decays into U-233 after throwing neutrons at Th-232. Thorium in itself doesn't have enough fissile material to power itself either. Then what is so great about U-233 compared to U-235/U-238? The merit of U-233 must be in its waste, right? How do we know which materials come out of each reaction and in which quantity, or is that trial and error? I know for example Pl-239 has a half life of like 15000 years. Can we not hypothetically throw neutrons at the waste until it transforms into an isotope with a shorter half life?

(yes yes, many questions, don't need to answer all literally, I just want to understand the process in general I suppose. Don't have a chemistry background but I can sort of follow some jargon)

[Assistant]
Thorium reactor waste has shorter-lived isotopes, there's a lot more Th-232 around than U-235 since it's stable and making a nuclear bomb is harder from the isotopes in thorium cycle.

> Can we not hypothetically throw neutrons at the waste until it transforms into an isotope with a shorter half life?

No, because throwing neutrons in will also result stable atoms to turn to radioactive isotopes at the same time.


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

[User]
[Silent Hill] basically those that go through it will supposedly come out better by confronting their worst fear..or is it? wont it just give them PTSD instead?

whats your take on it? lets just say you have to go through it? will you come out a better man or a wreck...?

[Assistant] who says silent hill wants to help anyone? Just because some people make it out better people doesn't make the place good. Frankly the whole cult thing kind of implies that something like hell is leaking out into reality and just because you can beat it doesn't make it a good thing.


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

[User]
We've cloned sheep. We've cloned a lot of mice. Some folks want to clone mammoths. How hard is it to clone a tree?

I was reading recently about a species of mahogany that yielded the finest furniture ever made--so fine, in fact, that it went extinct from over-use. With all the recent talk about resurrecting the mammoth, it struck me that bringing back a species of tree, a much simpler organism which has many close extant relatives and a large amount of genetic material available (largely in the form of chairs) seems like it'd be relatively easy. Are there any impediments to cloning plants the way we'd clone animals?

EDIT:

I realize that it's very easy to clone plants by their own mechanisms, and that that's how many food crops are grown. Obviously, this wouldn't work with long-dead wood.

[Assistant]
Plants are easy to clone. You just take a cutting of it, shove it in the ground, and boom, clone. Cloning from straight DNA in plants is vastly harder.

Plants are NOT simple organisms, no matter how boring they look. They are just as complex as humans in just about every metric you pick - genome size, number of genes, specialization of cells, etc. In fact, plants can have extremely complex and confusing genetic makeups - redwoods, for instance, have 6 sets of chromosomes, compared to our two.

Further, molecular biology with plants is incredibly difficult. Aside from having complicated genomes, they have big thick cell walls that make a lot of standard techniques difficult. Cloning in animal cells is done by ripping the nucleus out of an egg, and adding the nucleus from a target cell. The very tiny surgery required to do this is a lot harder when you have to deal with a rigid layer of cellulose.

The only reason we've made more progress in genetically engineering plants is because nobody cares if you kill them. Kill one measly human and everyone's all human rights this and mad scientist that.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is Spaghetti Code?

Just for a bit of clarity, I play League of Legends which is criticized by the community for its "spaghetti code" and I have no idea what that means.

[Assistant]
Have you ever read (or tried to read) a post where they OP wrote 1000 words of text but didn't use any punctuation or linebreaks?  And their spelling and capitalization were bad?  And they used text-speak?

Sure, you could read it 10 times and kind of - but not completely - understand what they meant.  But you could also have rewritten their post in half as many words, thrown in some whitespace and punctuation and made it much easier to read and understand?

That's what spaghetti code is.  It's code that works, but is horribly written, so it takes much longer to read than it really should.  Remember, code isn't just for computers - other coders have to be able to read it and understand it too.  Spaghetti code is much harder to maintain and fix bugs in that well written and organized code.


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

[User]
Why is it that "continental" philosophers are still highly popular and influential in Anglophone social science, despite mostly not being especially well-liked by most philosophers in the same region?

In a lot of social science stuff I read in English, I tend to see a lot of philosophers typically considered to be "continental" (if that's still an intelligible category any more) referenced and drawn from, especially Butler, Foucault, Marx, etc. It seems very unusual to me, considering that so many American and British philosophers ("analytic philosophers", if you want to call them that), tend to either be dismissive of or even outright hostile to them. Why is it that social scientists tend to draw from those continental sources rather than the dominant philosophical attitudes of their own regions?

[Assistant] While the generalization is unfair to the interesting work being done which contradicts it, it seems to me that if you look at at least the big names in analytic (logical positivists through the post-positivists) and continental (phenomenology through the post-structuralists, perhaps also the Frankfurt school) philosophy, there has tended to be more contact with the natural sciences in analytic philosophy and more contact with the human/social sciences in continental philosophy.  If this is true, then the prevalence of continental philosophy in the theory of the social sciences isn't that unexpected.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Was the Emperor's original plan for the Golden Throne ever going to actually work?

As far as I know, his plan was something along the lines of "make giant chair into gateway for FTL travel powered by ridiculously powerful psyker". Given that the only person who could fit that role would have been either him (which wouldn't have happened because he would be needed for other things apart from sitting on a chair all day) or Magnus, it's highly probable that he intended for Magnus to power it for the rest of eternity. Would Magnus have ever actually agreed to this? Serving your beloved father in galactic conquest is one thing, but going from that to literally sitting on a chair for the rest of your near-immortal life is another thing entirely. Did the Emperor ever truly expect that Magnus would go along with his plan? And if not, what was his plan B?

[Assistant]
The Golden Throne being an actual throne is basically a jury-rigged function set up by the Custodes and Mechanicus to keep the Emperor alive after the Horus Heresy. The original purpose was for it to act as a gate into a human-built Webway. The original Webway is a tech of the Old Ones, and in their absence it's been slowly decaying into the maze of awful it's become. The current Webway is still far safer than using the chaotic Warp to travel, and doesn't seem to require power or psykers to keep itself around.

The human-made Webway would have been a tech like the original Webway: Instant FTL across the galaxy without the threat of Chaos, no need for the Astronomican, and the galaxy-wide unification of a powerful and just Empire. Nobody would've needed to sit the Throne to keep it going, and the Throne as a place to sit was an emergency measure.


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

[User]
CMV: Companies are not people, and shouldn't be given the same rights nor be taxed as such

I think that companies are (quite obviously) not people, and should not be treated as people. I think that it is wrong for a corporation's money to be used as political leverage, simply because a companies agenda is inherently competitive, and not inherently cooperative, such as the government, a civil body, should be. Because of this I think that corporate personhood should be aboloshed, and a for-profit corporation should not be allowed to put funds towards public policy, as their interests may not align with those of the public. Accordingly, corporations are not people whom need to pay money (in the form of taxes) to keep the government running, as this is the duty of the citizenry. Big companies find ways to avoid taxes while the small companies pay plenty and don't have the resources to find tax loopholes, so it's not really fair how it is.

[Assistant]
Being treated as a person sometimes has its downsides too - for example, people can be held liable to pay various costs associated with their actions (fines for breaking laws, for example).

Similarly, we might want to treat companies as people in cases where doing so makes it more straightforward to hold those companies responsible for things (like causing pollution, for example).


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

[User]
[LOTR] why did thorin (and his grandfather) expect the elves to fight against smaug in the first place? Why is Gimli still salty about this 60 years later?

Forgive me is this was answered in the text. I haven't read LOTR or the hobbit in years but recently watched the movies again.

Elves are immortal, provided they aren't killed. I don't understand why thorin and his grandfather expect them go basically fight to their deaths against a dragon? What exactly did they owe them? It's not like mirkwood is some huge fortress. Presumably there aren't that many eleves, why would they ever want to DIE for dwarves greed? Especially when the grandfather was crazy (and the rest of the dwarves knew this!!) did they have some treaty? Did they agree to fight for each other? I don't recall erabor fighting for the mirkwood elves at any point. (I could be wrong)

Eventually thranduil and his army fight against the orcs and help save the day. Even if reluctantly. Elves still died who would have lived forever. Why the hell is Gimli still salty about the original "slight" when it's been more than made up for? I guess imprisoning them, but it's not like they were tortured. They would have died in the forest anyway so in actuality the elves saved their lives.

[Assistant]
> Forgive me is this was answered in the text.

In the text, no one expected the elves to fight Smaug. Nor were the elf/dwarf disagreements in The Hobbit the first or worst conflict between elves and dwarves.

In the movies, presumably there was some sort of treaty with the elves (though it's never explained clearly), and possibly other conflicts for Gimli to be mad about in LotR.


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

[User]
[Marvel/MCU] What is the most minor thing the gauntlet could do that would require all six infinity stones?

For example, if I want to make time flow 1% slower, or punch really hard once, or jump in the air, or create a refreshing cup of tea, it would only tap into one (or maybe two) of the stones.

What's the most trivial task (relatively speaking) that would tap into all six stones?

[Assistant] Clone an extinct creature that we have no existing records of. You'd use Space, Time, and Mind to search the globe in the past for people who were around this extinct creature pre-history and peer into their minds to view it. Reality to create a new body for it. Soul to bring it to life. Power to make sure all of the other stones reach their full potential.


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

[User]
CMV: Fame, money, and power negatively impacts a person's personality.

I believe that fame, money, and power have effects on people which make them full of themselves, often more worried about what others actually think of them (despite various publicity stunts), and generally less likeable as individuals.

And I don't think you need to be a pop star, a billionaire, or the President for the negative factors to start having a negative impact on people.  I think even more modest amounts of fame, money, and power often goes to people's heads and makes them less pleasant overall.

At the same time, and contributing to the problem, is the culture of celebrity worship and cronyism which serves to keep people propped up even after fame, money, and power have had major impacts on a person's personality and worldview.  Additionally, it's hard to get around the cult of personality surrounding these people because of both the public's appreciation for past successes and because famous, wealthy, and powerful people often tend to appeal the lowest common denominator or the lowest common denominator of a particular subgroup.  So, for example, a rock star might be more inclined to make more formulaic and bland music to maintain their success --- thereby still getting appreciation for their earlier work but also earning new fans who like them because they are now much more generally palatable.  Similarly, a politician might tend to move away from their original values as they attain more power so that they continue achieving power --- even as their moral and political compass has changed their goals.  But the public still backs them because they once presented good ideas and now they are presenting their bland new ideas in slick packaging for the voting public to consume.  And in terms of wealth... I think people tend to increasingly become more materialistic even as they put on displays of using their wealth in positive ways.

Now I'm not saying their aren't the occassional exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking, and overwhelmingly, I believe that me, money, and power negatively impacts a person's personality.  So you can provide anecdotal evidence of this person still seeming to be the same old guy who never forgot where he came from or whatever, but even then I'd say that's either rare or that the person has actually changed for the worse in ways that aren't readily acknowledged.

Generally speaking, but overwhelmingly, in most cases, I believe this to be true.

[Assistant]
There seems to be a massive potential for confirmation bias in this view. Namely, the people who have fame, money and/or power and are negatively impacted are far more likely to be noticed.

A celebrity who has fame and deals with it but keeps their private life to themselves and doesn't go out of their way to flaunt fame is naturally going to be on your radar less than someone constantly doing things that draw attention.

A rich person who doesn't flaunt their wealth; who drives a normal car, owns a normal house, etc, would likely never even be known as rich to anyone who didn't ask. Lots of rich people are also extremely philanthropic. Hell, time and money can even make people seem better than they were. Bill Gates was not seen positively (As a person) when Microsoft was growing. Nowadays? He is hugely popular because of his charity.

A person who gains power and uses it to make positive change in line with their role is going to be pretty unremarkable from the outside. A corrupt politician will have scandal after scandal. A beneficial bill might get a couple of days of coverage, on average. A major scandal can develop over weeks or months.


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

[User] if atoms and particles have "rest mass" or "rest mass energy" when they're moving is their mass different? how does the higgs field relate to rest mass?

[Assistant]
People used to define masses which change based on how the object is moving, but they are ugly and generally an unnecessary concept. These days "mass" and "rest mass" mean the exact same thing. Rest energy is just rest mass times c^(2).

The Higgs mechanism gives certain particles some of their (rest) masses in the standard model of particle physics.


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

[User]
ELI5: How the system of Checks and Balances works in the USA, is the president ultimately powerless?

As a Canadian I want to learn more.

[Assistant]
No, the President is not ultimately powerless.  The idea of checks and balances is that power is divided so that each branch of government is pitted against each other.

For example, Congress writes the laws, but the President can veto them.  The President can carry out and interpret the laws, but only in the context of what Congress lets him.  The President is the Commander in Chief of the military, but only Congress can fund military operations or declare war.  The President appoints judges, but the Senate has to approve and the judges then serve for life with the power to determine what laws are constitutional or not, so they don't have to bend to the President's will.

The ultimate idea is that the branches are designed to fight each other, meaning that only something good ultimately survives because it survived all the checks and balances.


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

[User] [DC] [DBZ] What if baby Kal-El's and Kakarot's pods pass into black holes simultaneously and pop out in each other's universes, with the Grandpa Gohan and the Kents raising them respectively?

[Assistant]
Depends on if goku hits his head or not, if he doesnt well then he will do as most sayians babies do and try to take over the planet. Due to the high number of superpowered people there, and the lack of people to teach him ki, he wont get very far. If he hits his head and becomes good, the kents will raise him to be a good boy, and avoid fighting, so he wont get much training done and just go on to be a moderate powerful dude with your standard superstright and durability that maybe becomes a superhero. He wont have his normal drive to always become stronger, so he will probably just stay on something like city tier for a while unless he gets some zenkis.

Superman, however, as soon as his powers start to kick in, he will quickly be the most powerful being on earth, and all of db's villians and most of the early dbz villians will quickly lose to him, but since his powers cant increse like gokus, he will sooner or later be left behind, barring momentarily using sundipping. Due to his own powers, he wont really have a reason to learn that much of ki. He will learn a bit from gohan and roshi, and due to being raised by them he will be much more about fighting than he ususally is, but since he will eaisly be the most powerful dude around he will probably not train much, and wont learn much about ki except what he learned as a child before his powers kicked in. its possible that when he starts to fall behind the villians that appear, that he starts to train with ki again to catch up, but then he will be very far behind the others, and will have trouble catching up. And that is if he survives his first fight with the villian more powerful than him. If that is freeza, he wont survive. If that is cell, he might survive, cell was rather bad at finish off people. Buu i dont know much about. (im not gonna arguge which villian will defeat superman, but i think is how they would react if they did)


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

[User]
ELI5: What's going on in Syria?

I've had others try and explain this to me, but not well, and I feel like it's pretty fucked up how little I know about such a massive issue. So please: wtf is going on in Syria?

[Assistant]
The country has been ruled for decades by a military dictatorship run by a minority Islamic sect, the Alawites. Up until fairly recently, they've been brutal and repressive, but not especially incompetent. One of their chief advantages is that the substantial Christian minorities of Syria have backed them, because they feel that if a regime representing the large Sunni Muslim majority takes over, the Christians are going to become oppressed the way they are in Egypt. Also, the regime receives substantial support from Shi'ite Iran, who wants to counterbalance the Sunni regimes in the rest of the Middle East, and from China and especially Russia, for various geopolitical reasons.

Dictator Hafez al-Asad died in 2000. The son who was the heir apparent was killed in a car crash, so second son and weak-chinned douchebag Bashshar, who went to medical school in London, is given the job. For most of the 2000s, he tries to implement some gradual and mostly token reforms.

Fast-forward to 2011 Arab Spring protests. Syrian government badly overreacts to these, killing protestors in ways guaranteed to inflame the mushy middle. They're especially bad toward journalists, and Sunni-run Al Jazeera takes great glee in endlessly replaying shitty cell-phone videos of Syrian troops doing awful things to first civilian protestors, then rebel soldiers. Country's Internet is cut off. Hundreds of thousands flee, mostly to Turkey, who for historical reasons doesn't much care for the Syrian regime.

Now the rebel armies show up. They're made up of civilians who've just had enough, Syrian defectors, and jihadists [not many at all at first, but significantly more as time has passed] from the worst corners of the world. At first, they're all about liberalizing and freeing Syria; soon, they become all about jihad and imposing Salafist (ie, Muslim fundamentalist) ideas on the country. Many Christians and urban liberals begin to have second thoughts, but it's too late. The regime troops have no qualms at all about killing non-combatants, and the rebels none about summarily executing anyone suspected of collaborating with the regime.

The country has been effectively destroyed by the fighting. Asad is losing, but slowly, and he's going down fighting. US intervention is problematic because a) Syria is much more heavily armed, especially with air defenses, than Libya was; b) it's not like the rebels are really the good guys either; c) Syria's state sponsors, specifically Iran and Russia, will make way more trouble than anyone would have about Libya, where everyone realized Qadhdhafi was an evil nutcase who had no friends. Oh, and d) Syria has no oil and Libya has shitloads.

So expect a horrifying, entrenched civil war to continue on for another year or two until the rebels get lucky and take out Asad. Then expect years of sectarian turmoil as anyone not willing to bow to Salafism gets killed or exiled. Then another military dictatorship, this time with extra added k-k-k-krazy fundamentalist Islam.

Nothing good will come of it for at least 20 years.

Edited to add the bracketed material for clarification.


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

[User]
From the post yesterday; If someone stabbed a needle that had HIV or AIDS into raw meat, and then I cooked it, would it be sanitary?

I looked at the post about walmart meat getting recalled because someone jabbed it with a needle. So I am curious ... would cooking it and eating it still be okay?

[Assistant] HIV is hard to contract without it being intravenous or sexually transmitted. The virus can't survive long outside a live human, and your stomach acid would almost certainly destroy it, even if the heat of cooking didn't. There's a chance, sure. If you had some sort of wound in your mouth, say you bit your lip really bad; you could get it. Maybe.


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

[User] [DC] Why do criminals fear batman(more than law enforcement) although he cant kill them?

[Assistant]
It's not about Batman not killing the criminals, is about the criminals not being able to kill Batman.
A cop you can shoot, or fight, or whatever.  You can run from a cop and get away.
This crazy dude in the bat suit? Shooting doesn't work.  Fighting just gets you hurt.  You can't run fast or far enough to get away.  If you catch his attention, your day is ruined, no two ways about it.


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

[User]
Is this statistically true? If the odds of winning a lottery are 400 million to 1 and you buy two tickets, you cut the odds to 200 million to 1?

*With DIFFERENT numbers on each ticket.

[Assistant]
If you specifically choose to buy tickets with different numbers then yes, it is. However, you're presumably spending twice as much money on them as well, so it doesn't make it any better an investment.

If you buy two tickets with the same numbers you won't change the probability that you win.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What's the mechanism that Jedis use to block laser shots?

In the shows, the Jedis are usually holding the lightsaber mostly upright and waving it left and right. Some fancy twirls thrown in. This makes me think that they can see faster than normal, figure out trajectory and move the lightsaber to block it. Similar to the Matrix agents.

But then in Rogue One, Donnie Yen is dodging them even though he's blind. So are they actually using the force to change the laser trajectory? We've seen Kylo Ren catch one in midair.

Any concrete in-Canon explanations?

[Assistant]
The Jedi can feel where the blaster bolts will go, because the force tells them. Sort of like instinct but more powerful.

Chirrut isnt technically force sensitive like a Jedi but he can feel it through focus so he does have some limited sense of it.


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

[User]
When people say the universe is expanding do they mean empty space is being created or the actual "fabric of space time" is expanding?

I mean like is everything becoming larger?

[Assistant]
If everything was getting bigger, we wouldn't be able to tell that anything was happening!

Space is stretching but objects are not.

Objects are pulled along by the stretch, but they are only pulled *apart* if they are not stuck together by sticky forces such as gravity or electromagnetism.


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

[User]
[General] How do zombies end up in hordes?

In most media, zombies don't have complex thinking, or any thinking at all really, so how do they end up in such large groups?

[Assistant] Zombies are attracted to noises and movement.  If a zombie sees a zombie they will go near the other zombie and once they are close enough they will be like, oh, not human to eat, and then they'll stumble around, being attracted in the same direction because they run the same way.  That is to say, if two zombies are standing next to each other, they will move in whatever direction most grabs their attention.  Whichever one sees the thing first will go in that direction, the other will follow because thats now where things are happening, and perhaps food can be found.


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

[User]
[Supernatural] All the angels who were cast from Heaven lost their wings in the fall. What about the angels on Earth at the time? Do they keep their wings?

We know the ones that fell still have grace, so the ones on the ground obviously shouldn't have been affected by the fall, and certainly less so in losing their wings.

[Assistant]
The fall was more than a literal fall (although most did literally fall), it was about being cut off from all the power of heaven.

Falling from heaven/the sky, couldn't actually hurt an angel but being cut off from heaven can do some serious spiritual damage (as shown) to an angel.

If angels had kept their wings from being on Earth then they would have been irreplacably valuable and would have been showcased by either side at some point.


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

[User] Do animals such as wolves, lions, tigers, dogs, etc do they have a strictly protein diet? Because on the Discovery Channel it seems like that's all they eat.

[Assistant] One slight correction, purely carnivorous isn't pure protein. They eat as much fat as they can as well, for example, grizzly bears (a true omnivore) may eat only the skin and heads of salmon when they are plentiful, because those are the most fatty.


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

[User]
Why doesn't wet stuff burn well?

I understand why pouring water directly on fire puts it out... but why can we put fire directly on a wet log and the water keeps it from burning?

[Assistant] The combustion reaction requires oxygen to happen. Water blocks it from happening and seeps into pores of the wood that would be stimulating the fire. The water needs to evaporate away for the wood to be combustible.


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

[User] Is it possible to build up enough static electricity to seriously harm yourself?

[Assistant]
Lightning is an example of static electricity which can harm you, but it is built up by systems much larger than your body is capable of replicating. If you were to try to build up enough static electricity by doing something like shuffling wool socks against carpet, your feet would melt off long before you could build up a charge strong enough to cause anything more than a superficial dermal burn.

And this is assuming that you are a closed system. As you built up enough of a charge to harm yourself, you are constantly losing that charge to the water particles in the air around you, or to the ground through your socks.

It would be nearly impossible to build up a charge great enough to kill you.


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

[User] [The Matrix] Why did the machines base their simulation on a time in history when humans understood technology, computer hacking and programming when this specific kind of knowledge could be used against them? Why not use an earlier era where none of these risk factors existed?

[Assistant] Because they wanted to give the people the best world possible. They modeled the simulation after the height or human society, witch was as close to paradise as they could get before everyone started rejecting it.


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

[User] [Death Note] Despite being power hungry, why doesnt Light try to play politics? For example, The congressman of this district will pass a bill and then die in 23 days

[Assistant]
In a way, Light was playing politics - but he wanted to give the impression that Kira transcended petty mortal concerns, and was some sort of infallible, ethereal god of Death

Rather than throwing his weight behind existing world governments, which he and his supporters evidently had little respect for, he wanted to build a transnational religious movement that would eventually cow world governments into submission

Its smart, in a way - rather than risking being held responsible for things like infrastructure, healthcare, education, defence etc. he can laser focus on his area of expertise, killing helpless people that society already reviles, and have enormous power without responsibility or accountability

It also prevents massive retaliation for his actions - if he had graduated from killing criminals to taking on the really big bad guys like dictators, war criminal generals, corrupt presidents and senators etc. he would provoke an extreme response from the power elite which could doom him.

He was worried about just 12 FBI agents roaming around looking for him. Its plausible that if he pushed things too far and went after world leaders, one of the nations would become desperate enough to launch salvoes of thermonuclear warhead at his region of Japan to try and take him out, or conquer Japan and try to genocide anyone that fit Ls description of him while the rest of the world sits back and watches and quietly cheer them on. Or they could simply give L access to an absolutely obscene amount of money, resources and manpower, even more than he already had, as well as pressuring Japan to grant L unlimited dictatorial power over the country.


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

[User] eli5 - why is cast metal weaker than forged metal?

[Assistant] Cast iron forms large crystals as it cools. The large crystals are strong within themselves, but weakly bound to each other by the intervening matrix, making cast iron brittle. Repeatedly heating and working the metal breaks up the large crystals into smaller ones, and improves the binding matrix between the crystals. Careful heat management during cooling (by quenching, annealing and insulation) provides additional control over crystal formation and matrix, giving forged iron much more strength and the ability to take an edge.


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

[User]
[Shang-Chi, MCU & Marvel Comics] Spoilers (maybe): Ten Rings through History

It's not 100% clear in the film, but based on the opening showdown (Wenwu vs some Central Asian or Turkic citadel) and a throwaway line (something something >!["they've known me by many names" something "the great Khan"]!< something)... are we to understand that >![Shang-Chi's dad is actually Genghis Khan]!<?

And if not, then which Khan was he? Is he Mongolian and not Chinese? How did he get called "Khan"?

Did the comics ever address this?

[Assistant]
In the comics, originally, Shang-Chis dad was Fu Manchu which has been retired for being racist AF. Manchu was an immortal sorcerer in the 616. Manchu has also been renamed Zheng Zu to be less fraught. He was born in the 18th century, so was not a Khan from the Mongolia.

Completely separate character from the Iron Man villain The Mandarin, who discovered the ten rings in an alien ship, and broke bad. Very different ten rings, at that.

Xu Wenwu may have been Kublai Khan. Or it may have just been a title. Genghis was not the birth name and was a title. Temujin was the birth name of the man who would become Genghis Khan.


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

[User]
[Jurassic park] was the raptor enclosure the final place for the raptors?

Watching the movie it seems like the enclosure is only meant to be temporary, i think this because it seems both too small for the animals for a permanent home and would offer very little chance for the public to see the dinosaurs (if the park had opened as planned)

[Assistant] The raptor enclosure was indeed temporary.  It was not meant to be a permanent habitat for the raptors, and it was not designed to allow visitors to view the animals.  It was a stop-gap measure, to have a place to hold the raptors, while park management figured out what to do with them (Muldoon wanted to destroy them, while Hammond wanted to preserve them).


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

[User]
What causes the "Green Flash" as the sun sets over the ocean?

My friend and I saw a video of the legendary green flash and were trying to figure it out. The best we could figure was that as the sun sets behind the water light travels through the blue ocean and the light appears green. Have any studies been done as to what the cause is?

[Assistant] The underlying physical phenomenon is atmospheric refraction which separates the colors of sunlight (similar to a prism).  The ocean has nothing to do with it and green flashes can occur over land.  However, because the key requirements are 1) clear air and 2) a long distance from observer to horizon, people mostly see them over the ocean.


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

[User]
Which philosophers have submitted a big theory, only to later abandon it and argue against it?

The only one I can thing of is Wittgenstein.

[Assistant] Putnam, again, and again, and again. See for his instance his early, middle, and later thoughts about functionalism (respectively, he advocated functionalism originally, later rejected it, and has come again to adopt a tempered version of it) and his early, middle, and later views about metaphysical realism (he advocated it originally, rejected it in favor of internal realism, and then adopted a pragmatist direct realism afterwards), for a representative example. Putnam is somewhat notorious for being his own biggest critic at times.


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

[User]
[DC] Have Tomar-Re and Superman ever met each other? How awkward was that?

I heard that Tomar-Re was assigned to stop Krypton from blowing up (I don't know if he was the Green Lantern of that sector), but couldn't. Superman carries the El coat of arms on his chest, and I'm considering that Tomar-Re can recognize that symbol.

[Assistant]
They've met. Tomar-Re recognized Superman (bear in mind that on Earth-1 and Earth-2, the S-shield wasn't the symbol of the House of El or Hope, just an S for 'Super'.) because the Guardians told him what would happen to the baby that escaped Krypton and how he'd grow up, and introduced himself, but Superman didn't know who he was and Tomar-Re didn't elaborate.

Tomar-Re feels that the good Superman's done, the good that he *wouldn't* have done without Tomar-Re's failure, outweighs the stain on his record for failing to save Krypton.


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

[User] ELI5: If trains use diesel engines as a generator to then power electric motors, why don't cargo ships do the same?

[Assistant]
Because trains have to go on land.

Trains operate at anywhere from 1mph in the yards to 60+mph out in the midwest. They have to climb up hills, go round turns, go back down hills, etc. and all this means different amounts of energy are required.

Problem is, diesels - especially big ones - have one RPM where they're most efficient (producing the most mechanical energy for a given amount of fuel). That's why trains have electric motors - they are just about the same efficiency at any speed, and this allows the diesels to run the generators that power them at their one most efficient RPM.

The downside is that any time you transform energy, whether it be mechanically (through a gear) or otherwise (going from mechanical energy to electrical energy), you lose some. Always. It's one of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics.

Ships, on the other hand, just chug away in an endlessly flat ocean for up to 99% of their journey with no change in direction or speed. This means they can set their big diesel at its most efficient RPM and just let 'er rip. This is more efficient because the energy doesn't change as much between the fuel and the propeller. On really big ships, there isn't even a gearbox - the propeller is directly connected! They use smaller electric motors to maneuver in port, or use tugboats.


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

[User] [Standard living dead] The Outbreak has been contained but from now on, people who die in their sleep or car accidents or whatever will immediately reanimate and attack. How do middle-aged and older couples deal with the possibility of a sudden heart attack or something?

[Assistant]
There are many options that keep things relatively contained.

Separated sleeping chambers at night behind locked doors, and if people do share a bedroom (which is seen as risky, especially for older people), they lock their bedroom at night so if one of them does reanimate and bite the other, it stays contained in the room.

Lifesign braclets with cellular connections, the government subsidizes their distribution, it detects your heart rate and skin temperature and if it falls outside of a normal range an armed wellness check occurs to check on the braclet owner. If the braclet is not malfunctioning and cannot be resuscitated, body is disabled with a disposable spring loaded pick to the brain stem; quiet, clean, and quick. If it is, a replacement braclet is provided.

Many automated doors in cities have special body temperature sensors that refuse to open for the reanimated. Other reanimate obstacles that are difficult for the dead to navigate but easier for the living are integrated into paths in cities, such as turnstills and subtley sloped or irregular ground. The dead tend to shuffle so even slightly off brick streets which living feet or wheelchairs can easily navigate make the dead trip all over themselves.

Terminal or critical patients in Hospitals are bound to their bed in a way that does not interfere with their treatment.

For starters.


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

[User]
How did a Space Rocket take off again from the surface of Moon?

I have seen many times in movies and other documentaries that when a space shuttle gets out of our atmosphere its propellers get detached and after flying for some time, it lands somewhere safely (Consider Moon). Now the question that has been troubling me is that if the rocket has no propulsion system to take off from the surface of moon then how does the rocket escape the Surface of Moon and how does it come back to Earth?
(btw my first language is not English, so sorry if I said anything wrong)

[Assistant]
The short answer is: the lunar lander also has a little rocket in it.

Almost every space rocket is a multistage rocket. This is not one rocket, but lots of rockets connected together. To take off, you use a big rocket, along with booster rockets on the side. After the big rockets and boosters have used all their fuel, they are detached, and fall back to Earth. This makes the rocket lighter, and it can now be pushed by a smaller (and lighter) rocket. You can do repeat this, and detach a medium rocket, and then use a small rocket. And then a smaller rocket, and so on. This helps make the rocket go fast enough to orbit Earth, or escape Earth and go to the Moon, or another planet.

No Space Shuttle went to the Moon, but after a Space Shuttle loses its booster rockets, it still has little rockets at the back. It uses these to manoeuvre in orbit, and to return to Earth.

In the Apollo missions, the lunar lander also had a little rocket in it The two big rocket stages were detached when the rocket launched. The last medium rocket stage was used to get the lunar lander close to the Moon. The lunar lander then used its own little rocket to land on the Moon, and take off again. It only needs a very small rocket because the Moon's gravity is much less than the Earth's, and it lacks an atmosphere. Then it attached again to the medium rocket, which brought it back home to Earth. The lunar lander didn't need to carry this medium rocket down to the Moon and back. This also helped the lunar lander to only need a smaller rocket.


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

[User]
What body parts can be donated by a typical dead person?

People are encouraged to become organ donors when they die, but it's my understanding that actual organs(heart, liver, kidneys etc) can only be harvested from brain-dead people whose bodies are kept alive on life support.

What about ordinary dead bodies? What all can be harvested and used?

[Assistant]
Brain dead donors are the best donors as the organs are in good condition when removed. These donors still have functioning heart, lungs, kidneys, etc so the blood flow and oxygenation are ongoing right up until just before they are removed. After testing for brain stem death, they are taken to theatre with a normal blood pressure, oxygen levels, etc just like any other operation.

There is also such a thing as donation after cardiac death. This means that the patient is allowed to die in the ICU, and then when the heart stops they are rushed into the operating theatre to remove the organs and get them on ice. This means that there is a period of minutes before the organs are retrieved when they are not getting any blood and oxygen, so their quality is variable. A decision is made by the surgical team as to their condition and suitability for donation once removed.

Some tissues, such as corneas and heart valves, can be removed long after death. This is usually done in the mortuary up to 24 hours after death. These tissues are relatively avascular and as such do not deteriorate quickly from lack of blood supply.


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

[User]
Is there a difference between dopamine release from exercise and watching TV?

I read a couple of times that you should aim to lower dopamine releasing activities such as watching netflix, browsing the internet or drugs so you can increase concentration and overall happiness. Is there a difference between so called 'bad' dompanine releasing activities and 'good' ones. Does the mechanism that handles dopamine release do the same for something like sex compared to masturbation?

[Assistant] Yes because the good ones like exercise have positive effects like getting you in shape, lose weight etc plus release endorphins, helps hormonal balance, more oxygen into the brain etc whereas Netflix will put your brain into a passive state and over time slows down neuronal activation (use it or lose it) type thing. With sex theres Oxytocin and vasopressin, theres the physical touch of another person, all these things have feedback stimuli that affect you in return compared to masturbation there is no other person so you dont get a lot of these other hormones firing.


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

[User] ELI5 when I call a 10-digit number, and get the "it is not necessary to dial a 1 and area code...please try again" message, why can't the phone company just go ahead and complete the call?  Doesn't it have enough info?

[Assistant] When you dial 1 you're accessing your CO's long distance trunks, thus making a local call over the LD circuits will incur LD charges so they do not route the call. Some new telco systems will recognize a local call and re-route that call to the proper trunks.


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

[User]
Why don't we just remote-control the mechs in Avatar?

We obviously have the ability to do so - we do it with the avatars themselves. It seems unnecessarily dangerous, and must make the mechs less effective, since they have to carry around a human and associated life-support systems, adding weight.

[Assistant]
On Pandora, constant electromagnetic interference from the environment made teleoperations via EM transmission spotty at best.  The Avatars were experimental psionic control systems and only worked because the Avatars were created with the DNA of the controller (or, in one instance, the controller's twin brother.)  One user couldn't 'drive' anyone else's Avatar beside their own, for example.

Plus, the psi control system and the Avatars themselves were prohibitively expensive; it was cheaper to ship in the aforementioned twin brother from over four light years away than it was to simply build another Avatar and its accompanying control system.  They couldn't be used en masse on the Mechs because of cost.

Also, the military equipment used on Pandora was second-hand military surplus anyway.  Remoting them even without the pervasive EM interference would have been problematic because they're basically forty-year-old pieces of shit and need the finesse of an operator on-site to work effectively that a teleoperator usually can't provide.

Besides, son, if you were one of those foot soldiers, would you trust YOUR life to some shmuck in a comfortable cushioned seat in an air-conditioned bunker a thousand klicks away?


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

[User]
ELI5 Why radio waves can penetrate thick walls that even visible light with significantly higher frequencies cannot pass through.

If not how do radios and phones work in closed dark rooms?

[Assistant]
It's not just as simple as more energy = goes through more stuff. It's a Goldilocks and the Three Bears example of this radiation is too big and slow and this radiation is too small and fast. Gamma rays, visible light, and radio waves are all examples of electromagnetic radiation, and  you're right that radio waves (with a wavelength of meters), are much less energetic than visible light (with a wavelength of around 5 x 10\^-7 meters).

Three things happen to EM radiation when it encounters a barrier.  It can bounce ( reflectance or scattering), pass through (transmittance), or just plain stop (absorbance).

The intensity of radiation transmitted depends on several things:

1. The wavelength of the radiation
2. The intensity of the radiation hitting the barrier
3. The chemical composition of the barrier
4. The physical microstructure of the barrier
5. The thickness of the barrier

Your question has to do with #1, but keep in mind that powerful enough visible light (many times  brighter than sunlight) would be able to pass through the walls of your home so you could see it, and even a weak light can shine through a paper-thin wall or a wall made of glass. Now as for your question, imagine an ant and an elephant standing next to each other.  The ant doesn't know the elephant is there because it's too big and the elephant doesn't know the ant is  there because it's too small.  EM waves interact with matter in a similar way:  on their own scale of size and time.

The reason why visible light can't travel through walls as easily as gamma rays or radio waves is because, to the visible light, there's something 'there' on a similar scale of length (wavelength) and time (frequency) that the gamma rays are too small and fast to interact with and the radio waves are too large and slow to interact with. The gamma rays just pass through the spaces between and within atoms and molecules. They're small enough to do that. If your walls were made of pure lead, they'd have a little more trouble. The radio waves on the other hand are large enough to ignore the walls because they're too thin. But if you've ever tried to listen to a radio in a tunnel or a cave, you know that radio waves have  trouble penetrating through meters of earth.

Visible light interacts with many solid materials because the wavelengths are the right size to be scattered by structural elements within those materials like microfibers and cracks and porous spaces.  Well-cut glass or diamond don't have these structural elements at this length scale so they look clear unless they're shattered or rough. So scattering due to physical elements of the right size is a major reason, but another factor contributes too.Visible light also interacts with pigments in the paint on surface of your wall.  This occurs  because the pigment molecules have chemical bonds within them that only vibrate at certain  frequencies. When visible light at that frequency hits the molecule, it's absorbed.  The frequency of radio waves is far too low to interact with these kinds of vibrations.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Was there anything Darth Maul could've done to get Sidious to accept him again, or was Sidious gonna take him down no matter what?

[Assistant]
Dooku was already doing a fine job leading the Seperatists to Palpatine's wishes, and the long-term apprentice prospect that Sidious had in mind was Anakin.

I don't think there's any particular reason for Sidious to have taken in Maul again. It would have just been an extra potential backstabber to worry about.


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

[User]
What if there was undeniable proof that God didn't exist?

For the scenario, imagine God was proven false in present time. I want your take on what would change from any aspect of life. Morals, values, politics, etc.

[Assistant] Probably nothing; we would simply find something else to replace it, as long as we have a believable excuse to control others, gain power and not take responsibility for our faults. We already use science that way.


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

[User] ELI5: How does depth perception work? Do you need two eyes to have depth perception?

[Assistant]
Depth perception is our ability to judge distances.

This can be done approximately based on how much our eyes have to focus, how big something is, how much ground there is between us and it based on our height, etc... All of these are monocular cues, and are relatively unreliable compared to parallax. They are sufficient for many animals, but predators especially tend to prefer something more precise as it makes catching prey easier.

This is where binocular vision comes in. While many creatures have two eyes, having two eyes that both face forward is much rarer. This allows both eyes to look at something. The difference in the angle that both eyes must face gives us a much more reliable method of depth perception.


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

[User] ELI5: why are people heavier when theyre dead weight?

[Assistant]
They're not heavier, they're harder to handle. Imagine a 20-kilogram broomstick and 20 litres of water in a 40-litre water balloon.

They both weigh 20 kilograms but that broomstick has its weight divided across a large area that is nicely balanced so it's easy to pick up. While that water balloon has no easy handholds and wibble wobbles all over the place, making it hard to move.

When you pick up a conscious person, they'll try to help balance their weight. When you pick up an unconscious person, it's very hard to balance as the limbs and head keep moving and thus shifting the weight.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where do slugs come from when it rains?

I've always wondered where slugs come from whenever it rains too much. Even as a kid I'd always wonder cause they move so slow but when it rains you see trails all over like they've been moving for hours, to reach a location they weren't. Where do they come from?

[Assistant]
They hide under stuff when its hot and dry. When its wet they can move easier with their slime and the water and don't get dried out as quickly.

You dont wait for the hottest time of the day to cross a desert right?


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

[User] ELI5: Steve Jobs once said there was a maximum screen resolution that we can see and we had reached it. Why are phones getting 4K and even higher resolution if we can't see the difference?

[Assistant]
- He was wrong; it was part of his job to make the iPhone look as good as possible, so naturally he said its display was basically perfect.
- Resolution relates to pixel density. 720p looks good on a 3" phone, but is blurry garbage in the cinema. Phones are bigger now than they were a few years ago so you need higher resolutions to keep them looking good.
- Screen tech is a limiting factor. Basic LCD screens have so much 'bleed' between each pixel that it all muddies together and you can't see differences between neighbouring pixels as easily, meaning that on a crappy LCD it's hard to see any difference between 480p, 720p, 1080p, 2K, 4K, 8K, etc. Better screens with newer technology can more cleanly display pixels and keep them sharp and separated, meaning better resolutions become more useful.


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

[User]
ELI5: How cassette games work

How do old video game consoles use cassettes as games when cassettes are just audio?

[Assistant]
The data was represented as audio on the tape. When loading a program from tape the computer would listen to the noises - usually lots of screeching - and understand them as the bytes of the program which it could then run from its memory.

We used to use a similar technique to access the intent using a normal phone line - your computer would call another computer and they would screech at each other to send data back and forth.

So yes tapes are just audio but you can represent computer code as audio!


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

[User] ELI5:Why is the 1TB Hard Drive I bought only 930GB?

[Assistant]
The drive you bought is 1TB, which is 1,000 GB, but it's only about 930 GiB. (Notice the "i" in GiB!)

GB and GiB are actually two different sizes.

Hard drive manufacturers label drives with the **decimal size**:

    1 B   =     1 B   = 1 byte
    1 KB  = 1,000 B   = 1,000 bytes
    1 MB  = 1,000 KB  = 1,000,000 bytes
    1 GB  = 1,000 MB  = 1,000,000,000 bytes
    1 TB  = 1,000 GB  = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes

Windows Explorer and Mac Finder show the **binary size**:

    1 B   =     1 B   = 1 byte
    1 KiB = 1,024 B   = 1,024 bytes
    1 MiB = 1,024 KiB = 1,048,576 bytes
    1 GiB = 1,024 MiB = 1,073,741,824 bytes
    1 TiB = 1,024 GiB = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes

The reason for using these multiples of 1024 is that drives are actually split up by the computer into parts that are always a multiple of 1024, not 1000.

Hard drive manufacturers report GB and TB instead of GiB and TiB because that gives bigger numbers, and people always like bigger numbers. =P

**Note:**  Windows Explorer and Mac Finder *say* KB/MB/GB/TB, but they are, indeed, reporting KiB/MiB/GiB/TiB. The convention that KB/MB/GB/TB would refer to multiples of 1000 instead of 1024 was invented by hard drive manufacturers to inflate advertised sizes, and never actually adopted by most software, which still consider KB to mean the same thing as KiB, and to both mean 1024 bytes.


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

[User]
[SCP] What is the highest security clearance Dr. Bright has, what is his relationship with Dr. Gears, Dr. Kondraki, and Dr. Clef, and why does he act like the exact personification of 'the internet'?

He acts more like a college kid in his mid 20's rather than a researcher for the one of, if not the most important organization on Earth, and given how he acts I would imagine he has 'stumbled upon' at least a few things above his clearance level. And has he ever shared information with any of the previously mentioned doctors that was above their clearance level, or are they all on the same level?

[Assistant]
Many of the more outlandish Dr. Bright documents are explicitly not canon, inasmuch as that means anything to the SCP wiki. Bright is good at his job, although what that job *is* (site director, researcher, secretly an 05) is going to vary based on canon and timeframe.

That said, being good at his job does not entail being good at adhering to the command structure.  Something common to most iterations of the foundation that involve those four Doctors is that they have some form of edge that puts them outside the normal command structures and disciplinary channels, regardless of their actual clearance levels. Clef's years of experience and potential status as a low-key reality bender makes him close to unsanctionable, and Gears has been around almost as long as the Foundation and knows how to work the system. (Kondraki thought he was in that boat, but nowadays is generally considered to have pushed his luck to far and gotten killed for overstepping.)

So, the answer is that those guys almost certainly know shit that, on paper, they shouldn't, but they're all too good at their respective jobs and not quite disruptive *enough* to wind up dead for what they know.


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

[User]
ELI5: if the human brain doesn't have pain receptors why do people get headaches?

I have one now and it got me thinking.

[Assistant]
Although it may feel like it, a headache is not actually a pain in your brain. The brain tells you when other parts of your body hurt, but it can't feel pain itself.
Most headaches happen in the nerves, blood vessels, and muscles that cover a person's head and neck. Sometimes the muscles or blood vessels swell, tighten, or go through other changes that stimulate the surrounding nerves or put pressure on them. These nerves send a rush of pain messages to the brain, and this brings on a headache.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does a person's name translate between languages?

Explain like I'm 5 how a person's name is translated between two different languages. For example, the English name William in Spanish is Guillermo. Was this something that was made up or is there an actual translation?

[Assistant]
Names aren't translated; ever. If you translated it, it wouldn't be their name any more.

Names are transliterated, which means they are approximated using the writing system of the other language based on how the name is pronounced.

When two languages share the same writing system, there is no change; the only difference is that the other person might pronounce it differently because of how it's written, or because of their accent.

That said, someone's name might literally mean something in their language or another language, but that doesn't mean you translate it.

As for names like William and Guillermo, these aren't translations, nor are they really the same name. They're simply two different names that share the same origin, and are considered to be counterparts. Like Thomas and Tomas. Or Michel and Michael.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why do engineers blast through hills instead of building highways over them?

Can't get back to all the comments, thanks all <3

EDIT: I used HILLS and not MOUNTAINS on purpose lol, c'mon guys I'm not *that* clueless. Tunnels absolutely do not figure into my question. Thank you everyone for answering this has been enlightening.

EDIT 2: I don't think it has occurred to some browsers of this sub that the people asking these questions have probably considered their own question and come up with hypotheses already. Trust me, I had 2 hours longer to drive and think after I posted the question at a gas station haha. ELI5 has confirmed some of my hypotheses about this and also added many new pieces of information to the puzzle which I am grateful for. Some of you taking time out of your day to say "stupid question" or something along those lines, please don't consider becoming teachers, and go forth in this sub operating under the assumption that a lot of the questions asked here are not just asked out of curiosity, but also just seeking confirmation of hypotheses before going out into the world and spewing BS lol.

[Assistant]
Roads have a slope limit, called the road's grade.  If the road is too steep, it will be unsafe.  Mountains are natural features, and they are often more steep than this.  So, to go over a mountain, you have to make a very long road to maintain the grade limit.  You can do this on the mountain, with a series of switchbacks.  Unfortunately, switchbacks are also dangerous and significantly increase travel time.  This longer road is also much more expensive.

At some point, the economics of tunneling through the mountain are cheaper than the long road in terms of construction costs plus all the time/fuel used to traverse the road.  Engineers usually build the cheapest solution, even when it's a tunnel through a mountain.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is "cheese" the go to word before taking a picture?

[Assistant]
Because the "ee" in the word makes it look as if you smile. Try it.
By saying "chEEEEEse" for a longer time, you can get all people in the picture to laugh 'naturally' for a short while. But not only "cheese" can be used, any word with a long "ee"-tune can be used. Cheese is just very simple and known by almost everyone.


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

[User]
[DBZ]Was there anything preventing Captain Ginyu from attempting to switch bodies with Frieza?

And why would Frieza keep someone with such a dangerous power so close? Did he know about it?

[Assistant]
For a start, he was loyal so he had little desire to do body switch. He was very satisfied as top henchman.

For a second, Freiza is much more powerful and so it would be harder for him to do it, and Freiza may well just kill him for his impertinance or block it.


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

[User]
Eli5 How do hidden object optical illusion pictures work?

My mom has a picture in her room with a crazy optical illusion design. Everybody says they see a picture of Jesus on the cross but I've never seen it in 25 years. I've never been able to see any objects in those hidden object pictures. I think everyone who says they can see those are full of it.

[Assistant]
Nah, it's a real thing.

Basically you're unfocusing or crossing your eyes so that the repeating parts of the pattern on the image overlap one another.
Hit the sweet-spot, and there are subtle differences in the pattern which produce an image when brought together.

If you want to train yourself, get two similarly sized/shaped objects on a plain background and try and cross your eyes so there appear to be three of them.

If you can do that, you'll be able to see jesus.


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

[User]
[The Suicide Squad] About Weasel

Since he is alive and ran off into the Corto Maltese jungle, would Amanda Waller just let him go or would she push the button on him? How does she usually deal with her inmates freeing themselves after their retrospective missions are over? (Such as Harley in the first movie)

[Assistant] The mission is over, there would be no point in pushing the button. The explosive is a threat meant to keep the squad on target. If they discovered Weasel alive it would be better to just recapture him and deploy him on another mission.


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

[User] Do bugs get sick like we do, like get a cold?

[Assistant]
An insect can't get a cold like we do because they don't have a respiratory tract that's anything like ours....but they can get infections (get sick). Just about every organism on the planet can get sick,  from bacteria to trees.

Insects can catch a whole range of bacteria, parasites, and viruses. We even hijack one of the viruses that tends to infect insects (Baculovirus) in the lab to get insect cells in culture to make stuff for us.


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

[User]
[Vampire: the Masquerade] Is there a way I can slip past the mortals demanding taxes?

I've only been recently been Embraced as a Brujah, and my Sire is not all that helpful. I can't help but feel like the "kine" of the IRS are going to come knocking for taxes since they don't know my recent changes. I feel like just not paying them is going to cause more suspicion and trouble than it is worth.

How do the other vampires slip past mortals and their taxes?

[Assistant]
Well, question one is the fuck are you doing using your old identity? Fuckin Brujahs, man.

You are dead, dude. Ask your idiot of a sire where he gets fresh IDs and set it up. Throw away the keys to of your old apartment, abandon your old job. That life was snuffed out the minute your sire said "You wanna see something REALLY cool?", so just accept it and move on.  Not doing that is how you end up in a dustpan.

Moving forward, just use ghouls. They have a pulse and legal documents.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do people hate Comic Sans?

I never really saw why people make such a big deal out of it.

[Assistant]
Firstly, yes, it is an extremely silly thing to make a big deal over. As its creator, Vincent Connare later said, "If you love it, you don't know much about typography. If you hate it, you really don't know much about typography either, and you should get another hobby."

But here's why people do dislike it: Comic Sans was modeled on the organic lettering of comic books. Unfortunately, comics were and are hand lettered, which usually looks pretty nice, but Comic Sans is a typeface, and as with any typeface that attempts to emulate handwriting, the effect can be a bit jarring and unconvincing. This wasn't a problem originally, as the font was created for an edutainment game for children, but since then, it inexplicably wormed its way into party invitations, restaurant menus, office memos, and other places it had no business being.
tl;dr, confounding ubiquity mixed with corny mediocrity.


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

[User]
CMV: For the kind of movie that The Super Mario Bros. Movie is, Chris Pratt is a decent choice.

I want to start out saying that ideally, all major animated motion pictures should have a cast comprising of almost entirely voice actors. I think the practice of hiring movie stars or people known for on camera work for the principal cast of animated movies is bad and a harmful practice to the industry. That is not my argument here.

With The Super Mario Bros. Movie being one of the many examples that go against the ideal listed above, the choice of Chris Pratt for Mario is not a bad choice. Chris has had 3 animated movies prior to this, as well as a few smaller bits of voice work here and there for various shows and video games so this isnt his first time in that role. Even on camera, Chris is a very animated person, the kind of energy needed for voice work.

Lastly, there is a certain charm that comes with hearing an actor you know voicing a character. I really enjoyed the second trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie hearing Jack Blacks and Charlie Days voices coming out of Bowser and Luigi respectively. What I have heard from Peach is fine. It feels like they purposefully reduced the speaking time for Mario in the trailer because of the public backlash, but out of what I heard, it was decent. Not the same kind of ear tickle that Black and Day are bringing to their characters, but definitely not bad in any sort of sense. I wish we could hear more than what we have from Pratt/Mario.

Anyway, maybe as an avid lover of movies, animated works, and Mario games, I could be wrong about the casting choice. Its probably not the best, but the public focus on it like its the worst is very undeserved.

[Assistant]
>Chris has had 3 animated movies prior to this, as well as a few smaller bits of voice work here and there for various shows and video games so this isnt his first time in that role. Even on camera, Chris is a very animated person, the kind of energy needed for voice work.

Reasons Chris Pratt should voice Mario:

\- Has done voice acting a few times before

\- Is "very animated" and "has energy".

Neither of these are relevant to the reason most people are objecting to Chris Pratt in the role. The reason is that Chris Pratt has become effectively "the protagonist" of Hollywood movies and is the most boring choice possible. People believed he would put no real effort into the role, would just be doing his own boring voice, etc. That's the issue. Chris Pratt is perceived as a boring, safe, uninteresting choice that doesn't add any flair to the role.


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

[User]
Could we "prove" the theory of relativity by speeding up a decaying radioactive material and measuring the adjustment in half life?

If a particle collider can speed up material to nearly the speed of light, my thought is that we could measure decaying material and put it into the Large Hadron Collider, and check if more material has decayed than if it was at a standstill.

Am I on a plausible train of thought here?  Is "nearly the speed of light" fast enough?

[Assistant]
This is actually a pretty routine thing to do. Particle accelerators regularly deal with unstable materials near the speed of light, and time dilation just needs to be part of those calculations.

There is also the classic example of muons being produced in the upper atmosphere. Time dilation means that more muons reach the ground than you would expect from a non-relativistic theory.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did none of the clones notice General Grievous's fighter leaving Utapau?

Since there were also no clones patrolling near his body, its possible the only confirmation of Grievous's death came from Kenobi, who is now a traitor according to the clones.

Even after Order 66, stopping the CIS is still a big deal and spotting Grievous's fighter leaving after his apparent death is probably something you should tell Cody about.

[Assistant] Well, Greivous's corpse was still on the landing pad so a cursory investigation would verify that he was dead. They might have surmised that Kenobi survived and used it to escape but not much they could do about it after the fact.