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

[User] ELI5: Why does phone voice quality still suck, while Skype and FaceTime sounds like the person is right next to me?

[Assistant]
Telephone systems were deployed many decades ago and it was important that different systems were able to communicate with each other. Regulators defined standards for how these systems communicate with each other with a particular focus in ensuring that call quality was minimally clear while allowing as many conversations at the same time as they could manage. Over the years, voice communication technology has changed radically, but these interoperability regulations have proven to be politically difficult to change as few can agree on what they should be replaced with and what the costs in money and reliability might be.

Since Skype, FaceTime, and countless others are internet software applications, so internal communications on their networks don't have to adhere to telephone standards and can use modern audio encoding techniques to create much better sound quality. Some mobile phones are capable of Wideband audio, a.k.a. HD voice, where compatible devices talking over a compatible network can increase the quality of a telephone conversation.


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

[User]
[X-Men: First Class] If Charles psychically detected that Hank was a mutant when he first met him, why didn't he also psychically detect that he was keeping it a secret and restrain himself from telling everyone there?

I mean, nowhere is it established that he can just automatically detect whether someone is carrying the X-gene, so he must have learned about it from Hank's thoughts (surface or otherwise). Is the maxim from the comics, "Professor X is a jerk" also applicable here?

[Assistant]
Charles was quite the narcissist at that time in his life. He was helping people, yes, but he was doing it for his own gratification.

He probably heard Hank think something about his powers, and then didn't worry about listening any longer to consider if Hank *wanted* anyone to know.

In a humorous twist of motifs, even the mind-reader occasionally has trouble with empathy.


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

[User]
How are extremely low temperatures measured?

Such as when MIT cooled molecules in a gas of sodium potassium to a temperature of 500nK.

Non-contact measurements systems like lasers would impart heat, so what is used?

[Assistant] The most common technique for cold atoms/molecules is called time of flight imaging. For a gas of molecules, the kinetic energy distribution is a function of temperature. The gas is confined to a small space, then it is released for a set amount of time, and then a picture is taken (with resonant laser light). Based on how far the molecules have traveled, we can infer their velocities and thus the temperature.


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

[User]
Why didn't Darth Vader let Luke Skywalker strike and kill the emperor, when he met him inside the Death Star?

So, I was watching some video surveillance cameras during my time as a security officer inside the Death Star and I managed to catch a glimpse of the Emperor trying to seduce this guy called Luke into the Dark Side by making him angry.

He was about to kill him when the black guy stopped him from doing this. Why would he do this since if this guy Luke had killed the emperor he would have joined the Dark Side and ruled the galaxy with Darth at his side? He even said so right after this happened!

Luckily I managed to escape and now I'm asking what the hell was the robot guy thinking?

[Assistant]
That's "Lord Vader" to you. Luke was the subject of a very complicated recruiting attempt. The empire was offering him more than his terrorist friends, but to do that he must pass a test, that test was allowing his anger to control his actions.

Lord Vader was once a Jedi of the Republic, but he couldn't bare to see his son turn as he did. Had Luke shown more flexibility towards joining his father, Lord Vader may have let him kill the emperor, but instead of allowing it to happen, he disguised saving his son as loyalty to the emperor. Had Luke killed the emperor his fate would have been sealed. Instead it lead to Lord Vader's final redemption, and he, killed the emperor but a short time later.

Also, how the eff did you get off the Deathstar?!


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

[User]
Why don't we see any current volcanic activity on Mars?

I understand that Mars has had volcanic activity in the past. Why don't we currently see volcanoes erupting or lava flowing from time to time now?

[Assistant]
Mars' volcanic activity is very different to that on Earth. Earth volcanism is driven by plate tectonics, with the vast, vast majority of volcanoes being located at either constructive or destructive plate margins. In contrast, volcanism on Mars is believed to be far more analogous to hot spot volcanism (that which forms the hawaiian islands for example).  Mars has no active plate tectonics due to the fact it's cooled down. That same explanation is highly likely to explain why Martian volcanism has died down.

Martian volcanoes are basaltic in nature - the same as plume volcanoes here on earth. That suggests they are forming from a partial melt within the mantle, then rising buoyantly through the crust. because Mars never had the active tectonics on a scale similar to Earth the crust has never been able to get highly silicious, hence crustal contamination of melt as it rises has not seemingly varied the chemistry too much from the original basalt.

It's possible Mars is still volcanically active, we're just in a window where we have not observed any eruptions. It may be that the eruption rate has died down significantly such that thousands or even millions of years may pass between events.

One interesting thing to note - because of the low atmospheric pressure on Mars, it means that while the chemistry of the basalts is fairly similar, instead of flowing out leisurely as they do on earth it becomes possible for gas bubbles to inflate to many times what you would expect in a heavier atmosphere. That drives the ascending jet more powerfully, which in turn means you can get far more violent eruptions from what on earth would behave as a fairly low-energy effusive eruption.


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

[User] [Batman] What does Batman do when the Batmobile breaks down in the field? Does he have a Bat tow truck or something?

[Assistant]
He could call in some favors, otherwise if he is unable to take care of it, he would just engage the self-destruct and get a new one.

No chance Batman doesn't already have a spare or contingencies to procure one.


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

[User]
ELI5: If I have a bag of Skittles and sort them by color, then mix them for an indefinite period of time, why will they never "re-mix" themselves back to being separated by color?

(Possibly too much explanation here...)
For example, you have 1,000 Skittles, 200 of each color, and sort them by red, orange, yellow, green and purple. If I mix them up, all the colors will intermingle. When you mix them up and take five samples of 200, there will be roughly the same number of red (or orange, yellow, etc.) in each of the five samples.

Why is is that a random sample of those Skittles will never come up with 200 red in one sample, 200 yellow in another sample, and so on? Or could it work like that? My same question goes for a sample having, say, 100 yellow and 100 red. Isn't there technically a possibility that that will happen?

[Assistant]
It is *physically possible* for such an event to occur. It is *nearly* statistically impossible for it to occur, meaning that while it's technically a possibility, the odds against it are so massive as to mean effectively the same thing as a practical impossibility.

Edit: clarified language a little.


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

[User] ELI5eli5: why is drinking sea water lethal, but soups with massive sodium content are acceptable?

[Assistant]
Because soups with massive sodium content are still much, much, ***MUCH*** less salty than sea water. That's not to say they're healthy, though, Americans eat way too much sodium as it is.

Edit: in fact, salt water is so salty, that getting a mouthful of it is known to cause immediate vomiting. It's happened to me before. We in the SCUBA diving community call it "feeding the fishes". (and yes, when it happens, fishes often crowd around your face to eat your vomit. It's disgusting and cool at the same time)


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

[User]
[DC] How can the Flash lose?

I've lived all over, and seen a bunch of these so-called "superheroes" fighting against villains and each other.  There's one, calls himself "The Flash", who as I understand it has the ability to make himself super fast through something called the "Speed Force" (I overheard him telling Superman about it).  From what I understand, Speed Force is pretty insanely overpowered; how does anyone beat him?  Can't he punch someone so fast that there's a black hole or something like that?  How could anyone match that?

[Assistant]
A lot of people make the Flash seem more powerful than he really is, often citing speed feats as if they're something he can do at the drop of a hat, rather than exceptions that he can only do under extreme circumstances or with outside help.

For instance: People cite his ability to run faster than instant teleportation. They forget that he did that by stealing the speed of two different planets, one of which consisted entirely of sentient radio waves.

His so-called 'infinite mass punch', while powerful, still wears him out a bit to use. And if he used that on anyone short of a Martian or a Kryptonian, it would instantly kill them. Hell, even punching people at the speed of sound would tear their heads off. Not what he's aiming for. He's gotta slow down.

Yes, the Flash is insanely fast. Faster than Superman. But his most insane stunts are done through circumstances that, sometimes, just can't be repeated. Hell, every time he pushes lightspeed, he risks being absorbed into the Speed Force. If he didn't have an anchor, he'd instantly be lost. And the faster he goes, the harder it is for him to hold on to his 'anchor'.

If it were otherwise, he'd be an untouchable speedgod that would never be bothered by his Rogue's Gallery. If you want a textbook on how to beat the Flash, look towards his most frequent foes. Yes, they lose a lot, but they also win quite often. Even if you only count 'winning' as 'escaping'.

Let's look at a common tactic of Captain Cold, Heatwave, and (sometimes) Weather Wizard. The fastest man alive can only run if he's got good enough traction. We've seen them slow him down by messing with his footing, melting it or freezing it.

Another trick often used by Heatwave, Captain Boomerang, Weather Wizard, and the Trickster? Distractions. They throw out things that can cause collateral damage, causing the Flash to stop, take care of that, and wait to see if the problem's fixed before chasing them. That's the genius of it, he can perform all of the actions he likes in a second, but he's still got to wait thirty, forty seconds for that to work, and then more to see if it'll work/if there's any secondary problems.

tl;dr: The Flash isn't as insanely overpowered as everyone thinks (though that very reputation can do a lot to discourage crime) and even if he was, there's ways to force him to slow down.


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

[User]
ELI5: Whatever happened to piracy?

Seemed like a few years ago every few months we'd hear about pirates capturing a ship and holding the crew for ransom.  When did that stop being a thing and why?

Also, why wasn't piracy a problem for ~150 years between the age-of-sail and the Somalia pirates?  Back in the 1700's - early 1800's there were all kinds of famous pirates, and state-sponsored piracy like impressment, Barbary corsairs, letters of marque and reprisal, etc.  Then it's like suddenly there are no pirates from like 1850 to 2008, then piracy is in the news for three years, then it stops again.  Why?

[Assistant]
It's still very much a thing, although it has slacked off a bit. There was a huge surge in piracy around the Horn of Africa/Gulf of Aden/Indian Ocean region a few years back. Most of the pirates were based out of Somalia.

Since then there has been a large multinational effort ongoing to interdict pirate ships and protect merchant shipping in the region. The US has also conducted a number of strikes against suspected pirate headquarters ashore.

Somalia's situation has also improved a bit in the last few years which helps to divert people away from piracy which was a really last-ditch option for many.

What killed historical large-scale piracy was the advance of effective government into the New World. (North and South America). Pirates need places to repair and refit their ships and markets on which to sell their stolen goods. Once the colonial governments in the Americas became strong enough to control their territory pirates ran out of safe havens. This also coincided with the major powers in the Caribbean having a prolonged period of peacefulness and thus no incentive to support pirates.

Privateering continued through to the end of the 19th century when the Declaration of Paris laid out a framework for international maritime law that forbade signatories from engaging in privateering.

Small-scale piracy is still incredibly common in places like the Gulf of Aden and Straits of Malacca but is cracked down on pretty hard due to it's detrimental effects on trade and commodity costs.


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

[User] [General science fiction] Are one-man military starfighters pointless in a more realistic science fiction setting?

[Assistant]
While a manned starfighter is pointless in a battle near a carrier, one could make the argument that a manned starfighter could be used in long-term or long-distance missions. In a realistic setting, a drone will lose most of its benefits if it ventures further than a few light seconds from its "mothership." If a small craft is needed for a mission far away from a fleet/mothership/base, one could reasonably argue that a human pilot would be the best way to ensure that the craft performs optimally and intelligently. While computers are good at Go and Chess, they still struggle with tactics and surprises that most humans can instinctually respond to. If the enemy uses a tactic that the computer has never seen or been programmed to respond to, then it will probably perform suboptimally. If a human ends up in the same scenario, they have a chance of figuring out a counter-tactic that no computer could ever dream of... not that computers can dream anyways.

However any problem that needs a human pilot to solve could probably also be solved by a swarm of guided torpedoes, missiles, or other smart munitions. Your missile doesn't have to be smart enough to think its way out of an ambush if there are thousands of other missiles just like it, all homing in on the same target. Any military capable of waging interplanetary war is probably going to have enough resources to afford a munitions cloud like that. Now, a case could be made that a human life is worth less than x amount of missiles, and at a certain point sending in a long-range strike team of trained human pilots is more cost-effective than a swarm of missiles... but that tipping point is going to depend heavily on the setting.


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

[User] eli5 - whats happened to those individual tastebuds that become SUPER painful/swollen/sometimes burst and flap open out of nowhere? what went on? why only the odd 1?

[Assistant]
The swelling of a single taste bud can have any number of causes. A tastebud is no different to other parts of your body in that the pain and swelling often indicates damage and your immune system is working to repair it.

Swollen tastebuds are relatively common and usually heal on their own without lasting damage. It could be caused by infection, oral hygiene, stomach acid, something really hot or cold causing irritation, spicy or acidic foods etc.

There is also a very common condition called transient lingual papillitis (TLP) which no one can pinpoint an exact cause but it is thought to be related to stress, hormones, certain types of foods etc.


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

[User] ELI5: What are the defining differences between streets, roads, avenues, boulevards, etc.? What dictates how it is designated?

[Assistant]
**A boulevard is two lanes in each direction with a median of trees or greenery running the length of it.**

**An avenue is often two lanes in each direction and in a nicer part of the area.**

**A street can be any number of lanes in each direction, but is generally associated with a town or city or suburb.**

**A road is getting a little more rural, generally one lane in each direction, but not necessarily.**


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] So what exactly is Quirrell's deal?

He says something like "I use to think about right and wrong, but my master has shown me the triviality of such things." This sounds like brainwashing or something. Seems like Quirrell used to be a nice guy, but somehow became an insane dude who's more loyal than most of death eaters, Bellatrix aside. Is Voldemort just that convincing?

[Assistant]
Quirrell was always kind of a nutcase.

Ambitious as hell, but no self esteem to pull it off

Inflated self image

Too curious for his own good

Don't forget that he went to Albania **specifically** to hunt for Voldemort and believed that he would be able to defeat him.

That together with Voldys clever manipulation made him believe that he was special and above morality.


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

[User] Could planets have spherical clouds instead of rings?

[Assistant]
Good question!

So the deal is that you can't really have a large number of small objects (rocks, atoms, whatever) orbiting in a sphere. Each of the objects has its own orbit, and those orbits can only be circles or ellipses. So to get a sphere, you need a larger number of objects orbiting at all sorts of angles - all these ellipses are tilted compared to each other.

But at some point these objects are going to bump into each other. If you want a perfect sphere, then all the objects have perfectly circular orbits with the same radius - they're just at different angles. And it's impossible to do that without having the circular orbits crossing over each other at a whole bunch of points. In reality, you wouldn't have a perfect sphere, but there's always going to be a little bit of scatter in the objects movement, so they're going to bump into each other at some point.

As long as collisions are happening, the objects are going to be changing their orbits. You can lose energy in a collision, but you can't gain it, so overall the objects are going to be slowing down. However, there's a limit to how much you can slow down: you have to still conserve angular momentum.

So over time, you lose more and more energy, until the objects get to pretty much the slowest they can go while conserving angular momentum. And that turns out to be a ring. In a ring, you can all have nice circular (or near-circular) orbits without colliding with each other, and you can't slow down any more without breaking angular momentum.

This is actually a genuine principle in the universe: it's why the Milky Way is a disc, it's why all the planets are on the same plane, and it's why Saturn has a ring instead of a cloud.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is Justin Trudeau backing off on his promise to reform Canada's voting system such a huge problem?

[Assistant]
It is because Trudeau was not getting his preferred option.

A proportional representation government, as was endorsed by the other parties, would pretty much guarantee there would never be another majority government in Canada.  Coalition governments would become the norm.

Trudeau's preferential ballot system would have pretty much guaranteed a Liberal majority government for decades and so he could be prime minister for as long as he liked.

When Trudeau realized what was going to happen he immediately backed off so he at least had a chance of having a majority government.


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

[User]
[MCU] How come Peter Parker doesn't have a NY accent?

Other characters such as Thor, Black Panther and Wanda have regional accents. Why not Peter? Maybe even Captain. But he was frozen forever so that could explain him.

[Assistant] Not everybody who grows up in a region acquires the regional accent. It depends most on the accent of your parents, who speak to you most during the years of language acquisition. Peter's parents didn't have NY accents, so he didn't end up with one.


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

[User]
[Mass Effect 2] (spoilers) Why didn't they just blow up the Omega Relay?

Collectors can't get back to their base to resupply or make room for new abductees , gg.

[Assistant] I believe the reason was that they needed more leads on the Reapers and by just blowing up the relay would have deprived them of the information needed to fight them during the impending Reaper War. Shepard knew she needed to do it. All easy options were barred from her.


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

[User] Who is more likely to get struck or hurt by lightening first? A man under a tree, the man in the swimming pool or the one on the golf fairway holding a 5 iron?

[Assistant] The tree is the most dangerous since it is likely much higher in the air than the pool or the golfer.  While the tree may conduct much of the electricity through it's trunk, there will no doubt be transient forks that may hit anyone standing under the tree and kill them.


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

[User]
ELI5:What happens when you read but you don't register anything you just read?

(Also how do you FOCUS)

[Assistant]
As you are reading this comment, multiple distinct things are happening, neurologically. First, your eyes are seeing these characters, and your brain is deciding how to interpret these data. Most people interpret words as a whole entity, not letter by letter. Once your brain recognizes a word, it makes the whole sentence, 'loads that sentence' into your short term memory. Then you decide how and or what to do with that sentence. If your brain interprets it as junk, (not what it's interested in right now), it just trashes it and moves on on to the next sentence. Sometimes this will happen with irrelevant details to the the larger thought. For example, 'the' is duplicated in the most recent sentence, and 'on' is duplicated in the previous sentence to that. Those small details don't matter to the entire thought, so your brain just ignores it.

If you are thinking about other things and reading something boring, or you're tired... The same thing can happen. Your mind gets confused on what matters, and what doesn't so it makes some mistakes in processing.

When you are FOCUSING, you're making a conscious effort that everything you are focusing on, is important.

Make sense?


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

[User]
How do I study and retain information from papers and books that I read on my computer?

Sorry for the wordy question, but I'm at my wit's end.

My go-to method while studying is reading a book, and underlining the important stuff with a pencil. Since I am a Math student, I practice all of the formulae and proofs on a separate rough page that I discard once I understand it. If there is anything that I need to add, I do so in the margins of the book with a pencil. Or in a separate notebook, if the book is a borrowed one.

My question is, given the sheer necessity of reading so many papers for a single topic, I download them and read them on my computer via Foxit reader. However, for some reason, I find this extremely difficult. I have trouble even going through two pages at a time, and it's even more difficult to retain information as I'm not that comfortable with underlining stuff using those pdf highlighters.

Could anyone just please please suggest some alternative? Distraction is not a problem, it's just the reading and remembering stuff that is. It'll really be helpful since it's undoubtedly more economical to read papers online (like reading 5-6 papers only to prove a single topic)

Thank you genuinely in advance!

[Assistant] 100% get an ipad/tablet/whatever with a bluetooth pen and use something like goodnotes. It's changed studying for me forever. And you can organise everything into folders for easy access, which is so helpful.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How immortal is Voldemort?

Voldemort has killed Harry Potter, but one of the horcruxs the gang destroyed was a fake. So effectively Voldy won and now rules the world. Is he immortal or just un-killable? Will his body grow old and wither after say 200 years?

[Assistant]
He's technically an undead - his body was irreperably destroyed when he tried to kill Harry, leaving him as a ghost-like entity until he had a new body created for himself.

He's trapped between life and death. Sure, he's not got a body anymore because it's been destroyed or his spirit has been separated from it again but everyone knows how he tried to cheat death and was punished for it. You see, Harry can't die until Voldemort tries to kill him and remove the part of the Horcrux in his scar... but when Voldemort used Harry's blood to resurrect himself, he made it that Harry can't die either.

But if his body survives... well, we know of one other immortal whose immortality destroyed his body; Nicholas Flamel's body was severely weakened by age to the point where Jacob utterly destroyed the bones in his hand *by accident*. Voldemort's got it worse off - the creation of Horcruxes has made him monstrous in appearance with many seeing him as inhuman.


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

[User] ELI5 Why is it socially acceptable to wear the same pants multiple days in a row but not the same shirt multiple days in a row?

[Assistant]
Changing shirts is an issue of hygiene. Shirts get dirty faster. Food can fall on them. Bodily fluids. etc, etc get on your nice cotton shirts. If you wear the same shirt for 3 days straight it will start to smell and get gross.

A pair of jeans on the other hand, if you measure bacteria and dirt when you start wearing them, and then measure a month later very little has changed. Sweat itself is effectively odorless to humans, the smell from BO comes from the bacteria eating proteins in your sweat.

You have two types of glands Eccrine glands which just secrete sweat . Their only job is temperature regulation. Apocrine glands secrete sweat with shit in it on the other hand, namely the proteins the bacteria love eating to make shit smell. They are scent glands, where pheromones likely come out and influence social interaction.

You find these glands in the armpit, around the nipples and near the groin. So two of these scent sweat glands sweat into a shirt, the other into your underwear - both areas where clothing is generally thought of as needing to be changed daily.

Your thighs on the other hand just produce light sweat, effectively just water with salt in it. Bacteria aren't interested, so you just end up being sweaty rather than smelly.

tl;dr - the sweat glands in your armpits produce scent based sweat with proteins in that bacteria eat. The byproduct of them eating protein is a bad smell. Washing and replacing your shirt gets rid of this smell. Sweat glands in your legs just produce water with salt which doesn't attract bacteria and thus does not smell.


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

[User]
Are there different types of magnetic fields?

A general compass will point towards  the magnetic north of the earth. But when an external magnet is kept near the compass, the compass will point towards the stronger magnetic field in its vicinity.

Are there different "frequencies" in magnetic fields such that the measurement of one field might not get affected by the other?

[Assistant]
> Are there different "frequencies" in magnetic fields such that the measurement of one field might not get affected by the other?

Nope! In a sense, the universe has *one* magnetic field. While you're used to thinking about 'this magnetic field around this bar magnet' and 'this other magnetic field around this refrigerator magnet' those are really just the 'contributions' of those two magnets this one magnetic field. This is what we mean when we say magnetic fields are in a superposition- at any point in space, you feel the contributions of every magnetic thing all at once, and that information (about all the little magnetic contributions from this or that) is kept in the magnetic field. In your compass example, at no point does the second magnet and the field around it cease to exist or reach your compass, it just gets far enough away that the interaction between the compass needle and the earth's field dominates.

It's in many ways similar to gravity. The earth or sun's gravity doesn't just stop if you go far enough away from the solar system, and your local experience is governed by whatever strong gravity source is closest to you. Electromagnetism is very different than gravity in a lot of ways, but the same general principle holds. Magnets are the same way, but for practical purposes you don't need to take into account all these contributions to the magnetic field (from the sun, or the magnets owned by a guy in Dusseldorf, or from the gas in the galaxy).


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

[User] ELI5:We've had over 2000 nuclear explosions due to testing; Why haven't we had a nuclear winter?

[Assistant]
Because the "nuclear winter" idea presumes that they would all go off at once (at least, close enough together). And it also assumes a number of other issues, like that huge fires would erupt and that few people who be around to fight them. This would result in huge amounts of ash and dust and smoke in the air, less foliage to block chilling wind, etc.

One or two isolated tests won't have that same effect.


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

[User]
ELI5: How Do They Film TV Shows/Movies That Take Place in Big Cities?

When they're making TV shows that take place in Chicago or LA or New York City, how do they film on the streets?  Do they just film around people, or do they block off the section they want to use?  They can't just shut down part of a city to film there, so how do they do it without getting interrupted?

[Assistant]
- For TV productions, sometimes sets are built that look like an actual street. They're then reused over and over, with minor changes (like rotating store windows) to keep them looking fresh. This is what you saw on Seinfeld, and on movies that have really elaborate street scenes like Back to the Future. (If you ever get the chance, try to visit one of these sets. They're eerie, because they're incredibly detailed and real-looking yet everything is empty and built into walls. Feels like an episode of The Prisoner or something.)

- For high-budget productions, they'll actually pay the city to shut down a block or two for a while. This is expensive as hell.

- In recent years, it's become more common to send a skeleton crew to a city centre -- just one camera, no sound equipment, little to no lighting, bare minimum personnel -- to shoot a 'plate'. They just shoot scenes in the city, 10 minute segments of footage at key locations, with nothing in them, no performers. Then the actors perform their scenes in front of a green screen and are digitally composited onto the plate. This is a lot cheaper than actually shutting down blocks to keep performing scenes, because that tiny crew can shoot the plate quickly, easily, and cheaply without interfering with other people. You'd be surprised just how common this is for non-special-effectsy shows like 30 Rock and Ugly Betty.

- If your show has a *ton* of outdoor content, you pay to shut down blocks and streets -- but you do it in a much smaller cheaper city/town, and edit in aerial shots of the city you're *pretending* to use. Psych, for example, is set in Santa Barbara, USA but is actually filmed around Vancouver and other British Columbia, CAN towns. They sent a helicopter to Santa Barbara, filmed an hour of aerial footage, and just splice it in a few times an episode to make it look like they're in the USA. (If you ever watched The X-Files, they shot the first half of the series in small Canadian towns and the second half in Los Angeles, which is why there's a sudden stark shift from overcast gloom and foggy villages to sundrenched suburbs about halfway through.) It's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to shut down a few blocks in Ashcroft than to shut down 5 metres of Brooklyn.


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

[User]
CMV: You should not use religous texts to directly support how you feel about a moral topic

To clarify, I am not saying your views can't align with those of religious texts. I am saying that when you justify any action or belief it is very ignorant to simply source the Bible, Koran, Torah, etc.

I say this because if you truly believe in what your religious text is saying, you should use logic and reason so that everyone can meet on a mental common ground. By simply sourcing the religious text you are only alienating people who may not be in your religion.

Lastly, I'm not trying to just shit on religion. I think that story telling is much more powerful than simply stating a moral lesson, and that because of this stories of religion helped shape the world we live in today. However, this should not make religion the absolute factor for whether something is right or wrong.

[Assistant]
That's only true in an atheistic perspective.

Your reasoning is only true if there is no God.

I'd say that if there is a God, then using God's word is pretty damn good reasoning.

Sure, in your view religion may just be "storytelling" but to a Jew, Christian, Muslim, etc. they believe in them.


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

[User]
[DC] I'm well aware that Batman doesn't use firearms and strongly dislikes them. However, does he have a problem with police or civilians having or using guns?

For example, if a criminal broke into someone's house with evil intent, and the homeowner shot and killed them, what would Batman's reaction be? Would he beat them up, disarm them, etc. Would he have an issue with cops justifiably killing criminals?

Please try to keep on topic and don't reference real world politics or start a debate on gun laws, I don't want this to get deleted.

[Assistant]
He's fine with private and police gun owndership, provided they aren't going out looking for people to shoot. He's even okay with Alfred keeping a gun in Stately Wayne Manor.

Batman is fully aware that he can do things that regular folks simply aren't capable of, including perfectly defending himself and others using nonlethal force. He doesn't judge anybody for not being Batman.

He has absolutely no problem with police shooting criminals in the line of duty, and civilians using guns to defend themselves and their property. However, if he's there when you shoot someone you had better be damn sure that the shooting is justified, because otherwise he's going to make sure you go down for it. Plus, if he's there, odds are he's already told you to get down and let him handle the situation - and you better believe that he and his gadgets can handle it more efficiently and safely than you and your gun.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] In the Republic, clone troopers had serial numbers starting with CT (Clone Trooper) or CC (Clone Commander). The Empire and First Order used a similar number system, using the prefixes TK and FN, respectively. Did these stand for anything?

Yeah, I know, kind of a minor detail. But overthinking minor details is half the fun of this subreddit.

Just curious if there are any answers, official or otherwise.

[Assistant]
Right now nothing is conclusive, but the gist is that they're "Legion Numbers" in base 26. For example the 501st would be the SG legion because S would be the 494th plus G, which is the seventh. Finn was confirmed to be in the FN legion and iirc the TK legion was on the Death Star.

So they're not abbreviations, they're just numbers.


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

[User]
How do birds keep their feet warm in extremely cold weather?

How do birds keep their feet warm in temperatures in which a human would quickly lose sensation and get frostbitten in? Lets say it's -25 degrees out. A human would quickly lose their ability to control their  bare hands, but birds are perched on trees just chilling. Of course, they have feathers on most of their body, but how do their feet not get damaged by the bitter cold?

[Assistant]
A couple of ways.

Firstly, bird's feet are much more able to function at very low temperatures because there is nothing in them to freeze as it were. Bird's feet are almost entirely comprised of scales, tendons and bone; these tissues are mostly minerals and structural proteins which care little about the temperature, with only few cells for maintenance. All the metabolically active tissues like muscles are up in the body, kept nice and warm.

Secondly birds will, when their feet get cold pull them into their feathers to keep them warm. Many do this all the time when they are flying.

Another important element is bird's feet are relatively dry, due to being scaled rather than covered in skin, so are significantly less effected by the cooling by evaporation that freezes people.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is swelling bad for healing?

I get why swelling is painful/inconvenient. What I dont get is why doctors recommend things to reduce swelling of an injury even if pain management isnt an issue (unless they just assume it is). Isnt swelling part of our bodies natural response to protect/heal an injury?

[Assistant] Swelling is actually good for healing, especially in the first 48 hours of injury - as it increases the blood supply to the injured area. Blood brings oxygen and other nutrients which the tissues needs to effectively heal. However, it is a balancing act.  Swelling increases pressure to the injured area, which is one of the ways we perceive pain, so managing swelling helps more than you think to manage pain. The other consideration is that too much swelling might prevent/restrict movement, and this aside from being really uncomfortable, decreased blood flow to the area.


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

[User]
How long can/will the housing crisis keep getting worse and what can/will make it end?

The cost of housing has recently been skyrocketing across North America, Europe and Australia. But it can't keep going up at this rate forever, right? It has to stop at some point.

How bad could it hypothetically get and what would eventually make things return to normal?

How long is this likely to last?

[Assistant] Prices will continue to rise until supply can catch up with demand. Even then, prices will remain high in cities where there are onerous zoning laws that prevent large quantities of housing units from being built.


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

[User] ELI5: When a large flock of birds take flight suddenly (ex. if they're startled) how do they know where to go instead of flying off in all directions?

[Assistant] Lots of birds have a very simple flight algorithm, typically " fly parallel to one side and slightly behind the one next to you". That's why you get "V" shaped skeins of geese for example. So even if there is no one leader, groups keep together, wheel, merge and divide but still all roughly do the same thing.


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

[User]
[Aliens] Are the Colonial Marines a private military force?

I've wondered this for a while. Are the Colonial Marines a specialised unit that is part of a national military or are they a private military force wholly owned by Weyland-Yutani? Alternatively, are they a private military force that is simply hired by Weyland-Yutani as required?

[Assistant] The United States Colonial Marine Corps are a military force in service to the United Americas (although it could be argued that the government often serves the interests of Weyland-Yutani. You know how big corporations are)


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

[User]
How does nuclear radiation cause mutations?

What specifically goes on there?

[Assistant]
First a little clarification: When you're talking about radiation like this, you're talking about *ionizing radiation*.

These include alpha particles, beta particles and some electromagnetic radiation (I believe the lower cut-off is somewhere in the upper UV frequencies, but honestly can't remember)

Alpha and beta particles are charged, so what happens is when they enter a cell they bump around until they hit something. When they hit something, they can steal electrons, or donate electrons. This can generate more charged particles and radicals, which have a tendency to propagate. (Cells have methods for dealing with this, but those aren't hugely important right now)

Okay, so now one of these charged particles manages to find its way to the nucleus, and happens to bump into some DNA. Now this is where things start to get shitty for the DNA. When the charged particles hit the DNA, they can cause things like pyrimidine dimerization, or cross-linking, they can make adducts form. All of these things can lead to transcriptional errors which can further mess up the DNA.


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

[User] Why is most of the gold in the world found in Africa?

[Assistant]
By total amount of gold mine reserves,North America comes out on top with about 30% of known gold mine reserves by weight. Africa has only 22%. The US and Canada combined have more gold than all of Africa. So the premise of the question is wrong since Africa does not have the most gold compared to other continents.

Of the top 10 gold producing countries,only two are African(South Africa and Ghana). Although South Africa alone has over 50% of all of Africas gold and is #3 on the list (after the US and Canada).

Of the top 20 largest gold mines by estimated weight,only 4 are in Africa(3 in South Africa and 1 in Ghana).

South Africa, as a country, does have a lot more gold than other countries (especially considering its small area compared to Canada, US, Australia, etc.). This is mainly because of one massive formation known as theWitwatersrand Basin. The fact that this basin has so much gold may have been the result of a colossal accident: a major meteor impact 2 billion years ago crushed the whole basin downwards meaning that it was preserved and never eroded like the surrounding rocks.


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

[User]
[Star Wars]Does the Death Star have any noticeable gravitational effects on nearby planets or moons?

We have seen the Death Star is a very large space station, about the size of a small moon. But does its presence have any noticeable affects on the nearby celestial bodies? And when it blows up, are there any adverse effects that nearby planets or moons experience?

[Assistant]
It's tiny on a planetary scale (the first one was 160 kilometers in diameter, the second 900 kilometers in diameter), and hollow to boot. Any gravitational effects either might possibly have would be basically nil.

The first Death Star was vaporized. Literally vaporized. The second one had some chunks survive, but still most either were caught by the Republic fleet before they could enter the atmosphere, or simply burnt up as they fell, or floated off into space to have similar experiences.


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

[User]
Supernova explosions are caused by the star's matter collapsing in on itself and then bouncing back out. This matter moves beyond the initial radius of the star. Where does this energy come from that allows this star matter to travel out into the universe?

Just like how a ball won't bounce back beyond its original point of release, or how a pendulum will never swing past its original position. Where does this energy come from in the case of the matter that is flung away from dying stars?

[Assistant]
Largely from the gravitational potential energy released by collapse.

When the core implodes, it allows the outer layers to fall farther in, and when they hit during the 'bounce' phase energy is transferred from the core onto the infalling matter. Ultimately, that proto-neutron star that exists in the collapsed core is far more tightly gravitationally bound than the iron core which preceded it. About 1% of that energy is transferred to the outer layers, driving the supernova. The remaining 99% is radiated as neutrinos (so, fun fact, that means supernova are actually 100x more energetic than you would think just by looking at their light!)


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

[User]
Are people who "talk" with Jesus or God considered schizophrenic?

Why are people who "talk" to Thor or Zeus or Satan considered differently? Is it just because Jesus is more popular today?

[Assistant]
The DSM consistently and specifically exempts religious beliefs. For example, from DSM-IV's definition of delusion:

>The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the persons culture or subculture (e.g. it is not an article of religious faith). (765)

And a specific note on diagnosing schizophrenia:

>Clinicians assessing the symptoms of Schizophrenia in socioeconomic or cultural situations that are different from their own must take cultural differences into account. Ideas that may appear to be delusional in one culture (e.g., sorcery and witchcraft) may be commonly held in another. In some cultures, visual or auditory hallucinations with a religious content may be a normal part of religious experience (e.g., seeing the Virgin Mary or hearing God's voice). (281)

As for why this is the case, it basically comes down to the fact that a lot of people are religious and it doesn't make practical or political sense to diagnose them with psychiatric disorders. Exactly how to make sense of the distinction between psychotic experience and similar religious experiences is an open question in the philosophy of psychiatry.


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

[User]
How do drugs know where to go in the body?

First of all, I obviously don't think medicine is actually making the choice of where to go.

But, if I take (for example) acetaminophen for a sprained ankle, adderall for my adhd, and bupropion and lamotrigine for my bipolar, how does all of that get to where it needs to go? Is it just a matter of getting distributed evenly through the body and then absorbed wherever there happen to be receptors that fit the molecules? Doesn't that end up being really inefficient? -- seems like most of the actual meds would just get filtered out pretty quickly.

Is that were drug interactions come from? -- multiple drugs competing for the same receptors?

EDIT: holy crap. I was not expecting this quantity or quality of responses. Seriously, i think I learned more here than an entire semester of biology. Every comment is a gem. Thank you all for your time and energy! It is very appreciated.

[Assistant]
You're basically right.  Drugs enter the bloodstream and get distributed throughout, and only "act" where there are receptors that they can bind to (though because shape is everything, there can be some unintentional and/or non-specific binding).  Topical preparations don't have this problem for obvious reasons, but they have to be able to cross the skin, and that's a really effective barrier.

It **is** inefficient and why we sometimes try to deliver the medication as close to the intended/active site as possible and why the pharmacokinetics of a given drug are so important to understand.  It's also why there are sub-therapeutic doses for so many compounds.

Interactions can come from binding to the "wrong" receptors, metabolites of one drug acting on another, slowing the metabolism of another one, or synergies between the drugs.  (and probably other routes).  For example, an antihistamine and alcohol don't bind the same receptors, but they both have the effect of slowing your metabolism and making you tired.  So if/when you take both, you get a synergistic interaction and pass out.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are humans so bad at giving birth?

This year ~275,000 women will die giving birth. Countless others will need significant medical intervention. Why is this process so hard for humans? Do other animals suffer / die in similar numbers? If not, what makes us as a species so bad at this??

[Assistant]
> Why is this process so hard for humans?

Because we are smart and use tools.

Being smart requires a big brain, which means a big skull. Using tools means we need to walk upright which is easier with narrow hips. But the skull needs to go *through* the hips at birth!

To compensate human infants are born relatively undeveloped and need to be taken care of, which we can do more effectively than deer for example. They are still born as close to maximum skull size as possible though so it is dangerous and painful.


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

[User] [Bleach] What exactly do energy attacks like getsuga tensho, starks wolves ,, or Ceros do? Like what kind of damage do they cause ? are they heat ? concussive force ?

[Assistant]
They are condensed and shaped reishi.

Reishi is the spiritual equivalent of atoms for the mortal world, we see people hit by them show signs of burns so there is heat involved as well.

I'd say, it comes close to a form of condensed plasma that emits heat and is accelerated internally and outwardly with significant kinetic energy. So both heat and concussive.


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

[User]
[Stargate SG-1] Why do so many people immediately identify Teal'c as non-human?

Many of the cultures and people that SG-1 meets on their travels immediately identify Teal'c as non-human, even if they're not aware of what a Jaffa is.  What gives him away?

He does carry the mark of Apophis on his forehead in a rather extreme way, but that is not an inherent trait of the Jaffa, and could also be done to a mainline Human.

So what is it about Teal'c that jumps out as "alien" to so many people?

[Assistant] He passes for human most of the time when encountering people who don't know what a Jaffa is although they'll often pick out he's from a different culture which is kind of obvious because of his mannerisms and way of speaking.


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

[User]
CMV: Discrimination by a private business is immoral, but should be allowed

I would like to begin by emphasizing that I do think that discrimination in any shape or form is absolutely disgusting and ridiculous. However, Im a firm believer in personal property rights, and dont think that the government should have permission to force a private citizen to give anyone else any of his personal property.

All men and women are born with a natural right to their body and labor, as its all each individual possesses at birth, and no other person has a right to either of these things (except parents who are still allowed to raise kids and all that jazz). As the person ages and acquires more property outside of the bounds of his or her own body and labor, these same restrictions apply; no one else has a right to their property, which is why theft, vandalism, and other property crimes are wrong.

Another way of viewing it is in a simpler situation; if I were to own a lemonade stand and did not want to sell lemonade to someone for any reason, I have the complete authority over my own property and should be permitted to do as such. I know there are anti-discrimination laws on the books that make what I just said illegal, but I personally disagree with those laws. The governments primary function is the protection of property rights, not the legislation of morality at the expense of a violation of property rights. Before anyone says it yes taxation is still okay because it is necessary for the government to carry out its duties, being part of this government is completely voluntary, and the people have a say in how theyre taxed.

I do recognize the flaws in this argument. I realize that it's all based on the assertion that we all have the right to our own bodies and labor, and that I lack a sound justification for that assertion which is a great handicap for the idea. I would just like to specify once more, even though it already says 'Private' in the title, that only private organizations should be allowed this right, and the government must remain unable to discriminate based on gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.

With all of this said I want it to be perfectly clear that just because I believe that something should be allowed, does not mean that I believe that it is morally permissible. I believe racism, sexism, homophobia, and any other kind of bigotry you can think of, are all absolutely unjustified and morally abhorrent, but the fundamental right to your own property supersedes other peoples perceived right to your property, which does not exist.

[Assistant]
>The governments primary function is the protection of property rights, not the legislation of morality at the expense of a violation of property rights.

No, it's not. The government's primary function is to create the best society it can, which doesn't always mean enforcing absolute private property rights. Now, enforcing private property rights **is** a major part of the government, but only insofar as they make society better. As you mention in the post, taxation is a shining example of this - taxing people is a gross violation of private property, but a society where the government has no money is far worse than our current one.


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

[User]
Is there a statistical difference between adding several dice rolls together (3d6) vs. choosing a random number from within the range of possible rolls (3-18)?

I'm putting together a little program that generates stat blocks for Dungeons and Dragons characters. Stats in D&D are generally determined by rolling 4 six-sided dice, eliminating the lowest roll, and adding them together. To keep things simple, I've just been using 3d6 and adding them up.

I realized that I would have to write less code if I just did one random roll in a range of 3-18 (the possible range of numbers generated by 3d6). Is there a statistical difference between rolling 1-6 three times and rolling 3-18? If so, how significant is the difference, and why is it different?

[Assistant]
There is a difference and this difference is quite significant. The more dice you include, the larger the difference between rolling the dice separately and just rolling a uniformly distributed random value in the range of possible outcomes becomes.

Consider the situation with 2d6, which can add up to anything from 2 to 12. Each die has 6 possible outcomes, making a total of 36 combinations of outcomes. To end up with a sum of 2, only the roll (1, 1) will get the desired outcome, so the probability of getting a 2 is 1/36. However, if you sample a uniform random value from 2 to 12, the chance of rolling a 2 is 1/11, more than 3 times higher.

The chance of getting a 7 is also 1/11 when randomly sampling the full range of outcomes. On the other hand, to get a 7 with actual dice rolls, you can roll any of the following combinations: (1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4), (4, 3), (5, 2), (6, 1). A total of 6 combinations making the chance of rolling 7 with 2d6 equal to 6/36 = 1/6, nearly twice as high as when sampling the full range of outcomes.

In general, rolling multiple dice and adding up the value will favor outcomes in the middle of the full range, while the extreme ends are much less likely to come up. But if you directly sample the full range of outcomes, each outcome is equally likely. The more dice you roll, the stronger this effect becomes.


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

[User]
Why does the divisibility rule for 3 work?

If sum of all digits of any whole number in base ten is divisible by three, that number is divisible by three. Why does it work? Wikipedia gave me nothing, and the only explanation I found, was too complicated.

[Assistant] Take a three digit number ABC for example. The number is equal to 100A + 10B + C. You can rewrite this as 99A + 9B + (A + B + C). Now, 99A and 9B are obviously divisible by 3. So the entire sum is divisible by three if and only if (A + B + C) is divisible by 3.


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

[User] Could pure iron become a bose Einstein condensate at extremely low temperatures?

[Assistant]
Unlike stated in a different answer, by far most of the naturally occurring iron is bosonic (about 98%) and thus could totally form a BEC.

The difference to Helium-4 is that iron is a metal, which indicates already that the interactions between iron atoms are very different from interactions between helium atoms. We can make BECs out of metals (Rubidium for example, or Cesium or potassium), but only in low density systems at very low temperatures (densities more than a billion times lower than ordinary metals, and temperatures well below 1 Mikrokelvin). It's technically much more tricky to create these low temperatures with iron due to their more complicated level structure, but these technical issues aside, we could also create an Iron BEC.

Note that doesn't necessarily mean that iron will also form a BEC when you just take a block of it and magically cool it down to some low temperature. The phase diagram usually strongly depends on the density, and this might favor a different ground state for the extremely high density of ordinary iron compared to the extremely dilute clouds used to make other BECs from metals like Rubidium or Cesium.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why some websites don't let me use the "BACK" button?

When browsing the net, sometimes I hit "back," only to find my browser quickly reloads the current page.  Angrily, I hit "back" again.  Another refresh.  Clicking fast: Back, back, back, back, back.  Page reloads 5 or 6 times.

Whhhhy? :(

[Assistant] What is happening when you hit the back button is that you are going back to the previous page, which (in this case) is actually a redirect page that sends you back to the page you are trying to leave.  If you are using Chrome, right click the back button, and select the page to which you want to return.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Is their an in-universe explanation as to why B1 battle droids have personalities?

Maybe personality isn't the right word, but many of the battle droids we see act in sentient fashion when it doesn't make sense, i.e. when they have the drop on jedi they have been instructed to kill, they demand surrender rather than just shooting the jedi in the back. Out of universe it is clearly just a joke or a plot crutch to keep characters alive, but what about in-universe?

[Assistant] Droids tend to develop personalities if they don't recieve regular memory wipes. Since B1s were designed with quantity over quality in mind the Seperatists likely didn't bother with frequent memory wipes to save costs.


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

[User]
[Warhammer Fantasy] So what happens after the end times?

Been reading some Warhammer lore. So after everything is fked by the end times, what happens next? Is warhammer just all chaos now?

[Assistant] The Age of Sigmar begins. Everyone is reborn in a magical world with copyright-friendly names for everything. Gotrek, Tyrion and Teclis are gods, Sigmar has his own Space Marines, and the Horned Rat got a promotion but everyone still hates him.


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

[User] Do spiders make mistakes?

[Assistant] All animals make mistakes. This can be most easily observed by placing a rat into a sufficiently complex maze and then observing the learning behavior. It will take a while before they learn to solve it consistently, and stop taking the same bad path. There is no reason to believe spiders are any different from rats, mice, or humans in this regard.


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

[User] ELI5: How did technology grow so fast only in the last 200 years? And especially enormously in the last 40 years? Did humans become more intelligent?

[Assistant] Science builds upon itself. The scientific method itself is fairly recent, once we had a framework for using empirical data to create theories which we then test against more data we were able to get a much better understanding of the world. There were also some major breakthroughs which really let technology take off, Maxwells equations and the theory of electromagnetism allowing us to generate and use electricity was a major innovation. After that the development of quantum mechanics lead to most of our most advanced technologies today by allowing us to create nanoscale transistors which are the technology behind computers.


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

[User]
[TMNT] Would the other turles make great leaders?

I think Leonardo is an amazing and effective leader and I don't think the other turtles could do better than him, but out of curiosity how do you think the other turtles would do as leaders and would they be good and effective or not?

I think Donatello being the smartest could be a good leader, and as shown in the episode "Same as it never was" he was probably most valuable member of the team, seeing as without him, the Shredder was able to successfully take over the Earth and the 3 turles couldn't stop him without Donnie, and Donatello managed to defeat that Shredder all by himself, saving the alternate future. So I think Donatello would have been the second best choice, tell me if you agree or not and what you think of Raph or Mikey as leaders.

[Assistant] In the most recent animated series, Raph is initially the leader because Splinter hopes it will make him more careful if he has to take responsibility for his brothers. He acquits himself pretty well most of the time, though he's not as strategically inclined as Leonardo. Freed from his usual burden of leadership, Leonardo reveals an unexpected side of his personality: a laid-back, sarcastic fast-talker and prankster.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How did capes become so wizard in the galaxy?

We have Lando, Krennic, Vader wearing them, just to name a few people.

[Assistant]
But none of the actual space wizards, mind you!

All of the following applies to an in-universe fashion designer or closet whore:
>Capes have the obvious effect of making the wearer look larger and more imposing. Thus artists often use them as a way to make characters look capable, powerful and in charge. Just look at Batman over there. He wouldn't look half as awesome without his cape.
>
>The reasons for this are many. The color might provide a fetching counterpoint to the rest of their clothes, or else blend with them to give the wearer a dynamic silhouette. It may make them look even bigger than they really are. In the right conditions they can wave in the wind and look dramatic and striking. Lack of wind can be accommodated with a Cape Swish.


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

[User]
[Star Wars: AOTC] Why did Padms double think that she had failed?

After the failed assassination attempt, her last words to Padm were, Im sorry. I failed you.

Why? Im not trying to be crass, but it seems like she did her job perfectly.

[Assistant] She likely saw her own duty as being to draw out threats and catch them, not to simply die in her queen's place.  She did manage to save her queen's life, but she didn't manage to see the threat coming and deflect or defuse it, and because of that her attackers now know Amidala uses decoys as a security measure.  The next attack will be more dangerous.


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

[User]
CMV: For addictive drugs, criminal penalties should be replaced by mandatory rehab.

We should completely get rid of jail time for possession or use of drugs. It doesn't do anyone any good. But they shouldn't be completely legalized. They should be decriminalized and their should be job protections for people who are addicted as long as it doesn't directly affect their job performance and that their jobs don't require using firearms. vehicles or heavy machinery.

For Alcohol, and all other currently illegal drugs other than Marijuana, or non addictive hallucinogenic, mandatory rehab should be required.

The facilities would be set up like colleges, where people would stay in dorms, be able to go outside, have access to entertainment, and be able to have contact with family or friends, the difference would be that they would monitored by medical professionals and mental health professionals to ween people off the drugs and set up a success plan for when they leave.

They should be able to entered in 1 of 4 ways.

1 Familiy member employer or friend requests an intervention

2 The individual requests an intervention

3 Doctor or law enforcement officer requests an intervention

4 someone has survived an OD or near encounter with death as a result of taking drugs or alcohol.

They are it is involuntary detention even if they voluntarily go to the rehab, and they are able to leave when a doctor clears them as no longer addicted.

Fines should be levied against those who sell addictive drugs, that aren't alcohol (because legal).

It should be a life sentence for anyone caught trying to sell fentanyl as attempted murder or murder because it is what's killing people.

Why do I think this needs to be done?

Because in 2021 140K people died as a direct result of Alcohol and 108K people died from a drug overdose in the United States.

That's 248K drug (alcohol is a drug) deaths in a year.  Quarter Million. We need to do something!

[Assistant] The only way rehab is effective is if the addict is willing to quit. If they're not willing you're not only wasting everybody's time, you're also putting potentially dangerous people back on the street within a matter of weeks.


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

[User] [HALO] Has there been any Spartans that have been killed and/or assimilated into the Flood?

[Assistant] Nope. A few came close but none have been recorded officially or unofficially being assimilated or killed by flood. The closest was the master chief of installation 04 but Cortana overloaded his shields before the infection form could penetrate his spinal column.


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

[User] ELI5: How can people be allergic to things like Fish or Apples raw but not allergic to their cooked counter parts or vice versa?

[Assistant] If you are allergic to something, your body overreacts when detecting certain chemicals. Chemicals such as proteins in food are denatured and change structure when cooked, so the body recognises it as a completely different substance.


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

[User]
Why do we bite our nails? It is a completely useless function, but is still embarassingly addictive.

I've been doing this for years. Tell me I am supported by science, and not just a closeted cannibal.

Edit: append an ELI5 to the title, mentally.

[Assistant]
Humans also pick our noses and scrape wax from our ears. It's not useless, it's grooming, and despite being gross it's essential for hygiene.

Imagine if you NEVER picked your nose. Tissues don't do much for really stubborn dried blobs.


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

[User]
What is a cramp?

I understand that cramps are caused by electrolyte deficiency, and the pain comes from overshortening, but how does a muscle overshorten? What roles do electrolytes play in muscle activity?

[Assistant]
short answer: your muscles require energy (ATP) to release not to contract, and that energy controls the flow of ions in and out of the muscle tissue.  Thus with an ion defficiency, your muscles can contract all they want but can't release in a timely manner, thus causing the cramp.

this also explains rigor mortis.


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

[User]
CMV: Politicians should only get paid the median salary of their state and the same benefits as the average employee.

Enough is enough.

These politicians get into office, get high paying jobs, free healthcare for them and their families, and countless other benefits. Instead of realizing that these perks are given to them in return for doing what's right by the people, they just sit up there and do whatever their party says or whatever puts more money in their pockets.

Pay them only what the median salary is in their respective state.

Healthcare, 100% out of pocket, unless they make healthcare free for all. Their family members, the same exact thing. No free ride, no add your family member to the plan. Pay out of pocket for every single person you want to be insured, and pay 100% of it. Their salaries come from the public, so as long as we have to pay for our healthcare plans, they should too. Once they get their shit together, stand up to the insurance companies, and make healthcare a right to all, they can get their free healthcare back.

But there is NO reason why we as the taxpayers should be paying for them to get free healthcare, while we don't get afforded the same luxury.

When they're not working, they're not getting paid. 10th recess of the year, cool. You don't get paid for that time. When you're in the office, working, you get paid. When you're not, you don't get paid.

They clearly are so disconnected from what the average person needs in America, so give them the same exact benefits/pay. Let them work for just enough money to survive while getting half-assed benefits. I'm sure it will motivate them much more to get shit done for the people instead of for themselves. It will root out a lot of the shitty fucks who get into politics to enrich themselves, and it will hopefully make them work harder to improve the situation.

I am open to hearing some feedback and having my view changed on this.

EDIT: I am speaking about Senators and Congressional Representatives here.

[Assistant]
Going into politics is a terrible way to make money. Most politicians who use their office to make any significant money dont get the money from their salary: they get it by being corrupt, cutting deals, taking bribes, and other non-salary sources. Heck, the president only makes $400,000 a year. If you were the most important person in your entire line of work, you would almost certainly make more than that (just look at the presidents of companies).

The thing you have the right idea about is that we need to motivate politicians not to be corrupt. One way to do this could actually be to *increase* the government salaries, disincentivizing bribery by making government jobs pay well enough on their own that bribes are unnecessary for the recipient and taking one would jeopardize a well paying and respected career.

Currently, there are two big motives you could have for going into politics: one, you want to promote social change, or two, you want to feel important. Our current system is a lot better at enabling the second than the first.

Imagine if local government jobs payed more. Imagine the increase in the quality of the people who could compete for those jobs. An economics PhD with student debt could actually apply their knowledge to our economy, instead of being forced into industry or academia.


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

[User]
CMV: The most immediate way to fight the anti-abortion laws is jury nullification

Jury nullification is the concept that a jury has the right or the duty to refuse to convict a person for committing an unjust crime.

This has been used many times in the past.  Sometimes, it was used in the South to enforce terrorism towards minorities.  It was also used to free people charged with alcohol violations during Prohibition. It was used to free some mercy killers, as well.

With trials for new abortion-related crimes well underway, the fastest way for a single person to have an impact on abortion laws is to refuse to convict a person of an abortion crime.

Also, by making the state use scarce resources to try and fail to convict people who have had abortions, future prosecutions will be less likely.

With enough nullifications, the movement away from criminalizing abortions will be strong enough to get those laws repealed.

Yes, elections are still important. Failure to vote is what got us into this mess.  But, elections are a very slow process, and with the GOP attempts to destroy election integrity and outright voter suppression, they are going to have even less impact.

Is there another way for an individual to have as strong an impact on the criminalization of abortion?

[Assistant]
Jury nullification wont stop the chilling effect of these laws.  Clinics will close, doctors wont want to risk their license and livelihood on the chance at trial.

The most immediate way to fix this is to get Congress off their ass and pass a law protecting these rights.


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

[User] [lilo and stitch] stitch is experiment 626, did Jumba create at least 40 more of these things?

[Assistant]
He created 629 of them, of varying natures. We meet several in the spinoffs

Batch 600 were doomsday devices, so only 29 of them are stitchlike, but there's a lot of weird space dog things running around.


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

[User] About 410-290 million years ago the earth's atmosphere was 35% oxygen. If modern man existed in this era could our lungs breathe in this air?

[Assistant] Yes, oxygen toxicity is a documented problem for divers. It begins to occur when the partial pressure of oxygen being breathed is greater than 1.6 atmospheres. Because the pressure at sea level is only 1 atmosphere, even a pure oxygen atmosphere would be breathable to humans on Earth.


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

[User] Are all modern birds descended from the same species of dinosaur, or did different dinosaur species evolve into different bird species?

[Assistant]
Birds existed before the extinction of the dinosaurs. They are closely related to a group of dinosaurs known as Therapods and formed a grouping known as Coelurosauria ("hollow-tailed").

So it's not so much that birds evolved from dinosaurs as they are in fact dinosaurs - "Avian dinosaurs" - and the only survivors of that mass extinction.

Edit: only dinosaur survivors. Lots of other animals survived. Its theorized that birds survived while other dinos didnt because they were smaller and more adaptable with a more varied diet that other dino species after the asteroid impact. Kinda like how mammals survived.


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

[User]
ELI5: When you first start a diet and lose "water weight" that first week, what's really going on?

Why would my body decide that because I quit eating so much I suddenly need to retain less water?  Is there some secret water-to-food ratio that my body tries to keep or something?

Is it even water that's getting lost?  I don't understand.

Edit: Marking this as solved.  Thank you all so much for your replies!

[Assistant] Carbohydrates exert an 'osmotic' pressure on the water. They retain it. If you have alot of carbohydrates in your tissues then you will have this water weight. When you start dieting, your body uses these carbs in place of your normal food, decreasing the amount of water that is withheld.


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

[User] [Star Wars] What do Tatooine moisture farmers do during the day?

[Assistant]
Same things farmers have done through all time. Repair farm equipment such as droids, broken moisture vaporators, buildings, etc.

Maintenance on those items so they *don't* break.

Trade with the locals for supplies and materials which they cannot get on their own. Sometimes this is as convenient as Jawas rolling right up to your home. Other times it means going to Toshi Station or Mos Eisley, which can take all day.

And, of course, keeping an eye out for raiders, like those Tuskens.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we still use Latin to name new species?

Mainly just the title.

[Assistant] It's very descriptive as a language and isn't any countries major language any more, so there's less political tension than if it were in English , French, Italian etc. Moreover most science of the time would have been written in Latin, like Newton's Principia.


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

[User]
[Archer] What if Alfred Pennyworth was Archer's butler instead of Woodhouse?

Would Archer be more like Bruce Wayne? What do you think Alfred's relationship with Malory would be like?

[Assistant]
Assuming Sterling's character remains the same, Alfred would quit.  While Alfred does have a tolerance for self-destructive habits in his employer, that tolerance often seems like it is born out of belief in the greater good of the behavior.  However, there is no greater good to Sterling's drinking.  Alfred would see he's just enabling vices to no good purpose, and so even if he cared about Archer he would quit.  Adding further credence to this, Alfred also wouldn't be dependent upon Archer.  Woodhouse needs money for his fixes and might have trouble holding other employment given his habit.  Alfred isn't tied down in this way and could probably find work with any number of more pleasant and better-paying employers.

However, had Alfred been around from the start, it's worth wondering if Archer would have turned out different.  He might have become that star lacrosse player and led a well-adjusted, more-sober life.  Malory would probably be happy with this since she desires the appearance of legitimacy and success even if her own behavior subverts these goals.


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

[User]
Why do things keep smelling? Can odor get "Spent"?

I was handling a key and noticed my hands smelled like metal after. I wondered how long this key has been around and was curious about the fact that it still had a smell. I imagined the "odor particles" coming out of the key and wondered if they ever get spent... (and if there even is such thing as an "odor particle")

Thanks beforehand!

[Assistant]
The smell of metal on your hands after handling keys, coins, etc is actually the smell of your body's natural oils on the surface of your skin reacting in a small way with the metal. Chemical by-products are released, some as vapours that you can smell.

Once you remove the metal, the smell lingers until the chemical reaction has 'used up' the available metal atoms and the smell disappears.


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

[User] I know a little bit about relational databases like MySQL. What are noSQL databases? How do they work and how does that differ from relational databases?

[Assistant]
Whereas a relational database is typically thought of as a collection of tables, with columns, and rows of information referencing other rows of information in other tables, the structure in which a noSQL system stores data is markedly different. If you're familiar with any programming languages, you can think of the way this information is stored as a dictionary. Or JSON. Essentially an N depth hierarchy of key-value pairs.

That's the difference in how they store data, individual systems on both sides have distinct requirements and considerations for things like distribution, scaling and redundancy.


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

[User]
What's in between my organs?

We're full of blood, yes, but it's all contained in one area or another. I know we can't be dry in there, it's gotta be slippery so we can move around. Is it just, mucous or slime or whatever?

[Assistant]
It depends on the organs you're talking about. There is usually just a sterile fluid that acts as a lubricant between different organs so they can rub together and not cause irritation. There's also connective tissue between some organs which is exactly what it sounds like and basically helps everything stay in the right shape.
Not sure how much more a 5 year old would want to know...


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

[User]
How do so many experimental psychology papers get away with n=15?

I've been reading a lot of papers for my thesis lately and I keep seeing papers (that aren't pilot studies) with sample sizes between 15 and 30. How is that even remotely enough to draw inferences from? Shouldn't there be problems with random noise not canceling itself out due to the small sample size?

[Assistant] The necessary sample size depends on what you're trying to estimate, and with what precision. Psychology has a problem with low power in general, but it's hard to speak generally about "getting away with n=15" without specifying what kind of experiment we're talking about. There are many results in psychology that are perfectly replicable with a sample that small, and many experiment that should probably be conducted with much larger samples.


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

[User]
How certain is the scientific community actually about the big bang theory?

We have been observing the expansion of the universe for only a very limited duration, given the assumed age of the universe and we are extrapolating this behavior until the start of time. I mean anything could happen during the time we are not observing. The function we are measuring could be as well a wave, but the time frame of our existence wouldnt be long enough to ever measure a compression of the universe. My point is, are there any factors, that makes it certain that the universe is ever expanding and how certain are scientists about the big bang theory.

[Assistant]
We actually get to see almost the entire history of the universe. Light doesn't travel instantly, so when we look at very distant galaxies, we are seeing them as they were billions of years ago - not as they are now. And as we can see these galaxies, we can observe that the speed of light appears to be unchanged in these distant galaxies - i.e. we can see that the speed of light hasn't changed over time, at least not by much. The speed of light is an important constant that affects the chemistry of elements. But we can get a peek into the chemistry of distant galaxies, because specific atoms and molecules in specific states emit light at very specific frequencies. If the speed of light was radically different, then we'd be able to see radical changes in the emission of these specific elements, and we don't see that.

From our picture of the history of the universe, we see that the universe is *evolving* in an irreversible way. Gas gets turned into stars, and much of that gas stays in stars - so the star:gas ratio increases over time. Hydrogen and helium gets turned into heavier elements, so we see fewer and fewer heavier elements as we look at more and more distant galaxies. Galaxies merge with each other, and don't separate apart from each other again, and so on. We see lots of different pieces of evidence that all support the idea that the universe has been expanding and evolving since a fixed point in the distance past, rather than either being eternal and unchanging, or very young.

And of course, we can directly measure the expansion of the universe with redshifts, and see that the galaxies are indeed mostly moving apart from each other, and the more distant they are, the faster they are moving away, to the point where it utterly dominates the large-scale motion of galaxies in the universe. We also see, in the very distant universe, a nearly featureless opaque "wall" of material. This is the cosmic microwave background, and it's difficult to explain how such background emission could be so featureless, and such a perfect blackbody, unless it is the final emission from the very early universe, as it transitioned from being opaque and hot and dense into being transparent and cooler and less dense.

Now, there's plenty of wriggle room in debating what the origin of the universe was, and what happened *before* the big bang and so on. But the idea that the universe has expanded from a hot dense nearly-uniform state at some finite point in the past is very robust.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are all modern chemical weapons nerve agents?

Why aren't there chemicals in use that have a different mechanism of action like preventing oxygen intake or causing burns? What makes nerve agents the best weapons?

[Assistant]
Conventional chemical weapons were not that effective in battle:
* Early chemical weapons were inhaled; so everyone started wearing gas masks, which nullified their effectiveness.
* Non-nerve agents which affect the skin are generally pretty limited,  you can make someone's skin itch or burn, but probably not kill them.  These burning/itching agents were used in WWI in conjunction with lethal inhaled agents to try to get soldiers to take off their gas masks, when the inhaled gas would kill them.
* Most conventional chemical weapons require a lot of poison to cause death.  That meant that it was a very expensive way to kill X element soldiers, when compared to bullets and shells.  It also meant that the area of effect of a chemical bomb was very small, if the poison were spread over a large area it would not be effective.

Weaponized nerve agents generally can be absorbed through the skin, so gas masks don't protect the enemy at all.  They also tend to work at much lower concentrations than conventional chemical weapons, so a set amount of chemical weapon might work over a larger area.  There are much fewer nerve cells in your body than say, muscle cells, and each nerve cell is proportionally more important.  If you develop a poison which can target one kind of cell, killing nerve cells would be debilitating and/or lethal much quicker than killing muscle cells.  This is why most venom found in nature are nerve agents.


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

[User]
[The Flash] How does Barry Allen's healing powers work?

It's stated that he has SUPER FAST HEALING. But how does that help him recover from injuries that can't be healed by the human body alone, like a meniscal tear? (Meniscus being the cartilage inbetween your knee joints that acts as a cushion and stabilizer.) Since blood doesn't flow through that part of the body, no amount of healing speed will help it recover.

And what about bone fractures? Wouldn't his super fast healing speed be detrimental to the proper fusion of any of his fractures? If it gets improperly fused, would he have to break his bones again to get it to set properly?

Doesn't his super fast healing need proper nutrition to work properly? If he has malnutrition, isn't that like being a super fast construction company but not given enough building materials to work with right?

Has any of his healing abilities been properly explained before in detail?

[Assistant] Going off of the CW Flash, Ive never heard of him having meniscal tears, but things like broken bones, shrapnel, and other things that require medical intervention for proper recovery he usually limps back to STAR Labs to get help from his scientist friends. As far as nutrition goes, STAR labs created physics defying nutrition bars that contain hundreds of times a  normal persons caloric requirements to keep up with Flashs metabolism, and Barry eats constantly in addition to those, so nutrition isnt going to be an issue.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] Where do starters come from?

As it seems starters cannot be found in the wild, where do professors acquire starters to give to new trainers?

[Assistant]
Each starter Pokemon is an example of a species of extremely powerful wild pokemon.

The reason they cannot be encountered in the wild by prospective trainers is that they specifically stay out of the way of humans, in secure habitats such as Charific Valley. It takes years of study to gain the trust of these animals and gain access to their territories. And even then it can be dangerous as the group of species known to be "starters" are extremely powerful in most cases. And also a lot are known to mega evolve.

Starter Pokemon are the result of pokemon professors gaining the confidence of adult specimens and breeding them for further research. The offspring is then taken and presented to first year trainers as a way of monitoring domestication of these particular species.

It may seem cruel but wild pokemon often rear clutches of eggs much larger than domesticated pairs and the adult couple rarely miss 1 egg going missing. Usually accounting it to predation.


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

[User] ELI5: When your joints crack, what exactly is the pop sound you hear? Why do the pops sound different sometimes?

[Assistant] All joints have a capsule. The capsule contains the lubricant: synovial fluid. When the joint moves into end ranges, this allows bubbles to form within the capsule. The forceful pressure of the joint releases those gases resulting in a popping sound.


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

[User] ELI5: How do doctors calculate the amount of time dying people have until they die?

[Assistant] The doctors don't calculate much, they look at statistics on the average survival time/rate of people at similar stages of the disease in the past. With experience doctors get quite good at estimating the situation and guessing somewhat precisely but that does not mean the estimate is exactly the time a person has left. If a doctor says you have 3 months left you could still die next week or live another year.


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

[User]
[The Thing] Could the Thing assimilate the Hulk?

And if so, how?

[Assistant]
No, The Thing is made of a rocky substance. His forte is strength and durability, not assimilation. I'd assume if any of the Fantastic Four were able to assimilate people it would be Mr. Fantastic.

Now to stop being a dick.

I would doubt it. The radiation in The Hulk's body would most likely cause The Thing to flee lest it be killed by radiation poisoning. On top of that The Hulk has an insane healing factor that would most likely fight off the invading substance. And lastly, The Hulk is too strong in general so he'd easily be able to fight The Thing off, causing him to flee.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why didn't the Avengers let any government/country know that they were going to resurrect all of the people that were snapped by Thanos five years ago?

* It seems very reckless and outright dangerous to just resurrect all of those people without letting anyone know so that they could adequately prepare for billions of people to suddenly reappear.

[Assistant] If the governments even believed it was possible would they have even supported the action yet alone prepared for it! No. The heroes were doing the right thing, an that doesn't come with government approval. In fact many may have been enjoying the newly depopulated World!


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

[User]
During graduate admissions, would you choose a candidate with an amazing research project, and references, but a okayish GPA, or another with an okayish research project, good references, but excellent GPA?

What's the protocol?

[Assistant]
Amazing research project and references, as long as the GPA is still "good". It depends what you mean by okayish.

If the GPA is "bad" then they'd probably be screened out before anybody even looks at the other stuff.


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

[User] [LOTR] Given enough time, would Harad or the Easterlings have betrayed Mordor? Did these lands have their own ambitions, long-term plans that were served by Mordor in the short-term? Did Sauron break these people or was something deeper going on?

[Assistant] The Men of that region had been fucked for countless thousands of years. Theyve pretty much only ever been under the dominion of Morgoth and Sauron. There were no Noldorin Elves there, no Nmenoreans, no saviors or teachers. The Blue Wizards were sent to lend them a hand, but their fate is largely unknown.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does chlorine (Cl) change so drastically from a gas to table salt (NaCl) when sodium is added?

[Assistant]
When Cl is alone, it is missing only one electron so it desperately wants to find one to complete its orbital. That is why chlorine gas is so corrosive - its trying as hard as it can to yank electrons off anything it can find.
Sodium on the other hand has one electron it desperately wants to get rid of. It donates it to the chlorine, which gives the Na a positive charge and the Cl a negative charge. The opposing charges make them stick together and they fall into a very stable, very regular pattern  the salt crystal! When all the Na and Cl ions are lined up in the crystalline structure, their charges are balanced on all sides. Basically they have everything they need, and so they are essentially non-reactive in that state.


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

[User]
(WH40k) What would happen on an Ork planet if, lets say Tzeentch, willed billions of big pointy sharp teef to appear all over the place.

I can't imagine a scenario where anything else in GrimDark would want to flood the Ork economy.

[Assistant]
ORK ECONOMNOMICS IS REAL SIMPLE, YA GROT.

YA USE DA TEEF TO BUY DE SHINEY, GOTTA BE DA BOYZ TEEF. DEY GOT DA BEST TEEF.

BUT IF DA WEIRDBOYZ GONE AND MADE ALL THOSE TEEF, ALL DA BOYZ COULD HAVE DA REALLY GOOD SHOOTAS AND CHOPPAS.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why didn't Stark provide the less-durable members of the team with armor or movement enhancing capabilities?

Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Scarlett Witch are all just humans. One bullet or piece of debris would take them out. Why no make suits for everyone?

 Doesn't necessarily have to be an iron man suit, but some armor to protect them from damage or some lasers or jet packs to get them out of trouble couldn't hurt right?

 I'm sure Hawkeye would love it if he could quickly get to a position to aim down at enemies. Black widow could probably do awesome things in a strength suit. Wanda could probably use a some added protection to keep her safe.

Why not augment the team or just create special suits for each member that isn't superhuman?

[Assistant]
Tony was already providing weapons for most of the Avengers and gave them nifty upgrades especially in Age of Ultron - he just choose the weapons that suited them best rather than giving them a suit.

There's also the fact that pre-Homecoming a suit wouldn't be useful. There's too much of a learning curve for one - we saw that in Infinity War. Banner is implied to help create the Hulkbuster and he was shit at using it - it didn't display the versatility and skill when Tony used it in AOU. It would also directly impact Widow and Hawkeye's more acrobatic fighting styles. Post-Homecoming when Tony started incorporating nanotech to his suits, it would make more sense but by that time Tony had a massive falling out with the group and didn't know where they were. He wasn't going to make suits for them.