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

[User]
[Star Trek]Why does humanity tend to advance faster than other races?

1800 odd years after getting into space (at least), Vulcan ships are still limited to just under warp 7. Humanity went from their first space flight to warp 7 ships in just 200 years.

[Assistant]
Humans, besides having had a bit of a technological leg up from their time as a Vulcan protectorate, are uniquely good at networking. They were able to bring together the advancements of other nearby polities by bringing those polities into an alliance and ultimately the Federation.

Human culture is also well-suited to technological advancement compared to many of their neighbors, in part because of that affinity for cooperation and experimentation. Vulcans are highly scientific, but comparatively cautious and calculating, preferring to stick to a sure thing until all the bugs are worked out of a new innovation. Tellarite culture prizes engineering but also emphasizes vigorous debates and argumentation, stymieing collaborative efforts that could yield faster progress. Klingons got a big leg up from the Hur'q early in their history but did not advance quickly after that, in part because of a culture that valued action over thought and war over learning. Andorians are the closest thing in terms of upstarts (having had space travel for several centuries but relying on hibernation ships until about Earth year 1987) but more or less kept pace with humans from that point. Romulans and Cardassians had similar problems with cooperation due to their secretive and treacherous cultures. And the Ba'ul were mostly content to remain in their tiny sphere of influence, torturing the Kelpiens for the depredations of their ancestors.


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

[User]
Why doesn't my phone record echos?

While camping at a lake in a small granite bowl with my brother, the wind completely died after a thunderstorm, and the echos of our voices were some of the clearest I've ever heard.   There seemed to be very little loss in quality or volume.  We attempted to record the event with our phones several times, but only our initial shouts could be heard on both phones (Galaxy 5 and IPhone 6).

How did the phones' microphones differentiate between the initial voice and the almost identical echo?  Or is there something in the way sound travels that changed it in some way?

[Assistant] Your phone doesn't have any special echo cancelling for voice recording. It just doesn't have the dynamic range and low enough noise floor to capture the echo. Even though it may seem that there was very little difference between the original sound and the echo, there was. Additionally, your phone probably records compressed audio. Unless the sound exceeds a certain limit, it can be skipped entirely.


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

[User]
[Last Action Hero] What happens to someone using the ticket when the movie ends?

So you've used the ticket and have entered a movie. You've enjoyed your time in this movie: for simplicity let's say you entered a romantic comedy. You've used your genre savvy to become part of the story, even hooking up with one of the supporting cast. The big finale just occurred (Jennifer Aniston decided her and Paul Rudd don't need to be married to be happy, so they called off the wedding and are just going to stay a couple living together). Everyone is wishing them luck, lots of little story elements are paying off, there's a cameo or two, and you swear you can hear the building of the end title music.

What's going to happen to you? Will you live in this universe forever? Will you be ejected safely as the credits end and the projector turns off/next movie starts? Do you die when it ends? Are you trapped in limbo until the movie is replayed?

Bonus questions: Are your changes to the movie a part of all copies, this copy or does the movie not change.
-Let's say you pull your supporting character love interest into the real world, or maybe just the cool dog or vintage car you got yourself. Are they permanently part of our world, or do they last until the movie ends as well?
Feel free to cast this movie too.

[Assistant]
The movie remains the same.  The official version is what it is, it doesn't change.  After the events of Last Action Hero, people weren't wandering around questioning why Death disappeared from the classic film "The Seventh Seal".  And even with the publicity stunt at the premier with Arnold, people in the theater weren't questioning why some kid suddenly appeared on the screen.

You get to interact with the world of the movie, but it basically changes only on that particular viewing.  So when the movie would normally end, Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd go off to live their lives together.  And then you're just sitting around in a romcom world, but one where you're not the main character.  Yes, women here tend to fall for creepy stalker behavior (want to win a woman over?  Follow her to the airport and make a big scene!), and everybody seems to have a sassy best friend who is full of insightful but obnoxious advice, but otherwise things are the same.  You still have to get a job and pay bills.

You've got the magic ticket, so you can leave whenever you want.  Remember, this is a window into a world where the movie is real.  Stuff exists beyond the visible aspects of the film (Arnold's character pays a guy to call and pretend to be his ex-wife).  Time progresses offscreen.  So you wouldn't just disappear once the film ended.  You'd just hang around there.  Although time does work differently, so if there's not a new sequel yet, it might be sort of a vague, undefined Limbo-like existence.  We don't know what happens next yet, so there's probably a lot of waiting around with unresolved plotlines.  You never know if Sarah is going to get accepted to art school, or what the sex of Dan and Amy's baby is, or if the killer is really dead.  Mysteries like this might hang around for *years*, but the people around you wouldn't think anything of it.  That's just how stuff works.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do bath towels start smelling bad when all they do is fill with water and then dry?

I'm guessing maybe the longer drying time means mildew has a chance to build up? Or maybe when you dry off, your body isn't perfectly clean so the towel is picking up soap and dirt from your body which then builds up and smells?

[Assistant]
You are surrounded, all the time, by millions upon millions of tiny microorganisms.  You are also coated in them, even after you shower.

Getting your towel wet makes it a hospitable environment for this host of creatures. Many of them, when they become numerous enough, smell pretty funky.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do my tooth filings sting when I bite aluminum and other metals?

Just wondering.

[Assistant] Putting metal in your mouth creates a rudimentary battery, it sends light electrical current through your mouth setting off the nerve endings in your teeth and obviously fillings conduct better than plain teeth so the feeling in fillings is stronger.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do corporations and wealthy individuals minimise their tax? Can a 'regular joe' use the same techniques?

Kerry Packer (at one time Australia's richest man) once said to a governmental enquiry:

"I am not evading tax in any way, shape or form. Now of course I am minimizing my tax and if anybody in this country doesn't minimize their tax they want their heads read."

How do the wealthy and big corporations minimise their tax?  Are these same techniques available to everyone else?

[Assistant]
Others have given you an answer, but not very good, concise answers...

Everyone can, and does, minimize their taxes.  A great many individuals donate cars, clothes, etc, and take those donations as deductions against their taxes; that is tax avoidance, just the same as companies do.

The difference is that companies and wealthy people have much larger sums of money with which to play.

There are several individual tricks which are only available to certain taxable entities (corporations and partnerships).  A person in a partnership, for example, can turn almost all of his income into capital gains and therefore greatly reduce his tax burden.  Capital gains rates have been modified recently, but they used to be 15% whereas a wealthy person could be paying around 40% in income taxes.  When we're talking about millions per year, that is a great savings.

But doing this is all completely provided for in the tax code, it is a feature, not a bug; therefore it is not a loophole but mere, legal, avoidance.

Generally, how partners in a partnership can characterize their income as capital assets is: all the income, according to the law, passes through the partnership to the individuals.  Then, and this is the "trick," the individuals loan that money to the entity which then pays the individuals payments on the loan; those payments are characterized as capital investments of the individual and not regular income.


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

[User]
What is the hardest part about programming that is essential to be a good programmer, but many avoid?

I'm fairly new to programming (started a year ago, trying to study each day for 2 hours) and starting to feel like I'm getting the hang of things.

With many skills in life, there are always a couple of aspects that we want to avoid, but that are essential to practise for us to get better. For example with learning a spoken language it's grammar. With sports, it's building condition and repeting basic moves over and over. We tend to just want to talk, or to play a match, and skip or avoid the essentials.

I would like to know what the equivalent in coding is. Personally, I really don't like reading documentation, but know that I should start doing that.

[Assistant] The hard part of the work is the problem solving, not writing the code (that happens after). Unfortunately many developers can write code, but can't problem-solve. So either they need to be told exactly what to write, or they end up creating a huge mess that often doesn't even work.


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

[User]
Would universal basic income basically drive up the price of everything?

For instance, where I live rent is expensive and housing supply is limited. If EVERYONE here had an extra $1000 a month, they could afford to pay more. So wouldnt the market price of rent pretty quickly adjust to the new normal?

And wouldnt the same principle apply to many things in the economy?

[Assistant]
It depends on how you finance it.

If you finance it via money creation, you get higher inflation.

If you finance it via redistribution, e.g. taxes, you don't necessarily end up with inflation. You will get higher demand for some goods and it's perfectly possible that goods bought by poor(er) people will go up in price. That doesn't mean you get a (significant) increase in the general price level.


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

[User]
Is the government the only entity capable of acting on discoveries made by new economic research?

Who else has the power to act on discoveries made?

[Assistant] No. For example, Google ad auctions use a second price auction. There has been a considerable amount of theoretical and empirical research on market design in the last 70 years that has informed this decision.


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

[User]
[W40k] What is the standard Imperium procedure after finding a lost colony?

Let's say, for example, someone finds a world that has been forgotten about. Not a big deal, the Imperium finds and loses planets daily due to the sheer scale of it. The populace wish to rejoin the Imperium and all's good right?

But what happens next? How do they decide who becomes the Governor? Will it be given to one of the locals or some Terran noble?

How much interference will the Imperium have on this new planet? Will they just collect their tithes and ultimately leave them alone with no military presence?

[Assistant]
The Governor is put in place from the populace, or assigned by the Imperium (I think the latter is SOP), and then the planet is surveyed to determine the worth of its tithe, and then the Governor is expected to get that tithe to the Imperium by the deadline.

Governor is definitely not a Terran Noble, since they really love being *Terran* nobles.

Most colonies are left to their own as long as they don't go to Chaos, leave the Imperium, and give their tithes.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do internal search engines often do not work as you expect them to work?

[Assistant]
Because building search algorithms that work *as you expect* is extremely hard. Google works so well because they invested unfathomable amounts of money into the development of their most-known core product, the search engine. Now just compare it to the next competitor, Microsoft's Bing search. While developing that one also took lots and lots of money, its results are arguably worse than Google's, at least in public opinion. So we easily see that, while the amount of spent money on development is still huge in absolute numbers, search quality decreases faster than the money involved. Fast forward now, skip a lot of search engines in between until you're looking at your internal search engine, that probably isn't a core product of a multi-billion dollar company. It's probably just a by-product the developers threw onto a specific product to make it look more complete. There cannot be remotely enough "brain power" in there to provide anything more than exact text search with some fuzzy tolerances in matches maybe. In other words, it lacks any *semantic abilities*. But those semantic features are what you *expect* from a search engine and they are simply not available.

// edit: To provide an example for semantic abilities, based on the example from a post further down here: If you type "Star Wars", then returning "star" and "wars" is dumb. Returning "Star Wars"-matches is better, but still not good. If the engine knows that, for example, "Rogue One" is somehow connected to "Star Wars" even though they do not share more letters than the "r", then you have an algorithm that is semantically useful.


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

[User]
[Marvel][Conan the Barbarian] With the increasing number of Hyborian Age threats that keep popping up in modern day is there any expert or go-to person in the Marvel Universe for stuff from that era? Like if Thulsa Doom or some other era specific threat shows up who do you call?

It seems to me like the "Hyborian problem" is escalating and more and more high end threats from that era are surfacing, and it's a bit disconnected from the rest of Marvel earth's timeline so specialized knowledge of the magic, monsters, and people of the era seems rare even for guys like Dr. Doom or Dr. Strange. Just pulling Conan himself into it seems like an unreliable answer given his temperament and his reluctance to spend too much time in the far future, so my question is who is the expert on this stuff? When the Hyborian age comes calling which Avenger or superteam is best as a first responder?

[Assistant]
Well. You've got Selene of the Hellfire Club. She's a lot older than you might expect. But she is, if anything, probably going to be much more trouble to work with than Conan. Also Man-Thing's buddy Dakimh the Enchanter, and his apprentice Jennifer Kale alias Zhered-Na.

Apart from that you might have to turn to Namor and Atlantis' archives, or ask Thor if he's got any relatives who were around then and left some heirlooms for just such an occasion.


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

[User]
[MCU/Marvel] Why haven't the Asgardians reprimanded the Kree Empire for infringing on Earth's territory?

Since Earth/Midguard is under Asgard's protection and watch why haven't they taken action against The Kree Empire for infringing on their territory and experimenting on humans?

[Assistant] Conventional wisdom among Asgardians is that Midgard is far too uncivilized to directly associate with. The Kree tampering with human DNA thousands of years ago wouldn't require immediate retaliation.


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

[User]
[Halo] Why did the Prophets go through all the trouble of instigating a crippling civil war at what was probably the most vital moment of their campaign against the humans?

I get that they were trying to phase the Elites out with the Brutes but.....why the sudden mass murder? Were the Elites not loyal, capable soldiers who had lead a very successful war against the UNSC? Why not try to slowly and safely give the Brutes more and more power instead of declaring open war against roughly half the population of the covenant seemingly out of nowhere?

[Assistant]
1. The San 'Shyuum were arrogant. The Sanghelli were becoming more suspicious of why the humans were not offered to become members of the Covenant. The Prophet of Truth believed that his plan to exterminate the galaxy of all sentient life would not fail, hence increasing the need to replace the Sanghelli before they can rebel at mass genocide.

2. It was not a successful war as you might think. Often times, the UNSC were able to push back the Covenant on the ground. If it were not for the superior tech of the Covenant ships, Humanity would not have lost as many colonies as you might think.

3. There was still lingering feelings between the San 'Shyuum and Sanghelli. The San 'Shyuum were still smarting from losing the ground war against the Sanghelli. Also, despite the centuries of the Covenant, the San 'Shyuum never did quite trust the Sanghelli. The Sanghelli were too questioning, too independent, a little too much a painful reminder that the San 'Shyuum lost to them when they were still martial race.


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

[User]
[Nineteen Eighty-Four] Who is at the top?

One thing I've been wondering back to about George Orwell's 1984 is whether or not there is some group at the top, above the party's outer and inner circles and benefiting from control of the masses. Is this the case? Or has everybody fallen victim to the doublethink/newspeek paradigm. That is to say, if one were to lead a rebellion, is there one particular group which is causing the system to be the way it is and can be targeted, or is it a systematic issue which must be uprooted from the bottom?

[Assistant]
The inner party are at the top.

Basically there are three groups of workers. Many assume that Winston is at the bottom but hes actually in the middle. It works like this:

**Proles**: about 85% of the population. They do all the grunt work and are kept in line with sports, porn and alcohol.

**Outer Party**: About 13% of the pop. This is the traditional middle class but is kept under close watch and at near poverty levels by todays standards. (The party believes that revolutions start from the middle class so they are the ones that are actually the most oppressed.)

**Inner Party**: Top 2%. They have servants/slaves, their own cars and some even say their own helicopters. They realise that its all propaganda but its unsure how much they buy into it. They will purge their own, though, as they did with Goldstein (assuming he actually exists).

As you can see from that last paragraph, the problem with this whole thing is no one really knows what goes on with the Inner Party. However, if you did want to overthrow the whole thing, going against them is where you would start.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do nuclear explosions take the shape of mushroom clouds? Do all nukes explode in that shape?

As I've yet to see a nuclear explosion in real life, I only have movies, TV, and archive video go off of.

Obviously, not ALL nukes explode this way, right? Why are they constantly depicted as being that shape in live action movies and cartoons?

Edit: Thanks for all the answers, you guys! Also, this thread is a goldmine if you have the 'Cloud to Butt' extension in Chrome.

[Assistant]
When a nuke goes off, it creates a giant shockwave that very quickly moves outward in a sphere. If it's close enough to the ground, then some of it bounces off of the ground and you get a sort of double shockwave traveling along the Earth's surface. This kicks up lots of dust, especially if the fireball itself hits the ground and vaporizes even more stuff.

Anyways, this shockwave is really powerful, and one of the things it does is that it pushes a lot of the air away from the explosion. This happens really quickly, and it leaves behind an area of much lower pressure.

So once the shockwave moves away, then air starts rushing back from all directions, in towards the source of the explosion. When it all meets at the center, it collides and has nowhere to go except up. And so that forces all of the dust up to make the mushroom stem. As the air/dust mixture gets higher up and past where all the air was rushing back in, it starts to spread out and make the mushroom "cap".


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

[User] [suicide squad] how did Amanda Waller convey the message of task force x to weasel? Weasel doesnt seem to be very aware of anything and doesnt even seem to have a sense of self. When theyre talking about him on the copter, he just stares blankly at nothing. How do you communicate with that?

[Assistant]
You dont. Weasel is your first clue that the entire team is cannon fodder, a distraction from the actual insertion.

Gunn has suggested in interviews that Weasel isnt even guilty of the crime hes accused of, but because hes incapable of defending himself from accusation he ended up taking the fall.


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

[User]
Is the star CFBDSIR 1458 10b touchable?

I know that it is estimated to be about as hot as coffee, but could we touch it? (Assuming we have some way to travel to it, of course). Is it that cold because of the rate of reaction in the star (Question One)? If so does that affect how much radiation is produced (Q2) and if so is it at a level that humans can tolerate enough to 'touch' the star (Q3)?

[Assistant]
CFBDSIR 1458 10b is a brown dwarf which means its just below the mass needed to ignite fusion.

They still produce a significant amount of radiation, so much that any planet orbiting close enough would have its water boiled off.

The thing that would really prevent you from ever touching the surface is the fact that its gravity is massive. The smallest brown dwarfs have a mass equal to about 30 Jupiters. If you ever got close enough to think about touching it, you'd be pulled in and crushed before the sensation of touch even registered.


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

[User]
What would a collision between a star and a planet look like?

In the event that an Sol-sized star and an Earth-sized planet crashed directly into each other, what would the resulting impact look like?

* Would it appear that the star simply absorbed the planet?
* Would the impact cause a visible (from 1 au) explosion?
* Would there be any long-lasting change to the star?

I assume a head-on collision to avoid complications of the planet breaking up due to tidal forces in orbit, turning into a ring, etc -  This planet is simply plowing into the star.

[Assistant]
Not so sure about a head on collision but when a planet gets close enough to a star the tidal forces rip it apart (and melt/vaporise it). The response of the star is to become brighter for a period of time. According to the paper published to explain the secular dimming of the much popularised star KIC 8462852 (you know the one they couldnt explain its dimming and the media went wild saying it was aliens... that one!) the duration of increased brightness depends on planet size. Terrestrial sized planets increase luminosity for a period of the order of tens of years. Jupiter sized planets of the order of thousands of years.

You would definitely see the planet being destroyed not only within the system but quite a distance out. Consider that we can see comets burning up in daylight and they are significantly smaller than a planet!

As a side KIC 8462852 is thought to have consumed an earth sized planet 30 years ago (ignoring time delay of light arriving here!). So we only just missed that as that is roughly how long ago it was 1st observed! Also this system is a good indication that planet star collisions are a lot more common than we would have thought as it is thought that multiple planets ended up colliding with that star over the last few thousand years.


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

[User] [GoT] King Robb of Winterfell sends Rickard Karstark to the Nights Watch instead of execution. What happens next?

[Assistant]
The Karstarks remain loyal to the King in the North, though Robb eventually comes to the realization that he still doesn't have enough forces to take Kings Landing.  They divert to Casterly Rock and take the Lannister homeland in a bloody battle.

Tywin is forced to make concessions and names Robb Warden of the North.  However, he's less than pleased after learning of the deaths of the Lannister boys who were Robb's prisoners.  He secretly makes deals with Walder Frey.

Robb brings his wife and army to the Freys for Edmure's wedding and victory celebration.  The Red Wedding occurs as before, the army of the North is scattered, and Tywin reclaims Casterly Rock.  Rickard is released and returns home where he holds a grudge against the Starks.


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

[User]
How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything?

My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others.

But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying.

Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: "Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty." Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect?

Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?

[Assistant] Research the idea of philosophy as therapy. Theres an entire tradition of philosophers who have addressed exactly what you describe. There are a couple of helpful books and papers too. Theyre all influenced by the way Wittgenstein did philosophy. It might be helpful to study modal philosophy for a bit too, especially its epistemology. And make sure to go and touch grass.


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

[User] ELI5: When you are sick and have a cough how does the body stop coughing and allow you to fall asleep?

[Assistant] You do not stop caughing, you continue to caugh in your sleep. Your body is able to do a lot of things in its sleep including all the reflexes associated with caughing. It is only if it is not able to clear your throat itself that it will wake you up so you can do more drastic measures. So even if you are sick and caughing you will fall asleep and continue to caugh but may wake up in the middle of the night if your cauching becomes too bad.


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

[User]
ELI5:What is the difference between a 2-Stroke Motorcycle and a 4-Stroke Motorcycle.

There are 2-Stroke motorcycles and 4-Stroke motorcycles. I always hear that 2-Strokes have better displacement/power. Why is that? Also, why aren't there more 2-Strokes being made if that is the case?

[Assistant] A four stroke engine operates in much the same way as your mouth does when you eat.  You take a bite of food, you chew it, you swallow it, you take another bite of food.  A two stroke engine operates like a professional eater where chewing is for chumps.  You bite, swallow, bite, swallow, bite, swallow.  You eat faster but its much less efficient, makes a terrible mess, and sounds disgusting.


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

[User]
Core readings for Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre?

Hey all, I'm trying to dive into some existential philosophies. I know some of the general ideas but I want to dig into the actual texts to get a better understanding and learn more. What would you all consider to be the most important works by these authors, if I only were to read one or two for each to start?

[Assistant]
Nietzsche:
Beyond Good and Evil
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
On the Genealogy of Morality

Camus:
The Myth of Sisyphus
The Stranger
Secondarily:
The Rebel
The Plague

Sartre:
Nausea
Being and Nothingness

Also look into Simone De Beauvoir, Schopenhauer, and... not so far off in relation... Zhuang Zhou.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does music in 4/4 time sounds more natural to us?

Is there a reason why weirder time signatures sound a bit more strange other than we are used to listening to simpler ones?

[Assistant]
Part of it is what we are conditioned to listen to. Lots of music is in 4/4 so it has a context we can fit it into. As a professional musician, I've played lots of music in many mixed meters, so those don't sound or feel awkward to me anymore. I've been conditioned to have a way to understand them compared to lots of other examples.

But on a more biological level, a lot of it probably has to do with our two feet. Left, right, left, right. It fits the rhythm of 4/4 better than, for example, 7/8.


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

[User] ELI5: If losing an eye makes you lose your depth perception why can you still percieve depth while closing an eye?

[Assistant] Because while binocular depth perception is perhaps the greatest *component* of our depth perception, its not the *only* component. Parallel lines, like stripes in the road or train tracks, scale, and several other visual cues to gauge distance also factor into it all, and our brains are pretty damn good at it.


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

[User]
[Halo] Why hasn't the Master Chief been given a commission?

Every time i play halo 4 i am confused about Del Rio and the disrespect towards Chief. I always want MC to tell Del Rio to go fuck himself when he wants him arrested and cortana handed over. At this point MC would have racked up a dozen medals of honor (or the UNSC equivalent) and has proven he is able to lead very effectively. With the amount of knowledge, skill and experience i think it would be irresponsible not to have the MC as the top dog in almost every situation he goes into. What is the deal with that?

[Assistant] Well in the beginning of Halo 4, Dr. Halsey says that "you see them as military hardware." It could be that because many people don't see Spartans as humans, they are deemed unfit to hold a commission.


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

[User] [Lord of the Rings] Was there anything special about the sword Narsil that allowed Isildur to defeat Sauron? Would any sword capable of chopping off Saurons fingers do the trick?

[Assistant] Only thing known about Narsil is that it was forged by Telchar one of the greatest blacksmith of Dwarven race who is also credited with forging Angrist and Dragon-helm of Dor-lmin. Also in the books Sauron is defeated by Gil-Galad and Elendil in duel.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly is music production? What do producers do?

[Assistant]
Two different kinds of things. In the pop/ hip-hop / electronica worlds, a producer creates much of the sounds that you hear by using music software and hardware to make beats, play synthesizers, etc. In hip hop, a producer makes the beat that a rapper flows over. Ryan Lewis is Macklemores producer in this sense of the word.

The other, older sense of the word is someone who oversees the recording process, coaches the musicians, watches over the budget, and may influence song selections, have opinions about how the songs are recorded and mixed, and what musicians should be brought in or extra parts to add. This kind of producer is band coach, therapist, genre specialist and logistician, but does not necessarily make any sounds themselves.

George Martin was this kind of producer for the Beatles.


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

[User]
CMV: Countries should have some sort of test to qualify citizens to vote.

I think that to qualify to vote, citizens should have to pass some sort of test. This would be nothing like the outrageous literacy tests given in America pre-civil rights and the grandfather clause would not apply. Everyone would have to pass it to vote and it would be reasonable.

It would test a few things:

Basic political awareness - I watched a video surveying random Americans and 20% approved obamacare while 70% of the same exact survey pool approved the affordable care act. This would make sure they know what the candidates even stand for.

General education - Basically are you smarter than a fourth grader but questions actual fourth graders would actually know. What's 5x3? Who was the first president/prime minister/whatever for that country? Etc.

Understanding of current events - Voters are shown the major current events and must literally just pick multiple choice what they're about. For example, abortion. A) Whether soldiers can abort mid-mission. B) Whether pilots can eject from planes. C) Whether women can abort pregnancies.

Obviously, there would be many questions and voters would get random ones to avoid studying only the right answers beforehand.

Also, I do not advocate for this in the USA or anywhere else where a constitution would contradict it.

[Assistant] The right to participate in the democracy of your home should not depend a person's education, political awareness or the person's understanding of current events.  The right of self-governance should be afforded to all people, from any nation.  The way that right translates to the individual is by way of the right to vote and participate in the democracy.


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

[User] ELI5: If a bubble in the bloodstream can easily kill you, how come we don't risk death everytime we accidentally cut ourselves?

[Assistant] It takes a quite a bit of air to cause an air embolism. Your body will absorb smaller amounts. There is a test called a bubble echo where they actually inject small air bubbles and watch them with ultrasound.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What is a day in the life of a Stormtrooper like?

From the start of the day to the end, what is a stormtrooper's day like?

[Assistant]
Pretty boring. Not a lot happens. Me and some of the guys have a weekly game of papers and paychecks (a fantasy game, it's cool, you've probably heard of it), it's the highlight of the week, as nothing else really happens.

We once had some defective droids or something we needed to keep an eye out for, it was kinda a big deal, but nothing came of it.


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

[User]
ELI5: so why are Armenia and Azerbaijan fighting?

Whos in the right and whos in the wrong?

[Assistant]
Artsakh or karabakh is an ancient armenian Homeland were armenians live. In soviet times(192) Stalin gifted that Region from the Armenian SSR to the azerbaijani SSR (same thing like crimea) so the christian armenian Region was now part of the muslim azeri Region but it had a special autonomy and was self-governed by the armenians who lived there.

So technically it was never a real Part of azerbaijan. After the Fall of the soviet Union many states got independent and artsakh too had a referendum and the People choosed to be independent. The newly formed State of azerbaijan started an all out attack to clean the Region of Its armenian inhabitants and the newly formed armenian state interferred and protected it.

A war broke out and after the armenians finally got the upper hand and liberated artsakh an ceasefire was made in 1994. the republic of Artsakh is a de facto independent state but is still de jure part of azerbaijan.

Armenians want peace they always agreed to all efforts of osce  minsk Group(created to solve the conflict) like removing the snipers from the frontline but azerbaijan everytime disagrees on everything.

So Its now a Status quo where azerbaijan tries to conquer artsakh and artsakh with the help of armenia defends itself.


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

[User] [ELI5] Growing up my mother would tell me to take off my band-aids to let my cuts "air out." Is there any medical reason for this? I still do it till this day!

[Assistant] Scabs can't form if there is too much moisture on the wound, so the band-aid pad getting wet, say when washing hands or showering, or even just from perspiration can slow the scabbing process, and airing it out can help. The slowing down of scabbing and healing can can also happen form putting on something like Neosporin for too long after getting a cut. An initial dose will help prevent infection, but using for days can prevent the healing process from starting.


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

[User]
[DC] Lex Luthor has used various forms of control against Superman, including straight-up mind control. Why doesn't he use Superman more tactically and less like a blunt object?

It seems that every time Luthor has Superman under control  either through coercion ("obey me or Metropolis dies") or through mind control (spores, magic, etc)  he only seems to use Superman as a means of force. And in pretty much every case, Superman's allies are able to break that control one way or another, and Lex loses.

Now, I have nothing against Lex using Superman that way but it seems to me that Lex is missing out on a golden opportunity. Rather than sending Superman out into the world (where his allies will notice his subversion and work to save him), why doesn't Lex pump him for information? Literally sit him down in a chair and ask him some questions:

* Do you have an Earthly, human identity, and if so, who are you?
* What are the real names of every other hero, and where are their bases of operation?
* What are the known weaknesses of all the other heroes?

Etc, etc, etc. Then, once Lex has gotten every bit of information he can from Superman, he hands Superman a lead-lined inertron box with an inertron chain attached to it. He tells Superman to put the chain around his neck, fly out to the event horizon of a black hole, then cross the horizon and open the box. He does as he's told, the box opens exposing the kryptonite inside (which is now chained to him), and Superman falls into the black hole.

Lex wins. He defeats Superman through intellectual means (thus showing Superman who is the real super man) and he (Lex) effectively now runs the whole planet via the information he got from Superman.

My IQ is dwarfed by Lex's, so what am I missing from this scenario?

[Assistant]
As to those questions, Lex doesn't ask them out of a combination of his sheet unmitigated ego and simple pragmatism.

>Do you have an Earthly, human identity, and if so, who are you?

Lex dogmatically believes he doesn't, to the point that when someone  wrote a computer algorithm that proved Clark Kent was Superman, he had them fired. His ego doesn't allow for the possibility because if he was Superman he'd never lower himself to be anything less.

>What are the real names of every other hero, and where are their bases of operation?

What would be the point of that? Lex doesn't particularly care about them.

>What are the known weaknesses of all the other heroes?

These tend not to be secret.

Anyway simply disposing of him wouldn't be a sufficient monument to said ego. Either killing him personally or being able to wield him as a blunt instrument is a more fitting victory to Lex's way of thinking.


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

[User]
[Marvel, DC] Since typically most heroes are fit, can all of them get fat or are there some who are can't?

Also why would Hawkeye not believe that you have to be worthy to pick up Mjolnir? In Thor 1, he clearly sees the one point when Thor couldn't pick up the hammer.

[Assistant]
Some superheroes (and villains) are endowed with "perfect" physical appearances, particularly the ones with supernatural or divine power sources like Wonder Woman and Thor. As a Greek Demigoddess with the blessing of Aphrodite, Wonder Woman isn't going to get pudgy no matter how many bacon double-cheeseburgers she eats. Likewise, Thor's Asgardian god physiology is immune to the ailment the people of Midgard call "obesity."

Supers like Captain Marvel (DC) or his nemesis Black Adam will also always be tall, buff, and handsome, because their powers come from transforming into that form. Even if Billy Batson grows up to weigh 500 pounds, his "Captain Marvel" form will still be endowed with the magic of the wizard Shazam.


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

[User] ELI5: How come some siblings look way more similar to each other and some look like they are from different parents?

[Assistant] Everybody inherits 50% of genes from the father and 50% from the mother but these are not necessary the same 50%, they are chosen randomly. So, some siblings can have more appearance-defining genes in common, some less.


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

[User]
[AMA Request] Odin! Almighty Allfather! Your humble worshipers have some questions about Mjlnir...

Almighty Allfather!  Hear the humble prayer of your supplicant!

I am part of an online community of worshipers who are pretty much obsessed with Mjlnir.  We don't really care about your various badass deeds and smiting frost giants.  We want to know about the damn hammer, so I am going to the source.  We are obsessed with it, I mean obsessed, to the point it is kind of creepy and I think some of us want to get freaky with it, so... yeah.

A few starter questions.

Did you mean only the worthy can wield or, just move it at all?

Can sufficient brute physical force involving super beings or say, heavenly bodies (ex. black holes, neutron stars etc.) effect it or only magic?

How dense is it?

How much does it actually weigh?

Using Odinforce, could you throw it fast enough to beat the Flash in a race?

Would you rather fight one frost-giant size duck or a hundred duck-size frost giants?

Does anyone else have any questions for our Allfather?  Anyone have a friend who is an intern or something in Asgard so we can get his attention?

[Assistant]
Only the worthy can lift it/carry it. If you can, you generally gain the power, with a few exceptions covered below.

No one can brute strength it. However, robots, androids, enchanted rocks (someone once made a stone hand come out of the ground to carry it) and gravity effects have been shown to pick it up without trouble. It seems that if the wielder isn't 'living', the enchantment doesn't apply. However, to them it's just a 40 pound hammer. They do not gain the power of Thor. **EDIT:** Thor, in the Reigning, was unworthy of lifting Mjolnir for various reasons. When challenged to do so by his son, Magni, he used the Odinforce to make it rise to the air, but never actually grabbed it.

It's pretty dense. Not super-dense, though.

Mjolnir actually weighs a mere 40 pounds.

Thor, at half power, once threw it at twice the speed of light. Make of that what you will.

Knowing Odin, he'd probably pick the giant duck. There's no honor in fighting a bunch of foes you could slay by sitting down.


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

[User]
Physics problem that has been plaguing me since high school.

Hypothetical situation. Lets say you have a fighter airplane that flies at a maximum velocity of (just throwing numbers out there) 100 m/s.  This plane can fire missiles, which travel at 200m/s.  If the plane is flying at 100m/s and fires the missiles, the missiles would travel faster than 200m/s, right?

Ok. So what happens if the same missiles are equipped on a jet fighter that can travel 500m/s.  If the jet fighter is flying at 500m/s and fires a missile, will the missile now be able to travel faster than 500m/s or would it trail behind the jet fighter, kind of like when you throw a ball out the window of a moving car (I know its an entirely different phenomenon). I don't know how air resistance would play into this, assuming there is or isn't any.  Also, assume the missile is loaded under the wing of the aircraft (not in some tube that could jam).

This hypothetical situation has seriously been giving me headaches for about 10 years because I simply can't wrap my mind around it. I'd appreciate some clarification!

[Assistant]
The question at hand is: What causes the speed limit on the motion of the missiles?  Is it air resistance (as is the case for airborne missiles)?

If so, then firing a missile (limited to 200 m/s velocity in air) from a jet (traveling at 500 m/s in air) will cause the missile to fly backward at 300 m/s from the perspective of the jet pilot.  Imagine throwing a beachball from the window of a rapidly moving car.  The air catches it going "above its speed limit," and drags it back down pretty quickly.

If all of this is happening in outer-space, where there is no air resistance, whatever speed limit is imposed won't be with respect to the air, so you're the pilot will likely see the missile move forward in the expect fashion.


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

[User]
[Who Framed Roger Rabbit] Who or what was Judge Doom?

We know Doom wasn't human in the strictest sense of the term, but by the end of the film nobody seems to know what he was, only what he wasn't. Do we have any clue as to what kind of toon he was or, alternately, if he was any specific named toon we might be able to recognize?

[Assistant]
I tells ya kid, Doom had everyone fooled, the police, the newspapers, even the other Toons, nobody could finger this guy.  Only ones that got close to nabbing this lunatic was the Valiant boys, but then he went and dropped a piano on one of their heads, scaring the other one into a two-bit lush.

However, Doom still knew that a Toon offing a human meant bad news, maybe even Federal, and no way he could stay ahead of the G-men forever so he got himself a disguise while he worked on his plans.  Pretty elegant really, when you think about it.  What's the opposite of a crazy, screaming Toon?  Exactly what he always wanted to be: an austere, no fun, greedy, Toon-hating bigot.  Alls he needs is a rubber mask and some fake eyes; after that the overall persona he adopted would explain away the whole gitup, from the always wearing gloves to the big black coat.  Getting himself elected Judge was just icing on the cake, lets him engage in his favorite hobby of torturing Toons while his plans to get rich and eliminate all the Toons develop.

And he woulda gotten away with it if it wasn't for a love-sick, B-grade Toon star and an alcoholic gumshoe.  Ain't this town crazy?  They ought to make a movie out of this!


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

[User] [Marvel] How would Wolverine's abilities change if he had a skeleton of vibranium instead of adamantium?

[Assistant] Adamantium is basically just hard metal.  Vibranium has all sorts of weird properties, not just the impact absorbing ones.  In day to day life it probably wouldn't be much of a difference (though vibranium is way lighter) but there would be edge cases where his claws would interact weirdly with certain materials or such.


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

[User]
[The Culture] What is it?

So recently in a few threads I have seen The Culture being talked about like it is the apex of sci-fi (I have to admit, fleet battles at FTL speeds sounds fucking insanely cool) . I have never heard of it before and I was hoping someone could tell me more about the series?

Also where would I start, if I wanted to learn more about it?

Thanks in advance :)

[Assistant] The author is Iain M Banks. The Culture is how the people within the books refer to themselves (humans, but in a post-scarcity society where literally anything is available for the asking). The books explore what people do when there truly are no more unmet needs, and also how the Culture interacts with other cultures of both less and more advancement in the galaxy, and even further. Start with *Player of Games*, as one of his best, and then *Excession*. *Use of Weapons* is weird but with a truly skin-crawling twist. The books are loosely chronological, in that some events or people from one will show up later in others, but they are all pretty self-contained. And although some are better than others (looking at you, *Consider Phlebas*) they are all good.


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

[User]
ELI5: The Baha'i Faith.

Edit: Thanks everyone for the great answers!

[Assistant] It's a monotheistic faith started by a Shi'a Muslim in 1844. It stresses that there is one God who is loving but doesn't interact with the world, that all known faiths are a manifestation of this God, and that all people are equal, whatever the faith, race, caste, sex, gender, whatever. Rather than Heaven and Hell, they believe that your spiritual development will correlate with how close you are to God after death, and one achieves this development by fostering world peace, creating harmony between science and religion, elimination of extreme wealth and poverty, and elimination of all kinds of prejudice.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do insurance rates go up after a car accident? Isn't that like casinos raising their house edge because you won?

Having insurance is like paying early for damages you assume you will have, right? Like a bet. It's not like you stop paying insurance once your total payments exceed the coverage, so why do they get to ~~raisin~~ raise the cost? It's like you're betting, and when you happen to win the insurers just change the rules so they still win.

[Assistant]
Insurance is priced based on risk. If you live in an area with lots of tornadoes, you obviously will need to pay higher rates for that home insurance against tornadoes because the company is more likely to have to pay out your claim than if you lived elsewhere.

If you are involved in an accident, you become more of a risk. It's not just that they're trying to recover their costs, but also that you've identified yourself as someone more likely to be involved in an accident, for whatever reason (maybe you suck at driving, maybe you live in an area with lots of sucky drivers, maybe you drive only on days where everyone sucks at driving, etc etc). The company can't get so detailed as to identify the reason exactly, but it knows that drivers who are in an accident tend to also be in other accidents.

It goes away after awhile, though. 3 years, usually. The price drops as you get older, because older drivers tend to be safer (well older in the context from 18 vs 30).


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

[User] What happens if 2 stars of the same size collide?

[Assistant]
They merge to form a bigger star. It's often a messy process, and some of the material gets thrown out, but you're left with a more massive star.

More massive stars have shorter life-times, so the result might be short-lived, perhaps going supernova and turning into a neutron star fairly quickly.

We think we have detected merged stars in globular clusters. In a globular cluster, all of the stars were formed at about the same time, which is usually quite a long time ago - billions of years. Because the life-time of a star is shorter when stars are more massive, this means that the more massive stars have all died, and you're left with dim stars below some mass cutoff - the older the globular cluster, the lower this mass cutoff is.

However, we also see a small population of hot, bright, and massive stars in globular clusters - stars that should have died billions of years ago if they'd formed at the same time as the rest of the stars in the globular cluster. What's thought is that these "blue stragglers" are the result of mergers. Two cool long-lived low-mass stars have merged fairly recently to form a hot short-lived high-mass star.

However, this is quite rare. Globular clusters are unusually dense environments where collisions between stars do actually happen now and again. But outside of these dense clusters and other multi-star systems, collisions between stars is extremely rare.


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

[User] [General Sci-fi] What's the benefit of a floating city?

[Assistant]
Bad assittude...

On a more serious note, it depends largely on circumstance. In the very narrow habitable zone of a gas-giant, for instance, a floating city makes perfect sense. On a world like Earth, it's more complicated...

Typically, on worlds which are otherwise habitable, floating and flying cities serve one of two purposes.

A; Status. the rich can literally live their lives above the poor. This particular 'benefit' is really only applicable to ego and self worth, but seems to be among the most common reasons why flying habitats are constructed.

B; Mobility. Some flying constructs, which labeled cities, are in fact little more than administrative structures, refineries, hospitals etc. The fact they are flying allows them to be moved to locations in which they are needed most, or in which normal transportation options are not viable (major outbreaks, volatile materials etc).


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

[User]
ELI5: Could allergies eventually by phased out by evolution / natural selection? Or do genetics play no part?

A question that was keeping me up pondering at 2am last night.

[Assistant]
I suppose at least theoretically they could, but the last few years have seen allergy rates in the western world shoot *up*.  The main theories for this are due to lack of exposure to allergens at a young age, leading to an immune system that overreacts to every foreign body that it detects.

Allergies are a side-effect of having the (super complex but highly effective) immune system that we do - this means that they are unlikely to go anywhere soon, because it would involve a fundamental change in the mechanisms of how we deal with pathogens.


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

[User]
ELI5: Is it true that hanging towels, clothing, etc. out in the sun naturally deodorizes it? If so, how does that work?

Trying to figure out whether or not this is just an old wives tale or if there's some kind of chemical change that comes in the sunlight that destroys odors.  Also, is the deodorizing effect only temporary, or permanent?  Does the sun actually destroy or just mask odors from mold, etc?  Thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
The "livestock" living on your towels/clothing need a warm, wet and semi dark to dark environment.

Placing them in the sun removes the water. Water is very necessary for life.

Imagine if you got lost in the middle of a desert. No water, too much sun, little to no food. Your ability to survive would be dependent on finding shade and water.

So basically putting clothing or towels in the sun causes desertification of their little ecosystem.


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

[User] Can someone who believes the brain and mind are the same still believe in an afterlife?

[Assistant] There are physicalists who defend the possibility of, and believe in, an afterlife. But the typical solution to the apparent contradiction is provided by the resurrection of the body. If the afterlife involves a bodily resurrection, then there's no particular problem for the physicalist. (Or, rather, there are problems like how this resurrection happens and in such a way that preserves the identity of the resurrected person. But there are at least no problems pertaining specifically to the issues of the mind-body problem.)


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

[User]
[The Mandalorian] What's Mando's retirement plan?

So assume he's not killed in combat and lives a long full life. He's too old to bounty hunt. What's the plan from there on out? Does Grogu get a job to support his dear old pa? Does he become an instructor for lil Mandalorians? Does he get promoted to Armourer? Is there a pension scheme?

[Assistant]
Depends on which version of mandonade he adheres to. In the old republic era the mandos didn't retire. They died fighting or being unable to fight anymore turned to serving mandalore as teachers, smiths, farmers, or whatever they were still able to do until they died. All were seen as valid professions to the mandalorian code.

Following the civil wars the mandos had pretty much no warrior creed and retired on whatever pension they made in life prior be it savings or a retirement plan.

Death watch and likely the children of the watch didn't believe in anything less than warfighting so once age took that away you were worthless. Death watch were looser on this and usually put their older members to work in other areas rather than casting them off.

Din likely won't ever stop fighting the good fight until he's dead or finds a reason to put away his armor and guns for good. To him mandalorians are warriors and warriors never stop fighting.

But in the words of canderous ordo. Mandalorians rarely live long enough to die in their sleep.


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

[User] [Cabin in the Woods] What would happen if the teenagers had summoned the Merman? He can't walk or even stand, so wouldn't they be fine as long as they jogged away or climbed a tree?

[Assistant]
First kill when the romancing couple go skinny dipping.

Merpeople of legends often shapechangers, so it might switch over to legged form and go hunting.  (didn't need legs in the target-rich environment of the base to get a kill)

For that matter, maybe they're like werewolves.  Someone bitten start changing into a merman and goes murderous

The guys downstairs would set off the mines buried in the mountain to block the river, then turn on the rain to "flood" the valley

You know they wouldn't use monsters if they didn't think they could handle the job.  They've been doing it every year all over the world for who knows how long.

Didn't the one guy say mermen always leave a big cleanup?  That meant somebody did pick merman before, just that one guy wasn't there for it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it when I play a game of chess after not playing for years, I'm nowhere near as good as I used to be? What exactly has my brain forgotten?

I still know all of the moves of course, and I'm sure I still have the power to read moves ahead, how exactly has my brain changed so that it's not as familiar anymore?

[Assistant]
Chess is a game of pattern recognition. There are thousands of motifs and patterns, so many that even our super grandmasters cannot conciously sort through them all. Your nervous system or intuition helps you make choices. The less exposure your nervous system has, the less likely you will be able to make/find the correct moves or avoid bad situations.

You remember the moves, you forget the tactics. You remember the moves, you forget the positional strategies or themes.
Also, age and drug use can both limit the clarity and accuracy of your calculations.


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

[User]
Do Prime numbers change with base?

E.G., we use Base-10, but would there be different prime numbres in base 12? 20? 99?

[Assistant]
A prime is a prime no matter which base you use to represent it. The fact of being prime or composite is  just a property of the number itself, regardless of the way you write it or the symbol you use for it. 15 and F and Roman numeral XV all mean the same number, which is 35, so it is composite.

Let's take as an example base 13, where the base ten number 13 will be represented as "10" in that system, but "10" will still be a prime, because you cannot find two numbers other than 1 and "10" that will multiply together to make "10".


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

[User] [Judge Dredd] Does Dredd get any time off? What would he get up to in his downtime?

[Assistant]
Like most Judges, he has an extremely limited amount of downtime; during real nutty times, Judges don't even have time to sleep, using technology that replaces 8 hours of sleep with a 10 minute stay in a pod, a technology that gets used so often that the Justice Department had to institute rules demanding at least 1 night of actual sleep a week (akin to U.S. Army Air Force rules regarding amphetamines for long haul pilots during WWII). The closest thing most Judges take to a vacation is being put on light duty after being shot or getting in a bike wreck.

What little down time Dredd has is spent in a small apartment with limited furniture and a small robot, and even that isn't 100% "down time"; he's still expected to be available at all times, both for issues in his own block and if more boots are needed out on the street. Most of the time he's there, he's asleep, or he's getting woken up by thieves who think the "DANGER" sign on his door means there's something in there worth stealing. Alternately, he's at the station house doing something to prepare himself  for the next go on the street.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why does technology remain the same across eras?

I'm currently reading the Dawn Of The Jedi series and I notciced that aside from the characters and ideals all the stuff they use is effectively the same as it always is. The tech in this era is almost indistinguishable from more recent eras. Why is technological movement so stagnant.

[Assistant]
You have to take into account just how *long* the galaxy has had sapient life in it. The Gree civilization was thriving around 300,000 BBY, Coruscant was covered in city by 100,000 BBY. Even interstellar travel was developed around *1,000,000 BBY*.

There has been advanced technology in the galaxy for hundreds of thousands of years, which each civilization building off of the previous, again and again. At a certain point there isn't anything left to research, and even if you did, it's being rediscovered because another race had probably already known about it hundreds of thousands of years ago.

For comparison, the Force was only discovered by the modern(ish) galactic races 30,000 years ago. Look at early lightsabers, developed around 15,000 BBY. They were bulky and ludicrously power heavy. Now current lightsaber models are refined, but even those were only adopted not even 5000 years before the Battle of Yavin. In another 100,000 years who knows what Lightsabers will look like? They could be similar because the design is good enough already or they could be completely different.


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

[User]
What causes the difference between kinetic and static friction?

Hola physicists (and everyone else),

I was wondering (out of the blue) why moving objects once they are in motion is easier than the initial movement.

Can't recall any physics teacher actually discussing it.

[Assistant] The friction itself is caused by the interaction of elements of the surfaces essentially locking in, like teeth that fit together more or less. Mostly less when they're moving. When neither object is moving relative to each other, the rough bits will be pushing against each other in a set position. This causes them to lock in tighter, as they're going to deform slightly to match each other and sort of stick together. Now you have to overcome these bits that have been pushed together before you start again. By this explanation, if you were to stop moving for an infinitesimally small period of time, the surfaces wouldn't have a chance to mold together you'd still have kinetic friction when you get going again.


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

[User] ELI5: How does smoking cause cancer?

[Assistant]
So first: what causes cancer?  Our cells have an instruction booklet that's driven by the steps encoded in our DNA, a very complex molecule made of a huge list of simple "words" that together tell the cell what function to take, when to reproduce, when to do nothing, and when to die.

When something bad happens to that book, those instructions can get garbled. So free floating energy, like a high-energy particle from the sun or from radiation, and certain chemicals that like to react with other stuff including your DNA, called free radicals, can sometimes come in and knock out a step in that manual.

And if it happens to disable the step that says "Only reproduce so much and then stop" so that cell and all of its children start reproducing like crazy... well, that's cancer. And if some of that cancer happens to break off and travels throughout the body to be delivered somewhere else, well, that's really bad news indeed.

Smoking's incomplete combustion and delivery of all of those naughty chemicals in tobacco introduces a fair number of free radicals into the body. They get into our lungs and increase the odds that a DNA strand somewhere will have its "and then stop reproducing" switch turned off.


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

[User] ELI5: What is going on when just one taste bud on the tongue becomes swollen and painful?

[Assistant]
It's called a sweet spot (papilitis). Caused by different things for different people, but usually after eating very sugary or acidic foods.

Pineapple for me, being very sweet and very acidic, always pisses off at least one tastebud, and it gets exactly as you describe: A single tastebud very swollen and painful.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do gas pumps know when your tank is full and when to stop fueling?

How does the gas pump stop automatically? I know they can't use like any type of electric sensor..can they?

[Assistant]
The nozzle is actually 2 hoses, 1 for fuel that's put into the tank, and a second one for returning air/vapors in your car's tank to the gas station's tanks.

As fuel fills up your tank, the venturi action of the air up the other hose holds the valve on the nozzle open. When the tank is full, the venturi action stops, and the valve shuts.


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

[User] Is it a coincidence that the moon is tidal locked or did something cause it to be that way?

[Assistant]
No coincidence.

As long as the Moon, no *any* moon, is not tidal-locked, it undergoes tidal forces from its planet, i.e. so its mass get shuffled a bit around (picture that as the moon having a slighly oval shape, i.e. not spherical but elongated toward its planet, and this elongation, following the planet, is always along a different axis). Naturally, this movement of matter (most noticeable with water, which is quick to reshape, but present in varying amounts with any substance) costs enegy. Who is "paying" for it? Answer: the kinetic rotation energy of the moon. In other words, tidal forces dissipate kinetic rotation energy, ultimately turning it into heat (through friction).

So, tidal forces on the moon cause the moon to slow down its rotation around itself. If this goes on for long enough, and for our Moon it did, the moon slows to the point that no tidal force exists anymore. That's when elongation direction is kept always the same with respect to the moon. That's when the rotation of the Moon around itself is the same period as the revolution of the Moon around Earth; the Moon got "tidally locked" to the Earth.

BTW the same is happening here on Earth: tidal forces caused by the Moon "consume" Earth rotation energy, making it slow down a bit.  Incidentally, this is why we can actually extract energy, e.g. electricity, from tidal forces. Just has it has heppened for the Moon, Earth revolution period (currently 24h) is getting longer and longer; it was ~22h hours when dinosaurs were around. When it will be ~28 current-days long, Earth will be tidally locked too. Which is never, because Earth won't be around long enough for that to happen.

Whether or not that happened for two given bodies depens on how much rotation energy they stored (which depends on mass and rotation speed), how much energy the tidal forces dissipate (which depends on composition, e.g. water dissipates a lot more than solid rock), and how much time they got to get tidally locked.

(Ok I've cut a few corners here. The most important one is that even if the rotation speed of the Earth decreases, the angular momentum of the system is kept constant -- which means that as the rotation gets slower, the two bodies get further apart from each other. The moon is slowly getting smaller in our sky.)


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

[User]
How does a computer network like HBO's handle the massive output of data for short bursts of time, like a GoT episode?

HBO but have to stream massive amounts of data for about an hour when the episode is first up followed by a percipitous drop-off in usage. Would they have to build a network with the capacity of Netflix just to have this capacity for a few hours a year? Generally how do massive amounts of data get transferred from one source over shortly periods?

[Assistant] Content Delivery Networks (CDN).  Multiple servers around the country cache the content, closest geographical or fastest is the one that serves you so not everyone is pulling from the same server.  It's not hard to forecast bandwidth usage since it is just simple data and in general most CDNs are not run near capacity so there is room for these spikes.


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

[User]
If elements above 83 (+43, 61) are all man made, is it strictly impossible for them to appear in nature?

Watching some Scishow talk about the 'end' of the periodic table and wondering if it was impossible for these supermassive atoms to exist on their own (if, perhaps, for a fraction of a second)

[Assistant] It's not that they're never created naturally, it's that they decay too fast to be found naturally on Earth.  All of the material that makes up Earth is the product of stellar fusion that occurred at least 4.5 billion years ago (the age of our solar system), but most of it is much older than that.  These larger elements simply decay so fast that they can't stick around long enough to be found on Earth today.  What we find instead are their remains - lighter, more stable elements that were the products of their decomposition.


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

[User]
[Man of Steel/DCU] If he were capable, do you think Batman would have also killed Zod in the ending?

**Scenario:** Batman has Zod in the same headlock with Zod firing his eye beams at the family cowering in the corner. Let's also assume Batman has that advanced suit from the upcoming movie and that it would give him the ability to snap Zod's neck.

Does the scene practically play out the same way? If not, what would happen instead? Keep in mind how dire the situation was, the family was practically seconds away from being roasted alive.

*EDIT: Sorry, I should've put DCCU in the title.*

[Assistant] Cool thing about being a master of multiple martial arts- if you have a headlock on someone, you probably know a couple dozen ways to incapacitate him.  Clark was raised on ***A FARM!?!??!*** and didn't exactly take judo.  Hell, he probably pretended Zod was old Betsy the family cow and tonight was hamburger night.


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

[User] ELI5: the world is 40 trillion in debt? But to who?

[Assistant]
Each other.

Me, You and your mum all have $5.

I loan you $5, you now have $10
You loan your mum $5, you now have $5 and she has $10
Your mum loans me $5, she now has $5 and i have $5.

Now we all have $5, but we're in $15 worth of debt.


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

[User]
ELI5: When youre in the shower, why is it that the little water droplets that land elsewhere on your body feel cold when the water is actually hot?

Just got out of the shower and it baffled me. The main stream is hot water but the excess that must be bouncing off me felt cold.

[Assistant]
If you sit down in the shower you will notice the main stream feels colder as well. You have water that is only a little over your body temperature hitting air that is well below your body temperature.

Small droplets cool quickly and room temperature water feels pretty darn cold.


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

[User]
Would it be possible to adjust your computer's or your tv's picture settings to match your eye prescription?

I guess it would have to be at a set distance, if possible, and would be blurry to anyone else, but could you theoretically set so you would not need to have your glasses or contact lenses?

Edit: I don's mean can i adjust my current tv's settings, just if it would be possible at all.

Edit: Thanks for all the great answers!

[Assistant]
You could take a lens (like in your glasses, but much bigger) and put it in front of your TV. The image would be distorted to everyone with different prescription from you, and you would have to hold your head in a specific spot in front of the TV in order for the lens to precisely compensate for your eyes. (If your head wasn't directly in front of the lens, the TV image would be distorted just like the image through your glasses is distorted towards the edges of the glasses.)

But without bolting a giant lens onto your TV, no, you can't do it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where does wind come from?

Like how is there just air blowing around so fast. I don't understand what causes it/how it gets to blow so fast.

[Assistant]
Often, a big driving factor is the sun.

The sun heats the ground. But it doesn't heat it evenly. Cloud cover changes the amount of heating, some surfaces absorb more heat than others, the sea heats up more slowly than the land.

The hot ground warms the lowest level of air, the bit of air that's in contact with the ground. Hot air rises, so this bit of warm air rises. This creates a bit of low pressure, in the area where that air was, that needs to be filled. So air from a few miles away, where the pressure is higher (perhaps due to less heating) will flow into the gap.

This creates a cycle. Cold air falls into the space made by the high pressure air moving away, and way up high, the air that had risen from the low pressure area moves sideways to complete the cycle.


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

[User] I think most conspiracy theories are true, but are downplayed by higher powers to make everyone think they are ridiculous, CMV.

[Assistant]
Can't find the source right now, but I've seen a couple of studies that indicate that people prefer to think that there's somebody in charge and they are evil rather than think nobody is in charge.

If there is somebody in charge, you can blame that somebody for the evils of the world. "No way a lone gunman could kill a president, there must be some shadow organization behind it!".

The truth is, nobody is in charge, and nobody knows what they are doing, everyone is making it up as they go along. Scarier is that our current social structure is built on the premise that we should keep it, nothing more. As we can see clearly from the arab sprint, our social order is highly fragile and can crumble easily to the slightest of provocations.

It's much more comforting to most people to think that there's some big evil order imposed from above (be it god or a shadow government) than to face the fact that the world is random, the world is unjust, and nobody holds control over it, it's all just one big mess.

Nobody in the "higher ups" decides that a president should be killed or some buildings should be destroyed, lone crazies do it, and in some cases other people fail to stop them. As comforting as it is to think that somebody is in charge, and he has a (however evil) plan for us, that's not the case in reality, there's no plan, there's no order, there's no justice, there's no right and wrong, there is complete chaos.

If that sounded too scary for you to comprehend, don't blame people who just can't comprehend that and insist to believe in some higher order, even in an evil one, because even an evil order is better than pure chaos, to some people.


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

[User]
Question: fully vaccinated + catch covid19 == booster dose?

Since a few weeks we read about more and more fully vaccinated people catch COVID, often mild cases.  I wonder what effect this has on the immune system of the affected people.  I am specifically thinking about the group of people who become ill enough to notice symptoms and get tested, but not enough to end up needing treatment in a hospital or ICU.  Could the effect in them be similar to a booster shot, or even a variant-specific booster?  Has this been studied already, or are there any studies in progress?

[Assistant]
In theory you're right, exposure to SARS2 is in some ways equivalent to a booster dose. Whatever spike specific T and B cells you had should expand and, if you happened to catch one of the variants, your antibodies will probably adapt to that variant.

There havent been any studies that ive seen, its too soon really. Right now we are learning that vaccinated people can still catch and spread the virus, and that the infection can be symptomatic. 3-6 months from now we will be able to look at those people and compare their antibody, B and T cells to those of people who got the vaccine but avoided the virus.

It should be noted that we still dont really know what constitutes "better immunity". High antibody titers seems like it would be good, but there is little indication that antibodies are very important for protection. People who arent able to mount an effective B cell response arent getting more sick, its T cells that are the key.


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

[User] [Marvel] if someone were to cut up Deadpool evenly into very small pieces, which piece would he grow back from?

[Assistant] In some versions, cutting him evenly into pieces won't kill him, but it'll impede his regeneration until the pieces are in close enough proximity that they can knit themselves back together. At one point there was an "Evil Deadpool" running around composed entirely of pieces of Wade that were torn off at various points and remained alive long enough to amalgamate into a singular humanoid form, which lends the most credence to this idea.


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

[User] What factors determine the number of photons that need to hit a telescope (per second) for the light source to be seen?

[Assistant] A big factor is the noise of the detector. Digital image sensors generate spurious "detection" events (due to thermal electron-hole pair generation). The noise level is determined by the semiconductor material, the number of defects, and the temperature. The light you are capturing needs to generate a signal that is more significant than the noise level.


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

[User] ELI5:why was the world able to come together and ban leaded gasoline and CFCs, but refuses to do much of anything about greenhouse emmisons?

[Assistant] Two main reasons: First, the effect of greenhouse gas emissions occurs on a longer timescale and with much less clarity on exactly what and where will be effected.  Second, the things that produce greenhouse gasses are much more central to the global economy than leaded gasoline or CFCs.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't I focus blue LED light?

[Assistant]
You know how a prism can spread white light into all the bands of visible light?

This is caused by chromatic aberration where different colors (wavelengths) of light interact differently when going through the prism. If the prism was switched to a single lens, chromatic aberration causes different wavelengths of light to focus at different distances from the lens.

Your eye is an optical element as well. Due to chromatic aberration, blue light is just slightly out of focus on your retina while other colors may focus perfectly.


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

[User]
ELI5: Romani/Gypsies.

I am a 5-year-old from America, and know nothing about these people.

[Assistant]
The Romani are a people that originally came from Northern India and wandered into Europe about 700 years ago.  They've maintained a nomadic lifestyle and culture that is distinct from the ones that surround them.  The term "Gypsy" is a misnomer that comes from a time when they were thought to come from Egypt.

Their nomadic culture has put them at odds with a number of the agrarian and industrial cultures with which they come into contact, and made them pariahs in the agrarian society they originally found in Europe.  Industrialization found them willing to take any job for any amount of pay, earning them the outrage of the developing working classes--who wanted more money for the same work.  Unions would work to exclude them for this reason, once again putting them at an economic disadvantage (read: making them poor).

As we know about cultures that remain poor for a very long time, they resort to pretty much any means of survival.  The law of the land became secondary to the law of a full stomach.  Thus, they became associated with crime and fraud in Europe.

Some Roma managed to make it to the United States.  They've found themselves better able to integrate here, as our society has some respected transient elements, particularly in the transportation industry.


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

[User] ELI5: What is difference between a 1TB Micro SD Card and a 1TB Solid State or Hard Disk Drive? Does the difference between the physical sizes of these two devices makes any difference in storing, maintaining or transferring data?

[Assistant]
The sd card interface is generally good for up to 170MB/s read speeds and up to 90MB/s write speeds, which drops down to 30MB/s as the drive fills, it's limited by the extremely small interface and low power available from the form factor (couldn't cool down if you just gave it more power).

A 1TB HDD can generally read and write at 200-220MB/s when still "fresh", it's generally limited by the speed at which the platters turn.

A 1TB NVME ssd can read at 7000MB/s and write at just about the same speed (if using a PCI-E 4 interface and controller)

So to fill up an SD card will take around 9 hours, to fill up the HDD should take around 2 hours, and the ssd can be filled in about 5 minutes - transfers with big SD cards are extremely painful.


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

[User] [WH40k] Has the imperium cured cancer?

[Assistant]
The mechanicus discovered an STC capabele of curing all disease, in preparation for it's transport to Mars they deployed a titan legion, several companies of Astartes and more Imperial guardsmen than you can count to protect it.

Of course, since this is 40k, something was bound to go wrong. So the Dark Eldar invaded in force.

Why?

Litteraly to prove that of all the Dark Eldar, that particular leader was able to pull the biggest dick move in recent history.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What was Anakin attempting to do when he tried to jump over Obi-Wan on Mustafar?

Assuming Obi-Wan hadnt maimed him, what was Anakins plan of attack after jumping over Obi-Wan?

[Assistant] Obi-Wan was at the edge of a small hill.  He could defend easily from where he was, because Anakin would have to be striking up to attack or defend himself, and he would be on uneven ground, two big disadvantages.  But if Anakin had gotten to his other side safely, suddenly Obi-Wan has very limited room to maneuver, because one wrong step would put him on uneven ground.  So Obi-Wan would have been at a huge disadvantage, unable to move effectively without losing his footing and getting put into an even more dangerous position.


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

[User] [Fallout 4] How would the institute likely react to Zetans, vice versa?

[Assistant]
I don't know about the institute but i'm pretty sure about the zetans.

The zetans view us as lab rats at best, i think after the experience they had with their experiments in the mship zeta DLC they view us as especially unruly lab rats.

The institute most likely won't be different.


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

[User] ELI5: how have small tribes ensured or maintained genetic diversity?

[Assistant]
A lot of them haven't, at least not to what we'd consider to be an optimal level.  And that's not always guaranteed to be a problem.

While a population can eventually reach a point where inbreeding has created so many birth defects that children rarely live to adulthood, it takes a very long time for that to happen unless there was already a strong predisposition for those defects present within the gene pool.  In the short term, a loss of genetic diversity will just make a population more vulnerable to being wiped out by external factors like a new pathogen, sudden climate shifts, or the depletion of some vital resource.  Humans tend to be uniquely talented at anticipating and avoiding these risks in our day to day lives compared to most species living on the planet, meaning it's a lot easier for us to endure even with that heightened vulnerability.


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

[User]
How far away can radio broadcasts travel before becoming unreadable?

For example, Winston Churchill's "Fight them on the beaches." broadcast. How many lightyears, if any, could that particular radio broadcast travel before it becomes too distorted/weak to be able to be read?

[Assistant]
Radio waves become weaker the further they travel, there is no hard stop limit. It just depends on how strong the signal is and how sensitive the receiver is. If a massive alien civilization can point and coordinate entire galaxys array of detectors theres is no reason they cant hear us from other galaxies.

Its like asking where does earths gravity stop, it never stops.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do we bleed without tearing a vein?

If blood runs in our veins, how come we bleed when we get a (not deep at all) cut? We don't cut our veins (I think) because we would die from that? How can we bleed?

[Assistant]
Your circulatory system isn't made up of a few very large veins and arteries but rather billions of vessels ranging in size from the big veins and arteries you know down to extremely tiny ones that go close to the surface of your skin.  Everything in your body needs blood for nutrients and oxygen, so we have a circulatory system to feed them.

That's why you bleed when cut, you're cutting the little tiny ones not the big ones.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does everyone hate flash and why are they happy that it's "going away"?

[Assistant]
You know how the Olympics have two official languages, English and French, right? This standardization allows everyone (athletes, judges, organizers, and watchers) to have one of two languages in which to communicate. Moreover, for the sake of this analogy, imagine that English and French are easily-accessible languages (that is, there are many many schools that teach the language, and many resources for learning them).

Now, imagine that, say, the Russian gymnastics team _insists_ on using only Russian to communicate. They are such an important part of the Olympics that the International Olympic Committee has no choice but to allow them to do so. Finally, imagine there are virtually no resources for learning Russian: either you grew up speaking it, or you didn't, but it's very hard to find a way to learn the language later. This situation would be totally disruptive to the idea that everyone should be able to communicate with everyone else at the Olympics.

(note: not picking on Russians here, they're just a great example of an indispensable country for the Olympics to keep its character.)

This is what happened with Flash - the open-source web standards of HTML, ECMAScript, CSS and so on were designed from the beginning to be open, accessible, and understandable to people _and other computers_ using the Internet. They were open, and standards-based, which means whole teams of people could support their development and stability. Then Flash came along, which had lots of nice features (like streaming video), but it was closed source, buggy, fickle, and completely opaque to the tools and people involved in using it. The result was that we had a split between the easy-to-understand, debuggable, and standards-based technology with a fickle and unpredictable prima donna that had a tendency to crash, taking down the whole browser.


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

[User]
What is the mistake in this mathematical proof?

From *Hexaflexagons and Other Mathematical Diversions* by Martin Gardner

>a=b+c

>multiply both sides by a-b

>a^2 -ab=ab+ac-b^2 -bc

>move ac to the left

>a^2 -ab-ac=ab-b^2 -bc

>factor:

>a(a-b-c)=b(a-b-c)

>divide both sides by a-b-c

>a=b

He says that this is a fallacy, but can't you just say that c=0?

[Assistant]
In the last step, you divide both sides by a - b - c, but this operation is only valid when a - b - c is not equal to zero. But from the very first assumption, we have that a = b + c, so a - b - c = b + c - b - c = 0.

The derivation is correct up to this point, but in the second-to-last step, it actually says: a * 0 = b * 0, which is obviously true, but can't be used to infer that a = b.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If Kashyyyk is a system the Republic can't afford to lose, why wasn't it protected better, with an orbital defense fleet?

It seems that the planet was left undefended and the Republic response was reactive rather than proactive.

[Assistant] (Forced) scarcity of resources.  The Republic simply did not have the manpower, firepower, or supplies to hold Kashyyyk the way it shouldve been.  Obviously, the forces there were adequate; it would have fallen otherwise.  But the Republic was also trying to protect a galaxy and the Wookiees are tough.


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

[User] ELI5: Is any one race easier to distinguish using facial recognition software? There are many stereotypes of "white people all looking the same" or "Asians all look the same", but when it comes to facial recognition, are they all the same?

[Assistant]
No.  While it may not be perfect, a good facial recognition program uses far more data points to identify a face than the ones we associate with 'race.'

Shown two black men,  the software will be able to identify between them as easily as between two whites.


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

[User] [DC] The Citizens who yelled is it a bird is it a plane, why were they so excited over these things that they had to shout?

[Assistant] Being able to identify what was approaching from the sky was pretty important during that time period. With World War II still fresh in people's memories and the cold war on the rise, making sure that the strange flying object you see is in fact a bird or a plane and not a V2 rocket or russian missile could mean life or death.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes tolerance to spicy or sour foods?

[Assistant] When you eat foods containing capsaicin, your TRPV1 receptors open up and let sodium and calcium ions in, which sends pain signals to the brain. But with repeated exposure, the calcium ions close off the receptor and prevent further pain signal transmission.


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

[User]
CMV: "Undocumented Immigrant" is a much more meaningful and instructive term than "Illegal Immigrant"

"I don't care about marijuana use. In fact, I openly support smoking marijuana! But you have to do it legally. It's illegal marijuana use that is the issue."

See how dumb that sounds?

There is no other law that I can think of where the main argument for why it's wrong is that it happens to be illegal.

And I'm not sure that's the best argument against "illegal immigration" either. I would think the best argument is that these immigrants have not been vetted. They are not licensed to be here. We do not know who they are, because they went through no formal immigration process and there are no documents to tell us any of these things. They are, for lack of a better word, undocumented immigrants.

[Assistant]
Both terms are correct, it's just about political messaging.  If you survey people and ask them what is worse "Doing something illegal, or something undocumented?"  Calling them illegal garners more support for things like deportation (cause they are a criminal) whereas undocumented garners more sympathy (it's just a paperwork issue)

Both terms also imply a particular solution.  Illegal implies criminal penalties and deportation as a solution.   Undocumented implies paperwork and clerical solutions to create proper paperwork to become documented.

It's no different than labels like "death tax vs estate tax" or "pro-life vs pro-choice"


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

[User]
Euthanasia

Euthanasia and suicide are generally prohibited among the major religions and legal systems of the world. Interestingly, in both the new and old testament, there are references endorsing the idea that there are some circumstances in life in which it's better not to be alive. In Ecclesiastes, the author says the most fortunate one is the one who was never born at all because he wont have to experience the injustice of the world. Stoics also believed suicide was a legitimate exit when the world becomes unlivable.

Of course there are clear moral arguments against euthanasia and suicide for young people or people who have others depending on them. Why is there now a general consensus among religions and the law that suicide is bad when it used to be widely accepted, for certain situations?

[Assistant]
>Why is there now a general consensus among religions and the law that suicide is bad when it used to be widely accepted, for certain situations?

This is a question for historians or similar sorts of people.

There are of course nearby Philosophical questions one can ask.


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

[User] ELI5: In many conservative countries male-on-male sex is illegal, yet female-on-female isn't. Why?

[Assistant]
Because to many conservative people female sexuality doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter if they have sex with each other.  It doesn't matter if they don't want to have sex with a man because they don't have a choice after they're married.

But if they get raped, they will be blamed for "enticing" the man.


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

[User] ELI5: I remember old games in higher graphics than they actually were.

[Assistant]
Well, a couple factors.

The first is the fact that you didn't have the new games of today to compare them with.  Obviously if you took DOOM and put it up against Battlefield 4, then DOOM would look awful.  But back in its prime, DOOM was the best of the best.  Those *were* cutting edge graphics and that was a cutting edge game.

The other is imagination.  When you play a game and really get lost in it, then it's like reading a book.  You're not only playing the game and looking at pixels on a screen but you're building this image in your head as well.