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

[User] ELI5: Puerto Ricos debit crisis and the role of the US congress?

[Assistant]
The debt crisis itself is relatively simple.  The Puerto Rican Government owes about $80,000,000,000 and is having trouble paying the interest on that debt, due to a weak economy and social distrust of the government.

Why the US Congress is involved is a little more complicated... but basically boils down to Puerto Rico being in the weird position of not being a US State... but not being a sovereign (independent) country either.  Because of that, Puerto Rico is (in some sense) part of the United States.  So the US Congress has some say on what the Puerto Rico Government does.

At one point there was talks of the US just bailing them out ($80,000,000,000 is a *rounding error* on the US Budget) but that has been shut down because people have trouble understanding how little money that is on the scale the US Government operates.

There is also talks of granting Puerto Rico the same rights as US Municipalities on the mainland to declare a Chapter 9 Bankruptcy.


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

[User] [Batman] I'm an angry young man with no ties to family or friends and a predeliction for aggressive behavior. Which criminal's gang should I join in terms of benifits, income, and lowest chance of being shot in the head on a whim?

[Assistant]
Probably narrow it down to three:

Bane: He's a man with a plan, and usually the plan doesn't involve killing his underlings for no reason.

Mr. Freeze: He's very hands-off but actually gives a shit about the ordinary people that work with him - he'll get between the Batman and his own underlings to give said underlings a chance to escape.

Riddler will usually only take skilled professionals but if you can put up with him it's low-risk(by the standards of the field) and good money.


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

[User] Why can we feel infrared radiation but not ultraviolet?

[Assistant]
Do you mean why can you feel IR as radiant heat and UV doesn't have an 'immediate' effect?

To answer that question it has to do directly with how the different wavelengths are absorbed by your body. IR is a longer wavelength which is at the 'right' wavelength to activate vibrational modes in the molecules in your cells raising the temperature. (since temp is simply the average vibrational energy of an aggregate of molecules). UV on the other hand is much shorter and doesn't cause the molecules to vibrate. You only feel it as Onsager said, with a sun burn, the after effect of destructive excitation from UV radiation.


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

[User]
[ Game of Thrones/ ASOIAF ] Who would've become king after the Rebellion if Robert had died due his injuries sustained at the Trident?

Did Robert become king because of the smidgen of Targaryen blood in him? Or was it mostly his stance as leader of the Rebellion against the Crown? So would Stannis have become king as Bobby B's younger brother or would some other leader of the Rebellion like Jon Arryn or Ned Stark ascend to the Iron Throne?

[Assistant]
There's a real chance that it would have been Ned Stark. Not because he in any way wanted it, but because Jon Arryn would have offered it to him and he would have thought he had a duty to clean up the mess he'd helped make.

It depends on Stannis, though. If Robert hadn't been crowned, would Stannis think that being the usurper's brother made him the rightful king? If so, Ned would step aside gladly; if not, Stannis would probably no more want the throne than Ned would, and Ned, being older and with more experience of leadership, might be seen as a better option.


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

[User]
CMV: I think coffee tasting notes are completely made up

Let me first say, I don't drink coffee. I've drunk coffee at different points in my life. I just don't now because I find the level of caffeine too high. So, these days I drink tea, lemonade, or just plain water. But I've drunk different coffees and I accept that there are different tastes to the different roasts, and I sort of agree that there's some taste difference from the origin. That is to say, I am completely in agreement that some coffee is more acidic, or more bitter.

But what I object to are "tasting notes" that coffee critics use to describe coffee. A few months ago I watched a YouTube video where a coffee reviewer (who I guess was supposed to be "legit"? He was hired by some clickbaity website like Vox or something) drank some coffee, and he literally gagged on it and said, "Blueberries! It's just... blueberries! Oh my god, get that away from me. It's sickeningly sweet. It's literally drinking fruit juice."

To which I can only say, "You have never drunk fruit juice if you think that is what fruit juice is." Because I have never, ever, ever mistaken coffee for any kind of fruit juice, even for the briefest moment.

It just makes no sense to me that people will drink coffee and say, "Tasting notes of chocolate, peaches, cinnamon, and nutmeg" because I will buy that same coffee and drink it and say, "It is... coffee."

Critics say, "This is a fruit-forward coffee, full mouth feel. Very pleasant and naturally creamy, though there's a muddy aftertaste with notes of burnt caramel" and I'll say, "It is... coffee."

Tasting notes are \*bizarrely\* specific sometimes, like I once met a critic who told me a coffee had tasting notes of, "The first grapes of a winter season, the sort that makes a fine Riesling" and I'm like... that has to be made up. There is literally no possible way that the coffee has that taste in it, nor that anybody could so accurately identify the taste of \*that specific\* grape mixed in with the rest of the flavor of coffee.

That said, my wife routinely reads the tasting notes on the packages of coffee we buy and she agrees that they are correct. She'll say, "Oh yes, I taste the peaches distinctly. Yes, that's actually a very good description." And I don't know if this is just the power of suggestion, but she has a very discriminating sense of taste, so I'm at least open to the possibility that there's some kind or peach flavor isomer in there somewhere.

So... what's the argument that coffee tastes like apricots, pineapple, tumeric, or other things that I think literally (chemically) are not in coffee?

EDIT:

I guess I'm asking at least partially, does any PROOF exist that these "experts" are actually able to identify these flavors? Can chemical flavor trackers of apricots be found in coffee? This should be empirically testable, but as far as I know, no such evidence has ever actually been collected. Similarly, do these experts show inter-rater reliability in a double-blind taste test? That is to say, if you give the same coffee to two testers, do they both say, "Yes, apricots"? Again, this should be empirically testable without a lot of difficulty.

It seems to me like a lot of people are saying, "Well, they said they tasted it. So, it's there!" but I'm saying, no its fictional. They're making it up to make themselves sound smart, or sell a product by making it sound fancy, or something. I do not believe that their ability to taste is actually this super-refined.

[Assistant] Tasting notes in things like coffee, wine, whiskey, etc. are completely dependent on getting past the base taste of the drink. Since you arent accustomed to drinking coffee, all you taste is coffee. After you drink it long enough, youll be able to distinguish between light and dark roasts, and type of beans, and eventually will be able to pick up on the subtler flavors.


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

[User] [Superman] Can animals tell he isnt quite human?

[Assistant]
Can animals smell the difference between a Kryptonian under a yellow sun and a normal human being.

I would say yes.

He would smell different because he isn't producing metabolised byproducts (waste/sweat) based on breaking down food.

  So they would recognize he is different but that wouldn't necessarily mean anything negative.

He exhibits the same emotional based physiological cues as a normal human (Smiling, laughing, fear, anger, seriousness) so an Animal would visually recognize him as being like everyone else, he would just smell different. the fact that he would carry the lingering scents of other humans might mark him as close enough to not cause a negative outcome.

In fact its possible some animals might respond more favorable to Superman because he doesn't ever smell/appear afraid in their presence.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why does singing/rhyming help you memorize? Secondly, why does it seem to help motivate younger children to do things they normally wouldn't?

I could never get my 2yo daughter to help me clean up her toys, but once i started singing 'putting your toys in the box, putting your toys in the box' it's much easier to get her to go along.

[Assistant]
The human brain is hard wired to see patterns and repetition, it's how we hunt, gather, communicate, judge, problem solve. Patterns put our minds at ease, and make things easier to comprehend. It's actually why conspiracy theorists manage to convince themselves and others that conspiracies exist, because we look for patterns, even where their are none.

Rhyming is patterned thought in itself. When you rhyme words together to remember something, each one is connected in a very simplistic and easy way, and it puts the storage part of our thought process at ease.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does an increase in the concentration of protons allow an acid to eat through substances?

What is happening at a molecular level that allows this to happen?

[Assistant] Naked protons really *really* want to find some electrons to steal. The substances acid eats through need these electrons to stay together, but the protons hold onto the electrons much more strongly than the substance can. So adding more protons takes more of the electrons binding the substance together, thus causing the acid to "eat through" things.


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

[User] At what speed, in MPH, is blood pumped around the body?

[Assistant]
Cardiac output is about 5.25 L/min, or 5,250 cm^3 /min

Aortic root diameter is about 2.4 cm on average, with cross sectional area of 4.5 cm^2.

Therefore the average speed of blood flow in the aorta is 1167 cm/min.

Convert to MPH and you get about 0.5 MPH on average.

That said, the heart pumps blood in a non-continuous motion, so the speed fluctuates above and below that average with your heartbeat. The peak ventricular ejection velocity can be measured by echocardiogram and peak values as high as 3 MPH are possible (although 1.5 MPH would be a more typical peak velocity.


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

[User] How do scientists measure the universe's expansion rate?

[Assistant]
Red shift (similar to Doppler effect, but for light, which tells us how fast things are moving away from us) of standard candles (events that have consistent and known brightness (to measure distance) and colour (to measure red shift)).

Usually done on the light curves of super Nova events.


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

[User] ELI5: Islamic banking system. How is it different from interest?

[Assistant]
There are two methods that can be used:

1) The bank acts as a traditional investor and just directly invests money into a project in exchange for an ownership stake.  This is usually what people hold up as being the definitive model used by Islamic banking.

The problem with this is that it only works for investments in which taking a long-term ownership position is a viable option.  IE, this works great when you're financing a startup or an established company that's ok with trading stock for cash.  It doesn't work *at all* for consumer debt, such as home/car mortgages or credit cards.  It also doesn't work for most established companies, as they're usually unwilling to trade stock for cash, the exception being that they may use that stock as the basis for a Murabaha contract.

2) Murabaha.  Murabaha is when you and the bank make a contract for you to sell something trivial to the bank and then buy it back in the future for more money.  IE, the bank pays you $100 for a loaf of bread.  You agree that in 1 week you will buy the bread back for $120, and to pay the bank you make 12 monthly payments of $10 each.  The value of the bread isn't anywhere near $100 or $120, even though you have agreed that it is.

This is how the overwhelming majority of Islamic banking transactions are structured, and is functionally identical to making a traditional loan.  The only difference is that the terms of the loan have been phrased to eliminate any mention of the word interest and an Islamic cleric has issued a fatwa legitimizing the loan.


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

[User]
1-2% acceptance rates - how many applicants are actually qualified?

I just finished my undergraduate degree and am interested in pursuing either a PsyD or PhD in Counseling/Clinical psychology in the coming years. Clinical psychology programs are notoriously hard to get in to, and most have about a 1-2% acceptance rate. Usually 300-500 applicants, with only a handful accepted. This seems incredibly daunting and sometimes discourages me.

My question is: out of these several hundred applicants, how many are appropriately qualified to apply?

Do the vast majority of these students have over a 3.5, research and/or clinical experience, a publication or two, GRE scores above the 70th percentile, thoughtful SOP, good letters of recommendation? These are generally the requirements that make one competitive. What portion of these applications are actually "competitive"?

Im not sure if this is the proper sub for this, or if this question can even be reliably answered. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated though. Thanks!

[Assistant] Psychology professor here. Median GPA is likely close to 4.0, and percentile rank for GRE scores is closer to 90%.  Letters of rec and field study/internship experience wont make up for that. PsyD route is slightly easier but far more expensive.  For profit route is much easier and ridiculously expensive.


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

[User]
Mental health + Academia --- Do things get better mentally?

Hi all,

I've experienced a general decline in my mental health over the last 12-18 months or so while in grad school. I just finished up my second year of graduate school and I'm seeing a therapist on campus to help me through my mental health issues.

My question for you all: With appropriate therapy/counselling as needed, has your mental health gotten better while progressing through your career in academia?

I understand that the work load probably won't change much: I expect being a professor at an R1 university will entail working \~45-50 hours per week (as I do now). I expect there will be some balance of teaching, research, applying for grants, giving talks, mentoring my students, and general department work (in most ways the similar to as I do now, with some differences). I understand that there will be pressure to publish and to take on a large workload to secure tenure...but does it get a bit easier on you mentally?

When going through days where my mental health is particularly bad, I find that my deepest, darkest worry is that I will always be struggling with my mental health as badly as I am now. Those moments are pretty scary - and it's a shame, because I really love what I do and most of work that comes along with it. There is just this constant pressure to perform at 100% all hours of the day, all days of the week so I can finish this derivation/start writing that paper/email that pesky collaborator that has had their priorities elsewhere/etc. It's really weighing down on me.

Any thoughts on the matter - or any anecdotes that you'd care to share?

Thanks!

Edit: added a sentence of extra details.

[Assistant] Speaking as a senior professor, yes and no.  The pressure stays high until you get tenure and by that time, working like crazy is a habit.  And 45-50 hours is a light week.  BUT, you will earn a decent wage and you have a ton of flexibility relative to any other career.  That flexibility provides the opportunity to have a good work/life balance.  It is incumbent on you to take advantage of it in ways that keep you mentally and physically happy.


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

[User]
ELI5: When we Sew Our Skin Back Together Why Does the Body go Along With it?

So, I've been wondering this recently because of super hero shows I've been watching.

We've all seen in movies or tv shows where the badass superhero gets injured or cut and sews his own skin back with a needle and thread.

My question is why do the skin cells accept the thread from the sewing and more or less have the new skin grow back just as it was? I was just wondering because our bodies can be so un-receptive to  various types of new material that we introduce to it.

Heck, in the colonial times the Indians were almost wiped out just because Caucasians decided to pay them a visit from Europe. But yet we can literally take a needle and sew our skin back in place...
why?

[Assistant]
When you stitch a wound shut, most of the cells are still alive. The stitching just holds them in place while the cells heal the wound. Without stitches, the wound may still heal, but it would take longer and be more prone to infection as well as leave a much larger scar.

Also, the stitching thread itself is not "accepted" by the body. Stitches have to be removed once enough of the skin has healed that it holds in place without them.


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

[User] [eli5] how do those phone chargers with magnets work without damaging the phone?

[Assistant] Magnets don't wreck electronics like you may have been lead to believe. Older electronics had some components sensitive to magnets, like their magnetic tape data storage, and magnets made wonky things happen to the monitor, but modern electronics (and phones especially) are fairly indifferent to magnets.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does unplugging appliances from the wall plug actually save much energy?

I know that you can save energy extensively by turning appliances off standby, e.g. DVD player, stereo, TV etc. What I don't really know is if whether it is worth switching off appliances like kitchen appliances, e.g. toaster, blender/ milkshake mixer, lamps etc. I use a milkshake maker every morning, and my dad turns it off at the powerpoint every day. Can I tell him its not worth it?

I know there's so many sources saying that this does save energy, but I'm just skeptical about some appliances in particular.

[Assistant]
Simple electrical appliances such as toasters, lamps and blenders have a switch so that turning them off is the same as disconnecting them.

Electronic devices such as TVs, DVDs and stereos usually don't shut down completely, instead they go into "standby mode", so that they'll still respond to the remote control. Unplugging them does save energy, but the amount of energy is probably miniscule.


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

[User]
[MCU] Is the US government actually aware that Ant-Man can shrink? (Ant-Man and the Wasp spoilers)

So at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scotty and the Pyms fake out Jimmy Woo and his FBI agents with the giant Ant-Man suit. But when the suit shrinks to ant-size, the FBI doesn't make any attempt to search for him on the ground, or really ANY recognition that it might have gotten too small to see. Jimmy mutters "Magic" in disbelief, which is a weird thing to say if he knows the suit can shrink. But since Scott growing big was the most visible and attention-grabbing part of the Berlin fight, do they think his powerset is only his embiggening ability? In the news report earlier in the movie, the chryon says "Giant-Man resurfaces in San Francisco Bay" which also seems to indicate that the world knows him as Giant-Man rather than Ant-Man.

[Assistant] Nope, Scott Lang's debut as a superhero in public involved him turning into a giant at the Leipzig/Halle Airport and breaking an airliner in half. The remaining Avengers are no hurry to correct the US Government and Hank Pym has impressed upon Lang to not reveal to full capabilities of the Pym Particles suit.


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

[User] Why is taxation/subsidies a better method of adressing externalities than price controls/min wages/price ceilings ?

[Assistant]
In an ideal situation, taxes and subsidies simply shift a supply or demand curve and cause a change in equilibrium while price controls just force a restriction on quantity supplied or demanded by setting a price.

In reality, there are times when taxes may or may not be more useful, and price controls may or may not be more useful for a desired economic outcome.


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

[User] eli5: Why does milk taste so satisfying after something like cookies or cake?

[Assistant] Milk contains fat and water, which is a great solvent for the sweet items to dissolve into. It's great for blunting the richness of a cookie or slice of cake, which makes the experience more pleasant overall.


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

[User] ELI5: How can carnivorous animals eat (animals) raw meat, without getting food poisoning - like humans would?

[Assistant] Firstly they eat it completely fresh, so no bacterial build up in the muscle flesh.  Secondly some of them (like vultures) have much stronger stomach acid that kills pathogens.  Thirdly, they are vulnerable to parasites and other diseases, like humans, they just don't have the same access to medicine, and die younger in the wild than they might do in a very well funded zoo.


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

[User] ELI5: what is the difference between cigarettes and a vape?

[Assistant] With cigarettes you inhale smoke from burning leaves. With a vaper you inhale vaporised propylene glycol with nicotine and flavourings. In both cases you are taking unnecessary crap in to your lungs.


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

[User]
ELI5: Would a car going 60MPH rear ending a car going 59MPH have the same impact as a car going 1MPH rear ending a stationary car?

Also would a car going 100MPH rear ending a car going 99MPH have the same impact as a car gong 10MPH rear ending a car going 9MPH?

[Assistant]
Essentially yes, with one big difference.

The relative velocity is the same in all three scenarios so the energy transfer would be the same.

A minor collision can cause loss of control at speed though. If the car loses traction at 100 mph due to a minor bump a serious crash may result.


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

[User] ELI5: How do animals that swallow their prey alive (e.g. frogs, lizards etc.) ensure that their prey doesnt struggle and hurt their internal organs? Are they crushed during the swallowing process?

[Assistant]
Feeding pet lizards worms and grubs and then having the worms or grubs erupt from the lizard later is like, a serious problem that happens to old or sick lizards. You get a big huge warning from a lot of lizard care taking stuff to stop feeding a lizard worms if they are having any sort of other issue.  Because yeah, the lizard's body can't guarantee it and if the lizard is having other issues it totally happens.

The truth is, lizards and frogs kinda just suck. They have a real live fast die young construction to them. Humans have two or three babies that are meant to live 90 years, a lot of little animals are cheaply constructed by the dozen and fall apart constantly.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40k] If Delta level psykers can read the minds of a whole town and Alpha plus can destroy planets how strong are the rest of the classes?

[Assistant] I wouldn't put alpha at "destroy the planet". Anyone we've seen with that power (Emperor, Magnus) would definitely be alpha+. Iota is the level where you would be co sidered a true psyker, and taken by the Imperium to be astronomical feed or sanctioned psykers. I'd put the more average Librarians and stronger sanctioned psykers at zeta-delta, capable of controlled and sustained usage of the warp on a localized scale, for example throwing witch lightning or reading minds on a battlefield, even mild precog. On the high side of Delta and beta you get the Mephistopheles and Njal Stormcallers, standouts even among Space Marine Librarians, people who can turn the tides of battle single handedly, go up against greater daemons, etc. True Alpha levels are rare as hell. One example would probably be Gideon Ravenor, who's top feat was destroying a mountain range with a burst of warp energy. Malcador was probably also an alpha level, but we see very little of his ability actually used besides the obvious sitting on the throne feat.


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

[User]
I believe first world countries have an obligation to humanity to make tyrants their business. CMV

I believe that the US and the UK among Canada, Australia and other first world countries are obligated to make people like Kim Jung Un and Kony their business and remove them forcibly from power for the sake of humanitys best interests. It's my assumption that, to work towards a unity of mankind, we need to make an example of tyrants that cause men, women and children harm or death no matter the country or religion that's doing the tyranny, and it starts with the superpowers of the world to show and set that example. CMV please.

TL;DR. Some countries, if able, should police the world.

[Assistant]
There are 2 problems with this view:

1) How do we decide who are the tyrants? If a majority in Iran wants an Islamic Fascist dictatorship of mullahs, do we overthrow them? How about if they elect them?

2) Every time we've tried to do this, it has ended up with massive civilian casualties, significant casualties among our troops, and ultimately has not changed things at all, because fundamentally you can't force freedom on people. They have to culturally be ready to take their own freedom for themselves. Examples: Vietnam, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan.

In short, it's arrogant, impossible, and deadly to take your advice.


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

[User]
[King of the Hill] Why is Hank so loyal to Buck Strickland?

Hank is shown to be dedicated to his boss, but Buck rarely returns the favor. In fact, he regularly uses Hank, endangered Bobby and once tried to frame Hank for murder. Why does Hank even bother giving him the time of day?

[Assistant]
They get into this in the episode where Jimmy Carter helps them build that house.

Hank has essentially emotionally replaced Cotton as his father figure with Buck.  Buck has many, many, many flaws.  But he expresses respect for Hank quite a few times and is nowhere near as awful as Cotton Hill.  Hank forgives Buck for everything because he wants a father, and Buck has been more of a father to him than anyone else.


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

[User] [Star Wars] What if Palpatine turned Mace Windu to the Dark side instead of Anakin?

[Assistant] If Palpatine turned him, it's likely that Mace would've murdered him pretty quickly, since there's very little Palpatine can dangle in front of him to keep him in line, and Mace has very little tolerance for bullshit, which Palpatine is full of.


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

[User]
How come "You cant write a googolplex"?

Isnt it just a 1 followed by 1000 0s?

[Assistant] A googol is simply a 1 followed by a hundred zeros. Easy to write. A googolplex, on the other hand, is a 1 followed by a googol of zeros, and that is a truly large number. So much so, in fact, that it vastly outweighs the number of atoms estimated to exist in the known universe. So even if you could somehow "write" on an atom, there's simply not enough matter in the universe to write out a googolplex.


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

[User] ELI5: Humanity has existed for at least 100 000 years. Why did all major civilizations around the world develop only during the past few thousand years? There's like 90 000 years of nothing.

[Assistant] Well there was an ice age in there that slowed things down.  The advent of agricultural was important too.  That allowed people to organize around a particular area and feed enough that people can start having specialized jobs.


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

[User]
[MCU] Isn't it kinda weird, that some human in less than 10-20 years surpassed most of the technology of the intelligent races (not all of them ofc) in universe? I'm talking specifically about Iron Man Nanotechnology Suit

Just imagine what would happen if Thanos army had that Nanobot Suit on every soldier.

[Assistant]
Star Lords Helmet operates in a similar fashion to Tony's suit but we haven't seen anyone else use a helmet like that which speaks to either being antiquated (most likely since we've seen other folks achieve the same effect with energy fields) , or a one off no one figured out how to produce cheaply.

Rocket was repairing/creating an exact duplicate of their space ship with a something that looked like a spray gun ..Thats far beyond nano technology.

For all we know Nanotech might be considered a quaint or cost prohibitive idea that has no real purpose outside of maintaining Iron Man suits for clean energy Billionaires.


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

[User]
[WH40K] Are there civilian orks?

Are there ork cities with ork industrial workers and bureaucrats that produce the weapons and munitions they need for war? What about ork scientists? And then, are there orks that have work that is completely unrelated to the war effor?

[Assistant]
You know the phrase "Every Guard is a rifleman?"  Yeah that applies to Orkz but to 11 (like always).  Essentially, there are, Mekboys and whatnot, but theys like fiting than anything else.  So if you had a civvie Ork, if anyone gets in a fight nearby, they wouldn't be a civvie Orkz.

Remember, they were made by the Old Ones solely to fight.  **Solely to Fight**.


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

[User] [God of War/Lovecraft] Could Kratos kill one of the Old Ones?

[Assistant]
The Greek demigods are willing to descend enough to interact with humans and use them as pawns in their own games - games petty enough to be understandable by humans.

The Old Ones operate on a much different scale. Their machinations unfold across dimensions on timescales that make our universe look like a tiny, evanescent soap bubble - in those cases where they are not simply motivated by blind madness. Before their vast alien minds, even the gods of Olympus are less than dust.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do defense attorneys establish their case? Does the defendant confide / disclose the 100% truth of what exactly occurred? Then does the attorney do all they can to soften the blow?

Taking Casey Anthony's case for example. Is it safe to say her attorney probably heard what *really* happened in order to provide the best defense he could?

[Assistant] Defense attorneys don't need to establish a case. Their whole role is to poke holes in the prosecution's case. All they have to do is show that it's reasonable to think that the defendant didn't commit the crime or had a valid reason by statute to commit the act. Prosecution on the other hand has the job not only to prove that the defendant did it but to prove that there's no reasonable way they didn't.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does Motion sickness get worse when you look at a screen?

[Assistant] A big component of motion sickness is when the two parts of your body that control your balance are sending different signals to your brain. Those two parts are you inner ear and your vision. If your inner ear is telling your brain that you are moving but your vision is saying that you're stationary (because you're focusing on the screen) then you can feel sick.


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

[User] [Superman] In most recent incarnations, Jor-el knew the effects of a yellow sun on Kryptonian physiology before sending Kal to Earth. Why wasn't every light bulb on Krypton in that spectrum so everybody was invulnerable all the time?

[Assistant] There are some accounts of a past where Krypton exploited the effects of a yellow sun to become a galactic empire, conquering worlds. But the rise of the Rao Cult put an end to that. The main religion of Krypton venerated their sun, and the priests of their faith held that the powers granted by Yellow Suns were anathema, that they brought too high a price. They forced Krypton to become insular and remain on their home planet.


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

[User] ELI5 how do our bodies naturally prevent us from falling off skinnier sleeping surfaces when were used to more space (like taking a nap on a sofa)?

[Assistant] Even while sleeping we have a sense of sorts to know were on the bed in relation to the edge that prevents us from falling off. This develops into adulthood so kids can still fall off occasionally.


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

[User] ELI5:Is it better to charge a cell phone every night or only when it's low, and why?

[Assistant]
Every night; or before it reaches 20%, whichever is earlier.

Recharging every night is most convenient, and lithium-polymer cells are not affected by the 'memory effect' that happened to early designs of nickle-cadmium cells.

The only things that do stress the chemistry of cells is deep discharges, or storing them fully charged. Keeping them above 20% is a good idea.


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

[User] [Tolkien] What is the most technologically advanced civilization in Middle-Earth? What are some of their most advanced technologies? Magic doesn't count!

[Assistant]
Depends on the age, also saying "magic doesn't count" is unfair. Are weapons made of impossibly strong steel magical? they were made with something we'd call magic, but for them it was just good smithing technique.

In any event, speaking of Middle-Earth proper (so no Valinor), it'd go to Numenor. They produced marvels like giant walls and towers of "shaped rock" (like the first wall of Minas Tirith and the tower of Orthanc), great panoplies of war, fleets that explored far beyond anywhere anyone had ever reached, and more.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does a DJ actually do apart from choose the next song?

Referring to both DJ's at parties/clubs and DJ's at concerts.

[Assistant]
A club DJ has one job: keep people dancing. Sure, he can simply create a playlist and let them play through with a simple pause between each track, but that is not interesting to the ear and, more importantly, it would interrupt the dancing. It would be even worse if the tracks played one after the other with no break between. One moment, you're dancing perfectly in time with the song, and the next you're completely out of step. It's far too jarring and it makes for a bad time on the dance floor.

Instead, a DJ will create a playlist and blend it together into one continuous song, allowing the people to dance without obstruction. To do this, the DJ adjusts the speed of the tracks as the playlist plays so that the tempos match up evenly. This allows the songs to play into each other seamlessly, thus, keeping the party going. Creative DJs can enhance the performance by finding surprising ways of mixing the tracks, utilizing anything from effects to original samples.


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

[User] Are there any philosophers worth reading that are against democracy and pushing for something better?

[Assistant] In Marx's philosophy, there's an critique of bourgeois democracy as part of  a push toward proletarian democracy and thereby to communism which entails a true democracy free of the "common ruin of the contending classes."


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

[User]
Why does ice taste different to water?

This includes water that has just melted from ice. It has a very specific and recognisable ice-taste.

[Assistant] When you taste water, youre tasting the impurities in the water, not the water itself. In addition, the colder a liquid is the harder it is for your taste buds to detect taste from it. Thus, the colder water is the harder it is for you to taste impurities, so it will usually taste more clean.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why are Prime Numbers special?

A Prime number is any number only divisible by itself and 1. Why are so many mathematical problems related to this? What is special about Prime Numbers?

[Assistant]
They are important because any number is either a prime or can be represented as a product of primes. As such, they become the building blocks for the other numbers.

There was a fundamental theorem of something based on that (sorry, it has been many years)


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

[User]
Since insulin regulates the production of ketones, what prevents Ketoacidosis when a Type 1 Diabetic attempts a ketogenic diet?

When a Type 1 Diabetic attempts to follow an extremely low carb diet they would have to take close to no insulin or else they would risk facing repeated low blood sugar levels which then would force them to eat carbohydrates to raise, making the diet no longer low carb. When insulin levels are cut too far down from a low carb diet, why doesnt ketoacidosis occur? Do Type 1 Diabetics on keto produce more ketones because of this? And if so, does that mean that they can shred excess fat at a more effective rate than someone without the disease?

[Assistant] The metabolic pathway for ketone production is also regulated via homeostatic methods further down the biophysical pathway plus its not guaranteed that the pathway for ketone production is active. Fatty oxidation is primary, insulins effect on fatty oxidation is secondary or tertiary & only has a slight effect on the overall fatty oxidation process.


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

[User] ELI5: How are pickles 0 calories?

[Assistant]
So, in the US, the law says that if a thing has fewer than five calories per serving, the company is allowed to round that down to zero. Smaller pickles have a little less than five calories, so the companies round that down.

Flavored water is the same way. A typical one liter bottle of flavored water e.g. Clear American, has about ten calories to the bottle, and three servings. But if you divide ten by three, you'll note it's less than five. And therefore, the company can put it down as 0 calories.

As an interesting side note, the law also says that if a thing has less than point* five grams of sugar per serving, the company can round that down to zero as well. Which usually isn't a problem, except that tic-tacs (the brand of mint) are almost pure sugar, but have a total weight of less than point* five grams, and therefore they're advertised as having '0 sugar'.

[edited to correct a magnitude error, thanks gigantic_idiot].


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

[User]
ELI5: Why haven't other species evolved to be as intelligent as humans?

How come humans are the only species on Earth that use sophisticated language, build cities, develop medicine, etc? It seems that humans are WAY ahead of every other species. Why?

[Assistant]
A slightly different answer:

Species evolve qualities that are beneficial for survival, and passing on their genes. That's the only reason a particular trait gets selected and passed on in a species. Humans developed large front brains (which make us intelligent), because intelligence confers advantages for surviving and passing on our genes. So, humans developed big, smart brains for the same reason that we developed arms, that rhinos developed thick skin, that alligators developed an incredibly slow metabolism, and that owls developed acute vision. All of these traits are very helpful for helping the creature survive and mate. So, our asking "Why aren't other species as intelligent as us?" is very much like an alligator asking "Why don't other creatures have as slow metabolisms as we do?" or an owl asking "Why can't other creatures see or fly as well as we do?". The answer is that those traits aren't the ones that were helpful for those creatures to survive. Each creature developed the traits it did in order to overcome environmental challenges to survival, and it happens that intelligence was a huge help for primates in trying to survive, but not so much for alligators. Alligators don't need to be able to make tools or to fly to weather their environmental challenges. What would be more helpful is if they could slow their metabolism to the point that they only need to eat about once a year - and this is the trait they developed. The same goes for us. Intelligence is one of many evolutionary tools developed for survival, but by no means the most efficient one. Bacteria - stupid as they are - are better at surviving than we are.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How smart is Odin ?

Being a god of wisdom and being extermly old, Odin should be very smart.

I imagine warping reality on such a massive scale requiers an immense knolwdge of cosmos and it's laws.

Now he may not be technology smart but i think he could learn to use it very easily.

[Assistant]
In a lot of ways, too damn smart for his own good. But there comes a point where wisdom fails, and even Odin could see so far.

Odin understood that the Asgardians were trapped in a cycle of Ragnaroks - he saw that there would come threats that he could not face on his own. He saw that there would come a time when his approach to things, the obsession with secrets and authority, of keeping Asgard apart from the universe...just wouldn't work. He saw that he wasn't capable of killing his brother, Cul.

He saw the need for Thor, and for Loki.

Because Odin knew he wasn't immortal - and maybe wasn't interested in *being* immortal. He knew that the story of Asgardians was always a generational one. That's why he tried so hard to shape Thor into being someone worthy of carrying on when he was gone, because he knew he *would* be gone. Sooner or later, Odin knew he would die. And Thor would have to replace him, to do the things Odin wouldn't be around to do anymore.

More than that, though, Odin knew that his way of doing things wasn't necessarily the right one. He liked to keep secrets. That was a part of his power. Often it can be argued it was for the greater good, but how many of Asgard's foes - the Dark Gods, the Tenth Realm, the World-Eaters, the Enchanters, Those Who Sit Above In Shadow, the Serpent & the Worthy, etc. - could the Asgardians have better prepared themselves to face if only they knew about it? How many foes were "locked away" and forgotten instead of being dealt with, pro-actively? How much of that crap was Odin putting off for Thor to handle?

And how much of it was he setting up Loki to take? Because if Thor is everything honorable and noble in Odin, then Loki is everything secretive and clever. Not necessarily evil, in every incarnation, but definitely the master of magic and the walker in shadowy paths, the plans-within-plans scheming which Thor is terrible at but at which Loki and Odin excel. Odin saw both parts of himself, and he raised his sons to handle things when he was gone.


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

[User]
Is it possible for Gas Giants planets to be normal planets but with very high density atmosphere ?

And can there be life under this atmosphere but are undetectable to us ?

[Assistant]
Afraid not. The center of a gas giant is always going to be a super-hot liquid of metal and rock. Saturn's core is 21,000 F (11,700 C) while Jupiter's is about 43,000 F (24,000 C).

Even if you have a rocky surface and things aren't guaranteed. Venus has a nice rocky surface with very Earth-like gravity but with surface temperature of 864 F (462 C) and pressures high enough to melt lead no life can survive there.

However this does not rule out life below the surface of rocky worlds like Venus or life living in the higher altitude clouds of gas giants (but we have no evidence for either and it is merely fun speculation).


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

[User] Where is the electrical energy generated from power plants stored? Do they have like very big batteries of sorts?

[Assistant] Very little energy storage tech has been developed for city grid applications. Any electricity we generate, we must use immediately. Powerplants have been designed so that they are able to match as closely as possible the generation of electricity with the demand for electricity, reducing excess as much as possible. Typically this is done by coal or natural gas powerplants, as they are much faster at spinning up or slowing down generators than other types of powerplants.


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

[User]
When does an unborn baby have a functional heart and heartbeat?

Let me be very clear: this is NOT supposed to be political. But in light of Texas' SB8, I saw an argument that the law referenced "fetal heartbeat", whereas at six weeks of pregnancy a baby's detected pulse is just electrical signals, not contractions of a heart. This argument continued to say that at six weeks, any "beat" detected is artificially propagated by technology, whereas an actual heartbeat can be heard without any propagation. So I'm wondering, at what point can a baby be said to have actual heartbeats caused by cardiac contractions? Is this a subjective question open to different interpretations?

[Assistant] The 6 week transvaginal (inserted into the vagina) ultrasound is detecting a cluster of cells that will become the pacemaker so not technically a heartbeat at all which is why you'll often see (not hear) 150-170 pulses/minute. A fully formed heart happens around week 11-12 which is still only about half the time needed for full viability as the lungs take much longer to form.


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

[User]
CMV: Unemployment Income should not be taxed in the US.

Unemployment income should not be taxed as income in the US, and here is why.

1. To qualify for unemployment, you have to be working and therefore most likely payed into the unemployment pool and to be taxed when you are already down feels like double dipping into the pockets of hurting Americans.

2. If you receive a child dividend or a stimulus check or a portion of social security, it is not taxed as income because the idea is that the income is suppose to offset natural expenses such as having a child which is good for the economy or the idea that you are retired and payed your dues. Unemployment dips into both those categories. Taking care of those at a loss of employment helps cover the cost and also understands that most people have been paying into unemployment for sometime and it is due to them.

3. Self-employed people working at home when they don't make a profit can count expenses such as a portion of their  mortgage, utilities, etc. as an expense and generally write off the expenses to offset future profit. Shouldn't unemployment have that same option to say "Hey I am trying to apply for a job, but I still have a home, utilities, etc. And in no way making a profit. My expenses offset my profit from unemployment, therefore taxing doesn't make sense when I am working at a loss.

4. The budget could easily be more than satisfied by taxing the wealth of those at the winning end instead of the losing end. Removing corporate tax breaks, local and state tax breaks, Increasing tax on things such as dividends or a wealth tax easily would bring in more income than taxing the unemployed. Meanwhile economic evidence shows that unemployed people will reinvest their income back into the economy compared to things such as dividend profits.

Change my mind!

[Assistant]
Taxing unemployment makes sense for the same reason that taxing the wages of government employees makes sense. In a sense, it's silly -- the government gives you money and then asks for a percentage of it back.  It's convoluted and rather pointless.  At first glance, it would make more sense just to reduce the amount paid out initially, but that's actually less fair.

Everyone is in a different overall position.  Two people who receive the same government salary or the same unemployment benefits might be in totally different overall positions despite the identical wage/benefit.  Maybe one of them owns a business on the side or has a spouse making high six figures.  Giving them the benefit and then taxing back a percentage of it ensures that the person who needs it more ends up with a larger benefit (i.e., the person with the outside income will pay a much higher tax rate and end up retaining a smaller proportion of the unemployment pay out).  You could do the same thing up front by changing the size of the payment, but that would involve a lot of complicated paperwork when you can accomplish the same purpose later on when everyone files tax returns (which they have to do anyway).


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

[User] ELI5:Why was FDR unsuccessful in getting Universal Health Care, but the New Deal, which changed American society practically overnight, was able to pass?

[Assistant] We might have thought the Great Depression would create the perfect conditions for passing compulsory health insurance in the US, but with millions out of work, unemployment insurance took priority followed by old age benefits. FDRs Committee on Economic Security, the CES, feared that inclusion of health insurance in its bill, which was opposed by the AMA, would threaten the passage of the entire Social Security legislation. It was therefore excluded.


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

[User]
Why do more Conservatives cite Economics when arguing against Goverment intervention in markets ?

I don't clearly remember if I posted this before or not but if I did then please feel free to remove this .

Why do so many conservatives cite "economics 101" when arguing against goverment involvement in the market ? Where exactly is it written that public intervention is bad ?

[Assistant]
The Dunning-Kruger Effect, most of the time, anyway. People who have some knowledge of a topic, but not a lot, will often think they know more than they do, and obliviously make egregious mistakes when discussing that topic as a result.

They took Econ 101 but not much else -- or maybe they didn't even finish that -- so they think they know everything. Basically, they haven't taken Econ 102 yet, which covers market failure.

Sometimes government intervention is actually, legitimately bad, but in that case you'll usually find a load of respectable economists of a variety of political persuasions arguing against it, such as in the case of rent control. In other cases economists are evenly divided, in which case it is safe to assume that both sides have somewhat reasonable arguments to make, such as on the minimum wage, but normally this also means that neither argument is so sound-bitingly simple as to be totally encapsulated by the quip "but Econ 101". And sometimes economists will be almost universally in favor of an intervention.


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

[User]
CMV: People who come from poor families aren't "stronger", their chances in life are diminished because of the lack of a "head start" that richer families can give their kids.

I myself am not from a necessarily poor family, but my parents have not saved up for my study, as they haven't studied themselves.

Being surrounded by students with rich parents, and seeing how the parents pay for the study itself, health insurance and rent just hurts a bit. This means I'm starting my life after studying with a huge loan, which will result in smaller chances for buying a house, for example.

I understand that this makes me more cautious with my money, but I think richer kids, or kids whose parents only pay for their study, are also able to think about their spendings.

[Assistant]
I think you misunderstand this sentiment. Rich kids definitely have a "head start" and their path to success is paved with money. It will be much easier for them to achieve their goals.

Children from poorer families have to work really hard to get to the same point and things are not easy for them. Vast majority will never achieve same goals as rich kids even if they put twice the work in because they lacked the cushy benefits.

But those who do achieve the high goals have worked twice as hard and are stronger than their rich counterparts who didn't have to work as hard.


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

[User]
ELI5:What characteristic of sperm, egg, or DNA determines if different types of animals can cross-breed?

For example, if you place turtle sperm near a zebra egg, at what point and how do the sperm and/or egg realize it's going to be a boring date?

[Assistant]
Imagine that the two mating individuals each bring half of the pieces of a board game. You're only going to have a successful game if both individuals bring the pieces from the same game.

These board game pieces are the DNA stored on chromosomes. Chromosomes come in pairs, one from the mother and one from the father.

Animals come with very different numbers of chromosomes. Humans have 46 total, fruit flies have 8, and hedgehogs have 90. Thus, if the mother and father chromosomes don't add up, there's no chance for cross-breeding.

Even if the chromosome numbers do match up, the DNA on them may be located in different locations. It's like the two individuals bring half of the pieces from Chess and another half from Chinese Chess. Even if they are both chess, the pieces represent different things and they move different ways. In this case, there can't be any cross breeding because the DNA does not match.

There are other issues with different mechanics and chemicals released during fertilization of the egg by the sperm that may differ between species as well but the DNA issue is the major factor.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If ion canons are so powerful, why aren't Star Destroyers armed with them?

At the Battle of Hoth, we see the rebels completely disable a Star Destroyer with a single shot from an ion canon. It would be pretty useful to have a weapon that can instantly disable an enemy capital ship. So why aren't Star Destroyers armed with ion canons?

[Assistant]
They are. The ion cannon on Hoth wasn't unique because it was an ion cannon, it was unique because it was a planetary defense ion cannon and was significantly larger in scale, especially for what the ragtag Rebel Alliance should have had access to.

The ion cannons on Star Destroyers are about the same scale as their normal turbolasers. The Rebel ion cannon on Hoth disabled Star Destroyers in one shot because a planetary defense ion cannon is a *big* ion cannon.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does an unknown soldier end up in a cemetery in America?

I understand that uniforms designate if they were American or not but I noticed while doing some genealogy research that there are many states that have unknown soldiers from various wars. For example if there was an unknown American soldier that died during Normandy how do they choose to bury him in Kansas as opposed to Oklahoma?

[Assistant]
The unknown soldier is a concept.  He /She is the idea that there is many many that died in far away and in closer lands that never got a decent burial.No reward ,no fan fare and that to them we also owe a thank you and respect. The soldier in the tomb is nameless so that all the fallen can be remembered.

EDIT: Unless OP meant how does an unidentified soldiers body get  back to America with out being properly identified. In which case loss of dog-tags and separation from original unit can lead to mis identification, add to that severe damage to the body. There is a lot of KIA and MIA that we will never be sure where they actually lay.Some could be home.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are people scared to invest in penny stocks?

Even more specifically, the Pump n Dump scheme. People are scared they'd lose a lot of money. Say I bought 100 shares of a stock worth $.02, I only put in $2. Even if the value of the stock raises to $3 due to somebody artificially raising the price and then sells their shares, I still only stand to lose $2 of my own money...???

Also why not just buy 100 shares of as many penny stocks as you can? One of them is bound to go up, right?

Edit: Cool thanks guys, love learning new things!

[Assistant]
There are a few reasons.

1) Volatility.  A $0.50/share stock can gain or lose 50% in a day.

2) Long term viability.  There's a reason the market thinks the shares are worthless.  The company is either new and untested, or tested and failed horribly.

3) Volume.  These stocks are usually lightly traded.  You may not be able to actually find someone willing to buy your stocks should you choose to sell.


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

[User]
CMV: Supreme Court Justices shouldnt serve for life, and should have some limit

I get theyre supposed to be the protectors of the constitution and all, so, in theory, they dont really need to have an age limit, but I think they should. Some people are gonna have opinions and biases, depending on religion, political party, generation, everything.

I think its unfair that they can serve 40+ years at times. If they are quite biased, and the court isnt evenly split at all, its kind of like the rights of the people will be protected in a certain way, for possibly 40 years!!! Not everyone is gonna like how theyre protected!!

They also may carry very old-fashioned views with them, and they wont be protecting the constitution in a way that applies to todays thoughts and opinions, but to their generations thoughts and opinions.

The constitution can be interpreted in different ways. We dont need to be stuck with one type of interpretation for years and years.

I dont think they should be elected, but I think they should have some sort of limit, and I dont see a reason why they cant.

Edit: if youre gonna comment that I only said this because of my political biases, just dont. First of all, multiple people have already told me that. Second, its not true. My opinion wouldve initially been this a month ago, a year ago, or two years ago.

[Assistant]
There's nothing wrong conceptually with having a retirement age for the US Supreme Court. Canadian Supreme Court justices have to retire at 75 and this has mostly worked out.

However, the US Supreme Court has become so politicized that there is already a strong bias for younger judges. A retirement age would put even more pressure against older judges been appointed, which would further narrow the chance of getting the 'best' candidate.


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

[User] [Seinfeld] What's the plot synopsis of the movie Sack Lunch?

[Assistant] [Comedy, 94 mins] Craig Whitlock thought he had things pretty figured out - a steady job, a steady girlfriend and a steady routine. Until the fateful day he sat down on a park bench to eat lunch and found himself with the wrong sack lunch. With one simple mixup, mild-mannered Craig, along with best friend and renowned slacker Jeff, is thrust into a wild and dangerous world where he finds himself running from mobsters, cavorting with undercover spies and, most disconcertingly, responsible for foiling a criminal mastermind. Craig tries to save himself, the world, and his former life in this raunchy and hilarious comedy.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Did ordinary clone troopers get jealous of their brothers who got randomly picked to become commanders, commandos, pilots, etc?

And if so, how did it affect military operations?

[Assistant]
Yes. *Republic Commando* contains numerous scenes where the common bucketheads trade barbs with the "deluxe models".
>how did it affect military operations?

Luckily, most clones are professionals, so it only boiled down to trading insults and trying to kill even more clankers.


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

[User]
CMV: Student assignments in introductory programming courses should always be full programs in normal languages, not "fill in the blank" snippets in toy languages.

I work as a computer science tutor and sometimes have students needing help with "fill in the blank" questions. The format is a website where students provide the implementation for a given function - say to sort an array - and then submit their code. The website reports back what the expected return value was and the received return value, and then either rejects or accepts the submission. Students never write complete programs - they only practice programming through the sort of fill-in-the-blank exercises I've mentioned above.

The last time this happened, it wasn't even in any normal language (Java, C, C++, C#, Visual Basic, JavaScript, PHP, etc...). The student couldn't name what language they used, so I guess it was a special "toy" language designed for intro cs students.

The problem is, I often have students who know absolutely no programming whatsoever. They don't know how to print "Hello, world!", they don't know how to declare a variable, never heard heard of a "loop" before, and so on. I basically have to start from scratch, spending our hour giving a lesson on introductory programming topics.

I normally do this by showing a complete example program that illustrates the building blocks of coding and having the student iteratively modify & run that, to explore first-hand how the building blocks work. It's not perfect, but I haven't found a better teaching approach - Socratic method question asking is useless when students know *nothing* at all, and writing lots of wordy notes just makes their eyes glaze over.

Unfortunately, I cannot do this when students have no way to just create a blank program to begin building & tinkering with, nor am I able to build example programs for students to illustrate concepts if they're using a course-specific toy language that no tutor would be familiar with.

Introductory programming courses following the format I've described above are just bad and do a woeful disservice to their students.

How can you CMV? Research showing that students who begin learning programming using a "toy" language instead of a normal one have a higher success rate would help. I'd also like to hear teachers' reasoning for not using tools that allow students to just make up their own programs from scratch, outside the context of answering assignment questions.

[Assistant]
Algorithms and their teaching predates computer science by literally thousands of years. If a student truly is learning about algorithms (such as a sort), and trying to answer a question on the best way to achieve X, there's absolutely no reason this needs to be conducted in a programming language. Programming languages and algorithms are two different skills. Whilst they come together in programming software, they can be taught separately.

I have a degree in 3D animation, and in our first year we studied the basics of a number of topics - modelling, texturing, life drawing, traditional animation techniques, character rigging etc. As time goes on and you get better versed in these different topics you can more easily overlap them, taking a single idea to its logical end point (a character design and story idea in your head --> an animated short film viewable on a screen).. If you want to teach someone character animation, you can either provide them with a modelled, rigged and skinned character and then start with the basics of actually teaching animation, or you can insist that they model, rig and skin their own character and only \*then\* begin to teach them the basics of animation. The former is preferable for a whole host of reasons, not least of which is that your modelling improves when you have experience of actually using the model to animate with.

In other words, if you want your computer science students to begin learning about algorithms from day 1 (and surely this is vital), you need to allow for them to complete the work in something other than a programming language. This way they can learn both in parallel (and whatever else might be important).


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

[User]
ELI5 How do spiders make a single web strand between two places?

Occasionally I will see a long spider web strand going from two hard to reach places, like from a wall to a chandelier hanging in the middle of a room. How do spiders cross this distance while building their web?

[Assistant]
They either jump between them, swing between them (sometimes helped by the wind) or climb down and climb across.

Spiders have no problem dropping down on a strand all the way from the ceiling to the floor.


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

[User] Can we solve the N-Body problem for three bodies if one of them has negligible mass? (For example, a space shuttle going to the moon?)

[Assistant]
Well, yes and no.

What we mean by saying we can't solve the N body problem for N > 2 is that "there is no analytic, closed form, solution to the problem." Or as we like to joke in Physics classes, it's the "one, two and you're done" problem. But, there are many tricks which allow us to solve the N body problem, to any level of desired accuracy, using numerical analysis, series expansions or approximations.

In your case, if you want to say "the gravity of the space ship does not affect the motion of the other bodies" (which is a very reasonable assumption), then yes the motion of the third body can be solved for. But in this case, we aren't really *solving* the 3 body problem, we are simply solving a simple version of it.

You may be interested how we did this for the Apollo mission. I've actually got to use the orbit propagator which was used to plan the Apollo missions (and the one which brought Apollo 13 home) and the number of things it has to account for in order work is truly amazing. The propagator solves the problem as described above (assuming the rocket doesn't affect the motion of the Earth or Moon) but then it accounts for many perturbations to that solution (small changes which have small, but measurable, effects on the solution. This is using series expansion, from above). For instance, the position of Jupiter is a perturbation to the orbit, as it causes a small tug which was accounted for in the missions. Even the gravity map of the Earth (the fact that the mountainous regions have a larger pull than ocean regions) is used as a perturbation.

For a generic "N-body" (where there are many bodies, and you can't assume any of them have 0 mass) numerical analysis is performed, where all the forces are calculated between the bodies, their accelerations are calculated, and then a very small (fraction of a second) update is run to put them in their new positions. Then, the calculation is done again. Using this method you can have as robust of a solution as you desire, but there is no way to say where they will be t seconds from now without stepping through all of the moments between now and t seconds from now.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is a mirror flipped left to right, but not top to bottom

Why is it when you hold up a newspaper to a mirror, you can't read it due to it, er, being mirrored, but the same thing doesn't happen vertically? I can't wrap my head around this.

[Assistant]
This is because a mirror in fact does not swap left and right. The only dimension that gets swapped is perpendicular to the mirror.

Stand in front of a mirror that lies east-west. Point up, mirror person points up. Point east, west, down, all is the same, Point north, into the mirror, and the image points south, out of the mirror. That is the dimension that is swapped.

When you want to see a newspaper in a mirror, what way did you turn it? Left for right? In that case, it is you that turned it, not the mirror. You could have turned it top-for-bottom, and the the writing would then have been upside down.

Why do people say that a mirror swaps left and right? Simple - they say 'what movement would mirror person have to have made to be where they are?'. The answer your brain comes up with is that they would have turned around, as people normally do not do handstands when they want to walk the other way. So it applies that transformation, a simple rotation, and then starts to notice where that transformation is wrong - as in, a rotated person would have swapped their left hand for their right, but the mirror did not do that.

Some people's brains happen to apply the right transformation to objects in the mirror - sort of 'inside out', or 'back for front'. They have no problems reading items in the mirror, and are more likely to think 'What on earth is an "ecnalubma"' when they see one in the rearview mirror.


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

[User]
If black holes have infinite gravity, how come the entire universe isn't a singularity?

As far as I know, infinity cannot be added to or subtracted from, so if a black hole has infinite gravity, wouldn't it exert the same pull on the entire universe, no matter how far away it is, thus pulling the entire universe into itself?

[Assistant] Black holes don't have infinite gravity. If the sun were to collapse and turn into a black hole today, it would be dark and cold, but we would continue in exactly the same orbit that we have today. Black holes' scary gravitational effect come about because you can get so close to the center of mass of a very massive object. When you are a long way from a black hole, gravitationally  it is indistinguishable from an equal mass star.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do high amounts of g-force make you pass out?

[Assistant]
It is harder to pump blood toward the brain in opposition to high acceleration. In effect it behaves as if it were heavier like the rest of your body feels. Hard to raise your arm? Hard to pump blood up too.

The thing is, if your brain doesn't get blood it tends not to work.


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

[User]
How will running out of Helium affect us, and is there anything we can do about it?

Over the past few months I've seen a couple of stories about how Earth has a finite supply of helium available and that we are going to run out eventually.  I know that we use helium in a lot of important things like medical devices, etc.  Basically I'm wondering what will happen when we do run out and if there is anything to be done about it.  Can we make more helium? Are there other gases that can serve the same purpose?

Thanks, love the subreddit!

[Assistant]
First, we are not running out of helium.

What is running out is the US National Helium Reserve.

In the 30's, the US maintained this reserve for dirigibles, and then on into the 50's, for cold war purposes.

By the mid 90's, the reserve was about a billion dollars in debt, so the US government decided to get out of the helium business, and has been selling it off ever since.

Helium is still available today as a by product of natural gas extraction, and will be for the foreseeable future.


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

[User]
[DC/Marvel Amalgam] Why were there so many Batmen and Jokers?

Bruce Wayne Agent of Shield, Darkclaw, The Hyena, The Jackal, Bat Thing, etc.

[Assistant] Because Batman is just that damn good. Your average hero can combine with one extra universal counterpart, but Batman's essence is so well trained and well prepared he can merge with any number of them.


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

[User]
CMV: Americans having easy access to guns is a bad thing.

Okay, first of all, I am not from the USA, I am from Europe. I live in a country where there are really strict rules on who can own a gun. Mainly hunters, security personnel, and the sort. Who actually need it. In order to get a gun you have to talk to psychologists and go through a lot of tests.

I am 22, and I have only once seen a gun in my life, on a soldier. If a shooting happens in my country, it makes the news, even if nobody was killed or hurt, because that sort of thing is really rare. I can only think of one incident that happened close to me, and that was with an airgun, which has less strict rules. The giy who commited the crime was mentally ill. Noone was seriously hurt.

So my thinking is, any american who says we need guns to defend ourselves etc, is really stupid. If your country didnt sell ammo in grocery stores, then you wouldnt have to have a gun to defend yourself. I can not think of a single time I wished I had a gun. I dont think any of the people who I know would have benefited from having access to guns in any point of their life either.

I dont mean to offend anyone by this post, I really want to know why a lot of americans think that taking everyones guns and placing more strict rules would be a bad thing and wouldnt bwnefit future generations. Why woukd that be a bad thing?

[Assistant]
> Why woukd that be a bad thing?

Im not sure people outside the US really get the cultural basis for the US obsession with guns.

At the end of the day: the US was built and predicated on the idea that the government should be held hostage at gunpoint by the people it governed. Its a very old conception for a representative democracyone rooted in the fact that the US itself originated from a violent insurgent revolution against monarchy. Its the OG of modern revolutionary states.

But one consequence of that is a profound cultural acceptance of the idea of a well armed citizenry. Because for the first hundred years of its creation, *an armed citizenry was actually necessary for the security of the state*. The US is a very culturally paranoid country in large part for good reasonit was a violently anti-monarchist revolutionary state that was a small fish in a very large pond for most of its foundational history. Thats why it was so paranoid about European expansion into the western hemisphere (to the point that it declared it would go to war with any European power that tried to expand its influence in *the entire half of the globe the US resided within*). Thats also why its so paranoid about disarming the population internallyits viewed as a huge step towards a tyrannical authoritarian state by a government that is flagrantly violating its agreed upon boundaries.

This cultural practice is a bad fit for the modern era, where the US has near total military dominance in its entire half of the world with a professional military that could and would absolutely crush some sort of militia uprising. But culture changes slowly, and it changes especially slowly in the US when it concerns a fundamental human right written into its founding constitution.

For Americans the right to bear arms *even against the government* is a human right on the same level as the right to freedom of expression, or the right to due process. Changing this is very hard. Youre effectively asking people to voluntarily give up a right they consider sacred and fundamental to all human beings.


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

[User]
Was asked for help with a project, may have stepped in to it a bit. Is there an easier implementation than what I'm thinking?

I owe several million favors to a good friend of mine and he was looking for some programming help. Wanted to take the opportunity to help him out for a change so I offered my assistance. My friend plays a lot of DraftKings and other such things and has asked for a "simple" application in Java.

The basic idea is this. Given a csv of players, he wants it to create up to x (where x is a user input) line ups using those players. He wants the line-ups to conform (not randomly) to an assigned distribution of players, provided in the csv. Ex: If I've got three QBs, I can set it so one QB appears in 50% of my line ups, another appears in 25% and another appears in the remaining 25%. He then wants the system to eliminate the line ups that fall below or above given parameters for salary and output them into a csv. The csv is a standarized draft kings form.

So my general idea for implementation is this.

I would use a few classes. A line up class and a player class with a main class driving the action. The main class would read the csv and populate an array of players with the appropriate information. A series of nested for loops would then run through and populate x arrays with players from the player array.

The issue that I'm seeing is that there are multiple running backs, wide receivers and tight ends allowed in each line up. In addition, there is a FLEX spot which can be any one of a TE, RB or WR. I'm not totally sure how I'd adhere to the distro with that flexibility. My idea was to instead just randomly select the appropriate number of line ups to fit the required distribution and then place the desired player into a valid spot but that sounds hideous in terms of time and scaling. Ex. If a player would appear in 35% of line ups and the desired x was 200, I would randomly select 70 and place the player in one of the spots randomly.

In addition, to ensure I didn't add someone twice, I'd need to mark the player class with a "used" Boolean or check each spot the player could possibly be in to ensure they aren't there and aren't added twice to the same line-up. That just seems very inelegant but I'm not sure.

Thoughts? It may be that this is just the simplest way to do what I'm trying to do but I'm looking for more ideas before I start work. Thanks!

[Assistant]
Is there any reason behind wanting x lineups and the fixed distribution?

The problem you describe sounds like a classic optimization problem. Choose a subset of a set which doesnt break the constraints and has an optimized output.

If this is the case take a look at linear programming and a solver like gurobi. You just need to parse the csv and let the solver do the work. You could implement a solver yourself but thats just wasted time.


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

[User]
Is this a valid argument?

Is this argument valid:

A or B.
If A, then C.
Not C, therefore B.

Is this argument deductively valid, or is there something ambigious or right out wrong with it? I'm trying to make a truth-tree for this argument but I'm having some difficulty because I suspect the form of the argument might be of (the form of the conclusion in particular).

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Assistant]
This is absolutely valid, but perhaps it would be easier to read if put this way.

A or B.

if A, then C.

not C, therefore not A. (modus tollens)

B.

I dont know that replacing variables is too helpful as sometimes we can see truth in general language but not necessarily be valid in logic itself, which only defines something as valid when always true in general.


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

[User] If Light has no mass, why is it affected by gravity?

[Assistant]
What mass does is it distorts space-time so that light will follow a curved path.

One of the most fundamental principles in optics (which arises from one of the most fundamental principles in physics) is that light will travel a path between points A and B such that the time of flight between them is a minimum. Normally, the shortest rout between two points is a straight line. However, we've all seen light get bent as it goes into a glass of water - this is because the shortest time of flight when going between two materials means the light gets bent at the interface (I can talk more about this if you like).

Since mass distorts space, it also distorts the path of least time for a photon to travel. What was a straight line in un-deformed space becomes a curved line in the presence of a massive object. This leads to things like gravitational lensing and the like.

This type of path is called a geodesic and massive objects tend to warp geodesics in their local vicinity.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do 3D Movies look darker than 2D Movies?

[Assistant]
3D movies work by projecting two different images, each polarized in a different direction.  The glasses that you wear have two polarized lenses that match the polarization of one of images.  So each lens blocks one of the images, while letting that eye see the other image, so that each eye sees a different image.  That produces the 3D effect.

But since each eye is only seeing half of the light being projected, the image looks darker.  3D movies use brighter projectors for this reason, but they're not twice as bright, so the light reaching each eye is still dimmer than a normal, 2D movie.


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

[User]
I believe that voluntarism is the only moral way to govern a people, and that the tyranny of the democratic majority victimizes the minority. CMV.

Let me start by saying I have not studied voluntarism theory but stumbled upon the concept while searching for an alternative to democracy that doesn't marginalize the losing voters. I will do my best to synthesize an explanation but this is not a highly researched opinion, so bear with me.

1. **A democracy or republic, or any form of government that relies on elected officials to represent a populous, marginalizes the losers.** When you vote to elect your representative, you run the risk of being in the losing portion of the vote. When this happens your interests are not fairly represented as they should have been and you are effectively being taxed without representation. As an extension of this, even a perfect democracy fails the minority vote. It is nothing short of violence to impose the will of a larger body of individuals onto a smaller body.

2. **A majority's ability to impose its will on a minority is virtually limitless.**
If all of "The 99%" wanted to impose a 99% tax rate on "The 1%" because they believe such a tax is justified, there would be little stopping them. This is probably the point most easily shown false, but the others stand without it.

3. **Representatives are incapable of representing others, and cannot be trusted to make decisions on their behalf.**
Nobody represents a person's beliefs better than the individual himself. As an example, the Patriot Act is widely regarded as a failure to represent what is best for the people. This happens to be a failure that the vast majority of Americans agree on. How many would have voted in their senators knowing that this was the decision they would make? Democratic representation fails not only the losers, but the winners who were lied to on an official's campaign platform.

4. **An individual can only be fairly represented by himself/herself.**
Because the smallest minority voter is the individual, decisions should be made on an individual, voluntary basis. Government has as much a responsibility to protect the minority as to do anything else we've come to rely on government for. Those who do not want to support, for example, universal health care (please note I am NOT referring to anything such as ACA Obamacare), or the invasion of a foreign country should have the ability to represent themselves on that stance and not be violently coerced into it.

5. **Voluntarism is a peaceful solution to a violent practice.**
Someone who doesn't support involvement with Syria should not be forced to fund it. A government or people that uses force to exact their will on an individual a totalitarian government.

Please CMV. I've encountered a lot of people out there intent on doing so, but no good arguments.

Edit: Due to some misunderstanding I need to clarify that I'm not advocating the elimination of government at all, though I can see how that is being construed.  Government still has the responsibility to protect people and their property under voluntarism. The difference would be that nobody is coerced into acting on behalf of another.

[Assistant] The basic problem is that what we call "public goods" will not be provided under this system. Suppose that everyone will be better off if we put up a street light at a busy intersection. But if we simply ask everyone to chip in some money, what happens if someone refuses to pay? We can't very effectively stop him from using the street light. So no one has an incentive to pay, and the street light doesn't get built.


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

[User] What is the scientific explanation behind alcohols influence on one's inhibitions?

[Assistant] Hey there! So the brain evolved essentially from the back forwards, with the medulla and portions responsible for autonomic functions evolving first, then the cerebellum (muscle control) next, then parietal lobe in the back (vision), then progressing forward (speech, ect) until you reach the forebrain which is just behind our foreheads. This last section of brain is what allows for our higher intellectual functions such as goal oriented long-term planning, of which inhibiting primal urges is a very important part. These neurons are also very sensitive to alcohol, and are one of the first parts of the brain to feel the depressive effects of alcohol. Incidentally, as we continue to drink we progressively disable portions of the brain further back resulting in slurred speech, then blurred vision, then the inability to stand upright...alcohol seems to de-evolve us in backwards chronological order! As such, a person's ability to inhibit their own behavior is one of the first things to go when drinking. This explains our want for booze while engaging in the harrowing and confusing courtship ritual of our strange species. Have a good one!


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

[User] ELI5: If 90dB is approximately the volume of a hairdryer and 90dB is the maximum volume for car exhausts, why do many cars sound louder than a hairdryer?

[Assistant]
Measurements of soundpressure are not always taken at the same distance, but rather at a distance that makes sense. For example, a hairdryer is close to your ears when used, so it would be odd to measure it from two meters away. Likewise, nobody is anywhere near a jet plane when it takes off, so you wouldn't take a measurement from 10 cm away.

And this makes quite a big difference, as each time you double the distance from the microphone to sound source, measured sound pressure will decrease by (ideally) 6 dB.

So in this case, the measurement for the hair dryer is probably taken a lot closer to the measurement of the car's exhaust, which means that the exhaust would be quite a bit louder if the distance is equal.


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

[User] ELI5:If the first four dimensions are length, width, height, and time, and scientists say there are many more dimensions, what are these other dimensions?

[Assistant] The other dimensions in string theories are spatial dimensions, like length, width, and height, but they're essentially "curled up" very small so that we don't notice them. Note that we don't actually have any experimental evidence of these extra dimensions. They're just necessary to make the math in certain string theories work.


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

[User]
Is "String Theory" even a theory? Should it better be called "String Philosophy"?

This is not trolling, but a serious question.

Does it have any experimental predictions that can be used to verify / falsify it?

My understanding is that with the landscape scenario there are at least 10^500 possible vacua (initial conditions) for potential universes and the anthropic principle is used to explain ours.

Is this really a physical theory, or more a philosophical theory since it doesn't appear testable?

[Assistant]
It's absolutely a theory.

- It's not impossible to test *in principle*.  It's just impossible with our current technology.

- It would be testable directly if we could build a particle accelerator about 10^15 times more powerful than the LHC.  Such an accelerator would have to be about the size of the galaxy.

- It could also probably be tested directly if we could do experiments near the event horizon of a black hole.

- Even though we're not going to be able to do those experiments any time soon, there's evidence that we may be able to observe one aspect of string theory, known as the AdS/CFT correspondence, at very *low* energies.  This theory may be able to explain phenomena such as high temperature superconductivity.

- The landscape problem (the issue of having so many possible vacua) is a problem because we don't have a method of matching a vacuum at high energy to it's low energy limit.  If such a method is found, then we would very likely be able to make predictions that would be testable at much lower energies.

- String theory is a very rigorous and well developed *mathematical* theory.  The big question is, "is it a theory that describes *our* Universe?"

So yes, string theory is much more than a simple "philosophy."


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

[User]
Are urban environments "noisy" at ultrasound frequency ranges? If they are, does this cause problems for animals that can hear in these frequencies?

I recently purchased a soundbar, and I've noticed that my cat now doesn't want to enter the living room whenever the soundbar is on and receiving audio from any source  even if the soundbar itself is muted and so silent to my own hearing.

After eliminating other possibilities, I'm left with the hypothesis that my soundbar is producing some annoying or frightening noise in some ultrasonic frequency  a frequency that I can't hear, but my cat can. (I'd like to find out for sure, but ultrasound microphones are apparently expensive, and I'm not sure how to capture the audio coming from one.)

Do many electronic or mechanical devices produce incidental operational vibrations at ultrasonic frequencies? If we could hear these higher frequencies, would our constructed environments  cities especially  seem especially "noisy" in these frequencies? Are there any product standards or government regulations intended to limit ultrasonic "noise pollution"?

[Assistant]
Ultrasonic animal deterrents are legally sold in many countries, including ones designed to deter human animals (the teenager-annoying ones). So yes, noise is a problem and that's how some people want it.

It's likely that your soundbar has a high frequency switching power supply, and entirely possible that it is emitting sound above your hearing (the upper limit decreases with age and can be under 10kHz). One cheap option is a frequency display app for your phone, which should go up to 20kHz or so. That won't give you "true" ultrasonic, but will cover some range that you probably can't hear, and may show harmonics of any actual ultrasound.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do localised analgesics work?

Because I have nothing better to do, I often sit and think about random stuff.
Tonight it's localised analgesics, injected or topical.

I assume it's something to do with chemicals interacting with something and blocking signals, but I'm curious as to how it actually works.
Thankings!

[Assistant] There aren't really localized analgesics. Analgesia means something that takes away pain. Many of the drugs that are used to treat pain can come in a form that is applied to the skin. For example, Aspercreme is aspirin, or opiods like fentanyl can be applied as a patch. However, these are not localized. They are absorbed through the skin and then into the blood, and can work all over your body just the same as if you took a pill. You are probably thinking of local anesthetics like lidocaine or benzocaine. Local anesthetics block nerve signals in general, including pain. If they are placed topically on the skin or injected just underneath it, it blocks the nerves right in that area and causes it to be numb. If they are injected around a major nerve, they can numb a much larger area, say your entire lower jaw or part of your leg, etc.


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

[User]
Eli5: how does coding work if you don't speak English?

So I'm starting to learn some basic coding and everything I've seen so far has a base and reference in English. (For example return, or if/else) It's made me curious, if you're a coder who doesn't speak English are there other versions of common coding languages or do you learn the already in English commands?

[Assistant]
You only need a very basic understanding of English to program in it. You just need to learn the alphabet and a small number of keywords (most programming languages have no more than a few dozen keywords).

As a side note, English is the "lingua franca" of the software world. Programmers are usually required to know English.


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

[User] [Alien] How do the facehuggers known when someone is near the egg and have the accuracy to land perfectly on the victims face?

[Assistant]
The eggs themselves likely have various sensory cells and receptors on the surface that detect movement, scent, light, and other signs of life. Perhaps there is a cascade effect of activation of these senses to prevent false triggers. It would certainly be a devastating waste for a facehugger to hatch without any prey.

This matches what we see in the movies. Upon approach the egg will move a bit on the surface. This is possibly a way to attract more attention from a curious animal or perhaps just the facehugger inside repositioning (or getting excited). It would be likely that only a small fraction of the sensing cells are active initially in an attempt to save energy. Once one or two senses are triggered, more would activate and the egg would begin to awaken. We know that creatures like mosquitoes can sense signs of life up to 20 feet away.

At this point we would imagine that the egg case releases hormones or chemical signals that indicate to the facehugger inside that something is nearby. Perhaps it simply opens and the now awakened facehugger begins it's routine of finding a moving creature to latch onto.

The latching behavior is likely just the creature looking for a viable orifice. In this case it might detect heat and aim for an open hotspot, or perhaps it senses carbon dioxide and aims for where it is concentrated highly. It may even have functional eyespots that allow it to simply aim for the largest hole at the closest part of the organism. Since predators, humans, aliens, and engineers (and dogs) all have a mouth on the "front/top end" of the body, we can presume that this is common for most lifeforms and thus a desirable location for the facehugger to aim for.

It is possible that rival hives may even attempt to implant each other. This may be one of the reasons that the inner mouth formed on the adult aliens.


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

[User]
CMV: Alice In Chains are a better grunge/rock band than Nirvana

I know this view is already kind of flawed because at the end of the day music taste is subjective but the reason Im asking this is because from what Ive seen Nirvana is overwhelmingly placed above Alice In Chains when grunge bands are ranked and I just cannot find a single reason to justify why.

The influence Nirvana had was obviously more impactful than AIC but to me that alone does not make a band better than another. Songs like Man in the box, Rooster or down in a hole by AIC have such raw emotion and technical skill involved and I have yet to find a Nirvana song that trumps any 3 of those songs I just mentioned.

So what would be a good reason why Nirvana is the better band, I would love to hear some view points from other people.

[Assistant]
It's not about the technical skill, it's about the image, and how well the sound itself represents the "grunge style."

Of course Alice In Chains were better musicians than Nirvana. But so were nearly all bands!

Nirvana was the best at representing that exact style. So much so, that people would say Nirvana popularized it almost by themselves.