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

[User] If a space elevator is ever created and reaches ISS, 249 miles up in low earth orbit, what would happen if I stepped off? Would I remain geostationary with the Earth or start to orbit?

[Assistant]
**Short answer:** If you climbed up to the ISS in LEO and let go of the elevator, you would fall back to earth. If you climbed up to geosynchronous orbit then *yes*, you would orbit the earth, on a geostationary orbit.

**Long answer:** You, on the surface of the earth, are rotating around the earth once every 24 hours. This is similar to the idea of an orbit, but you aren't in freefall under gravity - you're just going around the world once per day. And of course, you're not really going around the world, you're just rotating with it.

The important thing to remember is that the earth is rotating 'underneath' your space elevator. This means the elevator is getting whipped around the earth every day, like a child spinning while holding a toy on a string. If an ant were on the chlid and chose to climb up the string, that ant would start to go faster and faster, but if he turned around and looked down he would only see the front of the child - meaning that they were spinning the same rate. It's cool - they're rotating at the same rate, but one has a much higher speed. Similar to the ant, the further up the elevator you are, the faster you'll be moving, even if your period is still 24 hours.

As you climb the elevator, you still have this same rotational period. On the space elevator tethered to the earth, you are still rotating around the center of the earth once per day, only now you're doing it higher. So what happens when you get to LEO? The orbital speeds at LEO require you to orbit the earth much faster than once per day- closer to once per 90 minutes. This means you are not moving anywhere near fast enough to keep up with the ISS. If you were to let go, you'd start to fall back towards the earth. If you tried to grab on to the ISS as it flew by, it would probably kill you.

But what if you didn't let go? Suppose you kept climbing, and approached geosynchronous orbit, about 20x higher than LEO. As you climb, your speed is going to increase, eventually getting to be enough to keep you in orbit if you let go, rather than falling back to the earth.

What happens if you let go at about 2/3rds of the height of geosynchronous orbit? You would start to fall back towards the earth, but you would be going fast enough to miss the ground. Essentially, the curvature of the earth will allow the ground to curve away underneath you faster than you approach it. You'd loop around the back side of the earth, skidding close to the atmosphere, and *whoosh* back up to where you started on the elevator. Essentially, you'd be in a highly elliptical orbit.

But what if you kept climbing? What happens if you let go at the height of geosynchronous orbit? Nothing. Nothing happens at all. You would float. You could let go of the space elevator and you wouldn't drift away. You would stay right next to it. At this height, your orbital period is almost exactly 24 hours, so the sideways speed that you have gained from climbing the elevator (remember that it was 'flinging you' the entire time you were climbing, like the ant on the string) is exactly enough to keep you in a circular orbit over the earth, which has the same orbital period as the earth's rotation.


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

[User] [DC and Marvel] What if Brainiac and Galactus switched universes?

[Assistant]
Brainiac has a field day.  His entire thing is absorbing knowledge as much as possible.  He has an enormity of the DC's knowledge whether it be technological, historical, scientific or cultural, so having an entirely new universe to explore brings him as close to delight as he can possibly get.  So at first he goes around probably gets a few planets under his belts before the Guardians of the Galaxy or the Nova corp get a handle on him.  He remains a threat that i'm not sure could be stopped until it reaches Earth.  Maybe he runs into the Silver Surfer.  Otherwise he becomes a recurring villain.

Galactus doesn't really care.  So long as he has a planet to eat, he is fine.  Unlike Marvel, DC does have a near universe wide law keeping order, the Lantern Corps.  So that's the first encounter.  It's probably the Green Lantern Corp.  Lantern's aren't used to deal with Celestial like beings like Marvel is, but are able to hold their own.  They reach a stand still eventually settled when they agree to provide him Planets to consume.  For the Lantern's, Sector 666 exist, an entire dead sector, so that's enough to contain Galactus for a small time.  To be categorized and dealt with later.  Unless he sees Mogo in which case all bets are off.


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

[User]
I am very interested in Nietzsche. How would you recommend I begin my exploration of his ideas?

First of all, I apologize if this is not the type of question expected in this sub.

I do not have much experience in philosophy and have heard that Nietzsche is extremely complicated. I am currently in high school and have only read a select few topics of philosophy: bits and pieces of *Being and Nothingness*, *The Stranger* (if you can count that), a good amount of articles/papers on various topics recommended by my teacher, and some other things I can't remember right now. I have been told by my friend that *Genealogy of Morals* would be a good introduction to Nietzsche, but I would love to get more perspectives from you all. Thanks!

[Assistant] Walter Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist is a great book to introduce Nietzsche before you dive into his works themselves. Once you get to his works themselves steer clear of Thus Spoke Zarathustra before you get a good basis of his philosophy before you have to tackle all those metaphors and symbolic language.


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

[User]
How come light can't escape a blackhole?

I understand that light is not effected by gravity, but that space time is curved by gravity and so it follows the shortest path which tends to be toward an object. With a blackhole this translates to light going into the blackhole, but how come the light won't eventually reach the end the bottom of the curvature and come back out again? Is it absorbed by the matter?

[Assistant] Basically because the curved paths that it follows only lead towards the centre. At 1.5 times the event horizon, light will actually travel in a circle around a black hole. But inside the event horizon, moving away from the centre is equivalent to moving backwards in time.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some people bother uploading illegal content for us all to view/download? What do they gain from it?

[Assistant]
Typically nothing. They just consider it a service to provide people with free stuff.

In some cases though such as games, the uploader group might have some site with ad money or a donation button... or pack malware into their release.


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

[User]
Why do so many theories about consciousness assume humans are special?

This might be a really dumb question but I don't understand why human consciousness is seen as a special thing. So special that people can argue endless how you can perfectly clone yourself, is the copy still "you" in any way, what is even "you" if atoms are constantly exchanged with "non" you?

Some theories assume that human consciousness is so special that you can have identical beings behaving like those with consciousness but that don't have it. For me it's absurd to assume that a zombie would be tormented with the idea of why he has a consciousness, why does he feel if he doesn't "feel". How can a thing be the same but different? This seems to imply something we can't observe at all like the "soul" or something.

My intuition is that perfect cloning is impossible so "who is the real you" is meaningless. Why? Because there is not even a "you", we're more like movies running, you can't make a perfect copy of a movie, it doesn't make sense to talk like that. There is no "I", it was just beneficial from an evolution point of view for the mental processes to behave in a way as to survive better.

A bacteria is not viewed as having a consciousness but it still takes care of itself, it detects nutrients, it consumes, it repairs, it lives, it decides when it divides. Why is this not seen as an extremely rudimentary consciousness? Why does it have it be all or nothing? Just because the bacteria doesn't process the concept of "I"? We are just meat computers that run on DNA that gets mutated based on chance and the beneficial traits survive. The brain can do things without you "feeling it" and you can do things without "feeling" them, like mental calculations. Why is the narrative of seeing, hearing, smelling so special? Aren't they mental calculations that determine there is an "I" that benefits from them and that protecting that "I" is a must?

I am not arguing in favor of my naive opinions, I just want to see where I'm wrong.

[Assistant]
I think there's a lot of stuff going on here, some of which has to do with what philosophers call consciousness, and some which doesn't.

First question: if a perfect duplicator could be made, and it made a molecule-for-molecule duplicate of you, which being would be you? This is a question about personal identity, not consciousness. The same question could presumably be raised about artifacts, plants, bacteria, etc. -- if we could make a perfect duplicate of a slime mold, which one would be the original? The answer here need not presuppose anything about consciousness.

Second question: how can a zombie not be conscious? Why would it be bothered about not feeling? This does have to do with consciousness, but it misconstrues how zombies fit into the debate about the hard problem of consciousness. Zombies are conceivable creatures just like us, but they don't feel. The point of this thought experiment isn't that there's something special about humans that zombies lack. The point is that merely physical descriptions of nature, including humans, seem to imply nothing about conscious experience. This does imply that there's something about consciousness that evades description by current physics, but it has nothing to do with humans as such. Instead, most philosophers assume that the complexity of our conscious experience is a matter of complex cognition. Many believe that some non-human animals are conscious.


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

[User]
What am I doing wrong on campus visits?

I know it's impossible to know exactly what the answer to my question is, but I thought I might get a little help. I'm trying for rather high-level jobs (TT at R1 or R2 schools). I get interviews and campus visits, so I'm doing something right. BUT I don't get job offers, so I'm doing something wrong. I have absolutely no idea what that thing is.

I did ask a friend who was on one job committee what I could do better, and she had some minor tips but nothing I'd see as a red flag. Her main answer was "I'm not really sure."

So what do you think? What are some things I should be mindful of? What are things you've seen people do that disqualified them (or made them a less desirable candidate)? What things did you see people do that endeared them to the committee? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Assistant]
Another thing to consider, which I've seen multiple people screw up on in academic job searches, is that your interview begins the moment your plane lands in the city and doesn't end until you get back on board. Yes, the secretary doesn't get to decide if you get the job, but they certainly have influence on if you don't get it.

People tend to let their guard down after the interview is over, for example when they give you a campus tour. Or in line at the off-campus Starbucks in the morning before the interview... Especially in smaller towns where everyone seems to know everyone else.

Some interviewees have totally blown it outside of the interview. Remember to always be professional and courteous to everyone you meet throughout the entire visit.


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

[User]
[Marvel][DC] Why aren't more fights heavily one sided?

I've been a comic fan for years but I've really only just thought about this as I'm watching some netflix animated movies.

Why aren't more fights in these universes ultra one sided? Heroes like Hawkeye and Batman go toe to toe with characters with super strength. They're just normal people with normal durability. Couldn't one blow from the right villain just turn them into spaghetti? (Batman vs the Injustice Gang's Superwoman for example, the fight I'm watching right now).

Even characters with super powers like Black Canary or Cyclops or any number of regular to moderately durable heroes could be pulped in one blow by the right villain couldn't they?

Likewise, Superman theoretically is always on the receiving end of the first blow of a fight to see exactly how much of his strength he'll be able to tap into. Why wouldn't he use just enough strength to knock out his opponent in one blow? Its not like he isn't doing any damage to them in a long drawn out fight.

[Assistant]
It's referenced in a Spider-Man comic a few years back (if memory serves), that, with the exception of new villains, heroes are generally aware of most villains powers and capabilities and will leave stronger villains (ie: Rhino, Juggernaut, etc.) for comparable heroes to handle (the Thing, Hulk, etc.) or heroes who have dealt with that villain in the past (like Spider-Man in the case of Rhino). This system of escalation (small-time villains are stopped by small-time heroes, big-time villains are stopped by big-time heroes/groups) keeps the heavy-hitters free for the big existential threats while also keeping the streets clear.

There's no sense sending Iron Man to stop Shocker; it would be a waste of his time, unless there's literally no other crime going on world-wide. Just like you wouldn't waste Daredevil trying to knock out Abomination. Since most of your better known heroes are at least part-time Avengers and everyone has smartphones, it's not crazy to assume Peter Parker gets a phone call from Avengers Tower when Scorpion is robbing a bank, and Peter likewise gives the Avengers a call back when he discovers Scorpion is working as a distraction for Doctor Doom.


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

[User]
[Dune] How exactly did Piter de Vries break the Imperial Conditioning of Dr. Wellington Yueh, turning him into an agent of the Harkonnen?

 I thought the Suk training made all forms of blackmail and extortion impossible?

[Assistant] IIRC he leveraged Yueh's family against him.  All conditioning is breakable, it's just a matter of finding enough leverage. Yueh loved his wife enough that it gave the Harkonnens enough of an "in" to subvert him.


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

[User] [Greatest American Hero] If someone competent got the suit and instructions, where do they rank in terms of the Marvel and DC Universes?

[Assistant]
Somewhere in the Green Lantern range.

The suit granted the powers of flight, super strength, protection from injury (although nothing greater than bullets was ever demonstrated), invisibility, precognition, postcognition, E.S.P., telekinesis, x-ray vision, super speed, pyrokinesis, holographic vision, shrinking, psychometry and a sense to detect the supernatural.

And this was with a shlub of a guy who didn't even know how to use it. If someone with full instructions who happens to be an Air Force test pilot and you're in the upper 10-20% or so.


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

[User]
Is it wrong to take a walk in the woods, since it's almost inevitable that I will step on an insect?

I'm aware that the question is a little ridiculous, but it's been stuck in my head for quite some time, I don't know the answer, and it's draining me. I enjoy taking a hike in the woods, but there's almost a guarantee that I will trample at least one insect to death unintentionally. Should I therefore not take a walk in the woods? Should I feel bad?

[Assistant]
Jeffrey Lockwood, an Entomologist, argued for the following "minimum ethic" in his paper *The Moral Standing of Insects and the Ethics of Extinction*:

>We ought to refrain from actions which may be reasonably expected to kill or cause nontrivial pain in insects when avoiding these actions has no, or only trivial, costs to our own welfare.

By this definition, hiking may or may not be justifiable depending on how important it is to one's "welfare". Presumably, the justifiability of this action also increases if one acts to avoid killing insects while hiking, such as watching one's steps more carefully.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Would the Daleks be satisfied if they were given their own private dimension to live in?

Suppose the Doctor somehow offered the Dalek Empire safe passage to a parallel universe where life never evolved. Would the Daleks accept that compromise, or will they not be content until the entire multiverse has been exterminated?

[Assistant] No, they would not be content and would not go there willingly, other than hate and anger they have no other emotions.  This hate and anger is what leads them to want to exterminate everything.  They would see it as a prison, and long to escape, however they would probably break out in civil war as they have in times past.  Until one faction, the strongest or most intelligent faction survives.  Then they would plot their revenge for isolating them and form a way of escaping.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do scientific calculators include "RAN#" and what can it be used for?

RAN# on calculators mean Random Number, and always give you a number that is three decimal digits, 0.345, 0.466.  Why do calculators have the RAN# key on them if it's never an exact number?  Why is it always a three decimal number?  What could it be used for?

[Assistant]
it is an "exact number" it's just not an integer.

A lot of statistics deals with random numbers and in that context knowing the result will be anywhere between 0 and 1 is helpful.  Being able to get a set of random numbers on demand is useful to test out various theories.  If a calculation is expect to work for any number between 1 and 10000 you can try a random number by using (RAN# * 10000).  For graphing calculators functions like that are also used for games (shuffling cards, moving enemies, determining dice rolls, etc.)


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

[User] ELI5:Why was OJ not charged for fleeing from police?

[Assistant]
The prosecution was so inept, and botched the case so badly, they just wanted to go home and lick their wounds.

Charging him with evasion would have come off as petty and politically harmful.  Plus there was a good chance he would have gotten off with a diminished capacity ("my wife just died") and fear of his life ("all LA cops are racists") defense.


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

[User] [Marvel] Could Thanos nullify Thor's attacks by using the reality stone to make him not worthy to wield the hammer?

[Assistant]
Currently, Storm Breaker doesn't have an enchantment on it, and it can be assumed that after Odin died the enchantment he placed on Mjolnir also faded (as the magic he was using to imprison Hela also unravelled).

BUT assuming that Odin is still alive and Thor is facing Thanos with Mjolnir, I'd say probably Thanos could make Thor unworthy. Odin doesn't have great feats, especially for his magic, the Reality stone is probably much more powerful than him.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do we know that the gas giant planets in our solar system are actually gas giants?

Did we send probes? Could it just be a thick atmosphere?

[Assistant]
The big thing is they don't weight enough (technically, don't have enough mass) to be made of much more than hydrogen and helium.

Even before space probes, we knew the diameter of Jupiter from ground-based observations.  We also knew its mass, becasue we know how far away its moons were and how fast they orbited.  Putting those together, the mass is just too low to have a lot of solid, heavy elements inside.

Finally, the core of Jupiter is so dense the notions of solid, liquid, and gas kind of break down.  As we get deeper, the atmosphere becomes denser and hottest and takes on strange new properties.  It might technically still be considered a gas, but it certainly isn't something you could wave your hand through.


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

[User] How truly accurate is carbon dating and how does it work?

[Assistant]
Carbon dating is very accurate.

There are two kinds of carbon that occur in large amounts C-12 and C-14, C-14 decays.  When a plant is alive it takes in carbon dioxide and uses that to make its structures, in this living plant we would find C-14 and C-12 in ratios very similar to those that occur in the air.  When the plant dies it stops res pirating, thus no more C-12 or C-14 are put into the plant.  The C-14 slowly decays (at a known and constant rate) into C-12, so as the dead plant matter goes on in time the C-14 becomes less than in the atmosphere and the C-12 becomes more until there is no more C-14.  By taking a sample of old plant matter (wood for instance) and looking at its ratios of C-14 to C-12 you can get an accurate date for its age.


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

[User]
Philosophy as fantastic literature

Jorge Luis Borges said, in one of his poetry books, that:

>***Philosophy and theology are, I suspect, two types of fantastic literature. Two splendid types.***

Like he even says philosophy it's better than literature, e.g. the nights of Sharazad or the invisible man.

I'm passionate about philosophy and have read many, from Socrates to Heidegger (For me theology is pure fantastic literature). I'm inclined to his point of view about philosophy, but...

Any thoughts on this?

Obviously, he is talking about the philosophy that is purely theoretical, as an interpretation of the world. (He mentions the Infinite Substance of Spinoza, the Archetypical Ideas of Plato, I can add the Will of Schopenhauer, Substance of Aristoteles, the Transcendental Principles of Kant, the Spirit of Hegel, Dasein of Heidegger.)

Not for example Marx, which is a practical philosophy, or in a way Aristotle ethics.

[Assistant]
Borges is not the only person to say something like this.  There is a long tradition of what you might call pseudo-literary or "non-argumentative" philosophy, especially in the continental tradition - rf: Nietzsche, some of Heidegger's late stuff, Derrida, Nancy.

I think probably the most systematic treatment of this is offered by Richard Rorty, more or less throughout his whole corpus.  *Consequences of Pragmatism* is a good place to go for several of the more important essays on the topic, like "Philosophy as a kind of writing," and "Is there a problem about fictional discourse."  A lot of other stuff is relevant too, like the bits about poetry and literature in *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity,* *Philosophy as Cultural Politics*, and *What's the Use of Truth?* (with Engel).


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

[User]
ELI5:How does Foucault's Pendulum work? How does it actually prove that the earth rotates?

I cannot understand how the pendulum shifts its plane of oscillation since the base which **holds** it also rotates. I can only think of it happening if only we hang a piece of string from space to the north pole.

[Assistant]
Since the rope is not rigid, it doesn't impart enough force on the bob to stop it from deviating off of it path as the earth spins.

You can see this for yourself.  Get a pendulum, and put it on a lazy susan or a merry go round.  You will quickly see the path deviate from going straight back and forth.

The other thing about a Foucault's Pendulum is it doesn't just deviate...it deviates exactly as predicted given the earth's size and force of gravity and the pendulum's latitude.


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

[User] ELI5: So if blood isn't blue inside the veins because of lack of oxygen then why is it that veins seen through the skin sometimes appear blue?

[Assistant]
Short version: Skin absorbs blue light ... then the veins reflect it.

Full explanation: Subcutaneous fat allows only blue light to penetrate skin all the way to veins, so this is the color that is reflected back. Less energetic, warmer colors are absorbed by skin before they can travel that far. Blood also absorbs light, so blood vessels appear dark. Arteries have muscular walls, rather than thin walls like veins, but they likely would appear the same color if they were visible through the skin.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is Adobe Flash so insecure?

It seems like every other day there is an update for Adobe Flash and its security related. Why is this?

[Assistant]
The "idea" of Adobe Flash was to give websites access to functionality that previously only installed programs had.  This reduced the need to install a bunch of programs and avoided conflicts from having a bunch of programs installed that you weren't using any more.

Alas, this is also exactly what malware wants to do.  The Adobe people can't do the obvious things, like restricting dangerous capabilities, because that undoes the purpose of the program.  That's why many security people say the only safe thing to do with Flash is not use it.


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

[User]
Why does an electron, a particle ~1/1837 the size of a proton, have a negative charge that balances out the positive charge of a proton?

Is a negative charge stronger per amu than a positive charge. I am confused as to why electrons and protons would not be the same size with opposite charges.

EDIT: Thanks for all the responses guys!

[Assistant]
To add another wrinkle to this, while electrons are (as far as we know) fundamental particles, protons are not.

A protons consists of two up quarks and one down quark.  Up quarks have a charge that is +2/3 e, and down quarks have a charge that is -1/3 e.  That is to say, an up quark has a positive charge of the same strength as 2/3 of an electron, and a down quark has a negative charge that is 1/3 the strength of an electron.  All together, you get 2/3 + 2/3 - 1/3 = 1, so a proton ends up with the same charge strength, but opposite polarity, as an electron.


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

[User]
CMV: UBI is inferior to Subsidized Basic Needs

Universal Basic Income seems like a worse idea than just increasing funding to current support programs.

You are taking an allocated amount of money, and instead of focusing it on a group of people who require it to survive, are thinly spreading it to everyone, or at the very least a significantly larger portion of the population (though when everyone talks about it they state that it's 100% of people).

For these extremely grand amounts of money, there is no reason we couldn't simply subsidize basic living requirements. We're talking tens of billions of dollars a month. You redirect that and other forms of welfare into subsidizing free shelter, food, water, climate control, and medicare for all and I see very little wrong with that system aside from it needing to be constantly monitored for corruption and business favoritism like every government program does.

UBI does not have that benefit, no it suffers from all the problems welfare systems do, but scaled up to everyone now. We're talking industries that could form simply around trying to scam people out of their UBI checks. The most vulnerable people who would need something like this program seem like the most likely to be negatively effected by it. Anyone in gang controlled areas are going to be subject to giving them their 'cut'. People in abusive situations are going to be forced to hand over their checks. Children that are being neglected will just be utilized to get any additional money offered for having children but not see an benefit from it.

I know some people are thinking, "but what about the people who would benefit and aren't as you described", well those people are likely already apart of the welfare systems we have in place. Things like WIC and disability. Programs that are already established and have systems in place for reducing potential problems and check for system abuse. You could simply increase the funding and extension of these programs without any of the same ramifications.

And the worst part of UBI is that it becomes a permanent solution. No one is going to accept the argument of having subsidized basic needs if they are under the illusion that all basic needs are covered under a basic income. And this just leaves vulnerable people still vulnerable. Children won't be getting their own checks to feed, shelter and get care for themselves, where if you had free food, shelter and medicine, a neglected child could find those things.

So change my mind, what makes handing people cash superior or more practical than using that money to prepay for things that everyone should have.

[Assistant] The biggest argument for a UBI system over a means-tested basic needs welfare system is that you save a lot of time and effort (and therefore money) by not testing anybody. So in the current system you need to prove that you can't afford food in order to qualify for subsidized food, so there needs to be an infrastructure of specialized people to collect and make decisions about the applications to the subsidized food system. The less you fund that infrastructure the more people who don't need the subsidy can abuse the system. So what if you just forget about that and pay everyone enough to guarantee their needs are met? The argument for UBI is that you would actually save money doing so because the infrastructure and bureaucracy cost is much lower.


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

[User]
eli5 Dry cleaning

Why cant we do dry cleaning at home? I know its not dry and it uses special chemicals to wash the clothes super well but why cant we do this with our own washing machines or get separate machines in our homes to dry clean?

[Assistant] It's like washing your hand with acetone. Without the proper equipment you'll flood your house with fumes and can potentially create a fire hazard depending on the solvent; most dry cleaning solvent are petroleum based. Afterwards how are you going to dispose of said solvent. Especially if you expect to be using enough to fill a washing machine. You cannot dump that stuff down the drain.


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

[User]
Is it normal to have such big gaps in knowledge?

I'm finishing a computer engineering degree but took many computer science courses.

Right now I am staring at my final year project with my hands in my hair. All this time we've been learning for-loops, conditional branches, arrays, sorting, passing by reference, passing by value, stacks, heaps, treaps, linked lists, neural networks, genetic algorithms, big O, compression, encryption, decryption....

...C, C++, Java, Python, Assembler....

...and still I have no idea how you go about getting different programs written in different languages to work together as one project. How do you make a dll? How do you make an installer? How do you make the program work on different operating systems?

What's an API? What's a framework? What's a wrapper? What's a daemon? What's a socket? What's an interface when not referring to UI's? What do you mean "just" rebuild the kernel so that this ARM processor can even compile QT code? What is a "kernel"?

I google what these things mean and the definitions seem really abstract and generalized to me because I can't relate how I would use any of it in any code I know how to write.

Meanwhile some teenager is in the news for hacking some poor senator's email...and I don't even know how to open an email with anything other than my left mouse button. And that is exclusive to *my* email.

Yet it seems everywhere I look online, everybody just *knows* things like they read a book or took a class that I missed out on.

How is it that some people can play a video game, decide to change it, and without any modding tools they manage to add a gazillion new features to it?

How do you learn to make plugins for a web-browser?

Whenever I need to work on a new technology I have never used before, I  have to look up tutorials on youtube that spell out the steps to me. This can't possibly be the correct way to do research, could it? How did that youtuber figure it out? What was their approach? Where do you first start looking?

**tldr:** Basically, is this massive gap of knowledge normal? Would a better degree have covered this? Or do people naturally figure out some approach for finding stuff out that doesn't involve googling tutorials?

[Assistant]
Knuth used to say that he knew all of the science in computer science and set out to write it all down in seven volumes.

He finished three volumes before he had to go back and revise the first.  Then he finished the fourth.

Now he admits that it has all gotten away from him.

If Knuth can't keep up, none of the rest of us have any chance.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How the hell is Thanos so durable?

Why is Thanos so durable?

Dude tanks full power screams from Black Bolt with a nosebleed and a smile, laughs off Silver Surfer's blasts, and invites an enraged Thor to keep smacking him in the face with his hammer. These are all people capable of cracking planets and tearing shit apart at the atomic level (with the possible exception of Thor). So what gives? Does he have always on, super powerful force fields? Are his molecular bonds tighter than regular organisms by a dozen orders of magnitude? Did he just eat his wheaties as a kid? What's preventing this guy from being smeared?

[Assistant] He is the son of an Eternal, and being a Devient made him even stronger. He won the genetic lottery and made some modifications using the Eternal's tech and got some serious power upgrades compared to his fellows.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do CEOs like Elon Musk, pay their bills on only a $1 a year salary?

I've heard a lot of CEOs are starting to only take $1 annually, how do they pay for things then?

[Assistant]
Because that's not how much they get paid.

The get $1 a year in **salary**.  He also gets a few **million** a year in bonuses, stock incentives, dividends and other such payments.

Trust me, he's got plenty of money.  The $1 is basically so he can still be the CEO since its illegal to pay someone $0 (since that's slavery).


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

[User]
Do ants communicate imminent danger warnings to each other?

If someone were to continually stomp on a trail of ants in the same location, why is it that the ants keep taking that line towards danger? It seems like they scatter at the last moment, but more continue to follow the scent trail.

[Assistant]
Finally, someone asks an ant question.

Ok, so Ants actually communicate in multiple ways, chemical, audio, visual, and tactile. Yes, they tell about imminent danger, hence why things like fire ants will swarm someone stepping on their nest.

I could go on for a few hours about ants, but that's thd basics for your question.

Edit: so, to dorectly address OPs question, the ants will continue to follow the chemical trail that is laid. If there is danger present, they will alert each other in various ways. One, is when they die. Ants release oleic acid when they die, along with a few other chemicals that are individual to each species. The oleic acid tells the living ants where the dead one is, and the other chemicals can cause them to go into an offensive/defensive frenzy, attacking things. So, while they still follow a trail, they know what is around, and a good portion will stop at the death sites to investigate or attack.


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

[User]
Is there any form of Earthly life deriving energy that did not originate from the sun to fuel itself?

A few years ago, I took my first molecular biology class in college, and my professor asked us 'what constitutes life.' Occasionally I've gone back to that question and adjusted my answer (things that contain carbon based (on Earth at least) genetic information and can replicate), but I've always struggled to come up with a concrete definition. I guess there are probably many components to what constitutes life, so a nice, concise definition might be difficult to establish.

I was thinking about it today, and wondered if maybe the best definition is organisms that consume energy either directly from the sun or from these photosynthetic precursors. All consumed caloric energy that I can think of originated from photosynthesis, then trickled down the food chain. Are there any organisms that somehow thrive without some form of energy from the sun?

Writing this, I am realizing that this new definition is also deeply flawed, as many nonliving things consume energy that originally came from the sun (our cars for example), but perhaps a definition could be made by combining the two possibilities I've discussed above (carbon based genetic material that can be passed on and requires light energy for sustenance/reproduction). Thoughts?

[Assistant] The Earth's centre is primarily heated by radioactive decay (it also had a kick-start due to gravitational heating). Anything that gets its energy from thermal vents is getting energy from a non-solar source.


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

[User]
[STAR WARS] How did Anakin go from preventing the murder of Palpatine to killing the little children in such a short time?

I never understood that, one minute he is just trying to prevent Windu to murder Palpatine (because he needs him to save Padme), and one minute later he's all like sure let's kill all these children jedi.

How did he change so suddenly in such a short time?

[Assistant]
The defining characteristics of Anakin Skywalker were: stupidity, and a lack of self-control. With that in mind, the simple answer is he thought that's what he needed to do in order to get Palpatine to teach him to save Padme's life. That's all he cared about at this point.

He had also been so throughly manipulated at this point that he thought the Jedi Order had been planing an over throw of Palpatine. He had been convinced that they were planning this from the beginning, and that he was not made aware of it because of how close he is to the Chancellor. He had also been manipulated into misplacing his loyalty unto Palpatine himself. Which was, of course, swayed when he found out that Palpatine was the Sith Lord they were looking for, but again we come back to the fact that Anakin thought Palpatine was the only thing that was going to keep Padme alive.

If he had set down for five minutes to think about what he was doing he probably would have seen how wrong he was, but again: stupid.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] What is the most dangerous region?

What region in the Pokemon franchise is the most danerous? Which has the harshest weather conditions, the most dangerous Pokemon and the biggest roadblocks to overcome?

[Assistant]
Unova, Sinnoh, or Galar are probably the most dangerous.

Kanto and Johto are temperate territories where the most extreme areas are well maintained forests and caves.  Johto's most powerful pokemon aren't a threat to people - Lugia hides in a cave beneath the sea, Ho-Oh is almost never seen, and the legendary beasts run away instead of attack people.  Kanto's also largely stay out of the way - Articuno and Zapdos are in abandoned places and Moltres nests where only the most powerful trainers are allowed.  Mewtwo, however, is a threat. Though he's also hidden away.

Alola is a tropical paradise with essentially no threats until the UBs appear.

Kalos is a very temperate place as well, no real threats.

Hoenn is a nice semi-tropical island.  There's a giant volcano and a desert and some rapid waters though that make it a bit more dangerous than Kanto/Johto.  It's legendaries are all sealed away without the events of the game unsealing them, so they aren't a threat.

Sinnoh gets incredibly cold.  It has a giant mountain range that bisects the region, making transportation across it require you to enter these dangerous areas.  The biggest natural threat is freezing to death in the north and dangers in the mountains.  Stark Mountain in the northern island is also dangerous.  The biggest *unnatural* threat is the legendaries.  Unlike the other regions - Sinnoh's legendaries are THREATS.  Palkia, Dialga, and Giratina can *unmake reality*.  They require the red chain, but that's not *that* hard to make.

Unova just has quite a bit of dangerous territory - a large desert, icy regions, and mountains.  Their legendaries are also the most active in the wild, with Kyurem being a legitimate threat to the public.  The wild pokemon are also very high level here and can attack much weaker trainers.

Galar is largely very safe.  But there is one GIANT danger.  The Wild Area.  It's almost entirely unmaintained and VERY powerful pokemon can chase down and attack weaker trainers.  Dynamaxing also lets Godzilla size pokemon fuck around here.


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

[User]
[Marvel/DC] Why don't villains dress up like superheroes and commit crimes in public to defame those heroes?

Of course, this would only apply to superheroes that don't have any obvious powers and villains that look somewhat like them.

[Assistant] They do sometimes, but there's a reason it isn't their go-to SOP: villains want renown. They want everyone to know how smart and menacing they are. When they commit crimes and kick the hero's face in they want  the whole world to know who did it.


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

[User]
[The Walking Dead] Why fresh infected can't run?

I mean, they don't even seem to try and fall. Is there any reason why a person who died of a single bite in the arm can't run?

[Assistant] Bipedal walking is a complicated series of coordinated processes, running even more so. Walkers seem to only be operating at the barest minimum of brain power - they can barely stagger around, they probably don't have the cognitive ability and coordination to run.


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

[User]
[The Orville] Why did the evil Kaylons have red eyes while Isaac had blue ones?

All I can think of is maybe they normally have red eyes but their research indicated that humans see red eyes as evil so they changed Isaac's eyes before he came over to the Union...

[Assistant]
I would agree with your theory. Evil robots are a staple of human pop culture, and they almost always have red eyes.

It's like how ambassadors to foreign cultures often modify their behaviour and wardrobe to fit in better. To the Kaylons, changing your eye colour is probably as simple as putting on a hat.


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

[User] [Minecraft] How come my friends report seeing the sun and moon pass overhead at the exact same time, even if they are far, far away and on a different longitude and latitude?

[Assistant]
The physics of the Minecraft universe are complete different. First, the world is either completely and infinitely flat, or the world is a large cube.

The flat theory is more likely, wherein the sun and sky are actually a separate entity from the physical world and land, so no matter where you are on the land you see the same "portal" to the "sky/sun dimension".


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Did the general public know that Anakin Skywalker turned into Darth Vader after the Clone Wars? Or was he counted as a casualty during Order 66?

Did anyone outside of the main characters know about this transformation? We know it was a surprise for Luke, but his version of his father was past down by his aunt and uncle. And Luke did talk about aspiring to be his father, but he never named him. Just "I wish to be a Jedi, like my Father before me."

So would any swath of the Galaxy know that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker? Or did the Emperor just say "here is Darth Vader. He is my Apprentice. He answers to me and you answer to him."

[Assistant] I think the public narrative went something like "Anakin Skywalker was a heroic Jedi that recognized the corruption and perfidy of the Jedi Order and died in the attempt to wipe them from the galaxy. Now, here's Darth Vader. He's definitely a completely different guy."


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

[User]
ELI5: How does a vending machine recognize a dollar as opposed to a dollar sized piece of paper?

I want free snacks and drinks.

[Assistant]
They take a picture.   Your piece of paper doesn't look like a dollar bill.

They read the fine patterns.   Your piece of paper that you tried to commit counterfeitting does have the fine patterns that a real dollar bill has, because your printer isn't capable of printing the fine lines.    Take a magnifying glass to right side of 5 dollar bill, you'll see "five dollars" repeated in the side bar.   You'll see "USA five" on the purple 5.    You'll see names on top of the Lincoln memorial.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does metal heat up so much when crushed under a hydraulic press?

[Assistant]
Almost every metal is made up of crystals - ordered arrangements of atoms. Some metals are made of very small crystals, some are made of large crystals, and some very special metal parts can be made of a single crystal.  These crystals aren't perfect - they have little atom-sized holes in them, and atoms stuck where they aren't supposed to be.

When you permanently change the shape of a piece of metal, the way it actually changes shape at an atomic level is that the holes and the misplaced atoms are forced to move around. A huge number of these holes and misplaced atoms moving around makes up the change in shape you see.  But just like almost everything else, when you move these holes around, they are opposed by friction.  Most of the work you put into changing the shape of the metal doesn't actually change its shape - instead, it's used to move against friction, and is wasted.  That work gets converted into heat.


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

[User]
ELI5: The current theories of time traveling

Isn't the word "time" just a perception of something we can't really grasp? I remember seeing some video of two atomic clocks and one was put on an airplane and somehow they ended up telling different times. How is that possible?

[Assistant]
The faster you go, the slower time appears TO YOU.  So, put a clock on Earth and a clock on a spaceship.  Send the spaceship out travelling near the speed of light.  When it returns, the earth clock says the ship was gone 10 years (or whatever), the spaceship clock says it was only gone 2 years (or whatever, depending on the speed it was going).  They're both right!

edit: Time travelling will never be invented.  If it ever were to be invented at any point in the future, then we'd be seeing visitors from the future today.  We don't see visitors from the future today, so that means nobody will figure out a way to do it.


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

[User] ELI5 I read laser beams get wider, like a few feet wide by the time they hit the moon, Is that a manufacturing limit, or just something about the physics of laser light? Is a perfect laser beam that doesn't get wider possible?

[Assistant]
Its a property inherent to laser beams. Most lasers have a shape called a Gaussian and that type of beam has a properly known as divergence that is basically the angle at which the beam spreads as it travels. The divergence can be controlled but has a minimum that is determined by the wavelength and the beam diameter.

So yes, you can get small divergence but it requires a large beam size and challenging optics, but its always going to have some spread.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that Russians are never (or barely ever) referred to as Asians, even though Russia is technically part of the continent Asia?

Or have I just been misinformed my whole life?

[Assistant] Most Russians live in what is considered by most maps to be Europe. However, far more importantly than that, most Russians are ethnic Slavs and are far, far more culturally connected to Europe than any Asian culture.


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

[User] ELI5 If a can of coke has 39 grams of sugar and that amount of sugar equals 151 calories, how come the coke has 139 calories? What happens to the missing equivalent of kcal?

[Assistant]
> Per FDA guidance on rounding, that 144 would then be rounded down to 140, which is the number of calories listed on your ice cold Coca-Cola.

This is also how a Tic Tac, which is almost 100% sugar, can be listed as sugar free.

Tic Tac mints do contain sugar as listed in the ingredient statement. However, since the amount of sugar per serving (1 mint) is less than 0.5 grams, FDA labeling requirements permit the Nutrition Facts to state that there are 0 grams of sugar per serving.


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

[User]
Is there an economic opinion on "bullshit" products/markets and how they work?

Lately after searching the internet and buying products. I notice there are a lot of services and products that thrive on uncertainty, buyer desperation, and fog of war to sell. And if buyers had more information I imagine these bullshit products wouldn't sell. For example tons of "herbal" products, coaching, and informational products that actually lackluster?

I was wondering has economics spoken on the topic of this market of "bullshit" products and is there anything that takes an economics lens and focuses on exploring the nature of these bullshit items.

Further details: I know scamming isn't new, but these technically aren't scams (or maybe so). The product or service is being offered it just doesn't meet the needs the consumer was hoping to address during the purchase.

[Assistant] Some of this falls into the area of asymmetric information. One type of goods is credence goods. These are goods in which you can't learn the true quality of the product even after consuming it. As opposed to search goods, goods in which quality can he learned by inspection, and experience goods, in which quality is learned by consuming it. Credence goods usually involve a diagnosis or some kind of "expert". For things like herbal supplements you can someone saying you have this problem this product will help. Even after you consume it, maybe it helped, maybe it didn't. maybe you didn't have a problem at all. More generally it seems you are interested in information asymmetry.


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

[User]
[Pinocchio][Terminator] Would a T-800 be turned into a donkey if it stayed on Pleasure Island?

It worked on Pinocchio, who was made of pine wood and explicitly not yet a real boy.

Follow-up, what really counts as alive for this purpose?

[Assistant]
If memory serves, it's not just being on Pleasure Island that does it, it's forsaking your duties and indulging in the pleasures of the Island that eventually does you in. If the T is on Pleasure Island in active pursuit of it's primary objective, then it would not be in danger of transformation. Given how hardcore a T clings to it's objectives, it's probably going to leave the Island with the same body parts it had on arrival (or get destroyed trying to achieve it's aims).

As far as what counts as "alive", it seems the threshold is to have enough intelligence and free will to act on the same level as a human juvenile. To be condemned by the Island, you need to make a *free and rational choice* to give into it's temptations, knowing that what you're doing is wrong, even if you don't comprehend the full scope of the consequences. Pinocchio isn't "real", but he has a mind, and can comprehend his duties to follow his father's instructions.


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

[User]
[Spider Man 2] Why was there a mini-chainsaw in the operating theater?

Hey all,

Why did the surgeons have a presumably battery-powered mini-chainsaw in the operating theater where Otto Octavius aka Doctor Octopus was going to have his set of tentacled metal arms removed? Given chainsaws aren't designed or made to cut metal.

[Assistant]
That's not a chainsaw (no chain), it's an electric bone saw.  Normally the teeth on this thing would sheer off if you used it on metal.

This one is probably using a carbide blade or something to cut through the octopus arms.  They have them handy in the ER for when they need to cut away impaled objects, like steel rods or bicycle frames.

It doesn't need batteries -- it plugs in.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't PCs emulate PS4 and Xbox One games when generally the gaming PCs are more powerful?

[Assistant]
Emulating a whole machine is really expensive in terms of resources. As well as doing everything the machine has to do, you have to spend time translating how doing it on the emulated machine can be performed using the physical machine.

That said it's easier for the PS4 and Xbox One given that both of them are using x86-64 instruction sets now, like basically every PC out there does. Means that at least self-sufficient binaries could run without any porting or emulation at all.


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

[User]
ELI5: How viable is the "I just followed orders" defense at courts?

Talking about it on military personal sense. If something you or your unit did was obviously wrong and you are convicted for it.

[Assistant] We were repeatedly told that it would be our fault if we followed illegal orders in Iraq.  There was a lot of training on how not to get yourself into legal trouble, mostly in rules of engagement and escalation of force.


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

[User] [Marvel] can Nightcrawler telefrag?

[Assistant]
Another mutant *kind of* did the same thing. Jamie Maddrox (aka "Multiple Man") once killed a character named Acolyte Seamus Mellencamp in a run of X-Factor by putting his hand in Seamus' mouth and summoning one of his duplicates inside Seamus' body, killing him instantly.

His duplicate was a little distressed at appearing covered in gore, naturally.


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

[User] Why do we have pubic hair?

[Assistant] A few reasons. It reduces friction during sexual intercourse, being the biggest one, as well as friction between the buttocks and thighs. Hair also serves a hygenic function -- it wicks away sweat, spreading it over a wider surface area and allowing it to evaporate more quickly. When someone gets BO, it's not their sweat itself that stinks, it's bacteria that live on the skin, nourish themselves with sweat, and excrete smelly substances. If your sweat evaporates fast, this doesn't happen as much -- which is why we have hair in our armpits and on our crotch, where sweat has lots of nooks and crannies to gather.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do different colors have a different shade of gray when saturation is removed?

Like when I'm in photoshop and turn the picture to grayscale or remove the saturation.

Red shades will always be darker than yellow ones for example.

Why is that?

[Assistant]
On the surface it seems like all three colors(red, green, and blue) should be weighted equally because that's what the pixel is made of; but it turns out that gives you a really crappy looking grayscale image.

Your eye is far more sensitive to green light than red or blue, and still more senstive to red than blue.  When the computer converts from RGB to grayscale it will give far more weight to the green value than the red which means 0,255,0(green) will end up being far brighter than 255,0,0(red) or 0,0,255(blue).  Since yellow has a green component it will end up being fairly bright.


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

[User] [D&D] Would an orc with maxed-out Charisma be considered physically attractive by members of the more humanoid races?

[Assistant] Maybe. But charisma(or to use the scientific term, CHA) is more than just good looks, as various world leaders and such can attest, although JFK being persuasive _and_ a stone cold pussy slayer probably helped.


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

[User] ELI5: why are some people homosexual permanently and others in phases? Is there a link with hormones?

[Assistant] Don't look at it as homosexual vs heterosexual. Instead, look at it as a range...some people are only attracted to the same sex, some to the opposite sex, others to both and sometimes to varying degrees.


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

[User]
Camus and Absurdity of Life?

Hello, I had some questions on Camus and the absurd. From what I can ascertain, Camus talks of how it is absurd for us to assign meaning to life as it is meaningless. So, I understand the philosophical problem here is suicide.

Ive been trying to figure out recently the meaning to life, and then I remembered it was absurd to do that. However as a recent college graduate, looking down the barrel at the rest of my life, is it absurd to think its just 60-70 years of just the same thing everyday? A job everyday, a few weeks of vacation every year, a good workout, finding the right girl, maybe a family, going out, making friends, eating good food, boom youre dead.

Is life really so uncircumstantial? I just find it so dreary, and have been searching for what is that further step that I can do in my life to actually make something of myself. I always think that I should constantly learn, read, but then I get depressed thinking that knowledge will go unused, and Ill just be a history/philosophy buff with nowhere to divert that discussion. However, then I get depressed thinking that there really is no point to doing anything at all. What is the point of life? What is this meaning? Im just frustrated and not finding answers to something that seems so boring from an outer point.

[Assistant]
You're missing the point: that there is none. Yes, life is meaningless; there is no point to it all. That's what makes it absurd, trying to find or assign meaning in a meaningless life. But one must face the absurdity and stare right back into the void of nothingness.

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy"

Life is very much like Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill over and over again; a mundane repetitive process day by day by day. But Camus pictures him happy despite the prolonged torture. He imagines Sisyphus to revel in the fate he has been subjected to; he imagines Sisyphus to embrace his despair, anguish and absurdity in spite of its inherent meaninglessness. Like Sisyphus one must learn to embrace the absurdity of their condition.

If you still struggle to embrace it and see life as devoid of all meaning, look to Nietzsche and his Will To Power. Imagine your life as an eternally recurring world, a loop played endlessly. It too would be devoid of all meaning and serving no higher purpose. Nietzsche challenges us to live our lives as though it were like this, as if every moment were perpetual and repeated over and over again. We must affirm each moment as if it were this way; as if it were to repeat itself over and over again. In doing so, we become at odds with values like servility and acceptance and undertake strength, self-assertion and self-creation. If you lived through each moment over and over again, would you want to retain the same old mundane life or would you rather manifest the highest goals you never even knew you had?


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

[User] [It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia] How successful is Paddy's Pub?

[Assistant]
To quote the show "this bar is hemorrhaging money".

The three owners are so broke they can't scrape together $800 between them.

On an average Saturday night they'll bring in less than $200.

It's literally the worst bar in Philly, and not in a cool dive bar kinda way, in a don't fucking go there because it fucking sucks kinda way. They couldn't be any less successful without closing the bar down.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why GPS in smartphone reports better accuracy than dedicated GPS navigation.

I noticed that in the city, a smartphone can report awesome accuracy (<3 m) but a regular tourist navigation (Oregon) report more than 7 m. Shouldn't it be in reverse?

[Assistant] Your phone doesn't just use GPS, it also uses cell tower triangulation and Wi-Fi networks to get better accuracy. You don't even need to be connected to Wi-Fi, as long as your phone can detect the networks, you can use it to find your location.


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

[User]
Tractatus and Kant

Is Kants notion of the unknowability of things in themselves compatible with Wittgensteins notion of objects in the Tractatus?

[Assistant] No, in Proposition 2.01, "an atomic fact is a combination of objects (entities, things)." Given Proposition 1, objects here are more like objects of experience, for Kant, than the *thing-in-itself*, i.e. objects which we sense and can picture in propositions. The latter would fall beyond Wittgenstein's sensibility, just as it does for Kant, though for Kant we can know *of* them as grounds for appearances whereas for Wittgenstein we must pass over in silence.


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

[User] ELI5:Why are babies always throwing up?

[Assistant]
Do you mean spitting up? Like when you burp a baby and they spit up milk/formula?

It can be caused by a lack of control over their underdeveloped digestive system (being laid down immediately after feeding), being over-fed milk/formula prior to being burped, or drinking milk/formula too quickly (burping up air-bubbles due to improper feeding technique).

If you feed them in a semi-upright manner, take frequent breaks to burp them, and keep them upright after feeding, they will spit up less frequently.

If they are projectile-vomiting, it is a sign that they are ill, and require the care of a doctor.


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

[User]
[Dead SPACE]Why does Isaac seem almost Godly when he is fighting necromorphs?

Seriously he killed the Hive Mind with nothing but a plasma cutter!

[Assistant]
Experience for one. His survival on the Ishimura gave made him not only experienced at fighting necromorphs but also imbued him with the courage to not completely shit his pants in fear. Necromorphs are resilient things but they aren't as unstoppable as they initially seem, especially not when modern technology is so effective at eviscerating them. He's not the strongest fighter in the universe, but the necromorphs are a threat that he knows, and when some big tentacle beast is whipping him around like a ragdoll, he has the presence of mind to find and destroy the weak spots rather than panicking and screaming like a little girl.

Prior to his experience, he was just a guy forced into a horrible situation but he was motivated, not just by survival but by his own damsel in distress. He was still terrified by the horrors of the Ishimura, but he was courageous enough to grab any weapon he could find and wade his way through. His unrelenting drive combined with his desperation led to an unmatched brutality. He doesn't just kill necromorphs, he rips them to pieces. When he was presented with the source of the creatures, a mind fucking, monolithic construct that had been tricking him into hallucinations throughout his time there, he doesn't destroy it conventionally. He drops a god damn continent on it. Isaac's greatest weapon is his brutality.

To add to that, Isaac has a degree of resistance to the marker's mind control effect. That isn't to say he immune, but Isaac is able to look directly into the face of the marker and come out on the other side with his sanity intact. This gives him an exceptional edge, considering the necromorph's greatest weapon is psychological. Necromorphs aren't actually that effective killing machines, they are dangerous of course, but structurally weak (considering they are created by a rapid mutation of dead flesh, this isn't surprising.) Isaac has literally punched them into pieces. Sure they're fast and strong and have swords for arms, but they get sliced apart by power tools pretty easily.

To put it short, the necromorph's greatest weapon is fear, and Isaac is not afraid of them.


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

[User]
How does a Faraday cage work?

I'm not incredibly science savvy so if you could explain this like you were explaining it to a 12 year old, that would be great :) Thanks.

[Assistant] Basically it works because electrons on a metal conductor can move with absolute freedom. Which means anytime any electric field comes near it the electrons will move in the direction of that field (actually opposite direction because they're negatively charged but we can ignore that). But by having a lot of electrons move to one side of the conductor that leaves one side with a lot of negative charge and the other side with excess positive charge.  This leads to the metal object creating a field exactly opposite the one that was originally applied. These two fields thus add together to create a net 0 electric field.  So no electric field can get inside a metal object.


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

[User]
What job opportunities are there for economists outside academia and government, and also specifically on Wall Street?

Not sure if this is the right place for this question, but I'm thinking about majoring in either standard econ or a math and stat oriented econ. Anyway, I have no desire to become a professor or work for government. What opportunities are there in the private sector? What about specifically on Wall Street (for example, what would an economist do at an investment bank/hedge fund/ private equity firm)? What sort of salaries can be expected in the private sector, and are they lower or higher than in government/academia?

[Assistant] Economic consulting, such as forensic economics, litigation or transfer pricing. There are many firms outside of the word of finance.  An Econ major could also easily jump into actuarial work. And of course, utilities, but many are at least quasi public.


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

[User]
CMV: Consensus based arguments against climate skeptics that state "97% of climate scientists agree on human-driven climate change" are stupid

To be sure, the fact that anthropogenic climate change exists is borne out by the data. Not by the consensus of scientists. Talking about a high percentage of scientists giving their opinions confounds the issue by implying that *facts* are a matter of *opinions* of scientists. This is antithetical to the scientific method, whose whole point is to remove subjectivity and opinion from the business of finding out the truth.

Almost all climate data is now publicly available and should be used a basis for argumentation. Democratic consensus is not and has never been the test of whether something is "true".

[Assistant]
The claim of consensus is not meant to serve as proof that climate change exists, but it is meant as a refutation of the **skeptic** claim that "Most scientists don't believe in climate change", or something similar.

One of the primary tactics of the denier side (let's stop calling them skeptics; it's giving them far too much credit) is to sow doubt by claiming that "the science isn't settled", as though there's still a raging debate within the climate science community, when there is very clearly not.

The fact that 97% of publishing climate scientists agree on this conclusion is meant not to say "So you should believe it, too", but simply to say that yes, science DOES agree on this, and there isn't nearly as much open debate as Fox News would like you to believe there is.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How did the Avengers regain Hulks trust (and vice versa) after World War Hulk?

Between Between the Illuminati sending Hulk away and Hulk laying seige to New York.

[Assistant]
For the most part Hulk worked out his rage by pummeling those responsible into various stages of HURT, and destroying a lot of property in New York. However in the ending his War-Bound comrade Miek kinda shifted the blame a bit by revealing that it was he, who was responsible for the explosion that killed Hulk's wife - since Hulk after becoming king of Sakar decided that now that he has a kingdom, a beautiful and loving wife and people respecting his strength and character so he might as well take that shit and just settle. So he wasn't even that angry at Illuminati for sending him away - he was kinda miffed that they deceived him in doing so, but not enough to go on a rampage like he did. Death of his wife was the main reason, and in the end the Illuminati weren't directly responsible for that.

And on the Avengers side of equation, they've shot him point blank with a satellite canon. They sent the Sentry after him, and they still couldn't stop him. In the end of World War Hulk Bruce more or less surrendered and was held in a huge tub of sedative gel encased in arm-thick steel. And after that Hulk was largely on his own, independent from Avengers. Ultimately the reset-button was hit with a subtlety of an angry wampa, and for some reason Hulk allowed Doctor Doom to cut open his skull with a chainsaw and literally cut out Bruce Banner out of his brain to separate them, which sent about five years of character development down the drain, but allowed to reset the trust issues between Hulk and Avengers. Although the trust was never truly restored, as recent events show where his buddy Clint Barton didn't need a lot of persuasion to shoot depowered Bruce straight in the face with an arrow.


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

[User]
Why are narcissistic subs and channels predatory?

I wanted to ask professional psychologists about narcissism oriented "support" groups. In my experience I have encountered many online predators who claim they support victims of people who suffered from family members with NPD. I see these people as hypocrites who feed off the emotional and financial labor of mentally crippled people. There will be a few good apples in the manure field, but its been 3 years and I have already made my verdict that leaders of narcissistic abuse support groups are narcissist themselves.

[Assistant] Narcissist is the most overused and misunderstood term ever.  One thats often used by people to detract from their own negative behaviours... and effectively demonize and lay the blame on someone else.


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

[User] What caused the massive spike in oxygen content in Earth's atmosphere 300 Million years ago?

[Assistant] The success of land plants as forests of tree-like vascular plants led to the spike in atmospheric O2 in the Carboniferous Period. This and the rapid burial of plant material in swamps that became world wide coal measures. The fossil evidence for this is the rise of very large insects, such as *meganeura* a dragonfly the size of a small bird, allowed because the capacity of the tubes that insects use to breathe was limited but could be offset for larger individuals by the higher O2 concentration.


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

[User] ELI5: When exhaling under water there are multiple bubbles, as opposed to 1 singular bubble. Exhaling is a long continuous process without intervals, shouldn't there be 1 long continuous bubble?

[Assistant] Even if it were indeed exhaled in one long continuous process, that doesn't mean the exhaled bubble is structurally stable. It's a long sausage of gas that has to try (unsuccessfully) to hold shape in a moving liquid. That means, basically, that the water pressure causes it to split into smaller, rounder and more stable bubbles.


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

[User]
I think people should stop having kids. CMV

With over population, crisis of every kind and being the world such a horrible place today to live in... Why do people keep wanting to start a family?

[Assistant]
>Why do people keep wanting to start a family?

The main goal of an organism is to pass on its genes.

It's hard to shut off that biological process that has been driving life for a long long time.

Furthermore, if overpopulation becomes a problem, you just have to restrict the amount of children born, not completely stop.


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

[User] [Sci-Fi General] Besides baby Hellboy, has there even been a case of a ritualistic summoning that didn't yield a horrible god-creature that then slaugtered everyone indiscriminately? Has a generally nice entity ever shown up instead?

[Assistant] One man, Roderick Burgess, once tried to summon and capture Death of the Endless in order to gain immortality.  Instead, he captured her brother, Dream.  After Dream escaped decades later he did not kill indiscriminately.  He did, however, get some discriminating revenge.


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

[User] ELI5: Why didn't humans get sunburns constantly before the invention of sunscreen?

[Assistant]
They wore more clothing and sun umbrellas, avoided mid day sun, and had melanin levels suitable to their environment  (skin pigment).

They also tanned because they spent more time outdoors period. Which darkens the skin and protects it.

All this but they still got sunburns. But it's like bee stings. Unless it killed someone horribly or important not much chance of records.


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

[User]
postdoc fellow - bad supervision and no mentoring

Hi. I came into the lab (which I chose) with a grant for one year  and scored another 2 years of fellowship. Ive been in the lab for a year and my fellowship just started.

After being 'nice' for a year my PI flat out told me that my project is not within his interests, and in general he was very pessimistic. Granted, its preliminary data and it's not in his expertise. However it's not the first thing that is 'wrong' in this lab. Virtually all the phds that finished quit academia or considering to quit and had very bad supervision - and in my opinion bad quality of research. I know that I need a good mentor in order to become a good PI and I can take my fellowship somewhere else if I have a good explanation. I feel like I'm wasting my time and I could be doing so much better in a supportive environment. Im passionate about MY hypothesis and I don't want to give it up because he isn't. I'm thinking when it's time to publish I would have to try 10x harder to convince him and without proper supervision I won't develop intellectually or scientifically. I'm still young (below 30) and have time to do another postdoc before pursuing for PI. However I don't want to burn bridges because he is an important person in the field and it might be a good experience to become more assertive and independent. Is it worth sticking around for 2 years? Anyone with a similar experience?

[Assistant]
I agree with acidfast.

The important thing is that you have funding, a hypothesis, and a place to work. You will learn as much if not more by pushing the project forward yourself than sitting back hoping a PI is going to do a Yoda on you.

As a postdoc you've proven you can run a project by passing your PhD. You have a fellowship. Now get at it.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] After the Rebellion, what happened to the clones, troopers, and Imperial Navy?

The Rebels always were a smaller force, but after their victory, they were suddenly in charge of the Galaxy. Did any of the Imperial forces surrender? And then what?

[Assistant]
The Rebel victory at the Battle of Endor was far from the defeat of the Empire. the only thing they gained was the destruction of the Death Star II and the death of the Emperor. They were not in charge of the galaxy quite yet.

It remains to be seen what occurred after Endor for sure in canon video records, however some recently disputed texts tell the story of the Grand Admirals. The Imperial forces were divided among the highest ranking and most brilliant officers of the Empire, the Grand Admirals. Grand Admiral Thrawn was able to give the Rebellion a serious beat down. The Imperial Remnant eventually lost to the New Republic and it's forces were annexed.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why didnt Yoda and Obi Wan keep fighting after Order 66? Why did they run and hide? Or if they wait for Luke to age up, why not all 3 go full tilt together?

[Assistant]
The Jedi were primarily working for the Galactic Senate. With their political protection gone, and the Empire turning against them, they became enemies of the galaxy. The safest thing would be to go into hiding. Unfortunately, by the time Luke was old enough, Obi Wan and Yoda were past their prime. You can see the difference between Obi Wan and Anakin in episode 3 versus episode 4.

Was it the best plan to train Luke too late and to have him take on the Empire alone? Probably not, but that was the will of the Force and perhaps Yoda and Obi Wan understood this.


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

[User] [Batman] Could Bruce Wayne have fired Alfred as a child? I mean, that's still his butler, right?

[Assistant] After his parents died, Alfred became his legal guardian, and as such couldn't be fired.  Even if he hadn't been his guardian, it would have fallen to whomever was the guardian to manage the household.


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

[User]
ELI5: What in the hell is "Postmodernism?"

And for bonus points: "Dadaism?"

[Assistant]
Postmodernism is a cultural artistic era, it's kind of a label to put on works like the Renaissance or the Medieval period, but much much more recent.

I think it's best explained through literature: Previously, you may have a story that tied up nicely, and the ending made sense. But after World War II and into the Cold War, it didn't seem like things were making sense anymore, and a lot of our history seemed a bit absurd.  So, "postmodern" literature began rejecting the idea that things could be tied up so neatly. The "postmodern" era of literature is filled with unreliable narrators, fragmented stories, and a lot of irony. This is reflective of the larger cultural feelings of relativism (i.e., there's no one Truth with a capital T, it's just a matter of where you are in the world) and a recognition of the absurdity that was going on.

Some now say we are in the "post-post-modern" period, but it's not like all of the artists/cultural contributors get into a room and decide what era the calendar page is on. Usually people are just influenced by their generation, the history they are writing in, and the culture around them.


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

[User] Is blood letting an effective form of reducing blood pressure?

[Assistant] Yes and no. In the acute sense, it's very effective in the sense that removing blood from an otherwise closed system will by definition drop the pressure. It, however, in no way tackles any underlying chronic cause of high BP.


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

[User]
Academic Advice

So, I wanted to talk about my complicated academic situation and I feel like it's very important to ask for advice from more experienced people before moving on with my academic life. I am a second year civil engineering student. This is my third year at university, yet towards the end of my first year my father passed away overseas and this basically caused me to fail all my courses and to fall into a state of depression because I couldn't go back home to atlas bury him. This depression and loneliness extended into the year after where I was repeating all my courses again. I got very low grades although this was my second time doing them. Finally at the end of my second year (where i repeated everything), I began to decide to get my life back together, and I started doing much better in the first semester of third year (again, which is basically 1st semester second year), but I realized that this isn't what I wanted to do; I realized that I wanted to get into either Engineering Physics or Aerospace Engineering (spacecraft design), which I am extremely interested in, yet my GPA is extremely low to be able to switch to either. I am stuck in a program that Im losing interest in day by day by how boring it is to me. I can't possibly repeat any of my courses again  because I barely have money to get by with the rest of my program. My dad left me exactly what I needed to finish the program before he passed away. Also, I can't get a loan because I am international student. I fell in a pit that I cannot get out of. I don't know what to do or where to start, if anybody has any advice please feel free to tell me. Thanks in advance.

[Assistant] Does your university have a registrar/student counseling office/academic guidance officer or anything of that sort? They would be the ones to speak to about this problem, since they will know much more about what options you have, both in terms of changing programs and in terms of finances.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Was there an awkward phase for Palpatine's face when it was visibly distorted due to using the Dark side but before he realized he needed to use the Sith mask?

Kind of like when a young man first starts growing facial hair but before he shaves for the first time.

Did people go up to him out of concern and say he should see a doctor?

[Assistant] There's never been a fully canonical answer as to whether his Sheev face was the real deal and the lightning actually melted his flesh, or if it was a mask and and he looked like what the lightning revealed.


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

[User]
Why do some venomous snakes (such as the black mamba) have venom that is much more powerful than necessary to take down the prey they go after?

I am no expert on evolution, but it seems to me that having overpowered venom is evolutionarily illogical. Thanks in advance for your answer!

[Assistant]
Red Queen Hypothesis: You must run as fast as you can to stay in one place.

It's an arms race. Snake develops stronger venom, so prey develops stronger resistance, so snake develops stronger venom, so prey develops stronger resistance, and this continues until the energy that each species spends on the contest is too great to sustain because it takes away from energy that needs to be spent on other things. I.e if a rabbit spends so much energy on resistance to snake venom that it can no longer reproduce, then the advantage will go to a rabbit that can reproduce even if there is also a great risk of this rabbit dying due to a snake bite.

So, one of two things is probably true: either the black mamba has a prey species that has a pretty strong resistance to its particular brand of venom, or it DID have a prey species with a strong resistance, but that prey species has exhausted its resources and is pressured in another direction, making it appear as though the mamba is overpowered, when in fact it is just lagging behind in terms of de-escalation.

It's important to remember that venom and resistance can also be very specific, so a venom that is very damaging to humans (who are not in the arms race) might not be very damaging to a rabbit (which is in the arms race).


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

[User]
ELI5: Do atmospheric oxygen levels have an effect on gigantism in vertebrates?

Someone recently suggested to me that high atmospheric oxygen levels were a factor that allowed dinosaurs to grow as large as they did.  I'd love to properly understand the matter and haven't been able to satisfactorily google an answer yet. (Answer doesn't need to be about dinosaurs, that's just how I stumbled upon the question.)

[Assistant] The main scientific theory agrees with your friend there, though is more commonly mentioned in relation to giant insects. In tests they found dragon flies grew much bigger in high oxygen environments.


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

[User] ELI5: What made us, so many years ago, just being naked be seen as being indecent?

[Assistant]
While clothing began as a "tool" to keep us warm, it quickly developed a symbolic meaning far beyond this. For example, it distinguished tribes/groups/nations from one another and indicated social status, wealth, and personality. It still does this.

In a society that developed cultural norms such as sexual restraint, monogamy, and other sexually normative social pressures, clothing became representative of these cultural factors. To not wear clothing was, in essence, to communicate a sexuality that was taboo.

Clothing as seen by the anthropologist is simply an outer representation of cultural beliefs. If a society believes in sexual restraint - taught by religions both modern an ancient but also common in non-religious societies (e.g. modern China) - then the clothing will represent these cultural norms.

So in short, clothing became an expression of modesty and social pressures to conform and be accepted.


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

[User]
[Batman] If I were a man of means and connections, what would be the best way to kill The Joker?

Suppose I am a man whose wife an daughter were collateral damage in one of The Jokers attacks. Suppose I wanted to make sure that he can never hurt anyone again. How would I do it?

While not Bruce Wayne rich, assume that I have a net worth of at least eight figures, and know how to spend it quietly.

Also, I dont care what happens to me. I can die in Blackgate, get beaten by Batman, hell, his demented groupie can feed me to her hyenas. Just so long as the clown is dead.

Should I put a bounty on his head? Pay off some Arkham guards to arrange a suicide? Hire an assassin like Deathstroke or Deadshot? Offer the Red Hood my assistance in his quest for revenge? Or is there a better way to do it that Im not even thinking of?

[Assistant]
I think the best option would indeed be to hire Deadshot to kill him and then burn the body to prevent him from being easily revived. Arkham guards would probaby fuck it up and allow him to escape, a bounty is too public, Red Hood might let it get too personal, but a professional can do the job.

Not that that would keep him down permanently, mind, but it might work until the next reality restructuring.


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

[User]
In a collision where linear momentum is conserved, kinetic energy is lost. Where does it go?

I understand the mathematics of the difference in that Ek is proportional to V^2, while p is proportional to V, but I can't figure where the energy 'goes'.

As an example, if you had two point masses both of mass m, with m1 having a velocity of V and m2 being stationary, if they collide and move off together, they'll have a velocity of V/2 and the same total linear momentum, but a kinetic energy a quarter of what it was initially. I just can't see where that energy has gone.

[Assistant]
If you have two point masses, they *can't* collide like that. They have to collide elastically to preserve both momentum and kinetic energy.

If you have two *actual* masses, kinetic energy can go into heat, sound, and deformation of the objects, thus allowing inelastic collisions like the one you described to occur.


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

[User]
When a virus has an R0 of >1, why does it not just grow exponentially until it has infected all of humanity?

People are saying the Wuhan virus has an R0 of around 3.  Ive heard R0 explained as the average number of people and infected person infects. Thus, it would seem that as long as this number is >1,  the disease would just spread exponentially ad infinitum until the entire population had been infected or enough had grown immune/been quarantined that the R0 fell below 1. In the case of Wuhan, the entire world population should be infected at around 21 iterations if the number of cases tripled each iteration (3^21  10bil).

However, given that basically every virus had R0 of >1 and not all of humanity has had every virus, this doesnt appear to be how it actually works. What am I missing here?

[Assistant]
There's another variable used called R(effective) which takes into account the number of people who can't catch the virus. For example, some people might have caught it before and are immune to it or may have been vaccinated. R(eff) = R0  (the fraction of people susceptible). When nobody has immunity, for example when the virus is new, R(eff) ~= R0 but as immunity grows R(eff) gets lower and lower.

Some others mentioned it but basically R0 is the number of people that the infected person will *possibly infect.* Say R0 is 2. So if one person out of ten has the virus, they'll infect two. At the same time, that one person will have gotten over the sickness and won't be infectable. So, since 2/10 people are already infected and 1/10 is immune, that leaves seven people. Usually, those two people would each infect two of the remaining seven, but what if instead they "infect" each other or the immune person? Suddenly R0 doesn't work as well as a model.

Edit to add: now R(eff) works better:

R(eff) = R0  the fraction of people susceptible

R(eff) = 2  (7/10) = 1.4 so the virus isn't spreading quite as fast any more

When you scale that up to humanity, there's a high chance that not everyone will catch the virus. Add onto that countermeasures like manditory bed rest, quarantine, vaccines, etc. and the virus can't find enough hosts to continue to propagate :)


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What if I have a M4A1

Just say I am in Star Wars universe and I have a M4A1 assault rifle.
How effective this weapon will be against a clone trooper, a normal roger roger droid, and a well-trained force sensitive user.

I assume M4 will be pretty powerful against all of them. For example in Revenge of the Sith. Multiple jedi cannot stand huge amout a gun fire at once. M4 can fire at least 700 round per min. and since my bullet is not in an energy form, lightsaber can melt, but cannot ricochets. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Assistant]
Jedi would be moderately screwed. Keep in mind that bullets are likely more vulnerable to telekinesis, but ultimately, in-universe kinetics are the weapon of choice when kitting out for Jedi-hunting. The molten bullet would still be going towards the Jedi.

The reason nobody uses them is because they are horrendously outmatched by blasters. Your puny slugthrower will not even scratch the paint on the plasteel armour of a stormtrooper; your average blaster can tear out major chunks of walls, even nearby blasts kills unprotected rebels, and heavier blast rifles can split a stromtrooper in two. A blaster bolt is closer to a small autocannon round in terms of raw destructive power. Old fluff claims Starfighter cannons output *kilotons per each shot*.


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

[User] [The Boondocks] How would Huey and Riley react to the success of the Black Panther movie?

[Assistant]
Huey wouldn't really have an opinion. He'd see it as a powerful corporation shamelessly appealing to a demographic for marketability and financial purposes. But he wouldn't hate it, just be completely indifferent and ignore the phenomenon all together. This would catch wind online and Huey would be at the center of an internet culture war. Black fans will call him a traitor, and totally-not-racist alt-righters would use him as a poster boy. Huey wouldn't get involved at all though. The whole ordeal would just remind him of the Obama situation. He'd watch it on Netflix months later and say "It was ok."

Riley eats it up though, he'd love the idea of an extremely wealthy African king being at the center. He'd take away all the wrong lessons though, talking about how Black Panther would buy a bunch of hoes and roll up in a flying lambo. He'd also be upset with the ending, since he'd believe Killmonger was right and Black Panther should have teamed up with him. He'd cry conspiracy by the white Disney execs axing the "true ending".

Grandpa would try to watch it on the first night, but be pissed when he finds its sold out. He'd then return on Saturday and be stuck at the leftmost seat of the front row. He'd later talk about how great the movie was, how he fought and protested for more movies like this, but wouldn't be able to recall the plot.

Uncle Ruckus quits his job at the movie theater and flies to Marvel Studios HQ in California. He stands outside the offices in protest over why the great Marvel superhero movies, that have touted the physical and intellectual superiority of the white man, would give into these terrible pressures of the blacks. Most of his arguments revolve around how everything about Wakanda is unrealistic and how colonialism was the best damn thing to happen to them. He's later escorted off the lot and goes back to the theater job, but only after Black Panther's finished its run.

Tom thinks the movie's great because of how good a role model Black Panther is. He says kids should aspire to be like him so they can work hard and be kings too. Unfortunately he didn't see how the movie ended, since he and Sarah got into a spat during one of Michael B Jordan's shirtless scenes.


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

[User] [DC] What is the worst thing a superhero has done?

[Assistant]
There was the time when a portion of the League mindwiped villains who had learned their identity. And then gave Dr Light a lobotomy so he wouldn't be as dangerous anymore. And then mindwiped Batman when he tried to stop it.

And then there was Aquaman (before the formation of the Justice League) making plans what to do when the surface attacks Atlantis. The plans involved sinking the eastern seaboard and sending assassins after Batman.

And then there is Batman making plans to take out each and every member of the League in order to take them out in an emergency. Without their knowledge. The plans got stolen and nearly destroyed the League.

And then there's Barry Allen fucking the timeline (though someone else may have had a hand in that).

And then there's Hal Jordan going crazy, murdering the Green Lantern Corps and fucking the timeline worse than Flash (though it wasn't exactly his fault).


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

[User]
Can a material under high stress break at random without any additional change to the system?

Lets say a ballpoint pen is pushing on the centre of a tensioned sheet of foil so that the foil is as close to its breaking point as possible. If there are no external changes (vibrations, temperature change, etc.) could the foil still randomly snap?

This was just an analogy similar to the situation that had me puzzling, but apply it to the breaking point of any material if preferable.

[Assistant]
Yes. There is a process call creep which is a slow yielding of the material under a stress below what is considered the yield stress. As it thins the real stress increases and will fail.

This is more typical for polymers than metals.