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

[User] ELI5: How are pre-cooked, non-frozen, TV dinners stay unspoiled without refridgeration or preservatives?

[Assistant]
They're cooked and packed in a clean environment. Then they are sealed in a pack that does two things:

Protect them from any bacteria getting in to spoil the food.

Prevent air from entering so any bacteria not killed by the cooking can't grow and spoil the food.


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

[User] Eli5 How do the screens work for a kindle and how do they never seem to run out of power?

[Assistant]
E-ink is a special type of technology in a screen. Instead of needing a constant supply of electricity to display, it only uses electricity to flip the pixels from black to white or from white to black. Once it's on a particular configuration, it requires no additional electricity to keep the image.

Each pixel is made of liquid and when a charge is placed on them it makes pigment rise or fall on that pixel which then stays in that position until another charge is applied.


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

[User]
[Witcher] how far out is The Continent from developing firearms?

Alchemists clearly have an advanced understanding of explosive and combustible materials. I refuse to believe there isn't at least one warlord with an engineering team that has come to the conclusion that explosion plus bottleneck equals high velocity projectile.

[Assistant] They're between 100 to 300 years away from rudimentary firearms.  The biggest issues facing them are consistent metallurgy as often times nations don't share technology with each other and if they become overwhelmed by another will destroy their secrets to deny their enemies.  And the other issue is mages.  Magic users can and will protect their foothold in society.  If a king could have his best marksmen a new firearm that doesn't require special training to use and can outperform a mage day after day without crushed rubies or powered elk horn to function why bow to the whims of a crazy kook that refuses to leave the castle for war.


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

[User]
ELI5 The British Parliament

specifically when they are in session (the room where the 2 sides face each other and the PM stands at that desk/podium in the middle). What the hell is going on? Who's in charge? who sits on which side? who gets to speak and when? It was very interesting to watch and I would love to know who everyone is and what they do. THANKS!

[Assistant]
well how i like to think of it, is a big rap battle consisting of 427 people (there should be 650 but there isnt enough space...) and at the table in the middle is the house MCs (Prime minister (right hand side), Oposition leader (left hand side), and coalition party leader (right hand side)). and sitting near each leader are their posy who are there to stick up for their leader (chancellor of the exchequer, foreign minister etc. and their counterparts on the otherside of the table) Now the big guy in the nice chair, he's the chairman, he says who speaks, when they speak, and for how long. and if people start getting rowdy, he lets 'em know who's boss, and keeps the house of commons in order. as for the rest of the people, they are the fans of the house MCs. they always sit nearest to their favourite (Conservatives behind David Cameron, Labour party sit behind Ed Milliband and the Lib Dems are behind Nick Clegg).

Now, how policy gets put through: well to start, we can think of each policy as being a fresh beat getting laid down, and whichever party put it through will start to rap about how this idea is the shit and everyone should get behind it. and the fans will cheer "AYE!" when the MC is killin' it or "No" when it sounds more like Ke$ha without autotune. now the speaker lets the opposite MC get a chance to diss their opponent, with their rap, and again the crowd will cheer "AYE" or NO" if they like it or not. the speaker lets anyone else who thinks they've got what it takes have their say... then it comes down to the decission making process, and whoever screams loudest wins ("aye's" vs "no's").

hope that helps. let me know if you want anymore info on specifics.


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

[User] ELI5: If we can look 1400 light years away to find another earth-like planet, what's stopping us from zooming in just a little closer to look for indications of life forms?

[Assistant]
You're confused on how we find earth-like planets. We don't actually see them. No telescope ever made can see that far with that much detail. Instead we look at the amount of light a given star produces, and if it wiggles back and forth. When a planet travels in front of it's star, the light drops off a tad bit. The star will also wiggle back and forth from the gravity of the circling planet. These are two methods used to detect other planets.

Tldr; We don't "see" the other planet, instead we look for indicators from the star that there are planets in the system.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] I'm a Dark Wizard who wants to destroy the muggle world. Best way to do this?

I am completely unaffiliated to any order, previous dark wizard's regime, government organisation, I am completely on my own.

I am a very skilled wizard if I say so myself, what I lack in natural aptitude or specialty I make up for in all around versatility, and a relentless desire to improve myself. Give me time and reason enough to learn a new spell or skill, and I'll be able to do it, you watch.

I want to be able to destroy the muggle world without arousing the suspicions of either them or the Wizarding world, if at all possible. Destruction of muggle civilisation is probably more accurate, I don't need them all dead, I just want their nations, governments, and basic societal structures collapsed and fallen into anarchy, bloodshed and chaos.

I've done everything I can to erase everything about my past, the Ministry knows nothing about me, I live completely secluded and self-sufficient from the rest of Wizarding society. Until I act, nobody knows I exist.

All I've got is my wand, made from Ebony with dragon heartstring. How do I best go about my mission?

[Assistant]
Apparate into various government buildings and Imperio the heads of various governments, then give them commands that will result in the destruction of all major world governments. (If Potter-Era use thermonuclear weapons. if Newt-Era just arrange to crash the economies of every muggle nation, while arranging for social unrest so that muggle society will devolve back into the primitives they are after the loss of their economies, at this point you can finish them off at your leisure using the classic methods).

If for some reason you are too weak-willed to cast Unforgivables yourself, you can also achieve more or less the same effect (with slightly more danger to yourself) by brewing strong Love-potions and tons of Felix Felicis, you feed the love-potions to all world leaders then drink the Felicis yourself.

If all goes well (which it should, due to the Luck Potion) you should have set yourself up as a modern Helen Of Troy, with every world leader begging you for orders for just the tiniest smidgen of attention. of course for more \*ugh\* 'democratic' societies you may have to get them to continue trying to appear somewhat competent to avoid having them removed from office. the rest of the plan is the same as with imperio.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why are the Sith referred to as Dark Jedi rather than Sith in Zahn's Thrawn trilogy?

[Assistant] Because there's a distinction. Sith are sith, but a jedi, who falls to the Dark side of the Force is a Dark Jedi. Not every darksider with a lightsaber is a sith, after all. So in Thrawn Trilogy Joruus C'Baoth is exactly a dark jedi, being fully convinced that he's a jedi master and not actually a mad darksider clone. Although, as we saw later on, original C'Baoth also was quite a piece of work, but at least he kept his shit together long enough to get grey in his hair.


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

[User]
ELI5:Was the Iraq War a loss or a win?

Was the war in Iraq a complete loss like Vietnam, or was it successful.

[Assistant] Obviously  the recent events in Iraq help show that it was a complete failure, and waste of a couple trillion dollars and thousands of lives.  Not only did we not rid the world of a leader with WMD (the initial reason for the invasion) because there was none, but we couldn't even help the country become a functioning one.  We'll probably be back over there soon getting shot at by our own weapons.


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

[User] ELI5: What happened to FireWire? It was taking over, seemingly faster than usb, yet I don't see it anymore...

[Assistant] Firewire was more expensive (both patent licensing and hardware cost) and USB was good enough.  The difference isn't huge, but when there are two similar competitors in an area where compatibility is important, a slight market advantage tends to snowball, since the slightly more common one is inherently slightly more useful.  (See VHS vs Betamax, BluRay vs HDDVD etc)


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

[User] ELI5: since carbon dioxide is tasteless, why does carbonated water still have an identifiable taste many days after its been opened, when the bubbles have long since disappeared?

[Assistant] Chemical reactions rarely consume all of the reagents in them. Even after the bubbles stop, there's still a bit of carbonic acid left in the drink, which is what makes carbonated water taste different from regular water.


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

[User] [Lord Of The Rings] What is exactly The Dead Marshes? Who are those people?

[Assistant]
The marshes predate the Battle of Dagorlad, but at the time it was an open plain. That's why they call it it Dagorlad, from Sindarin *dagor* (battle) and *lad* (plain). The marsh crept in after the clash of arms.

The Last Alliance of Men and Elves led by the human King Elendil (father to the doomed Isildur) and the elvish King Gil-Galad were marching on Mordor, and had just linked up with the Numenorian host under Elendils other son Anarion. Together, they marched from the strongholds of Osgiliath and Minas Ithil (the same tower that would one day be known by the dread name of Minas Morgul) against the Black Gate to the north.

They were blitzed by a sallying force of literally millions of Orcs, fallen and corrupted men, and other evil creatures that skulk about without names. The Last Alliance hadn't expected a counter attack, figuring that the forces of Sauron would stay safe behind their walls.

The Battle of Dagorlad fought on the open plain near the marsh was apocalyptic. A large detachment of Wood Elves from Greenwood charged prematurely and without orders, and got bogged down by the legions of orcs. Unsupported as they were, the Wood Elves were slaughtered, with two out of every three elves dying. King Oropher of Greenwood fell valiantly, leaving his son Thranduil (Legolas' dad) to take the shattered remnants of the Wood Elf army back home to Mirthwood, vowing to never commit to a southern war again.

Elendil, Anarion, and Gil-Galad pushed forward, committed to the battle against their will by Oropher's foolhardy charge. They prevailed; the forces of Mordor were wiped out almost to a man. The bodies of the millions of elves, orcs, and men had to be left where they fell; the coming siege of the Black Gate and the planned march on Barad-dur would brook no delays, and they had suffered 50% casualties and so could spare no diggers to boot.

Over time, the marshes near the open plain spread and submerged the corpses in the murk and the muck. Now, they are the Dead Marshes. The bodies may or may not be actually present, time and decay being what they are, but the spirits of the restless dead float along nonetheless.


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

[User]
[Pulp Fiction] What was Marcellous Wallace punishment for that dude?

You know, the one who was going to get medieval in his ass.

What exactly happened to him?

[Assistant]
I imagine Zed's punishment began with getting his tongue removed so he couldn't share their experience with Marcellus' buddies. Then they started in on his extremities with the pliers, blow torches, and pipes they brought with them, slowly working their way to his torso and eventual death.

Lesson being, don't rape an LA crime lord.


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

[User] ELI5: In Task Manager (or Activity Monitor on Mac), how does it close a program differently, whether I pick "end" or "end now"/force close?

[Assistant]
One is asking a worker to finish what they are doing, clean up their desk and go home, the other is taking out a gun and shooting a worker in the head.

The latter makes them stop really quick, but leaves quite a mess. The former is dependent on them actually listening to your request and not being so buys with their work that they will ignore you.

You normally only want to shoot the worker if he won't listen to avoid the mess.


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

[User] Why are there massive tornadoes in US, but almost none in South America and Asia or Africa?

[Assistant]
There have been documented tornadoes on every continent EXCEPT Antarctica (figures). But you are correct in that the majority of the earth's tornadoes happen in Tornado Alley in the United States. This is because of a very unique weather system that only the USA sees. **Cold** air moves south from Canada and mixes with **dry** air from the Rocky Mountains and this air then meets **warm, moist** air from the Gulf of Mexico (dry air from the Sonoran Desert may also play a part) and the combination of all this leads to atmospheric instability, which then produces strong thunderstorms and crazy tornadoes.

**tl;dr** Tornadoes happen everywhere except Antarctica, but the unique weather system of the USA leads to a higher frequency of tornadoes than anywhere else in the world.


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

[User]
[DC/Marvel] Why can't the meta/X-gene be injected into non-metas?

And why can't the gene be disabled via injection like an illness?

Surely if the government were against mutants and metahumans they'd be vaccinations onto newborns.

EDIT: *Metas or mutants.

[Assistant]
Most vaccinations are basically half-dead pathogens delivered into your body so that your immune system can easily attack it and retain information on it so that any future infections can be handled promptly.

The X-gene is just that, a gene. Genes are a part of you, they're the things that control how tall you get, the patterns on your finger print, and everything else basally biological about you body. The X-gene is in every cell, even if it's not specialized for whatever the gene is expressing.

That being said you could *suppress* some individuals effects through drugs, like someone with allergies takes an antihistamine (not the same mechanism, but just as an example), but the biological aspect of it that makes you sick is still there.


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

[User]
[Back To The future] How did that civilian, 1980s bullet proof vest stop Rifle rounds from an AK-47? 7.62x39 is no slouch of a rifle cartridge.

ALSO: how did the Libyans find Doc at the mall but not at his house?

what did the Libyans have a spy working at the mall who noticed Doc setting up in the parking lot as he left his JC Penny cover gig?

[Assistant] The Doc created a time machine out of a DeLorean. In the 30 years he had to prepare, it is not out of the question that he created a bullet proof vest that was able to stop high velocity rifle rounds.


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

[User]
[Superman/Brightburn] How would Superman deal with Brandon Breyer?

Say Superman crosses paths with little Brandon from Brightburn and he manages to defeat the little homicidal maniac, so what does Superman do with the kid? Bradon's only 12 years old but he's the living embodiment of the apocalypse, so does Clark try to rehabilitate him, knowing he's a danger to the whole world, or does he throw this kid in the Phantom Zone and be done with it.

[Assistant] He believes everyone no matter how evil deserves a chance to redeem themselves. If the fortess of solitude can't contain him he'll take Brandon to another world that can. Once there supes will do everything he can to raise him right and teach him to be a force for good or at least avoid killing everyone that wrongs him. If he can't manage that he'll try to reunite Brandon with his people. And if that's impossible the phantom zone exists for a reason but supes sees it as a superprison for only the most irredeemable of foes.


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

[User] [ Warhammer 40k ] What is the most powerful weapon that has been used by Imperium of Man, why is the most powerfull and what do ?

[Assistant]
'What is the strongest weapon of mankind? The god-machines of the Adeptus Mechanicus? No! The Astartes Legions? No! The tank? The lasgun? The fist? Not at all! Courage and courage alone stands above them all!'

 -Lord Commander Solar Macharius.


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

[User]
can we see individual stars in other galaxies?

or is it just one big blur, even to hubble?

[Assistant] yes, just look up a class of stars called Cepheids. They were used in Hubble's ballpark estimates of the distance to our neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. So it's not only exploding stars that we can see, as Jorge claims.


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

[User]
Does breathing air through a towel to stop a smell/volatilized chemical actually filter out molecules?

Often, people will counter a bad smell or other airborne chemical by covering their nose with a towel/cloth. How effective is this against the actual inhalation of the chemical? Is the smell only reduced because it is overpowered by a "smell" from the towel?

[Assistant]
some molecules that cause the smell stick to the towel just like they stick to your hair (like after you bbq something some of the smell is stuck in your hair)

so when you breath trough a towel some of this molecules don't reach so and you don't smell them...


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why is the empire so xenophobic?

Why is the empire so hostile to non-humans? Is Palpatine xenophobic and just enforced his ideology once he had ultimate authority or is there another motive at work. Is it purely motivated by slavery or is it someone else like the idea of human supremacy? The Republic seemed to have complete equality between species so why is the empire able to change so rapidly into a largely human dominated society?

[Assistant]
It's not. His Grand Vizier, the second-in-command of the Empire, is an alien. The Inquisition is full of nonhumans as well. We even have examples of other nonhumans working for the Empire in various positions.

He just has the troublesome races taken down. The Wookiees make good slaves due to their massive strength and endurance. The Lasat have been genocided for being openly rebellious, and the Geonosians were sterilized so they don't start another war.

Palpatine is the kind of person who only sees whether someone is useful or dangerous to keep around. There's no xenophobia inherent in the doctrines of the Empire, but it *is* mostly composed of the Core worlds which are mostly humanocentric, while the Separatists were mostly nonhumans from the Mid and Outer Rims. Racism is kind of implicit in the culture the Empire fosters, even though it's not officially on the books as something required.

[Note: the idea that the Empire is xenophobic comes from the OT mostly being cast of British citizens, who are overwhelmingly white. However, we see that until RotJ, the Rebellion is mostly the same way, nearly exclusively white male humans.

We see plenty of examples of the Empire working with nonhumans in the OT, with the only "racism" shown being the prison officer's reaction to Chewie. The bounty hunters were looked down on because they were *bounty hunters*, not because they were aliens.]


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

[User]
Is the temperature of a black hole absolute zero?

Since matter keeps getting denser and denser, and moves less and less to the point of absolute zero where nothing is moving or vibrating, and it is giving off no black body radiation, would a black hole be absolute zero? It fits the characteristics of what something would be like at absolute zero.

[Assistant] This was thought to be the case before the 1970s, but Bekenstein and Hawking showed that black holes actually emit blackbody radiation, albeit at a very low temperature for realistic-sized black holes. The temperature is inverse proportional to the mass, and for a solar mass black hole, the temperature is about 60 nanokelvin. In practice this is effectively zero, because the cosmic microwave background is a scorching 2.7 kelvin in comparison.


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

[User] ELI5: What are Exoplanets and why are we looking for them?

[Assistant]
Exoplanets are planets that are in orbit around stars other than our own sun.

Astronomers look for them because, well, that's part of what they do. Also finding exoplanets in the goldilocks zone raises a strong possibility of life on other planets.


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

[User]
ELI5: Leninism.

Keep it brief.

[Assistant] The working class can't emancipate itself, therefore an intellectual vanguard is necessary: the party. The party has to stay in power and guide the society toward communism with dictatorial powers. Once we're there, the party will no longer be needed.


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

[User]
Do things cool off in space?

I'm sure this is a stupid question but if there is no matter in the void of space to get the heat transferred to, wouldn't a hot thing sent to space just remain hot?

[Assistant]
Yes, matter cools in space by emitting photons. Everything in the universe glows with a blackbody spectrum determined by its temperature. This is how the sun transfers energy to earth :D

Though admittedly, when compared to conventional heat transport by conduction on earth, radiation is a very inefficient way to transport energy. Or put another way, vacuum is a good insulator.


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

[User] ELI5: Does a lymph drainage massage actually help the lymphatic system clear out a virus or is it just homeopathic nonsense?

[Assistant]
If it smells like shit, it's probably shit.

Whenever it comes to medicine, remember: If an "alternative medicine" is proven to work, it's just called "medicine." The "alternative" means it's bullshit.


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

[User]
How come blood vessels and nerves are not pinched when we bend our elbows/knees and other bend parts?

*Bendy parts. Sorry for title typo.

[Assistant] Well, depends on how you define pinched. They aren't really pinched because they aren't in the joint barring major trauma.  They can, however, have slight pressure on them at maximal flexion (particularly if you are a bit big) that you would experience as "pins and needles" and eventually pain over time.  That would be those in front of the joint. Those passing behind could be put on slight stretch with the same symptoms. Other neurovascular structures pass beside the joints and don't care that much about flexion usually.


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

[User] ELI5: How do countries with free universal health care afford it, and how come it is so hard to do that in America?

[Assistant] Americans have this bizarre idea that socialism will somehow taint them, so they avoid it like the plague. Except for the military, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, police, roads, education, NASA, the judiciary, national parks etc. etc. etc.


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

[User]
Cmv: death penalty should be abolished with no exceptions even for serial killers and terrorists.

I've had this conversation with a bunch of people this past week, and nobody seems to agree with me. I'm open to changing my opinion, but no one has been able to reasonably change my view, so I'm here.

As stated in the title, I'm 100% anti-death penalty. It's morally problematic, and there are other ways to punish people and bring justice. Not to mention there's a chance that an innocent person will one day be executed, and we shouldn't let that happen.

Here are a bunch of arguments people have used so far, and my answers to them. Feel free to give me your own reasons if it's not listed below:

**1. The chances of an innocent person getting executed are low / we will only execute those who we are sure are guilty.**
Even a 1% chance means 1 out of 100 is dying unjustly, there's no greater good here, someone's gonna slip through the cracks and we can't let that happen, we shouldn't just sacrifice their life.

 For each guilty person, there's gonna be someone who believes they're innocent, that's why we have trials and give them the chance to defend themselves. Yes that "someone" might be a follower, loved one, etc and in the case of terrorists their belief is most likely wrong but the fact that they exist means this person is dying because their faith was in the hands of a random group who happened to disagree with them.

**2. What if you or one of your loved ones were a victim, wouldn't you want justice?**
I don't think the death penalty is justice, it's vengeance. Would I want vengeance? Yes, but that's emotional reasoning. Rationally speaking, if they spent the rest of their life in prison, they'd suffer more, and it'd be a better punishment. They have ruined lives, and we can't just give them the sweet release of death.

**3.they might corrupt other prisoners/guards, and we can't let that happen.**
I don't disagree with this, and this one's the most likely to change my view, but I think killing someone to prevent them from spreading their ideology is just dodging the problem, we must find an actual solution instead of choosing the easy way out.

**4.it takes a lot of money and resources to keep a horrible person alive in prison**
Again see no.3, we must find a solution instead of choosing the easy way out. Just because we're saving money doesn't make it moral.

[Assistant]
You present counterarguments but offer no arguments about why the death penalty should be off the table in the first place.

For example, why does it matter that there are other ways to punish people?  Why does it necessarily matter that there is a non-zero chance that an innocent person will be executed?


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

[User] ELI5 What Exactly is Happening When Someone "Throws" Their Voice?

[Assistant]
It's an illusion. They make something look like it's talking while hiding their own lip movements. They don't "throw" anything.

The "throwing" is just the brains of the people watching assuming that the thing that looks like it's talking is doing the talking.


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

[User]
[Flash TV]Why did Caitlin turn into Killer Frost?

I mean, did she have to turn evil? Or is it a side effect of becoming a meta? She was a good person before, and it seems to me that only the scummy people became criminals.

[Assistant]
On 3x05 "Monster" when Caitlin was getting help from her mom, she tested her powers on the hot tungsten metal set to over 2000C, and she instantly froze it to below freezing temperatures. Then when Caitlin's mom got the results on the screen, she was shocked how she absorbed all that energy or heat. This was a reference to how Killer Frost in the comics absorbs a lot of energy or heat when she uses her powers, she isn't just putting out cold blasts. She's basically an energy vampire the more she uses her powers. Killer Frost absorbing heat or energy causes her emotions to lash out making her become cold blooded with an iced cold heart with lack of empathy for people. Her negative emotions become more predominant with her positive feelings shutdown.

That's why towards the end of the episode Caitlin's mom warned her not to use her powers. The more she used them, the harder it'll be to reverse. The colder her body becomes which means she absorbing a lot more energy or heat which makes her emotions become more heightened up in anger. The show did not explain this well, but this is a thing for most Killer Frost from the comics, absorbing heat or energy has a catastrophic effect on their psychological state. That's why on the Abra Kadabra episode when Caitlin died and needed her powers to heal that huge wound, she went overdrive and she became full blown Killer Frost with all white hair and pale skin, which meant she was was absorbing a lot more heat/energy and was a lot more angry. Like a switch. She develops a personality disorder like a Jekyll and Hyde situation, or an Incredible Hulk where she has to control her emotions.

This makes sense she'd develop a personality disorder with her powers, considering all the emotional baggage she went through with losing Ronnie, having her career ruined by the accelerator explosion, the whole twisted fake Jay/Zoom relationship, meeting her E2 doppelganger last year, her terrible mom, and losing her father at a young age. All of that trauma was bound to break lose at some point. She has an origin story for a villain. That's why on 3x07 or 3x21, when you listen to Killer Frost's quotes, she isn't literally Killer Frost, she's just Caitlin Snow expressing her anger, fears, hate, and pain when she goes nuts. She had emotional outbursts and was trying to get rid of her powers the wrong way before she became full blown Killer Frost.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does hair start to grow slower and slower as it gets longer?

Have always wondered this.

[Assistant]
Your hair is constantly cycling through stages of growth.

It grows, reaches maturity, and then falls out, at which point a new hair strand is started. Of course, it can also break (such as in "split ends"), but no matter what it will fall out at some point.

If you get a buzz cut, all your hairs are going to be growing at once from virtually the same length. But as time goes on, some of them will hit the end of their cycle faster than others and fall out. These must start back over from the beginning. The effect is that you're going to have to get a trim, or else they will not be even.

As it gets longer, you eventually reach a point where it can't get any longer, since the time it takes to reach that length is equal to the length of the growth cycle.


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

[User]
[Resident Evil] Since item boxes share the same dimensions, could Leon and Claire use it to travel to places that has been locked before to the other side with another item box?

Y know, like jump inside the item box like a portal and come out to the other item box.

[Assistant]
You'd have to have a guy open it in that other room. If you open it yourself from the inside, you just end up in the same room where you jumped inside the box. A person opening the box in a different room would trigger the teleportation thing and you could come out.

Basically you'd have to have Claire jump in the box in room A and Leon open the box in room B for Claire to fast travel to room B from room A. And then he could put Claire in his inventory.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Were there any Imperial Moffs or officers who honestly tried to look out for the best interest of the people they governed?

[Assistant]
Yes, actually. A good number. Remember that the Empire at its core was basically just the Galactic Republic under a new name, and most people just wanted to live their lives without fear of another galaxy spanning war threatening to kill them all at any moment. They served the Empire as a means to secure the future, and either willfully ignored the bad sides rearing their heads over the decades, or secretly fought against them.

Rae Sloane was an ardent Imperial officer who genuinely wanted to make the galaxy a better place. She would sometimes question or refuse orders she knew to be out of line or outright wrong.

Wullf Yularen was an officer in the Republic who became part of Imperial security. His experience in the clone wars made him wary of people who would betray their own government, since that very attitude is what he thinks started the clone wars in the first place.

Grand Admiral Thrawn actually joined the Empire in hopes of turning its resources to fighting the shadowy threat that lurked on the fringes of the galaxy. (probably Snoke, or related to Snoke) He ruthlessly hunted the rebellion simply because he needed the Empire to be free of distractions so it could put its full might to the real conflict. It's a tragic irony that it seems Palpatine had in fact created the Empire to actually find and/or JOIN that evil threat.

For a long time, Alexsandr Kallus believed the Empire to be a force for good as well, since it had the might and willpower to ensure another clone wars-level conflict never happened again. Like Thrawn, he was dedicated to fighting the rebels because they represented a real threat to galactic peace. He just wanted stability in the galaxy. Of course, once he was directly exposed to Imperial hypocrisy and cruelty, he switched sides.


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

[User]
[DC Comics] [The Flash] Why doesn't the Flash crash into the ground while running DOWN the side of a building?

I get, in theory, why the Flash can run up the side of a building. But how does he adjust to the perpendicular of gravity when running back down? Is it the same principle of exerting infinitesimal horizontal force to adhere to the side of a building while running up? If so, can he fall infinitely far?

P.S. While I am a comics fan, I'm only up to Ep. 9 of the TV series. No spoilers, please. ;-)

P.P.S. In this same episode, the team finds a clue by accessing the VA, which "finally got around to digitizing its documents." I can suspend disbelief while watching/reading science fiction, but that's just crazytalk. ;-)

[Assistant]
Speedforce

Edit: Flash's body emits an aura that allows him to cling to any surface.

When he's running at super speeds he is still reacting to things at the same speed we could react to things going at normal speeds. Just tuned up to near light speeds. This means that at the moment he reaches the level of the building where he would slam into the floor, he can react in such a way so he can readjust his feet and go from vertical to horizontal.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do internet-based voice calls have lag but standard phone calls don't?

I've got some family in Australia and it's always amazed me how a WhatsApp call, despite both having very fast internet speeds, will have a bit of lag (normally around a second or two) but a standard landline phone call the same distance will have none at all. And the same even applies to local calls.

Essentially, what is it about standard phone communication (landline or mobile) which allows it to transfer data thousands of miles absolutely instantaneously? Will we ever hit internet speeds which allow the same thing?

[Assistant]
Standard lines dont really transmit data as much as transmitting signals.

Voice over IP works by sending data in packets over the internet. Internet protocols work differently than standard phone lines. Standard phone line calls basically happen at the speed of electricity. VOIP data is sent in packets that get routed through the internet along with all other kinds of data. The time it takes for this processing is called latency. When your device sends of the stream of voice data in these packets it doesnt care how they get there and they may take different routes and arrive out of order and have to be out back together, thats called jitter. Together, latency and jitter are what you experience as lag. Theres also another concept called buffering, which basically is a way to compensate for the time all the above takes. All of this happens and rehappens throughout the call and is constantly changing. Both clients basically measure the time it takes to send and receive packets and try to compensate.


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

[User]
[Black Mirror: White Christmas] Why go through all this trouble to convict a man whose mind you own.

The point of White Christmas is the police have recorded a man's mind via advanced technology, and are trying to get it confess to murder. Which is fair.

Except: why go through the whole elaborate interrogation method if you can *record people's minds*? Just check his memories and see if the murder is in there. We know it's a perfect copy, or at least they assume it is(if it wasn't, the confession's testimony would be meaningless), and this isn't like White Bear, they're not being intentionally sadistic.

So why bother? When you have conclusive evidence he did it in the form of looking in his head and checking, why do you need a confession?

[Assistant] There's likely limits placed on what they can and cannot do to a virtual mind. Something like the police not being able to look through yout phone if it's locked without a warrant or your consent. Probably something similar to memories where they cannot expressly search your memories for incrimination but can use a confession of your memories. It just saves them a lot of headaches and paperwork to prove the memories are genuine and unaltered if they have a confession to go along with it.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are videogame cutscenes, intros and menu scenes rendered in real time instead of using a pre-recorded video?

[Assistant] You might have different armour on when the cutscene happens, or if its a different time of day in game? It should look fairly consistent with the game as youre playing it when you trigger the cutscene.


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

[User]
[Dead Space] How are the first Necromorphs created?

The marker gets people to kill each other to make bodies to be converted, but how is the first Necromorph made with nothing to infect/create it?

[Assistant]
The markers emit guided electromagnetic pulses which subtly alter the genetic code and proteins of nearby corpses to re-animate them.  The markers are capable of very precise and subtle electromagnetic manipulation of surrounding objects.

So basically xray, gamma rays and radio waves that modify the atomic structure of surrounding brains and bodies.


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

[User]
ELI5 how we know we can trust the web browser with our usernames and passwords?

The browser sees all the logins we make, with websites, usernames, and passwords in plain text. How do we know it isnt remembering them and sending them back to the mother ship?

Its possible someone would inspect the code of open source browsers and make a noise if they found something, but even then most people dont build from source, so theres no need for the source to be the same as the downloaded app.

2FA makes it less of a problem, but there are still plenty of juicy pickings for the evil browser.

[Assistant] This is actually a pretty good question. Bottom line is, you cant. Most browsers are closed source, so you cant know. But there are security researchers who are always watching what software and how it communicates looking for unexpected behavior. Theres also the risk to the company. If one instance were confirmed of the software doing something like that, it could totally ruin the whole company.


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

[User]
Why does Moana Kea have so many cinder cones?

Just came back from a trip to Hawaii, and we drove over the Saddle Road, and I was really surprised by how many cinder cones are scattered all over the south side of Moana Kea. By contrast, there are comparatively few on the north side of Moana Loa.

I've spent a lot of time around volcanoes in the PNW, from Mt. Baker to Shasta, and never seen that quantity of cinder cones on any of them (although Adams does have a very distinctive cinder cone on the north side.)  I assume at least some of them would be erased by glacial activity, but apparently Moana Kea used to have glaciers.

[Assistant]
Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea are both shield volcanoes formed by the Hawaiian Plume, but they are in different phases of life for volcanoes of this type. Mauna Loa is in active shield building, where you have large volumes of silica-poor lavas with low viscosity with frequent eruptions. The eruptions occur both from the central, summit vent, and from fissures along the flanks of the mountain. Mauna Kea is currently dormant and has entered the post-shield phase. During this phase lavas become more silica rich, with higher viscosity, and usually have a higher concentration of water, CO2, and SO4 in the magma. Higher viscosity lavas with higher volatile contents are more explosive, gases the exsolve from lava as it rises cannot escape like bubbles in a pot of boiling water. They grow in the lava, becoming bigger as lava rises to the surface. This makes the lavas less dense, making them ascend faster, and eventually when lava hits the atmosphere, they explode, creating cinders.

You can also get cinder cones during active shield building, but it isnt as common, and since there are so many lava flows happening all the time, the landscape is constantly being covered by new flows and any surface record of cinder cones are lost. Mauna Kea has not been active since 4000 years ago, though it is likely to become active again at some point in the post-shield stage.

An interesting detail about Hawaii is that there are actually two trends of volcanoes, called the Kea and Loa trends, that can be identified by rock chemistry. On the big island Kohala, Mauna Kea, and Kilauea make up the Kea trend, and Hualalai, Mauna Loa, and Loihi make up the Loa trend.

Edited to add some nots that were lost.


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

[User]
A question about Being and Nothing in hegel

Hegel says that being and nothing are the most fundamental concepts because there can be no concepts without them.

He says that being and nothing are "indeterminate" (because being is pure being and  nothing is pure nothing)

What does any of this mean? What does it mean for something to be determinate in Hegel's system.

Should being be understood as pure presence and nothing as pure absence?

[Assistant]
In the *Science of Logic*, "being" is just the minimal object of thought. Hegel thinks philosophical thought must be a completely presuppositionless science (it cannot assume anything at all), so the only way that philosophy can begin is with the mere fact of beginning, i.e., with mere thinking. The "pure, indeterminate thought of being" is just Hegel's term for this beginning.

Being is *pure* because it is not an empirical concept; it does not draw on any particular experience for its content. Being is *indeterminate* because to determine something is to specify it as being *some way*--which, in turn, is to mediate it through a relation to *another* concept (so, for instance, to say of a tree that it is green is to determine the tree by bringing it in relation to the determination "green").

But, of course, if being is a completely indeterminate thought--if it is just the minimal object of any thinking whatsoever, in fact, the mere fact of thinking itself--then it is a thought of nothing at all. So we arrive at another pure, indeterminate thought, the thought of nothing. The mere thought of being vanishes into the thought of nothing. (The fact that being vanishes into nothing reveals, for Hegel, the vanishing itself as a third concept that mediates between being and nothing. And because now there is mediation, there is determination, so we arrive at the concept of determinate being. This is how the *Science of Logic* gets off the ground and moves from mere indeterminate thoughts to conceptual determinations.)


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

[User] LI5 How Can You Own A House, But Not The Land That It's Built On? And What Exactly Are Property taxes?

[Assistant]
I can try to help a little.  With property tax, you are paying for the space that your 'Property' takes up.

 Lets say you have a table.  This table only has a limited amount of space.  People want to put stuff on the table (food, toys, etc.).  There are more people that want to put things on the table then there is space.  This means that not everyone can put something of theirs on the table.  Because of this, if you are 'lucky' enough to get a spot on the table for your item, it has value, since there are people that are waiting to take your spot.  The more people that want to put their things on the table, the more valuable your space becomes.

 **This is why property tax is higher in locations that a lot of people want to live.**

 The property tax itself is the amount you pay for the physical space you take up at the table.  The more stuff you want to put on the table, the more property tax you pay.


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

[User]
CMV. I am insensitive to the Gaming Industry's portrayal of women, minorities, and how it deals with other socially sensitive topics.

I just don't care anymore, if I can say that I cared at all.

I'm involved in the industry that creates games, and I just flat don't care about how the medium handles people.  I think that game designers, artists, writers, producers, directors, and such other entities that are involved in the creation of a game should be exempt of the social prosecution of concerned citizens.

This isn't to say that I fully support games advocating for the mass slaughtering of the Jewish population, or that a game that encourages a return to human slavery or the wide scale oppression of any subset of people, but I genuinely don't see the harm of a game being marketed with a sexy lady(or even a massive number of games being marketed similarly.)  Or the protagonist of a gang-related game being black.  What's the harm in this?

Are we, as a society, so simple minded and impressionable that we cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality?  Between what is socially acceptable and what isn't?

Do we really need all facets of entertainment sterilized with the sharp corners sanded down and padded?

Do all off-color and inside jokes need to be cast aside for the sake of not making someone uncomfortable?

Do we need to deny our sexuality so that sexually absent-minded people can breathe knowing that no one showed a nipple or butt-cheek in the making of a game?

Do we need to tell fans that they can't dress as their more risque favorites?  Do we have to tell people that you can't be sexy and strong, both in form and in character?

Do we need to ensure that all characters are accurately, but tastefully represented for their nationality, gender, religion, marital status, age, and whatever else it is journalists find to incite the rage of their audience?

I don't think so.  I think that it's honestly a waste of time to try to sanitize everything, since its impossible to please everyone all the time.  I think that, it is disingenuous to deny the realities of our history and our present by painting things politically correct.  I think that the beautiful shine the most when there's still a bit of tarnish.

If the industry needs to change, it will change in time, and I don't think any amount of drum banging will help.  If anything, I think most of it wears on people, until they're as exhausted as I am about it.

Everyone else I've told this thinks I'm an asshole, and my job hinges on what people think of what I make.  CMV, and give me a reason to care.

[Assistant]
Louis C.K. and Patton Oswalt both have thoughts on the subject of rape jokes. Essentially the idea is that rape jokes are only funny if they're punching up - there's a horrific imbalance of power and it's resulted in a great deal of trauma. Making jokes about the trauma, about the victim, is punching down. Your jokes are making things worse. Joking about the rapist, the fact that society let this happen, is punching up. It's attacking the powerful, the people who should have been in control, the person who stole power they were never meant to have.

Games are an entertainment medium like any other, and it's one that has a great deal of power. Grid iron players get plays from what works in Madden; music featured in game soundtracks sell more copies. Games are a part of culture now, and culture absolutely influences how people feel. We wear deodorant because an early 20th century advertising campaign stigmatised body odor. We feel worried about nuclear power in part because the movie The China Syndrome, about a nuclear power plant meltdown, came out a week before the Three Mile Island meltdown. Untold numbers of African-American children, women especially, were inspired by Uhura on the bridge of the Enterprise. And as an entertainment medium that your audience listens to, you, as a game designer, have power to influence how people see the world.

It is so, so easy to use it to punch up, if you understand what target you're trying to hit. Break stereotypes put in place by people who want to keep black people in their place. Don't give the people peddling the madonna/whore dichotomy any oxygen. Even better, mock them. Be satirical. You can be edgy, you can be sexy, if the social norm you're trying to push is one that's worth breaking.

Or, at least, you could recognise that you don't want to do that, and that is also a valid choice. Plenty of games focus on trying to make something fun, and they step away from areas that need to be handled with care so they can spend their time as wisely as possible - although it's a lot harder than it seems, because unless you're making a puffball like Kirby you're probably introducing baggage.

And then there's the other choice, the one where you punch down. You already recognise that what matters to your game is whether people like it, but you don't yet recognise that your audience is so much broader than you realise. Kids in Iraq will play your game. Female rape victims will play your game. African-American kids in poor neighbourhoods will play your game. And they will internalise what you show them as being acceptable.

Besides, being more empathic with your audience will improve your game design skills. Why do you think they run playtests? Because a game's nothing without a player, and you want to make sure that you think the player is feeling is what the player is actually feeling. You don't want them bored where they should be excited, you don't want them amused when you want them scared, and you don't want them disgusted when you want them laughing.


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

[User]
[DC Comics] Since Earth 3 is a "mirrored" universe, is their history mirrored as well?

Earth 3 has a history where everything is reversed. The "Justice League" are the bad guys while the "Legion of Doom" are the good guys.

Does this mean their history ran the same way, just reversed? Revolutions, Civil Wars, World Wars still happened except the winners in our history are the bad guys in theirs?

[Assistant] In the original appearance of Earth-3 in the 60s, yes. Christopher Columbus was an American who discovered Europe, England won its independence from the US, John Wilkes Booth was the President of the United States and was assassinated by Abraham Lincoln.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does letting your body go limp protect your body/give you a higher chance of survival than bracing when in a car crash or falling off a cliff etc?

Ive heard stories of people going rag doll and surviving these types of things vs people bracing and not surviving.

[Assistant]
Bracing usally places long bones ( arms , legs) and other large support structures ( pevlis, spine) in line to take the full force of the impact. This usally ends up causing multiple fractures. This causes massive internal bleeding, and if enough of that happens  for too long you die.
Think of it as being at the beach by the ocean, a waves are coming. If you try and stand there braced you can stand up to the smaller ones but at a certain point a big enough wave will knock you over. However if you lay back relax and float the waves will travel through and around you and a big wave that would have knocked you over does very little to you. Of course there will eventually be a big enough wave, or you will be in the wrong spot during a wave, that you will still get knocked around no matter what.


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

[User] ELI5: why do games sometimes have glitches where their characters bend and stretch in surreal ways, phase through the ground, or vibrate uncontrollably?

[Assistant]
Difficult to say. A character could have thousands of moving points, all working together through calculations. There could be quite a few reasons why those calculations dont add up at that point.

Maybe theres an undividable number for some reason, some programming languages have floating point errors (weird bug where the result of a calculation is actually incorrect), but also simple human errors.

Especially in an open world where literally everything can influence the characters movement, its impossible to cover every single thing. Its also impossible to test every single thing, because very often its not a single action that causes a bug, but a string of subsequent actions.

For simplification, imagine having 10 buttons, and 10 times you can press any button. That gives you 10^10 = 10 billion possibilities. Thats just 10 buttons and 10 actions. A game can have thousands of buttons (things to interact with) and in theory an unlimited amount of subsequent actions.


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

[User] Marx said in Capital that "Wherever the want of clothing forced them to it, the human race made clothes for thousands of years, without a single man becoming a tailor".Is this true? How exactly did production take place in such an economy?

[Assistant]
Marx is referencing the fact that craft specialisation didn't come about until relatively late in human history, which is true. As best we can tell from archaeological evidence, it wasn't common until the Neolithic period (8,5003,000 BCE) or later. Before that, most societies will have used what's called the domestic mode of production, where each household was essentially a self-sufficient economic unit. In other words, if you needed new clothes, you spent the day making clothes. There was probably some division of labour within households (e.g. women make the pots) and to a lesser extent amongst extended families (e.g. cousin Ed is really good at making polished stone axes), as well as limited exchange within and between groups, but prehistoric societies simply weren't set up in such a way that one person could specialise in one thing and have others provide for all their other needs. So no tailors. And if you went back even further, into the Palaeolithic period (before 8,500 BCE) you'd see more of an "individual mode of production", where the average person's toolkit was so simple that they could just make everything in it by themselves.

Note Marx didn't actually know how long craft specialisation had been around. It wasn't until after his death that prehistorians, influenced by his work, started asking these questions about prehistoric societies. But he was very interested in ethnography, and at the time people thought that accounts of so-called "primitive" people around the world could also be windows into the past.


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

[User]
[General] What if everyone on Earth found out they were fictional?

If everyone on Earth were to find out they were just characters in a story like in Grant Morrison's Animal Man, what would happen to society?

[Assistant] Are we meant to know we're fictional, or do we become "self-aware"?  If the writer intends for the characters to realize they're fictional, then what happens is completely up to the author.  If we *weren't* meant to realize it, then the very moment we realize we're fictional, we're no longer fictional because we're living creatures deviating from the intended writing.


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

[User]
My Stupid Question:Humans evolved from apes, but how do apes still exist?

Look, I don't know something if I was never taught about it. I want to know. Is it that there was once one species of animal that through some reason some members were sepearated and evolved into differnent species?

[Assistant]
Yes, you're exactly right. There was once a population of some kind of prehistoric apes. They spread around, broke up into groups, and different groups evolved into all sorts of apes - humans, chimps, gorillas, orang utans, and others that have since become extinct.

Note that the apes we evolved from were not modern apes, like chimps, but rather both we and chimps evolved from some prehistoric apes.


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

[User]
What causes the blood vessels to constrict or tighten which leads to high blood pressure?

Additionally, is that the only reason our blood pressure rises? I'm trying to understand the underlying mechanisms that cause blood pressure to rise and fall.

[Assistant]
Blood pressure is determined by 3 factors:

- **Blood volume**. The more blood you have, the higher the blood pressure. Blood volume increases when you drink more than you pee (for example, kidney disease).

- **Heart function**. The faster and harder the heart pumps, the higher the blood pressure. Heart activity increases in response to adrenaline (fight or flight).

- **Vessel diameter**. The narrower the blood vessels, the higher the blood pressure. Vessels constrict in response to adrenaline, or due to plaque buildup (cholesterol).


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

[User]
[Tolkien] If death is supposed to be a gift to Men why do the Valar and/or Eru treat prolonged life as a reward for the Nmenoreans?

This has always seemed strange to me. Death isn't supposed to be a bad thing, but when Nmenor starts fucking up they get punished with shorter lives. Kinda sends a contradictory message.

[Assistant]
In the grand scheme of things, Death is good. The ability to die is what gives life meaning.

Doesnt mean we want to die.

Yes, we know at some point we have to, but we want that to be in the future, not tomorrow.


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

[User]
I have well water, people say not to "waste water" (mean let the tap run) but is that even possible since the water will collect back in the aquifer?

How long does it take to reach the aquifer if the well is 300 ft deep? Or is it a general reminder as to not get in the habit?

[Assistant] It depends on how may people are using the aquifer and how quickly the aquifer recharges. The time it takes water to percolate down to an aquifer varies quite a lot, from 1 day to 10,000 years, all depends on the soil. Most of the big aquifers in the US recharge between 70 and 700 mm per year, but that's a different measurement from the percolation time.


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

[User]
[Starcraft] How did the zerg achieve space travel and FTL travel?

Also, how do flyers like mutalisks fly in space?

[Assistant]
FTL travel in the Starcraft verse is achieved by opening a warp rift. Protoss can harness these rifts much more efficiently (hence warping anything in), but humans and zerg also use warp rifts for space travel. It's just far more crude (and in the case of the zerg, a biological mechanism).

Space travel in general is aboard leviathans, which do not require oxygen. Mutalisks can endure the vacuum of space, and can go quite a while without needing to breathe, but they still need to breathe eventually. Think of their air as their fuel, and if they run out of fuel, they die.


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

[User]
ELI5: When an artist/band's "Greatest Hits" or "Best Of" album is released, how does the process take shape?

Is there a general timeframe after the artists retirement (or most previous release) that it is considered the best time for a summation/reminder of the artist?

And would the idea typically suggested by the label, or is it moreso the manager/artist that feel the need for it?

[Assistant] A Greatest Hits album is common in any record deal. After so many releases, the artist and the label (to varying degrees, of course) will get together to assemble the track listing and many times, the artist will be required to produce a number of exclusive tracks for the release. All of this will depend on the artist and their deal.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do vitamin pills smell so awful?

Most tubs of supposedly healthy vitamins or other supplements stink when you take the lid off. Why?

[Assistant]
What all is on the label?

Most vitamins don't smell too bad by themselves. Some things, like Choline or L-Carnitine have a pungent fishy smell. As do any omega 3/6/9 products, even plant derived ones. Any fruit/vegetable powders in it?


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

[User]
(Pokemon: Origins) Where does the pokedex get it's information from?

Their is no information on the pokedex until Red points at a pokemon and it scans it....but where does it get all its information from? How does it know how hot, how strong, or how fast a pokemon is?

[Assistant] The pokedex is a biological analytical tool built by professor Oak. Oak had a general idea on how many pokemon were out there... way too many for him to personally study in his life time. So rather than do all the hard work and scouting himself, he made a mutually beneficial tool that young trainers could use: the pokedex. The device is programed to read the biology of nearby pokemon, known and unknown, and deduct data on limits, types and abilities. The data is networked throughout the world, and reported back to Oak who compares various bits of collected data, and refines the process. Updates are pushed out remotely when trainers check in to trade out poke balls. It's really quite ingenious, when you think about it.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it so hard to make walking up or down stairs in video games look natural?

[Assistant]
For one it has to do with the fact that most video game characters don't move at a normal/natural pace. Because of this the game models transition from a run/walk to walking/running up stairs will look weird unless you have the game character go up the stairs two or three steps at a time. And even then you'll have problems.

Simply put... The pace at which most people go up stairs, and which looks normal/natural to us, isn't conducive to a stimulating gameplay environment.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why ships are commonly are called "she" or "her"?

i Know cars are classified by this too.

[Assistant]
The truth of the matter is that about 600 years ago, a man by the name of Prince Henry (Henry Henrique) who became known as Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) was a Portuguese royal prince that "financed" many explorers. Prince Henry sent many sailing expeditions down Africa's west coast, but did not go on them himself. Thanks to Prince Henry's money, Portuguese ships sailed to the Madeira Islands, rounded Cape Bojador, sailed to Cape Blanc and around Cap Vert, as well as many other places of discovery.

While not nearly so popular as Columbus, Prince Henry actually financed a far greater amount of ships and while he himself did not sail on any of them, the ships he financed, discovered many more lands then any other sailors and exployers of his time. Magellan, being one of them.

At that time, ships were commonly named after the King or Queens that financed them. Prince Henry's ships however had various names. He however was quoted as saying that all his ships were a "she" because "like a woman, they take much powder and paint to keep them looking good".


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

[User] ELI5: How are flies able to navigate through the tiniest openings to get into my house yet can't find their way out through an open front door?

[Assistant]
There are trillions of flies outside zipping about in random directions. The odds *one* finds a way into your home are pretty good.

One fly in your house zipping about in random directions has a much, *much* smaller chance of finding its way out. Especially since they travel by sensing light, so windows are the ultimate trick.

Also, your home is cool and out of the sun. With lots of tasty trash. Would you be trying to leave?

Also also, observer bias. The fly may escape while a new one enters...can you tell the difference?

In other words, just because *someone* won the lottery doesn't mean you will!


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

[User] ELI5: How does America have so much money?

[Assistant]
Essentially the US emerged as a world power after WWI and especially after WWII. Prior to that the US was a bit of a isolationist country - hell it almost never even got into WWII officially if it weren't for Japan.

The US's late entry into the war allowed it to be spared from the massive amount of debt wracked up by all of the other major world nations of the time.

When the war was over the US took advantage of its new found power, the USD became the benchmark currency, hence giving it and it's company's a natural advantage in commerce.

They still enjoy that advantage today, however, the weakening US presence, the reemergence of Russia and China's massive rise on the world stage (2nd largest economy, poised to overtake the US in the next decade) has the end days of US dominance in sight.


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

[User]
I do not think the U.S. needs to have Daylight Savings Time. CMV

I do not believe that the U.S. needs the Daylight Savings Time change any longer. We do not have to worry about saving our candle wax or making sure we are tilling soil during day light - we have artificial light that can be used for these.
I do not see the benefit of changing our internal clocks to justify the time change.
How is it, in the U.S., that in Arizona & Hawaii, they do not change their times - and it doesn't seem like they are loosing out on anything either. How is it that under George W. Bush, the Daylight Savings Time was extended?

I'm sure I have thought of other reasons why we do not need it, but of course, once I started this - I forgot them!

[Assistant] Well, the basic idea is still the same -- whether you're wasting your candle wax or running up the electric bill, you're still using up money and resources so that you can be awake when the sun is not.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't humans see clearly underwater?

[Assistant] Light travels differently in water, due to the refractive index of water.  That's why looking through the surface of water, straight objects can look bent, and spearfishing is so difficult!  Since we are evolved to see through air, our vision gets screwed up when looking at light through water.  Having an air pocket between the water and the eyeball like in goggles solves this as the light goes back to normal speed in the air.


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

[User] Is soap required to "foam" in order to work properly?

[Assistant]
Nope! Two soaps that don't foam are laundry detergent and the type of soap that goes in dishwashers. If you put a foaming type of soap in either of those machines, it will cause a huge mess. However, those soaps still clean dishes and clothes just fine.

Lots of cosmetics companies actually add things (like sodium dodecyl sulfate or ammonium lauryl sulfate), to soaps to make them foam more, because many people associate foam with cleanliness.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Were there any benefits the Empire could provide its citizens that the Republic couldnt? Would anyone besides military personnel and politicians have benefited from the regime change?

[Assistant]
The Republic was the very picture of a bureaucracy.  Word has it that when Naboo came under an illegal siege by the Trade Federation, the slow-burning process of a Senate hearing was the fastest option.  Days, weeks, possibly months of proceedings while Republic citizens were subjugated by an army of metal and malice.  And those proceedings would be on whether or not to send aid in the first place, Ashla only knows how long it would take to decide when, how much, and how often.

No such problem under the Empire.  If an Imperial world came under the same kind of threat, the Empire would waste no time in getting a fleet in orbit, targeting key points, and unseating the rogue power.  They would rebuild, reestablish control, and leave a garrison for good measure.

In fact, Queen Amidala's journey is a good measurement for this.  Under the Empire, the Trade Federation incursion would have been dealt with by the time she reached Coruscant.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Since Sirius is infamous and can't go outside, could he get plastic surgery done on his face? As in, standard muggle surgery. Do wizards have any way of detecting that?

[Assistant] There are hints that a wizard's magic gives them some degree of unconcious protection eg harrys hair grows back in a day and Neville bounced when dropped out a window. So muggle plastic surgery would likley fade and revert. And there must be ways to find identities easily as the maurauders map does it and it was made by a bunch of kids.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can we take hi-def photos of galaxies light-years away, but yet can only get little pixel pictures of Pluto?

[Assistant] With a pair of binoculars you will be able to view huge skyscrapers from miles away. But you can't see a gnat on a car just 50 yards away. Same idea basically. Galaxies are massive objects lit by the billions of stars within them. Pluto is just a speck reflecting a tiny bit of light from the sun.


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

[User] ELI5: when you buy a burial plot do you purchase it forever? If so, how do graveyards remain profitable? If not, what happens to your remains?

[Assistant]
In the UK when you buy a plot you have a lease on it. Usually for at least one hundred years, often longer.  So until at least one hundred years after the last person is buried in the cemetery all the graves remain intact. It is often longer. Eventually the graveyard will be left to get overgrown.  In cities where the land is valuable graveyards are sometimes redeveloped. When this happens all the graves are dug up and any remains are moved, often interned in one or two graves.
Graveyards are usually owned by the church or local council so profit is not a factor.


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

[User]
How do imaginary numbers play into the real/physical world?

I was reading up on imaginary numbers and a source stated that they started out purely imaginary and for mathematical purposes and some stuff with Euler's equation (that I don't really understand except that it has to do with complex planes or something), but how does it govern physical things, like springs or circuits or other things with some sort of resonance. If it's just imaginary, how is it able to dictate/show non-imaginary things?

[Assistant]
Real numbers are just as imaginary as Imaginary Numbers. It's all just made up stuff that can be used to talk about things very precisely. Someone just chose to call imaginary numbers "imaginary", it was a made up thing that just stuck that has absolutely nothing to do with the "realness" of these numbers.

Complex numbers (which have real and imaginary parts) describe 2D rotations. Just as regular numbers can describe length, scales, and things, complex numbers can describe rotations. The number i is a good way to talk about 90 degree rotations. The number sqrt(2)/2 + i\*sqrt(2)/2 is a good way to talk about 45 degree rotations. The number -i is a good way to talk about 270 degree rotations. In general, complex numbers can be used to talk about scaling things and rotating things simultaneously. Ie, the number 1+i is good at doing 45 degree rotations and scaling things up by a factor of sqrt(2).

This means that anything that rotates or oscillates can be described using complex (ie imaginary) numbers. So alternating currents are great at being described in this way, because they oscillate. Springs as well. Also things in Quantum Mechanics can be described in this way too. We often break up normal things into oscillatory components, and this is best done using complex numbers because of this. So if you want to find out the key tones that your voice uses, then it goes through math that uses complex numbers in order to pick this stuff out.

Much more generally, the complex numbers "complete" arithmetic, it has all the numbers we need. So in more abstract stuff, you absolutely cannot avoid it. You may be able to get around having to use complex numbers in the other stuff (it's more messy and more work, but you can do it), but you eventually can't avoid it. For instance, examining the behavior of systems that use feedback to adjust going forward, you basically have to use complex numbers because the way to analyze them forces you to need all types of numbers.

Don't be confused by the word "real" that we use for "Real numbers", they're just as made up, useful, and imaginary as "Imaginary numbers".


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

[User]
Difference between Docker and LXC(Linux containers).

Not sure if this is an appropriate place to ask this. Please redirect me if it isnt. I've been reading about Docker and the Linux kernel features that it uses. However, I just cant figure out in simple terms what exactly is the difference between Docker and LXC. Is it correct to say that:
Docker is to LXC what Github is to git?

Also, what features does Docker add itself as a service when the underlying technology that it uses is based on and built into the Linux kernel?

[Assistant]
There isn't a lot of *fundamental* difference between Docker and LXC. They both use the same underlying Linux kernel features -- namespaces, cgroups, chroot, network bridge devices, and so on -- to provide isolation between processes running in different "containers".

The main thing that Docker provides and LXC doesn't is a slightly higher level of abstraction: namely, a distinction between "containers" and "images". With LXC, you typically treat a container like a virtual machine: you start it up, log into it, and then configure it. Docker is designed to be used in a more automatable, reproducible way: instead of configuring each container individually, you define an "image" that contains a complete snapshot of its filesystem, and then clone that image into the container's chroot before starting it up. It also provides convenient features for creating and distributing those images.

(From an implementation perspective, the crucial kernel feature that enables this functionality is the "overlayfs" filesystem. Overlayfs allows you to start with a "base" filesystem image -- for instance, a clean installation of Ubuntu -- and then derive multiple other images from it by installing packages, and then in turn run multiple containers with their own instances of that image's filesystem. The overlayfs filesystem makes it possible to start containers very efficiently by only storing the deltas between adjacent layers, while ensuring that changes to later layers don't propagate to the earlier ones they're based on. The Docker daemon takes care of managing this complexity behind the scenes; you can inspect the overlaid layers by browsing through `/var/lib/docker`.)


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

[User] ELI5: What is happening to our bodies when we see something that makes us "cringe"?

[Assistant] Cringing is a form of empathy. If you see a child crying on the street because he lost his parents you feel bad, sometimes even physically, because you can imagine how it feels for the child. Empathy is our instinct to put ourself in somebody else's position. Watching a movie where something incredibly sad can make you cry. Watching a movie where something really embarrassing happens makes you cringe. It's a different reaction to the same thing, empathy.


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

[User]
[Culture series] what happens if a Mind defies the will of the citizens under its care?

I heard that culture citizens can vote on certain things like war. What happens if their supervising Mind just says "nope, not gonna do what you want!"

[Assistant]
They get shunned by the rest of the community of Minds, and likely labeled an eccentric. All the people under their supervision request for transfer and move to someone more understanding.

The worst offenders probably get stripped of their Ship bodies and are left on some Orbital somewhere to atone for their crimes.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] would modern day bullets be more effective than lasers?

It just seems to me like the lasers are very ineffective at times and do not seem to work any better than a bullet. Many of the Jedi can block the beams but could they deflect the rain of lead from a mini gun?

[Assistant]
Guns do exist in the star wars universe and are called slug throwers. They were the prefered weapon of a Jedi hunter because the bullets can't be deflected by a lightsaber. That doesn't stop a Jedi dodging them, blocking them with a physical shield, pulling the gun out of your hand, or just plain pulling a Neo, however.

Other than that, blasters are considered superior weaponry. The only time slug throwers are seen to be prefered is when a blaster (or the tech to maintain it) is not available, or hunting jedi.


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

[User]
ELI5 why do fish float upside down when dead or dying?

I've only seen goldfish do this but sometimes they did it and they were still alive and they'd swim around upside down, why?

[Assistant]
Fish have a pocket of air called a "swim bladder" that they use to help themselves swim up and down.

When a fish is healthy, they usually use chemical reactions to add or remove gas to the pocket, or just gulp in air and burp it out.

When a fish is dying, it starts to lose control of the pocket and may wind up overfilling it and becoming unable to remain upright.


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

[User]
[Lovecraft] Azathoth is dreaming all of existence. Does that means when he wakes up he's destroyed too or will he be fine?

Like does Azathoth count as part of existence? Is he destroyed when he wakes up?

Or is Azathoth just some secret infinite dimensional nerd who was dreaming in class and then a jock comes in to cram him into a locker?

[Assistant] This is one of those things where the ~~Elder~~ Outer Gods mildly defy comprehension. Azathoth is reality, and he is within it, and it is his dream. It's impossible to say he would continue after the end of the universe/his dream, because there'd likely be no "after" - time may well itself be a part of his dream, so on waking it would cease. And forever it will have been that we never were, that he never slept.


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

[User] Why do milk or sugary drinks cause thicker saliva?

[Assistant]
I conducted a pretty thorough literature review to determine why exactly thicker saliva secretions are related to ingestion of some foods and drinks but not others.  Apparently there's a **lot** of research out there on saliva.

I finally hit paydirt with this study: *The influence of beverages on the stimulation and viscoelasticity of saliva: Relationship to mouthfeel?*

Milk was not studied, but acidic drinks like colas and tea, mint gum, and water were compared for their effects on saliva release, character of saliva, and subjective experience of the person salivating.

The major finding was that acidity of the beverage was one of the primary factors that caused release of copious amounts of hyperviscous (thick) saliva.  To quote the study directly:

"We consider that these effects arise due to the acidity stimulating the secretion of highly elastic saliva from the submandibular/sublingual glands while mechanical action predominately stimulates inelastic saliva from the parotid gland, as discussed extensively by Stokes and Davies (2007). It is anticipated that the stimulation of elastic saliva due to acidic beverages arises as a defence against acid erosion on teeth in order to promote formation of the salivary pellicle."

Milk, being slightly acidic, would likely thicken saliva via the same mechanism.

Note that there are other mechanisms with other foods and drink that thicken salivary secretions; among others, the capsaicin receptor triggered by spicy foods springs to mind.


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

[User]
Is there any scientific evidence AGAINST evolution

Like the title says.  I want to know if there is any evidence that shows evolution didn't occur.  If so, how does it do this?  I want to understand-outside of biblical evidence- why people believe creationism over evolution.  Thanks!

[Assistant]
Not really, but there are a few things for which there isn't yet a really convincing, fully understood mechanism.

Examples:

* How did the first self replicating organisms appear?
* How did they make the transition to DNA/RNA/proteins (the so-called "central dogma")?
* How did the first sex-determining systems evolve? For that matter, how do new ones evolve? (In some cases, there are very plausible explanations.)
* In general: How did (insert name of apparently irreducibly complex system) evolve? (Again, some of these actually have very plausible explanations.)
* How/why does rapid morphological change happen?

For some of these, it's not clear what a convincing mechanism would even look like. It may well be that, for some of these, we'll simply have to shrug our shoulders, admit a number of possible explanations, and say "we have no way to tell which of these is correct".

There are also some general evolutionary questions that aren't satisfactorily answered yet, such as:

* Why did insects colonize the land rather than crustaceans?
* Why did crustaceans colonize the sea rather than insects?
* What really drives speciation, on average?
* During (insert name of extinction event), why was (insert name of taxon) relatively untouched?

Again, there are many such questions for which we may never really have good answers.

In terms of evidence that is *directly contradictory* to evolution, there isn't really anyjust things the theory of evolution (and its relatives) can't and possibly won't be able to satisfactorily explain.

Your second question, why people believe biblical creation over evolution, has more to do with psychology than "hard" science. There are a number of counterintuitive things for which a good natural explanation a) doesn't yet exist or b) is very hard to understand. On the other hand, "God did it" is very easy to understand.

What is very curious about modern creationism is that some of their claims, like polystrate tree fossils somehow disproving the earth being old, were well understood by 19th century (creationist!) geologists to be nonsense. Those creationists believed the earth was very old and had been affected by a number of large cataclysms, after which God seeded new species onto the earth; the Noachian flood was the most recent such cataclysm. *Even these people knew more about science than modern "scientific" creationists do*. This should help drive home the point that modern creationism is based on successful campaigns of willful ignorance and outright dishonesty; there's a good reason no scientist who really examines the evidence has believed in Archbishop Ussher's chronology for the past two hundred years.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] Why did Sauron go with rings, and not a different object?

Sauron led the elves to create the Rings of Power and then secretly created the One Ring to influence all the others. Then his ring is sliced off (along with his fingers), leading to the events of the books. Why didn't he choose to forge another object which isn't worn on one of the weakest and most exposed parts of the body? Like a necklace, an earring, or perhaps a dapper wristwatch?

[Assistant]
He didn't intend for people to be cutting *his* fingers.

The whole point was to manipulate things from behind the scenes. If the ringwaiths or the dwarves kings got their fingers cut off, fuck it, not Sauron's problem. He'll just manipulate the next wearer.

Sauron much more of a mastermind then a front line fighter. He was only willing to enter conflict surrounded by an army and secure in his victory- and look how well *that* went.


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

[User] Covid-19 can have up to a 14 day incubation period, where some people have no symptoms. What is happening/what is the virus doing during that time?

[Assistant] Basically speaks to the reproduction rate of the virus. Until there is a large population of the virus it will not affect your body enough to cause adverse reactions aka symptoms. During this time because you are infected and human beings are constantly shedding cells as well as spewing particulate you can infect others.


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

[User]
ELI5:How is a credit card with a chip "more secure" than a strip in the US?

Nothing has changed in the online purchasing world in regard to credit cards, and while this may be anecdotal, my understanding is that's where the majority of fraud happens.  In brick and mortar situations, you're still simply presenting the card to a kiosk and sometimes/sometimes not signing the receipt.  Since there's no pin required on credit cards in the US, how are the new chip cards any more secure?  I've seen some vague answers to this, but nothing that ELI5's it.

[Assistant] The chip computes a control number that's specific to the time, store, and amount.  If you capture that, you don't have the information needed to make your own transaction.  The magstripe has all the information needed to make your own identical card.


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

[User] ELI5: When cosmologists talk about the shape of the universe, what does that mean?

[Assistant]
You are sitting on the surface of a sphere (or what we can treat as a sphere, for the sake of argument).

If you draw a small triangle, it will come very close to obeying the laws of Euclidean geometry (the geometry you probably learned in middle or high school). Its angles will sum to 180 degrees, it will have area (1/2)\*base\*height, and so on. In other words, even though you're on a sphere, your *local* space *looks like* a plane, in the sense that it approximates a plane better and better the more you zoom in.

But if you zoom out, geometry gets weird as the curvature of the Earth starts to become relevant. In very large triangles on the Earth, the angles *don't* sum to 180 degrees, the area *isn't* (1/2)\*base\*height, and so on. On a sphere, all sorts of things in Euclidean geometry break down. There are, for example, no such things as parallel straight lines on a sphere! All "straight lines" are great circles (like the lines of longitude, but not those of latitude) that eventually meet back up somewhere else on the Earth.

-----

The Universe as a whole behaves similarly, just with some extra coordinates. Rather than a 2d sphere that approximates to a 2D plane, it's a (???) that approximates to flat 4D space-time if you zoom in enough. What's at stake here is what happens when you *don't* zoom in.

For example, if you fell into a black hole, *your local space would still look like normal 4D space-time* to you. But the space everywhere *else* would look terribly twisted. Similarly, from outside a black hole, your local space still looks like normal 4D space-time, but the space near the black hole looks very twisted. This is, in essence, the same thing as how you and someone on the other side of the Earth can both look "up" but be looking in totally opposite directions.

The "shape" of the Universe is the question of what it looks like if you zoom **out**. And we don't know the answer to that question. We know it looks flat out to some pretty large distances (except for the local bending around massive objects), but we don't know whether that continues forever. We don't even know what "kind" of shape the Universe is. Is it like the surface of a sphere? Like a flat plane? Like a stranger shape like the surface of a torus (donut shape)? We don't know.

(These two questions - how the geometry works and what "kind" of shape it is - are related but distinct, and in the full mathematical treatment we're talking about geometry and topology respectively. But the difference between those is hard to ELI5.)


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

[User]
ELI5: does bleach remove stains in their entirety or just masks the color?

I had a severe nosebleed two nights ago that got on my white pillow sheets. I threw them in the laundry this morning but forgot to use bleach, which resulted in them having some dark stains.

I threw them in the laundry again but with bleach and the stain went away. So what does bleach actually do? Does it remove the stain (dried up blood, etc) or just removes the color (dried blood is still there)?

[Assistant]
Many of the stains we get on clothing are due to organic molecules, little groups of atoms bound together in particular structures.  Because they are rather large and sticky, they get stuck in the fibers of clothing or carpet and make stains.

Bleach is a strongly reactive substance, meaning that it interacts with the stain molecules.  Frequently it breaks the bonds holding the atoms in the stain molecules together, tearing them into smaller pieces that aren't colorful anymore.  These are washed away in the laundry.

There may be traces of the blood left, but most of it was chemically digested (broken apart) and washed away.


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

[User] [Star Wars] An officer is being force-choked by Vader. How would Vader react if on the verge of death the officer managed to mutter the words "Padme Lives"?

[Assistant] Vader can tell if the officer is lying through sensing the force within him. If the dude is lying, Vader might stop choking him and decide to give him the Watto treatment. If he's telling the truth, that'll complicate Vader's relationship with Sidious and he'll stop choking the officer, if only to make him clarify.


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

[User]
Do astronauts performing EVA experience atmospheric drag?

As we all know, the ISS orbits in the Thermosphere. This means that it is subject to (very little) atmospheric drag.
This makes one wonder whether an astronaut performing EVA on the Space Station experiences any drag effects, and if so, how much?

[Assistant]
They will experience drag effects, but they will be very very small. The ISS takes weeks to have a substantial orbital decay from drag, and it is orders of magnitude larger than an astronaut.

If an astronaut was on EVA, the ISS would slow down faster than s/he would, but it would have to be a very long spacewalk for the effects to be noticeable.


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

[User]
[MCU/TFAWS] Zemo is a smart and resourceful individual. Why doesn't he (try to) learn magic?

Zemo is cunning, resourceful, and wicked smart. He also has a hatred towards super-soldiers; whether that extends to other types of super-beings isn't clear.

So, given his mental acuity, why hasn't he tried to learn magic? Not only would it suit his mental abilities, it would even the playing field against super-soldiers. Although not quite Doctor Strange, Zemo would make one hell of a sorcerer.

[Assistant]
With what time?  With what opportunity?

Zemo was a black-ops Sokovian soldier that had a single-minded purpose following his nations destruction at the hands of the Avengers.  Immediately after that he was in a holding cell for what had to be the remainder of his life.  How would he have even heard of Kamar Taj?  And even if he did, how would he justify making that journey on little more than hearsay and fairy tales?  And even then, you think Zemo has it in him to surrender control to the point where magic is possible?  Signs point to no.


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

[User]
Why can noise cancelling headphones only cancel at low freqs?

Can anyone explain why exactly noise cancelling headphones are only able to cancel reasonably low frequency sounds?  Is it more of a practical limitation or a scientific limitation?

Bonus: Is it at all related to why low frequencies tend to travel through walls, while higher frequencies do not?

[Assistant] It's a problem with electronics. To cancel a wave you need to be able to synthesize an identical but opposite one. If you have a 100 Hz wave the Whole wave is 10 ms long. So, if you sample the signal, invert it and reproduce it with a lag of less than 1 ms or so you're almost set. If you have a 1 kHz wave (which is "mid range" in audio) the Whole wave is 1 ms long. You'd have to reproduce the signal identically in less than 0.1 ms. Which is basically impossible. Also, mantaining phase coherence is not that easy at higher frequency.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do the "junk mail" filters for e-mail inboxes work, and what causes them to make mistakes?

I just checked my junk mail folder, and I received a Postmaster e-mail telling me that an important business e-mail I had sent came back as undeliverable. Yet it went to the junk mail filter instead of my Inbox for some reason.

The other week, a client e-mailed me from the normal e-mail address they always contact me from...yet their e-mail went straight to the junk filter, even though 99% of the e-mails they sent me go to my Inbox, and the e-mail they sent me didn't appear (to me) to look different than any of the e-mails they normally send.

Why does my junk mail filter make these sorts of occasional mistakes? Is there something that causes it, or something that can be avoided?

[Assistant]
The most simple spam filters are simply word-based. Those filters count the number of words that are usually in spam mails and compare that to the number of words that are usually in mails that ate not spam (aka ham).

Of course, the reaction by spam mail makers is to use less spammy words and more hammy words. Another way to trick the spam filter is to use words it doesn't know (v1agra instead of viagra, for example) because they won't count in the end score.

Newer spam filters look at words in context so they can guess what words mean even if they have never seen them. Also, they look at mail headers: information about who sent the mail from which server. That way, a filter can detect whether an email was sent automatically (like the undeliverable mail notification).

Spam senders learn from these things too, and try to make their spam look so much like genuine mail that a spam filter gets more and more difficulty distinguishing ham from spam. Hence, more mistakes will be made.