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

[User]
ELI5: Why do all of the east Asian ethnicities seem to hate each other?

I understand the cause of animosity between Japanese - Chinese - Koreans, but what about all the other ethnic groups?

[Assistant]
They don't hate each other (well, not too much). They all hate Japan. During the second world war, little of east asia was left untouched by them, and they committed war crimes left right and center everywhere they went as if it was their god given responsibility. The animosity continues to this day partly because the government actively stokes it (in the case of the PRC, for example) but mostly because of the modern Japanese government's refusal to acknowledge said crimes (imagine if Merkel claimed the Holocaust only had a few dozen victims and regularly visited the grave of Heinrich Himmler to pay respects).

Various amounts of animosity remain between the rest of the east asian countries for various cultural, political, and historical reasons, but it's all chump change compared to how everybody feels about Japan.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Are or were there ever any positives to the Superhuman Registration Act?

Everytime it's brought up in a story, especially if it's an X-Men story, the SHRA is treated as a completely negative thing that is to be avoided or somehow overturned at all costs. So I wonder, has ANY good come out of it at point in any story?

[Assistant]
This is brought up in a couple of What-if comics/multiverses. The most relevant one is a Watcher showing up to Tony Stark showing him a world where the registration act did Gangbusters because he worked together closely with Cap and other superheroes before randomly unveiling it. Forming an world-wide association of the super powered that both serves and protects heroes and civvies alike.

It's a sick burn to a guy from a cosmically powered scoldy daddy.


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

[User]
[40K] Does belief in the Emperor actually promise salvation? Is my afterlife different from the average Atheist?

I'm talking about those who have convened with the Ruinous powers. But if I actually believe strongly enough in the Emperor or whatever, and I die in his glorious service, do I get some otherworldly benefit?

[Assistant]
Living Saints exist, so yes, if you are the pious few, and have done great deed under Emperor's name, you can potentially become an immortal ~~deamon prince of the Emperor~~ saint.

But otherwise, most human souls just slowly dissolve in the warp, which frankly is about as good of an outcome when compared to the other possibilities.


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

[User]
Why does the derivative of acrtan(x) look like the normal curve?

I looked up the equation for the normal distribution and I can't see any connections between it and 1/(x^2 +1). Are they related somehow? Or are they not really that similar and just mildly resemble each other? Thanks!

[Assistant]
They don't really look alike. 1/(x^2 + 1) when used as a probability density is called a Lorentzian or Cauchy distribution, and has what one calls "fat tails" - that is to say for large x it goes like x^(-2). Polynomial decay means there is a significant amount of probability in the tails.

The normal distribution has exponential decay (actually, more than exponential. It gets essentially zero very fast.

The Lorentzian distribution has such fat tails that a variable with that probability distribution has undefined mean and undefined variance (that is, the integral to compute those diverge). Compare with the normal distribution.

Normal and Lorentzian are often used together in physics, even in linear combination, as they provide a great fit for example to the profile of spectral emission lines.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] If you opened one of the pods, unplugged the person inside, and plugged yourself in using their jack, what would happen?

Where would you be in the Matrix?

Would you be yourself or the other person?

[Assistant]
You would die. The free people from Zion use pirated signals and hardware to jack in to the matrix. Plugging yourself into a connection still operated by the machines is a deathwish.

Assuming you had some means to protect yourself from the machines simply shutting your brain off, the act of unplugging the original person would kill their mind. You wouldn't be able to take over their matrix body.

As for where you would come out, (assuming you could get in) probably one of the train station loading rooms. You haven't dialed in to the matrix properly, so you aren't being sent anywhere, you're just kind of connecting. Seems likely the system would shuffle you to a default holding area.


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

[User] [40k] So the Armor of space marines are extremaly resistant to damege made by force and stuff. But how well does it do against extreme temperatures?

[Assistant] Extremely well. With the helmet on, it's basically a fully functioning space suit - climate controlled, heat resisted, and insulated. Much of the armour is made of a substance called ceramite, which is basically heatproof.


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

[User] ELI5: What factors determine if a person was 'assassinated' as opposed to 'murdered'?

[Assistant]
All assassination is murder but not all murder is assassination.  Assassination is a higher caliber of murder.  This is done in two ways:

The target is a prominent political or public figure.

The motives are driven by some sort of ideological agenda - religious, political, military, financial gain, a desire to acquire fame or notoriety.

Like many words for similar overlapping concepts you can usually say a lot about their prestige based on their roots (their etymology).

Murder comes into English through the Old German 'mord' (like many of our more common words such as 'leave'/'drink').  Assassination come from the Latin 'assassinus' (like many of our higher status words like 'relinquish'/'imbibe').

So an assassination is a more prestigious form of murder.  Just as imbibing is a more prestigious form of drinking.


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

[User]
CMV: Breastfeeding is entirely inclusive language. Chest feeding and body feeding are a solution looking for a problem at best. Offensive at worst.

I've been trying to get my head around the term "chest feeding" i got banned from one sub over it.

So far as i can tell it's used by some people who have given birth but don't identify as women.

So far as i can tell Breast feeding is already entirely inclusive. All peoole have breasts, check all mamals do. Chests with the breaat removed can't lactate so it's also a smidge less specific.

There is no inclusion to be found by splitting up the terminology. Quite the opposite having a second term is going to sow division.

[Assistant]
Who is promoting "chest feeding" over "breastfeeding"?  How important is it to you to be included in such groups that feel they need to justify this distinction?

Would you go to a hard core Francophile forum and argue that you should be allowed to use the term "computer" rather than "ordinateur"?


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why is slavery so prevalent?

With droids so commonplace why are there so many biological slaves in Star Wars? Droids don't eat, sleep, or get sick, and they seem less likely to rebel against their masters.

[Assistant]
They kinda address this in the Phantom Menace.

Basically, the galaxy is a huge place, and there are some parts that allow slavery to prosper freely because the Republic's reach doesn't extend that far.


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

[User]
What to ask while visiting schools

I've been accepted into a few PhD programs and I will be going on my first admitted students day tomorrow. Part of the schedule for the day involves meeting with a number of professors, and I was wondering what would be good questions to ask them. My field (pure math) doesn't really have labs, so beyond asking about their personal research I'm a little stumped.

Also, what are some things I should be looking for while touring schools in general?

[Assistant] I assume you still have a mentor, so mentoring styles.  Are funds available for conferences? Are you expected to teach or are their teaching opportunities if you are interested? Funding? What is the track record of past students- where are they now?


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

[User]
[General Superhero Lore] How high would a person have to fly in order to avoid being seen?

Say you just found out that you can fly but you don't want anybody to be able to see you just yet. How fly would you have to fly in order to be invisible to the naked eye? Or how high would you have to fly before you're basically indistinguishable from a bird.

bonus round: If you live in the city, how would you get into the sky without anybody seeing where you lifted off from?

edit: This is receiving more attention than I expected so

bonus round 2: Say you're flying pretty high up, what would you have to do to avoid being seen by other planes while at the same time, being aware where exactly a plane is coming from? I'm thinking you can hide in the clouds for the first part but it might make the second part a bit dangerous. I'd imagine it would be pretty easy to hear a plane but knowing exactly where it's coming from is another matter.

[Assistant]
People don't generally look up, so not very high realistically.

You'd have to be very tiny due to distance to not be seen ever, but if you wore blue/gray, you could probably get away with being 500 meters up.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the evolutionary reason and purpose of males of species generally having lower pitched vocals than females, particularly humans?

[Assistant] Low pitched voice is an indicator of high testosterone levels and sexual fitness. Generally, women tend to find men with lower pitched and deeper voices more attractive. This helps them to seek out men who are genetically fit and able to produce a healthy offspring.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does serotonin overdose caused by antidepressants cause you to be sad?

Youd think youd be extra happy with serotonin overdose. Is there just a line between just enough and too much?

[Assistant]
Strange answers here, but ELI15:

Serotonin contributes to mood, but it isn't a "happiness hormone", and depression is not a "neurotransmitter deficiency". Just increasing the amount of serotonin in a synapse does not necessarily make you happy, nor sad. Overdose with an antidepressant that increases this concentration can lead to severe effects. Feelings of sadness is not the only possible outcome in overdose (let alone a common one, in severe overdose) - you can experience depression, psychosis, mania or even die from a significant rise in bodily temperature.

**Slightly expanded**:

An overdose of a serotonin reuptake inihibiting (SRI) antidepressant is not the same as an overdose of serotonin. There is no easy way to get serotonin from outside of the body into the brain, for example, an injection of serotonin would not reach the brain. Most serotonin in your body exists in the gut, and it is an important messenger involved with blood flow, particularly constriction of veins.

While increased by these drugs, concentration of serotonin does not discretely correlate with happiness. It takes weeks of dosing for the mood-altering effects of these drugs to become apparent. There are numerous competing theories as to why.

Overdose of an antidepressant affecting serotonin clearance (or metabolism) in the synapse can lead to serotonin syndrome. In mild cases, typically only minor seizure-like activity is present (eg. ~~clonus~~ muscle contractions, tremor, pronounced reflexes). As severity increases, effects such as life-threatening fever, loss of consciousness and respiratory failure are present. This typically requires an overdose of multiple serotonin-acting drugs (eg. metabolic inhibitors with reuptake inhibitors, typically MAOIs and SRIs).

Feelings of sadness and anxiety are not exclusive to or specifically exacerbated in SRI overdose, they are among the most common side-effects.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are empty glass bottles harder to break than full bottles?

Was throwing a couple empty bottles around earlier today, and noticed that it took a lot more force to break than a full bottle did, why is this?

[Assistant]
1. Full bottles contain more weight, so at the same speed they hit with more force.
2. Energy waves transmit much more strongly through water than through air -- the force of the impact will be carried all around the bottle quite effectively.


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

[User]
Is it physically possible to become Batman

I mean his strength, hearing, intellect, skill would takes LIFE TIMES to learn at least for a normal human? So could it be accomplished in the time that he did it?

[Assistant]
You could become skilled in many forms of HtH (maybe 10), but you cannot master 127 like he did.

You can get a MD in that time, but not the 7 he has.

You can pick up a few languages on the basic level, not become fluent in 8 like he has.

You could **at best** catch a slow arrow. You cannot dodge bullets like he can.

He's not strictly possible, but some weaker versions are possible.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where does all of the food coloring go after I eat it?

I noticed (besides my unhealthy diet) that I consume a ton of food coloring or artificially bright colored foods. For example eating a bag of Cheetos, drinking an Orange Fanta, and add a bag of Skittles. There seems to be a ton of coloring in these foods yet I don't see any bright orange waste.

[Assistant]
its tinted, a different color than it would be.

if you eat ALOT of food coloring, say a brightly frosted cake, specificly green... well, you'll be a little scared when you stand up and see a bowl of green water.


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

[User]
Philosophy students generally write essays in addition to lectures and reading. What should autodidacts be doing above reading?

My interests are fairly broad so please consider this a general question, but if specific advice is best, I'll be starting with Plato.

I'm not by any means unwilling to write essays for practice, but am not sure of their value in this case, as one can't give oneself effective feedback on that kind of thing. Also, I'm sure I don't know enough to be able to think up good topics anyways.

[Assistant]
Not being able to effectively practice writing *is* a significant handcuff. You can get some benefit from having conversations with people online, although even particularly good ones will be a few levels too low in quality and length than what you'll want to do, and it can be hard to find even the particularly good conversations.

You might consider trying to find someone online who is willing to read something you've written, so that you're able to practice this.

Another alternative is to find philosophy clubs, reading groups, seminars, lecture series, etc., in a local university and/or in a more popular setting outside the university. These can get you exposed to ideas in a more lively setting, that can touch on some of the benefit you get from writing and speaking.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Why are some Romulan ships hollow?

[Assistant] Fewer windowless accommodations. Spacefarers might as well enjoy the view. And it adds a layer of deception, just as the ships ability to disappear, this design makes them appear bigger, and it allows to accomodate large objects (loot, other vessels) within the cloaking field/shields/warpfield. And it is aesthetically pleasing, just as the green color.


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

[User]
[What If...?] How did Killmonger...

...wield the infinity stones? In the What If finale, Killmonger takes the stones from the dead infinity ultron and manages to wield them with no visible effort. It took all the the Guardians to hold a single one, Iron man died when he used them all, and even Thanos was visibly struggling when he got the final one in infinity war.

But Killmonger manages to somehow steal Ultrons armor and wield all but one. How?

Was it the armor? Could the Avengers have made a vibraniam gauntlet in Endgame in order to snap without hurting themselves?

[Assistant] It was the armor. The Avengers could have probably made a better protection device if they had had more time. Ultron specifically created the body he had to hold the Infinity Stones and he was also much more intelligent and cognizant of the stones powers than the Avengers.


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

[User] ELI5: Why towels and clothes get stiff when you dry them in the sun?

[Assistant]
Domestic water is not usually pure water, it often contains salts and other minerals. As the clothes dry, these salts and minerals are left behind in the threads of the fabric forming crystals.

Air-drying is a relatively slow process and the clothes are mostly stationary, so these crystals can get bigger, making the fabric stiffer. However, it doesn't take much to break them so clothes feel much softer once worn.

Tumble dryers constantly tumble the clothes through the drying process, which keeps the minerals from forming crystals big enough to noticeably stiffen the clothes.


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

[User] ELI5: Would gravity change as you get closer to Earths center?

[Assistant] Yes it does. The force of gravity comes from the mass of all the rock under your feet. If you start digging down there will be rocks over your head pulling you upwards and less rock under your feet pulling you downward so the force of gravity is reduced. If you are able to get to the center of the planet there is just as much rock in all directions so the force of gravity is zero.


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

[User]
Why do Virus's evolve to be lethal?

I was playing the online game pandemic the other day and it got me thinking about virus'.

Surely, from an evolutionary point of view, a lethal virus is a bad idea. It infects a host and then kills it off, effectively destroying itself in the process.

If a virus evolved to be completely non-lethal, but still highly infectious, then it's survivability would be dramatically increased. Because it could theoretically infect the entire planet without anyone noticing.

So basically, why do virus' evolve to kill off their hosts? It seems like a poor trait to have from a survivability point of view.

[Assistant]
Most successful diseases are non-lethal, or lethal over such an extended period of time that it doesn't impact on the viruses ability to spread.

In some cases a high death rate might occur because it's the side effect of something that offers a survival advantage, constant coughing may damage the lungs, and thus be liable to kill the young/elderly/unfit but coughing is also an extremely good way to spread to other hosts. Hosts have immune systems and in most cases the virus only has so long to spread to a new host before the current hosts immune system manages to beat it down to the point where it can no longer spread.

In other cases a mutant strain may appear that increases those effects and throws the balance of host survival/spread effectiveness out. Sometimes it'll go so far that the host will die before it can spread, sometimes it'll be just effective enough to spread whilst killing its hosts, but if it decimates the population it's in then eventually it'll run out of new hosts.

TL;DR: They evolve to be lethal because evolution punishes new bad changes, it doesn't prevent them. There's a reason why you'll catch a common cold/flu once a year but don't get the bubonic plague all that often.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why can't we do like a hundred airstrikes a day against ISIS

We know what areas they control, why not bombard them constantly. People are talking about how these airstrikes aren't that effective, but we have the biggest air force in the world, why not do way more than we're doing now?

[Assistant] Air strikes are really expensive, and it would not get rid of the ideology of hate that ISIS embodies. This isn't a fight against people, it's a fight against ideas. Start bombing them daily, and ISIS says they're being killed because the enemies of god want them dead.


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

[User] [Bonnie Taylor] What exactly is a 'streetwise Hercules?' Do we know exactly why she 'needs' a hero? Is there anyone that checks all the boxes she lists, like did she have a specific guy in mind?

[Assistant]
"Streetwise" means someone who has a lot of practical experience in various life situations, who knows how to handle themselves on the streets. And a Hercules is just someone who's physically strong and fit. So a "streetwise Hercules" just means that she wants her partner to be both strong and smart (with the smarts specifically being street smarts, not book smarts).

Two possible reasons why she needs a hero: either her life sucks (possibly the normal kind of sucky that most people experience, or maybe she's actively being threatened) and she fantasizes about being saved from her problems... or she's just being shallow and setting impossibly high standards for her partner then complains about being lonely when no one matches what she needs.


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

[User] ELI5: I don't understand how it is possible to cool a car engine with air alone. So how does air-cooled engines work?

[Assistant] There is a lot of air, and the average temperature of the air is suitable for long-term engine operation.  It's simply a matter of exchanging the engine heat with enough air.  Even liquid cooled engines do this, they use a fluid to move the heat to a radiator and from there into the air.  An air cooled engine simply does it directly.  It uses fans to circulate a lot of air over an engine structure with fins to provide enough surface area to exchange the heat.


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

[User]
Why Does a Magnet not repel itself?

I have 2 pretty strong magnets if front of me.  They are the size of bottle caps.  I have them interact with each other and wonder where the north and south poles might be.  I think the south is in the center of the magnet and the north takes the rim... any confirmation on that?

Anyway, if south repels south with two magnets...  why doesn't south repel south for one magnet?  Why aren't my magnets exploding right now?

Is it possible to have the south secede from the north?  In other words, can I have a magnet that is only south?

[Assistant]
To have an "only-south" magnet is called a magnetic monopole...and they don't really exist. Scientists have ways to sorta make fake ones, but honestly, it only works ok, not really good enough to do much with.

You magnet does not explode apart because if you were to magnify down to the lattice of atoms, you would have all the magnets happily working together, not wanting to separate; think Legos with north being the pokey bits and south being the holes.  Each atom is north to south, north to south. They work together, not against each other.


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

[User] [MCU] How enhanced are Asgardians compared to humans? Theres a settlement of Asgardians on Earth in Endgame. If so, are they a potential threat years down the line? Also could they breed with humans to make powerful children?

[Assistant] Depends on if Agents of Shield is still considered canon to the MCU or not (it... basically skipped over the Snap entirely with time travel, and even before that the content from it wasn't really referenced in the films) - but if so, even just regular Asgardians are insanely strong and basically bulletproof.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do massive, well supplied armies have such difficulty dealing with small, poorly equipped armies?

Why don't they just mow them down with continuous aggression, just annihilating them?

Ex: Various terrorist groups, poachers in Africa, other rebellions etc.

[Assistant] A relatively small force is more maneuverable and can hide easier. Poachers and terrorists blend with the local populace, most of them actually *are* locals...they know the area better than the opposing force. Planning a full assault with a large military force is a logistical nightmare, an ambush at an intersection with five guys is easy by comparison.


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

[User] Hypothetically, if ice moons like Enceladus and/or Europa were moved an optimal orbit close enough to the sun to promote liquid water, would they be ocean moons, or would some other factor cause the water to evaporate etc.?

[Assistant] Their gravity would be too insignificant to hold on to a thick atmosphere, so any liquid water on the surface would boil extremely easily and be lost just like any other atmospheric particles.  The moons would also no longer be protected from the solar wind by Jupiter's magnetic field and would no longer be able to generate their own because of the loss of tidal forces, and that would contribute to atmospheric loss.


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

[User]
[Star Trek / Lovecraft] Cthulhu awakens in the late 24th Century - How does the Federation deal with this?

This isn't exactly the kind of problem you can fix with an inverted tachyon pulse. Has Starfleet been infiltrated by his cult? What about other civilizations, do the Romulans and Klingons set aside their differences like they did with the Dominion? Would Q or the Bajoran Prophets have any stake in the fight?

[Assistant]
The Federation defeats and contains Cthulhu easily.  He's not a god, merely the high priest of a god, and his madness only truly captures those who personally see him, or are already predisposed to accept him.  He is not nearly as powerful as modern depictions predict him being.  Descriptions of him conquering the earth and shaping it to his will have always come from cultists spreading propaganda.  Every record of him *actually* rising has shown his power to be great, yet underwhelming compared to the expectations.

Cthulhu was fought effectively by the Elder Things who lived in the Oceans during Earth's Prehistory.  The Elder Things, while physically strong, mentally adept, and technologically advanced, were things of mere flesh and bone the same way humans are.  They show that it's possible to oppose Cthulhu and his Star-spawned minions through mere physics.  While the Elder things were not wholly victorious, they were not wholly defeated either; they fought as Equals.

The Federation's understanding of Science is far beyond even that of the Elder Things.  They still relied on Beasts of Burden and personal locomotion, while the Federation has starships, transporters, and phasers.


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

[User] What's underneath the sand at the beach? How far does the sand go and what is beneath that?

[Assistant] It depends on the sand and geology of the area. Essentially the deeper you go the more compact the sand becomes and eventually you would run into sand stone. Under that there would be a layer of limestone. This pattern would alternate for the riseing and falling of sea levels. Thicknesses depend on how long sea levels were at different heights.


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

[User]
[Cyberpunk Edgerunners] Give me an ice bath to break the ICE.

Netrunners are often depicted as skinny dipping in a container full of ice cold water when they do a deep dive through the net. Sometimes for hours long.

Hypothermia is seen as a bad thing by non chromed people, so : what benefit do they get out of doing this ? Is it a physiological thing, a cybernetical thing, both ?

(I'm pretty sure this practice is shared by other Cyberpunk genre universes but I can't for the life of me remember another exemple right now)

[Assistant]
Chrome gets hot during a deep dive in the same way a computer gets hot if used for processor intensive activities.

The ice baths are used to keep them cool, although they aren't perfect since it can cause hypothermia and possibly other issues but any Netrunner crazy enough to do a deep dive isn't the type to consider their long-term health.


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

[User]
Is volunteering for an unjust war wrong?

Suppose a war is very unjust, and the state which perpetrated it used an all-volunteer force. There was no conscription involved. Can a good argument be developed that this also make the soldiers morally culpable?

Imagine we engage into some applied ethics then, and determine the Iraq War was unjust. Does this make every US soldier morally culpable for participating in the war as much as the politicians? Some people believe invading Iraq may have been just if the initial factual justifications (which have been disproved) for the invasion were true, like that Iraq possessed WMDs and harbored terrorists. It seems then that a defender of US soldiers could argue that they are not culpable for they have been deceived. However, if the war was unjust regardless of those factual claims being true or not, would the soldiers have been culpable from the beginning? Many people believe we should be placing moral blame only on politicians, but if soldiers are also culpable, then this argument holds no weight.

[Assistant] It's important to note that the military regularly preys on lower economic classes that don't have many career opportunities. If we are to place blame on soldiers, one consideration will have to be if they joined because of economic necessity or because of their moral support of American foreign policy.


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

[User]
[Land Before Time] Why did the others choose Cera?

In first Land Before Land movie after Littlefoot and Cera had a big fight, Cera separated from the group and the others dinosaurs except Littlefoot decided to come with her believing her way to be easier. But why would they go with Cera instead of Littlefoot? I mean Littlefoot was the one who grouped them all together in the first place, kept them safe, and was nice to them the whole time, Cera wasn't nice to them at all, and after insulting Littlefoot's dead mother and hurting him I wouldn't want to follow her, I'd have stayed with Littlefoot.

[Assistant]
Because they thought her way was safer.

This isn't a popularity contest, this is a discussion on where to go in an active volcano range. If you think the asshole is going the safe route, you follow the asshole.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are "verbs of being" irregular in so many languages?

In my own studies of Latin, French, and Swedish and limited forays into German and Spanish, I have not come across any languages with a verb of being that had a regular pattern or conjugation.

EX:
English: (To be) I am, you are, (s)he is, etc. I was, I shall, I will...
Swedish:(att vara)  Jag ar, du ar, hon ar...
Latin: (Sum, esse, fui, futurus)  Sum, es, est, sumis, estis, sunt....
French: (Etre) Je suis, tu es, il est... Je serai....

I suppose the short answer is that languages are linked (Latin to Romance languages, etc.) but why does such a pattern perpetuate? What are some languages without that? Is this linked to other language trends?

[Assistant]
Words that are used frequently tend to be more grammatically irregular in most languages. "To be", "to have", and "to go" are all very common words and are irregular in a lot of languages.

Languages often change by either contraction or analogy. In contraction, speakers end up saying things with different accents or speak quickly and the form of the word changes that way. With analogy, speakers copy the forms of other words (e.g., you may not know what an "estuary" is, but you know that the plural would be "estuaries" by analogy). Contraction tends to lead to irregularity and analogy to regularity. Contraction is also more common with regular words because they are spoken more frequently and as a result there is more chance for contraction and people will recognize them even when contracted. The end result is commonly used words tend to morph more often and become irregular while more uncommon words tend to stay regular.


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

[User] ELI5: why are rockets launched in parabolic trajectory? Wouldn't we be spending less rocket fuel, if we launch it straight up, reach the desired altitude, reorient the rocket to be parallel to the ground and fire boosters again? Kind ok like the vertical take of fighter jets.

[Assistant] Imagine being on your bicycle in a giant concrete bowl. Try to ride out by going straight up one side. Your body and bicycle would be ill-designed (including heavier) to provide the burst of power needed to go that way. Next, imagine riding in an ever-growing circular path. It may take several rotations, but you'll expend less energy that way in the long run. There would certainly be less need to hit the gym for years in preparation.


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

[User]
Are ancient Rome and ancient Greece over-rated and over-adveritised in terms of their legacies, glory and merit

I know that this sounds like a weird question but I posted this question a few weeks ago and was told that it is better suited for sociologists to answer so I decided to give it a try

I want to say that I am not actually implying that ancient Greece and ancient Rome are not what one would define as "great" or "glorious" because there are some things that would definetely attract any person to what these ancient civilisations were regardless of how they are interpreted as in history books or fictional works. There is a certain "magic" or awe towards these civilisations and I too have my own appreciation and sometimes even romanticism and gratitude to these civilisations and how their achievements and legacies were kept intact and eventually been passed on through generations or even adapted to even more refined technologies and methodologies like astronomy, mathematics, art, philosophy and so on.

But I sometimes feel like these two civilisations are often way over-glorified, or at least the popular conception of ancient Greece and ancient Rome are over-saturated which gives the impression that other civilisations were petty or miniscule in comparison or that these civilisations did not have their own flaws and even horrors.

One thing that stood out to me in particular when I found out that the Persian Empire was not as horrificly imperialistic and authoritarian as I was told it was, especially when I saw the film 300. Therefore, after I learned about this, I decided to look into the Persian empire, from its history, system of government, mythology and so on, and was amazed and filled with awe. Something that impressed me was how the Persian Empire had its own version of road construction even before the Roman Empire and its system of government and bureacracy was very structured and had its own benefits such as religious tolerance and women's rights (or at least we view them with a positive view from the perspective of the 21st Century) and this was mostly found during the reign of Cyrus whom I remember that I was taught that he was a ruthless leader. What suprises me the most was when I learned that Alexander wanted to implement the Persian's governmental structure in his empire when he managed to conquer the entire Persian empire even though the Hellenistic empire was short lived.

On the other hand, when I learned more about the Greeks and its own customs and social structures, while I still have my own sense of awe and do feel the presence of the ancient Greek "magic" when I read about them, I am surprised on how the ancient customs of ancient Greece are often neglected or not that well-known. For example Athens is seen as the birthplace of democracy but Athenian version of democracy was more limited and did not include women, slaves or even blacks as racism also existed during that time (even though the Hellenisitc empire of Alexander eventually integrated with other civilisations with other ethnicities like ancient Egypt which had inhabitants with darker skin colour) and the pseudo-science of scientific racism was also used to justify or rationalise that mentality. Even Athens had its own form of "imperialism" especially during the Peloponnesian War against the city-state of Sparta which is ironic and I also learned how the glorification of Sparta is also over-exaggarated as it was a eugenic city-state and the Spartans were a leisure-class and Sparta's social structure was a strict monarchy with plenty of slaves doing the hard work while Spartans focused more on military work or leisure. I also learned that the Spartans were not that unique or exemplary when it came to military structure or strategy and mostly got its glory and fame after the Battle of Thermopylae.

Even the Roman Empire has its own versions of not-so-well-known drawbacks even though I still admire the Roman Empire to this day. Apart that the conflict between the corrupt Roman Republic and the more ambitious and possbly tyrannical Caesar is still one of the most well-known debates as to there is no clear answer on how was the hero or the villian of the story, many people throughout history often glorified the Roman Empire and wanted to mimic it or copy it with meticulous precision, whether it is its symbology like the Aquila and the American Eagle, the fasces and its influence on fascism and the fasces symbol is also found in the US Capitol, the ideology and structure of Republicanism, the attempt to make the Roman Empire a thing again after its collapse (at least, the Western side of the Roman Empire as the Eastern side was still intact for another 1000 years) such the Holy Roman Empire, the German Empire where the Emperor's title was the Kaiser (a German interpretation of Caesar) and the Russian Empire with the king/emperor's title was known as the Tzar (the Russian version of the word "Caesar").

Many times I was told on how effective the Romans were in their military strategy and while that was indeed true, most of its military glory was found during the late-Roman Republic and early-to-mid Roman Empire era and most of its structure was more complicated to handle as when the Roman Republic became an empire, there were conflicts on who had the authority to be emperor (like even Nero's mother killed her own husband so that Nero would be emperor even though she still wanted to have a say on his choices or when the successive emperors of Rome durign the period of the four Emperors were supposedly killed); there was a difficult time during Roman History called the Crisis of the Third Century where the Roman Empire had to battle against conflict enemies and sometimes had gone through internal struggles where the Emperors were killed by their own legionnaires (but the same time, the Roman Empire managed to persevere a bit longer with the formation of the Roman Tetrarchy even though still had problems)

I could think of many more but I also even realise how these two civilisations were not that grandiose in terms of glory and achievement and even other civilisations had their own "glorious achievements" or structures that make them revered and worth reading about such as ancient Egypt, ancient China (despite that ancient China had also its own recurring pattern of constant reformations and overthrowing its own kingdoms and empires), the Celtic people, the Slavics, the Jews, the Muslims, the Byzantine Empire, the Mali Empire and so on.

[Assistant]
Remember that much of what we call modern academic history has its roots in nineteenth-century Western nation building.  This was a process informed not only by US/European politics but by the early conquests in the Americas and Asia, the late-nineteenth century scramble for empire, the scientific and industrial revolution, scientific racism and eugenics, and etc.

Central to this time is the idea that Progress and that history has a direction.  The early historical profession looked to Greece and Rome as Europe's antecedents, understanding their supremacy as prelude to, and legitimization for, modern episodes of conquest.

If you read *The Journal of World History* and other publications that seek to correct this bias, you'll notice that professional historians in the West are still at the earliest stages.  See especially Julia Adney Thomas's recent article "Why Do Only Some Places Have History? Japan, the West, and the Geography of the Past," which documents the institutional bias of the profession towards the West (*Jrnl of Wrld Hist* 28:2 [June 2017]).

To answer address the OP's question directly, I'd offer that the Greece and Rome are not overrated as much as the rest of the world is dismissed and cloaked in our own ignorance.  Mesoamerica, West Africa, India, and China, and other places, all have impressive imperial pasts.

But, more to the point, empire, while favored by historians because of their production of documents, is not the only or necessarily best form of human organization.  Foraging and pastoral societies existed in large parts of the world, really until the era of nineteenth century imperialism.  They are not pre-imperial, but rather have figured prominently in the trade and politics of imperial societies since the "advent of history" with the first river valley civilizations.

Greece and Rome are very important.  So are indigenous societies that often marked the extent of empire, the pastorialists who carried goods and ideas and provoded mercenaries and pirates, small island communities that peopled vast oceans, and etc., etc., etc.

Considering that humans have lived on this planet for probably well over 300,000 years and that historians focus almost exclusively on 5000 years of empires, it's safe to say that blindspots dominate our field of visions.  Don't dismiss what we see of Greece and Rome because of it, work to broaden your focus.


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

[User]
Is there a large difference in in underwater pressure in a river where the water is potentially deep and swiftly moving?

Does the water increase in pressure when it goes around a bend?  Or does the water act like rush hour traffic and bumper to bumper its way around?  Also taking into account the weight of the water above it.  I know water does not compress, but I would assume the mass of the water would put some force on itself around a turn. I am also wondering about friction, would the water in the middle of a river be moving faster than the water along shore? If so does that mean there are essentially currents in the river so some is moving faster than the other?  If the water is moving faster around a bend does that increase its erosion potential due to faster flow, or higher pressure from depth or inertia?

I know this is way more than one question that I am asking but the more I thought about it the more questions I had.

What triggered this rabbit hole was a curiosity about flash floods and how the initial debris field looks like a bulldozer.  I was curious about how powerful the water is and how much soil it has the potential to cleave out from the landscape.  I enjoy farming and I know here in Northern California Valley much of our rich soil came from the flooding of the mountain and foothill areas.

[Assistant]
Does water pressure increase going around a bend-
Yes, slightly, as the centrifugal forces acts on the water in the way it does.

Water does not compress-
Water does not significantly compress in any meaningful way on a day to day basis, it simply requires incredible amounts of pressure to do so.

Friction at the border-
Yes, this is part and parcel with fluid dynamics, where you take into account this and tons of other data to calculate the flow of the fluid.

What makes a flood powerful is that the mass of the water moving against the objects needs to either be translated into torque against things like walls and cars, which leads to them flipping over, or the unprepared load created by the water essentially changing the buoyancy of different parts of the building etc.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] Do pokeballs have homing capabilities or do all trainers just have really good aim?

It seems that, even if they don't succeed in the end, pokeballs always hit their mark, no matter what (unless the Pokemon belongs to another trainer).

With all the ice and ghost type Pokemon out there, I don't think pokeballs could be heat-seeking.

[Assistant]
Pokeballs have been known to miss (Ash catching a "donut"), so there isn't some inherent property of the ball that makes them home in on Pokemon. Furthermore, the existence of critical captures points to the idea that the throw is very important when trying to get them in the ball. These two points suggest one idea then. Trainers have to hit the ball themselves.

Now naturally this is fairly difficult if the Pokemon is up and active, which is further incentive to weaken them a bit beforehand, but nonetheless, the fine art of actually throwing the ball on target is often a skill some trainers lack. Ever wonder why very few people have a full team of six Pokemon, but breeders do? Breeders didn't need to capture the Pokemon first.

Of course there are some genius prodigies out there, you know the type, full team before their 4th badge, champion at age 10, single-handedly takes down evil villain teams as well as befriending gods, who are very gifted and never miss, but for the average joe, just hitting the damn thing with the pokeball is a challenge in itself, so stop rubbing in the fact you never miss damnit.


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

[User] Why Must We Imagine Sisyphus Happy? Is there really happiness in perpetual suffering if others are happy?

[Assistant] Camus reasons that we must imagine Sisyphus happy because Sisyphus' nature would lead him to carry out a final act of rebellion against the gods - he would refuse to be punished and, as Camus reads it, Zeus' punishment makes this possible.  So, Sisyphus in life and unlife embodies the absurd hero - always doing meaningless labor knowingly, mastering his fate through scorn and passion.


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

[User]
ELI5. When laser pointers are pointed onto a far away building, why does the diameter of the light grow?

I've never understood how a laser pointer with a light no larger than 1mm in diameter, grows to ridiculous sizes when shined across long distances.

This is probably some basic rules of light, I simply just can't comprehend how this happens.

[Assistant]
Laser pointers are not perfect lasers, an excellent laser is beyond the budget you have for a cat toy.

The laser diode is very small, and some photons that leak out are slightly off axis.  By the time you get far away, these tiny angular errors have accumulated into something visible.


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

[User]
[Sneakers] What exactly was Cosmo involved in, and how high up the ladder was he?

In the scene where Cos interviews Martin at the toy company, he strongly implies that their conversation is being monitored and moves to the (presumably noisy) Cray cooling room to ask some real questions. Later, though, he does seem to have absolute control over the facility and the thugs in it kill (or not) at his command... so who is he afraid of?

And what exactly is he *doing*? Playtronics really does make high-tech stuff for toys, but obviously that's not the whole story. He talks about "organized crime", yet Greg's (the Russian diplomat) reaction to his bio seems to imply that Cosmo was operating on a frighteningly large scale.

Indeed, Cosmo specifically talks about crashing the economies of entire countries, though he also implies this was a personal challenge rather than being strictly work-related.

So what the hell was he up to?

[Assistant] It's insinuated that Cosmo is in deep with all the various unsavory folks whose books he cooked. This includes foreign agencies, terrorist organizations, perhaps foreign governments as well. In addition to cooking books it is likely Cosmo was mining, hacking, and selling secrets. Getting into this deeper and deeper is how he found out about the mathematician's work in the first place. While he was at the top of his own silo, his position still had him in the cross hairs of all the various bad guys he was working for. This was the opportunity for him to end that. He would be in control. No more secrets.


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

[User] [MCU]How come when Bucky aka the Winter Soldier uses his robotic arm to perform feats of tremendous strength which would snap bone, his robot arm does not get ripped STRAIGHT off of his body?

[Assistant]
IIRC he was given a Soviet knockoff of the Super Soldier Serum, putting him in the same league as Captain America.

Frankly it's a miracle anyone aside from Steve is able to survive a fistfight with him.


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

[User]
Would you recommend someone who loves theoretical stuff to get a phd?

In particular, pure math/theoretical CS. I know it depends on the person, but I just want to hear a yes/no answer, then give a few reasons perhaps. A few things I really want to know as well:

1. on a scale of 1-20, how stressful was it? 1 being chilling on the sofa watching netflix, 20 being losing all your assets and sleeping on the streets with no resources whatsoever(ok that was harsh but you get the idea). And what was the source of that stress specifically?
2. what difficulties did you not expect after finishing your phd?
3. what tangible benefits did your phd give you(besides more career options)?
4. your phd subject
5. your current occuption

thanks for taking the time guys, can't wait for the cries of despair from me 10 years later (jk   :)

[Assistant] Completely depends on what you want to do afterwards. In general, a PhD is essentially an apprenticeship for academia, and it is therefore probably not a good use of your time and money unless you want to go into academia. It sounds like you're still in high school though, so I'd concentrate on getting into a decent undergraduate programme before stressing about whether to do a PhD or not. Most subjects are rather different at university compared to high school,  and research is in turn rather different from studying a subject at undergraduate.


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

[User]
[Walking Dead] Have you thought about using neurotoxins against the walkers?

If we could score some, gas whole buildings with it and vent the stuff out. I don't know if neurotoxins would work on walkers though. But I can see a good chance that it might paralyze them, and a walker incapable of moving is as good as one with their head smashed.

[Assistant] The only things that work on a walker are parts of the brain and the muscles.   There isn't a digestive,  respiratory,  or circulatory system available to give the toxin access to the areas that do work.


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

[User]
How do you structure your day in order to stay focused doing research full-time?

I'm a M.Sc. student in Electrical Engineering and I currently started writing my master's thesis. This is the only activity that I have and I am expected to work on it full-time. I usually start by 9am and until lunch (1pm) I am pretty productive and can maintain a high level of concentration. The thing is, when I return from lunch (2pm), I can work a little bit more until around 3:30-4pm, but the quality of the work decreases significantly. After 4pm, I don't even know what I'm doing anymore, but I usually try to continue until 6pm.

I wanted to know how people that do research full-time structure their day to be able to work decently for the whole day. Do they get used to being focused for longer periods or they just accept that they can only do so much and then do other things?

I go to the gym everyday before starting the thesis at 9am and I eat well. Sometimes I feel lethargic after lunch, but I'm working on that and it's getting better. I sleep properly and after I leave the lab at 6pm, I try to relax and not think about "work". It might be an issue that I don't have shallower activities scattered throughout the day, like meetings or a lot of e-mailing, because I feel that these would help me diverge my attention a bit to later on get back focusing on my project.

[Assistant]
> Do they get used to being focused for longer periods or they just accept that they can only do so much and then do other things?

The latter.  Email?  That's work.  Planning and attending meetings?  That's work.  Trying to buy equipment through a glitchy eShop system.  That's work.  All of these little, tangential tasks may not be "research" but they're part of the job and should count toward your "full-time" work hours.  Also, don't be afraid to skip out an hour early if you feel you've done all you needed to do for the day.  It'll all come out in the wash when you need to work additional hours before a deadline...


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

[User] [Gremlins] If you give a Mogwai food after midnight it becomes the gremlin thing, and if you get a Mogwai wet it multiplies. So with that logic, what happens if you give a Mogwai soup after midnight?

[Assistant]
Fact is that "Gremlins" were one of these fads that came and went in the 1980s, like pet turtles after the teenage mutant ninja turtles comic book explosion. Just like TMNT the movie exaggerated their natural attributes to make a better film. You still find them occasionally living in the wild, even though the import ban has been in place for more than 15 years. most though were picked off a long time ago by stray cats or foxes, little buggers don't do well by themselves.

For those that don't remember them (too many damn kids around these days) gremlins were cute little biped creatures that stumbled around making squeaky noises. Poor little fuckers though, they had been bred from whatever their natural species was with such speed and focus on "cuteness" that it had left some pretty bad genetic abnormalities, just like Labradors and hip dysplasia.

One of their weirdest aspects was that they had very impressive parthenogenesis - the ability to breed without members of the other sex. In fact just getting them wet would often stimulate their breeding cycle. They must have come from somewhere arid with a drought/flood cycle and only bred in the floor season. Get em wet and practically the next day they would be having babies.

The other aspect almost certainly came from forced inbreeding. They required very little food, again probably due to their original habitat meaning they went without food for long periods of time. Overfeeding would cause their fur to fall out and they got violent and would bite. Not much of a problem, a good boot to the head would kill one but still, weird and upsetting for a kid who just wanted their pet to have enough to eat.

Still, these traits were enough to be exaggerated into two excellent movies and now that they are so uncommon people have half forgotten where it all come from.

Back to your original question - sexual reproduction was stimulated by wet fur so if the Gremlins hadn't eaten that day then maybe nothing, if they had eaten too much then you'd get naked angry gremlins chewing your ankles.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why is it bad to use flash photography around art / artifacts?

I'm assuming it deteriorates it quicker or something but how /why?

[Assistant] I would imagine its the same reason why cellphones cause airplanes to crash and gas tanks to blow up. They dont. They just want people to pay attention to what they are doing instead of taking photos. Also flashes are super annoying. Could you imagine trying to enjoy a painting in a dimly lit room and suddenly 30 bright lights flash in your face? Now you have little light blobs burned into your vision ruining the rest of you art viewing for a few minutes. Also a lot of art has glass over it so a flash would just reflect off and look terrible anyway. Ever tried to take a picture of an aquarium with a flash? Doesnt work.


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

[User] ELI5: What happens when we choke on liquid substances such as water?

[Assistant] It goes down the air hole instead of the drinking hole. As a result the lungs work to eject the liquid that they have determined, rightly, should not be there. This comes in the form of coughing it back up, generally.


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

[User] [Star Wars] As he is a jedi killing cyborg, why didn't Grevious have an exoskeleton made of more lightsaber-resistant material?

[Assistant] The only metals that are lightsaber resistant are extremely rare and extremely expensive. The trade federation spent a lot of money building grievous but didn't want to sink more into him. And even without resistant materials in his body his kill count was absurdly high.


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

[User]
[General] Why do most big sci-fi franchises take place in a single galaxy?

Star Wars. (Discounting Legends) Star Trek. Warhammer. What these have in common is that they take place in one galaxy.

Why only one? Isn't the universe estimated to contain billions of them?

[Assistant] Because galaxies themselves are *massive*. We haven't even set foot on other planets much less discovered other solar systems in our time. Interstellar travel is an ENORMOUS feat in and of itself. Intergalactic travel would be crazy. You could spend several lifetimes just seeing all that a single galaxy has to offer.


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

[User] What are measurable signs of quality sleep?

[Assistant]
Some of the simplest metrics for quantifying sleep quality are:

* The number of awakenings per night.

* The percentage of time in bed spent asleep.

* The total sleep duration obtained.

More detailed metrics can be obtained by studying sleep content, which requires polysomnography (a combination of electrodes that record brain activity, eye movements, and muscle movements). These metrics include:

* The amount of slow-wave activity in the EEG. Slow-wave activity is one of the best markers for sleep need. Slow waves are mostly expressed in the deepest stages of non-REM sleep. The amount of slow-wave activity tails off across the night, and if an individual is sleep deprived they tend to express more slow-wave activity.

* The amounts of time spent in REM sleep and slow-wave sleep (i.e., the deepest stage of non-REM sleep). In an individual with severely disrupted sleep (e.g., due to severe sleep apnea), time spent in these stages is typically decreased.

There can also be signs during the day that an individual is not obtaining sleep of adequate duration or quality. These include:

* Impaired performance on cognitive tasks, the most sensitive being the *psychomotor vigilance test*, which is a serial reaction time test.

* Ability to fall asleep very rapidly during the daytime (as measured using the *multiple sleep latency test*, which is basically a test of how quickly you can fall asleep on demand in a dark room), or in situations where it would not be normal to fall asleep (e.g., while in a car waiting for the lights to change).


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

[User]
[MCU] Why was Dr Strange seen as a threat to hydra at the time of winter solider?

... and a significant enough one to be randomly mentioned by that one guy on the roof top? sure he likes helping people but it is more so for his own self centered reasons and he ofter expresses how he thinks he is so much better than everyone else before the accident. I feel like dr strange would be a prime suspect for hydra to recruit. unless maybe they came to him and he turned them down. There is no way zola's algorithm knew he would get in a wreck and then become the world's most powerful wizard.

[Assistant] It's because he's a hot-headed, arrogant rich guy and an innovator in his field. He wouldn't bow to a HYDRA regime and has the resources and influence to pose a problem. Sitwell also mentions a high school valedictorian and a TV anchor, Insight wasn't just taking out military and superheroes.


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

[User]
How does counting work in base systems higher than base 10? Or is base 10 the highest number system we have?

I have a basic understanding of how base systems work (base 2 being 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, etc.), and I understand WHY we use base 10 - the fact that we have 10 fingers, it's easily divisible, but is there a theoretical "base 11" counting system? If 11 is only represented as "11" because of our base 10 system, is it even possible to have a system of numbers greater than base 10?

EDIT: Thanks for all the answers, guys! It was pretty enlightening (especially the concept of "Every base is base 10"... blew my mind), and I learned a lot!

[Assistant]
We use base 16 when programming computers. In order for that to work, we need 16 different "digits" - so when we run out after 9 we use letters of the alphabet. So if you're counting in base 16, it goes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a, b, c, d, e, f, 10.

"10" in base 16 really means the number 16, the same way "10" in base 2 means the number 2. Likewise, "100" in base 16 means the number 256, or 16x16.

Really you can have a number system with any base you like. The "base" just means how many digits you can count through until you have to roll over to the next place.


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

[User]
[Arrow]: What gave an intelligence agency the idea that a spoiled billionaire trust fund kid was an important asset for covert ops just because he had been on an island for 2 years?

I mean did he really learn THAT much during his time on the island that he would be a better asset in covert ops than say, an actual military veteran?

It's not like their exploiting his families wealth. And it's not like the fact that he's presumed dead is really of any tactical  advantage over having some actually trained military person.

So why did Amanda Waller, or ARGUS in general, think it was worth their time to coerce Oliver into doing operations for them. It seems like there would be plenty of better suited, and more loyal and reliable, people to pick from.

[Assistant] Not so much a spoilt billionaire as a missing person who with a decorated special ops operator managed to thwart a mercenary company and derail an ARGUS operation to kill one of the most dangerous person in the region.


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

[User]
ELI5: what the diffrence between a Battleship, Cruiser, Destroyer, Frigate, ect?

Is there an actual difference or is it all just about size of the ships or amount of fire power?

[Assistant]
A Battleship is an obsolete type of ship that exists in no current navy.  They have thick armour and large guns.

A Cruiser is a ship that is designed to be able to run independently of a fleet, even though they were quite often found in fleets.  They were considered the poor country's Battleships.  They had thick armour and big guns, but not to the same standard of a Battleship.

Destroyers and Frigates are pretty similar and what one nation calls one another will call the other.  They were generally small ships that were for things such as escorting larger ships (they would be the picket line of defence) and also for submarine hunting.

You also had Battlecruisers which were more lightly armoured Battleships.  They could hit as hard as a Battleship but couldn't take as much damage in return.

Aircraft Carriers kind of describe themselves.

Submarines operate under the water.  WW2 subs usually operated on the surface and only submerged when the enemy was spotted.  Today nuclear powered submarines can spend months under water.

Minesweepers would detect and detonate mines.  They used a variety of methods to do this.  One would be to have large nets that would snag mines as the ship went along.


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

[User]
When you "burn fat" how exactly do you loose mass?

Do we sweat more, poo more, per more?

[Assistant]
the main source of sustainable weight loss is through breathing. You can of course lose mass by sweating and peeing, but that is not sustainable as most of that loss is water which needs to be replaced for proper function of organs. Weight loss (specifically of fat) follows the same formula as burning gasoline:

fat molecules CnHmO6 (rough chemical formula of a component of fat) are oxidized by O2 to produce CO2 and H2O. The CO2 is expelled through breath, the H2O is, as mentioned before, added to the overall water balance of the organism. Since the majority of the mass of the fat molecule is stored in the Carbon (roughly 4-6 times more massive than hydrogen on a weighted average in fat molecules), the majority of the mass is lost through production and exhalation of CO2.


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

[User]
CMV: Trump will most likely not be impeached

Because I might get flamed, I want to clarify that I am not a Trump supporter. I'm only interested in facts behind the call for impeachment and the events leading up to it. That being said, I think that there is not enough evidence to actually go through with an impeachment, and the Republican majority Senate will likely not vote him out anyways.

From what I've been hearing so far on the impeachment markup, it seems like the basis of Trump's impeachment is treason or abuse of power based on his alleged collusion with Russia and call for interference based on a meeting/phone call with Ukrainian president Zelensky.

There has been a lot of speculation about both events with some obvious information being withheld or blocked. For example, AG Barr released a summary letter about the Mueller Report before it was formally released with redacted information. This **could've** been a ploy to redirect public perception, but as we've come to find out, the report concluded that there was not enough to convict Trump on any collusion. Following that up has been a lot of public and Democratic speculation about what actually went down as we do have solid evidence showing Russian interference against the 2016 Democratic campaign with the timing of Clinton's email release being a significant factor. But if you have any trust in the thoroughness of Mueller's investigation, then it'd be logical to assume he really didn't find enough evidence.

As for the Zelensky call, there's again a lot of speculation. Even the "transcript" that was released by the Whitehouse is just a memorandum, or in other words a retelling of the phone call transpired between them. A lot of Democrats in the markup tend to reference this transcript as hard proof of a quid pro quo between both presidents to investigate Hunter Biden's role on a Ukrainian energy board and the Crowdstrike servers (which purportedly don't exist in Ukraine according to the recent whistleblower) in exchange for continued US funding of Ukrainian defense against Russia. Having looked through the transcript myself and listening to the markups, it seems difficult to establish a firm quid pro quo arrangement based entirely on that conversation.

Republicans claim that Trump withheld funding that has been continuously given to Ukraine every year he's been in office in lieu of determining the motives of the new Ukrainian president, while Democrats claim that Trump felt threatened by a president who runs an anti-corruption platform and that Trump was not allowed to withhold Congressionally approved funding (which isn't entirely true as the Executive branch can and has overrode funding in the past). However, Trump did eventually release the funding for this year.

Going off the "transcript" again, I don't think you could determine a definitive deal entirely based on the language used in it. Trump wants a "favor" for "us" and the "country," suggesting a lack of personal motive for his own campaign. Additionally, Zelensky has also claimed he did not feel pressure from Trump to accept funding in return for political favors via investigating Hunter Biden.

So overall, there is a lot of spin in both directions based on media coverage. I can't say that I am 100% informed so that's why I'm posting here, and I am open to changing my mind if anyone has any strong evidence to support a stronger leaning toward impeachment that just allegations from the House.

Edit: Everyone has made a legitimate point that I failed to clarify in my post. I should have said Trump will most likely not be *removed. Sorry about that and thanks for pointing it out.

[Assistant]
So are you arguing that Trump won't be impeached at all? Remember, to be impeached, you need a simple majority in the House. In this instance that would be 218 members. More than 218 democrats have already expressed support for impeachment. So even if not a single Republican votes for it, Trump could still very well be impeached solely with Democratic votes.

Whether he gets removed after a Senate trial is another matter.


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

[User]
Is it weird if I use syllabic abbreviation instead of acronym for a term I came up with?

For example if I coined the term "Amazonian Conceptualization" (which doesn't exist) in my paper, can I syllabically abbreviate it as "Amacon" instead of acronymizing as "AC"?

I personally prefer syllabic abbreviation because it better avoids ambiguity. But acronyms seem to be the norm and I would like to know what others think about going against this norm.

[Assistant]
I think a thing to consider is why are you acronyming a two word phrase. If possible consider just using the full phrase it will make the work much easier to read.

Assuming the phrase you are talking about it also two words. Academia is full of pointless TLAs.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we have baby teeth?

[Assistant]
Short version: It's advantageous to have matching upper and lower teeth. This is hard to do if you always regrow teeth, like sharks.

On the other hand, only growing one set of teeth is problematic, since your head grows so much during your early life - the baby teeth would be too small for an adult's head.


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

[User] ELI5: People say that Apollo 11 could have been done with a normal calculator, so why is space flight nowadays still so hard?

[Assistant]
All the math your computer does to run Call of Duty could be solved with an Abacus and a lot of patience. There were professional mathematicians titled Calculators who did loads of math on pencil and paper to figure out flight trajectories and stuff that today we have complex programs that can do it in real time.

Fun fact, many early maneuvers in space were eyeballed by the astronauts because they didn't have time to do the math.

Getting into space may take less time to do mathwise, but rockets are still engineering marvels and take a load of work to make and maintain.


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

[User]
[WH40K] What would the ramifications of the Tau discovering a complete STC be?

Would they be able to decode it's contents?

How would it affect their sanding in the galaxy?

Would the Impirium mount another crusade?

[Assistant]
Let's assume that the Tau find a fully functional STC. Like, the kind of thing that every single person in the Mechanicus has wet dreams about. Let's also assume that the Imperium catches wind of this, somehow.

The hammer is going to come down so fucking hard. Not only is there an STC up for grabs, but it is in the hands of filthy Xenos. You are going to see, basically, a mini crusade; multiple chapters, huge numbers of Imperial Guard and Navy, full backing from both the High Lords of Terra and the Mechanicus. You are going to watch a clusterfuck of galactic proportions open up. The Imperium goes crazy over RUMORS of STCs; how do you think they are going to react if they KNOW that there is one?

Now, right away the Tau are going to know that this thing is special. They might even figure out how to get it to start making stuff if they tinker with it enough, especially since the STC is designed to be largely automated. They start pumping out Baneblades and smaller Titans, then retrofitting Tau tech into them. They might even find that they can create "Heavy Battle Tanks" (Baneblades are considered "light" tanks according to a partial STC) which make the Imperial Guard's armor look like playthings.

By the time the Imperial STC reclamation crusade shows up the Tau have practically doubled their military power. The war quickly turns into a meat-grinder as billions of soldiers clash with the very weapons they have come to rely on, bastardized by Xenos tech. It becomes a war of attrition as Imperial forces are thrown into the fray en-masse.

Titan legions are mustered, along with armored divisions across the Imperium. The largest grouping of Imperial armor ever starts coming together. Both sides watch in horror as their war-behemoths lay waste to entire planets trying to kill each other.

The closer to the center of the Tau Empire they push, the more fearsome their foe becomes. Border worlds are quickly quelled, but more central worlds do not go down easily, especially when bolstered by Dark Age tech.

The war quickly grabs the attention of the Eldar, who also want the STC if for no other reason than to stop anyone else from having it, especially the Imperium. Eldar fleets start pouring in, and a three-way fight starts up. The Orks catch wind that there's a giant brawl going down and they start flocking to the Tau Empire like ants to a bowl of sugar. One of the largest WAAAAAGHs! ever seen materializes. The Tyranids are drawn to the incredible grouping of biomass. Chaos, not wanting to be left out, shows up with another Black Crusade, hoping to take the STC for themselves.

After years of agonizingly brutal combat the war parties start making their way into the central system of the Tau. On just a handful of planets we see the largest war host ever amassed by the Imperium, a craftworld's worth of Eldar, a quickly growing WAAAAGH! that threatens to make the Octarius War look like childsplay, a full tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan, a new Black Crusade, and the entirety of the Tau military, backed against a wall, fighting harder than they ever have.

The Necrons take a nap.


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

[User] why does squinting help us see better?

[Assistant] The lens of your eye is a refractive lens. If you use a camera lens as an analogue, the higher the f-stop (the smaller the aperture), the less spherical aberration. In other words, fewer light rays to scatter. The result is a clearer picture. Squinting may act on the eye in the same manner.


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

[User]
ELI5: If telomeres shorten with every cell division how is it that we are able to keep having successful offspring after many generations?

EDIT: obligatory #made-it-to-the-front-page-while-at-work self congratulatory update. Thank you everyone for lifting me up to my few hours of internet fame  ~()~  /s

Also, great discussion going on. You are all awesome.

Edit 2: Explicitly stating the sarcasm, since my inbox found it necessary.

[Assistant]
We have a little protein in our bodies called telomerase, which regenerates the telomeres, but only for our sex cells. So we can have a healthy offspring, with fresh telomeres.

We are currently trying to see if we can apply this to prevent aging.


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

[User] How is a decaf coffee made? What is the process of decafing a caffeine drink? Thanks.

[Assistant]
I believe a number of solvents can be used, but generally the coffee beans are soaked in a chemical in which caffeine is fairly soluble, but other coffee flavors are not. The solvent is then discarded and you are left with beans that have low caffeine content, but generally still taste like coffee.

One popular solvent is supercritical CO2. This is a common discussion point when students first learn about supercritical fluids given it's such a practical application.


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

[User]
ELI5: If wars are so good for industry in the US, why does the stock market tank when we're about to start one?

I've seen this happen with Libya, Syria, and any time the US gets involved in the middle east. Rumors of intervention cause the stock market to drop, and pulling back causes the stock market to rise.

[Assistant]
War is only good for the economy in that way when it causes the government to spend massively and pump money into the economy. Putting the entire country and economy on a war footing during WWII did that.  Going to war on a small scale while cutting taxes and trying not to affect the wider society at all does not.

To paraphrase John Ralston Saul, if we want to get those economic benefits, we'd best get down to *seriously* blowing things up. Which is of course a completely insane position if meant seriously...


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

[User] ELI5: How does the impeachment process work?

[Assistant]
Someone (usually a member of the House of Representatives) files impeachment charges, those charges move to a committee for review. If the committee decides to move forward with it, a vote is held in the House.

Impeachment is similar to an arraignment, where a judge decides if the charges against someone have merit. If the President is impeached by the House (a majority voting in favor of impeaching), it moves to the Senate for something that's akin to the actual trail in a court. If 2/3 of Senators vote in favor, only then will the President be removed from office.

So in the 90s, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House, but not removed from office by the Senate. Andrew Johnson was also impeached, but no President has ever been removed from office this way. Richard Nixon probably would have, but he resigned before impeachment proceedings could take place.


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

[User]
Is a PhD / academia not a good path for a generalist?

I tried searching for this kind of advice but didn't find anything so helpful, so I'm posting here.

In my undergrad, I majored in psychology with a good amount of math, computer science, and humanities courses. After a few years traveling and doing non-academic things, I'm now getting my Masters in religious studies, with a focus in East Asian religions, while working in a computational neuroscience lab on the side.

I've loved each of these stages of my life, and think I'm happiest when I have a healthy amount of variety what I get to think about. But I feel like this breadth doesn't lend itself to a career path. On a gut level, academia as a whole still feels like thing that fits my personality and interests the best, but I don't know if my interests are too stubbornly diverse to go into a PhD and potentially academia.

In the course of trying these various disciplines out, I have realized a few things:

* I seem to get tired of one topic or one discipline very easily and really crave novelty / variety. Even though I'm in a religion studies masters, I can only really tolerate taking two religion courses or else I starting getting a little miserable. But a mix of religion, philosophy, psych, and something math-y has been keeping me pretty content. (In the past when I was a math major and then a psych major, I also was pretty unhappy when I was taking only courses in those departments.)
* I do have some underlying driving questions. In particular,  my ultimate goal is approximately understanding how humans behave and think and how people's lives can be improved on a psychological level. That's essentially the only reason why I'm doing religious studies right now, in service of that goal. But if I pursued a PhD, it'd almost certainly be something in psychology, probably clinical psychology. I want to be able to think about this question in a rigorous way that it seems like only academics have the freedom to, which makes academia seem like the route I lean toward most. I just wonder if, given my track record of constantly switching from subject to subject, I am a prime candidate to find a PhD project interesting for a year or two and then get really sick of the narrowness and demotivated. I know that this happens to a certain extent to everyone, but it seems like some people are better at pushing through it? And I don't know if I've had that fortitude in the past.

I know it's impossible to tell how any individual will find doing a PhD. I guess I would just like some advice if there are signals that I might be more or less likely than average to make it through a PhD. Are there people in academia who successfully are able to be generalists and draw from many different disciplines and to be thinking in a variety of different ways? Or if you really want to succeed in academia, do you really just have to specialize and only very marginally draw inspiration from side reading (which is not necessarily bad either! Just hard to tell what that will feel like in the concrete).

Anyway, if anyone has any insights, that'd be greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading :)

[Assistant] There are no generalists in academia. No PhD advisor is going to admit you if you tell them that's your plan. You can certainly do interdisciplinary research, the psychology of religion is a field, and most psychological research requires math. But unless you find an advisor who does interdisciplinary work, you'll have to focus on one topic pretty intensely for several years. And if you don't love it, you probably won't finish.


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

[User] Eli5: If our body normal temperature was higher, would cold temperatures feel colder, or would we feel warmer instead?

[Assistant]
Cold temperatures would indeed feel colder. This can be tested easily, really: from in front of an actual heater (or preferably, a campfire) walk away, and notice how the cold air suddenly feels colder.

This is because the feeling of "cold" is actually the feeling of your body losing heat to the environment (usually cold air, but really everything you're in contact with that is colder than you). The greater the difference, the faster that heat transfer happens (slowing down as the difference gets smaller), and as such, you would feel a colder cold at the same temperatures.

Now, that only applies if your exposed skin is also warmer. Cold does not affect core temperature as fast, since you have to lose more heat before your core temperature has to heat up its surrounding tissues.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the demon core and why is it dangerous?

I keep seeing memes about it. From what I gather, it's a metal orb divided into two semi-spheres, and when they touch, something bad happens. I looked at the wikipedia page and understood very little lol.

[Assistant]
So to understand what the demon core is you need a bit of background on nuclear materials:

Plutonium isn't particularly dangerous in and of itself.

There are four types of radiation: alpha particles, beta particles, gamma rays, and fast neutrons.  Of those, beta particles and fast neutrons are the most dangerous because they can penetrate the outer layer of your skin, but can't penetrate your body.  That means that 100% of the energy they contain gets absorbed by the living parts of your body.  Gamma rays mostly pass through you without being absorbed, so they're only dangerous if there is a lot of them.  Alpha particles can't penetrate the outer layer of your skin, which is made up of dead skin cells, so they're only dangerous if you eat something that's giving them off.

Plutonium is extremely radioactive but the vast majority of its radioactivity is in the form of alpha particles.  That means that its safe to handle plutonium without protective gear, as long you wash your hands off afterwards.

Nuclear bombs will detonate on their own whenever enough nuclear material is placed in a small enough space.  For a uranium bomb, you just need to make a big enough sphere out of uranium.  Uranium is dense enough that it will detonate on its own once you get enough of it together.  Plutonium is different.  Plutonium isn't dense enough to detonate, regardless of how much of it you have.  That being said, it only requires a teeny, tiny increase in density to cause plutonium to detonate.  That means that a plutonium bomb core is always sitting on the verge of detonation.

Fortunately, its pretty hard to increase the density of plutonium, so a plutonium bomb core is not only radiologically safe to handle, its essentially the most insensitive explosive in existence.  But there are certain things you can do to turn a plutonium bomb core into a nuclear reactor without causing it detonate.  Sticking it near beryllium is one of those things.

The demon core was a plutonium sphere that had originally been intended to be used as the core of a nuclear bomb.  Because it was safe to handle, it was repurposed as a sort of training aid following World War II.  One of the things they were training themselves on was in assembling and disassembling simple nuclear reactors - that is, putting as much beryllium as they could around the core without turning it into a nuclear reactor.

Two different people screwed that up on two separate occasions, both times briefly turning the core into a nuclear reactor and irradiating themselves with fast neutrons.

That might sound like a dumb thing but its *relatively* safe to do - they did it thousands of times with only two accidents.  And its how they made a lot of the early plutonium for the Manhattan project - there were a few open air reactors that were essentially just unrefined uranium that had been stuck in between sheets of graphite.  When you stick uranium in between graphite like that, it becomes a low power nuclear reactor that doesn't produce much energy but does produce a lot of plutonium.  In the early Manhattan Project they were more or less doing that by hand.  Sticking uranium into graphite is the same basic concept as sticking plutonium into beryllium, albeit somewhat safer because of the lower amount of energy generated.

When you see pictures of the demon core, what you're typically seeing are pictures of the beryllium plates that they were putting around it.  The core itself was a solid sphere.


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

[User] [Friday the 13th] Does Jason always go for the kill shot or does he enjoy making his victims suffer little by little before ending the struggle?

[Assistant] He usually just kills them however brutally. Freddy, Chucky and Pinhead kill and torture for its own sake out of sadism and psychopathy while Jason kills out of rage and the desire to keep Crystal Lake empty. Jason wouldnt kill if people stopped coming to Camp Crystal Lake.


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

[User] ELI5:If films are shot at 24fps, then why did we standardise 60 fps for monitors and tvs, a number that doesn't divide evenly into 24?

[Assistant]
It has nothing to do with motion reproduction or the ease of converting it to television. If it was they would have picked some even multiple of 24- probably 48 or 72 frames a second so you could just transfer it directly without 3:2 pulldown (which causes unpleasant jerkiness during motions). On a film you can use whatever frame rate you want by just speeding up or slowing down the motor, with electronic television (and yes, there was a "mechanical television), you don't have that option. These days it would be ridiculously easy to put a crystal controlled clock in TVs and make it whatever you wanted, but back in the day with vacuum tubes they didn't have that option as a practical matter, so they synchronized the frame rate to the one thing that was easily available, the 60hz power line. If the mains frequency had been 48  or 72, or even 57 they would have used that rather than 60.

TL;DR Mains electricity in the US is 60hz so TVs are too.


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

[User]
ELI5 Mulholland Drive (film)

What the fuck did I just watch.

I read the Wikipedia article about the film - it feels like my brain has been doing somersaults after watching that. Have literally no idea about a number of things in the movie.

My interpretation was that "Diane" was a paranoid wreck and failed Hollywood star, who would dream up alternate circumstance for herself (i.e. Betty).

Any explanations?

[Assistant]
Well you've got it pretty much.  The most widespread interpretation is that the first part of the story (Betty) is a dream, dreamed by Diane.  The second part is real but full of flashbacks, so it can be confusing.

Basically, in chronological order: Diane comes to Hollywood hoping to become a famous actress.  She meets Camilla and falls in love with her.  The truth is that she's a failed star as you said, and Camilla is actually toying with her.  So she hires a hitman to kill Camilla.  She then dreams the perfect life for her and Camilla (as Betty and Rita) which is the whole first hour or so of the movie.  Then she wakes up, full of guilt and regret, and kills herself when confronted with her inner demons.

The movie makes much more sense if you watch it knowing this.  Through the story of Diane, it's a piece about the Hollywood life and how it corrupted and destroyed a nave young woman.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does mold grow on overripe fruits and not while fruits are ripening? What stops the mold from forming at an earlier stage?

[Assistant] Plants defend themselves actively against molds and other pathogens by producing substances thet either kill or doesn't allow to grow the mold, but for this the fruit must be able to communicate with the plant to tell it "send help". Once the fruit falls from the tree or is so ripe that the communication paths do not work,  pathogens win.


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

[User]
ELI5:How do hurricanes bring 10ft of water with them? Where is it taking the water from?

Obviously with Hurricane Ida coming its all over the news. Theyre saying storm surges could be several feet. I understand if it breaks a dam or a levy how the water can get that high. But how can a Hurricane bring so much water inland?

[Assistant] Wind blowing unobstructed over the surface of the ocean will drag water along with it, just like how wind on a lake will whip up waves. The high winds of a hurricane push a volume of water with it making the sea level higher under the hurricane. As it comes ashore the water has nowhere to go but inland. That's what storm surge is.


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

[User] AskScience: What are the best science documentaries?

[Assistant]
For biology and nature, you cannot beat the David Attenborough series.

I recommend Blue Planet, Planet Earth, and his "Life" series:
- Life on Earth
- The Living Planet
- The Trials of Life
- Life in the Freezer
- The Private Life of Plants
- The Life of Birds
- The Life of Mammals
- Life in the Undergrowth
- Life in Cold Blood
- First Life

They are without a doubt the greatest nature documentaries in history, by one of the greatest narrators.


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

[User] The existence of heavy elements on Earth implies our Solar System is from a star able to fuse them. What happened to all that mass when it went Supernova, given our Sun can only fuse light elements?

[Assistant]
The solar system didn't emerge from a single larger star, rather it emerged from an ordinary molecular cloud, like any other star. The metals (heavy elements) originated from **many** star that went supernova and threw out their interior into interstellar space which mixed with the already existing gas clouds.

New stars can't form from single supernova remnants because the gas is both hot and expanding, while stellar formation needs gas cold enough to contract.


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

[User]
[DC]What's the deal with all these crises?

I'm just getting into comics, but off the top of my head I know of

 - Infinite Crisis

 - Final Crisis(a different part of the same event as Infinite Crisis?)

 - Crisis on Infinite Earths(a distinct event from Infinite Crisis?)

 - Crisis on Two Earths(This isn't just a smaller version of the one on Infinite Earths, right?)

 - Flashpoint Crisis(Is this the same as the Flashpoint Event?)

 - Time Crisis?(I'm fairly sure this is a completely unrelated video game, but I don't know how these continuity snarls work.)

These are all seperate events, right? Or are they multiple names for the same events? What caused them? Which came first?(is that even a meaningful question? I know some(all?) of them involve time travel) Who all was involved? What does the flash running to the end of time have to do with all of this?

[Assistant] DC has many multiverse, many of which harbor not so friendly versions of out favorite heroes. Sometimes an evil universe invades, other times it just so happens that two universes are merging threatening to wipe one or both participants out.


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

[User]
Eli5: Why is cancer so harmful to the body?

I understand that cancer is uncontrolled reproduction of cells but why is that so harmful? How do extra cells make is so sick?

[Assistant] Tumors not just replicate, they actively siphon off the bodys resources by causing blood vessels to grow into them and provide them with nutrients. These blood vessels are what makes tumors look vaguely like crabs with veins protruding all around as if a lot of limbs, giving cancer its Latin name. With tumors spreading and growing everywhere the body eventually runs out of resources and dies.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do dolphins and whales die when they hit land if they have to come to the surface to breathe?

[Assistant]
Theyre so heavy that when the water isnt supporting their weight, their lungs get crushed and they die. Basically, theyre too heavy to live on land. Which is why people work so hard to get them back in the water.

Check out the concept of a buoyant force for more information.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does more bandwidth cost more money when it is all just electricity over the exact same wires?

[Assistant]
Data capacity.  That electricity you mention is carrying encoded information, and depending on the material and protocol used, is capable of transmitting _x_ amount of data at a given time.  Imagine you rent out part of your residence.  If you were to rent two of the bedrooms and a living room, wouldn't you want more than if you rented out a single room?  Thats because your house has a limited capacity, and you would expect that more of that capacity should cost more to be used.  The same is true of telecom and ISP providers.  They have a network that is capable of moving _x_ amount of data at a time.  If you want to take up more of that capacity, you have to pay more, because your use precludes another customer from using that capacity. The same is true for future capacity, in order to serve more customers the telco or cable co says, "oh, we see that 1,000 people want fast internet in Tallahassee, so we'll add some equipment/lines there, and that will provide 1 gigs/second to the internet, so we can sell each of the 1,000 people a 1mb connection, or sell 500 people a 1mb connection and sell 250 people 2 mb connections."  Im simplifying but you get the idea.

Edit: spelling.