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

[User] ELI5: What exactly is eczema, and why can't it be treated?

[Assistant] Eczema is a skin condition where the moisture barrier breaks down and causes red patches of skin (dermatitis- inflammation of the skin). There are a few different types of Eczema ranging from mild to severe. There are also types that run in families. Eczema can be treated with special and sometimes expensive lotions or creams. Weather seems to have an effect on this condition. When there is a lot of moisture in the air (depending on your region), it helps to break own the moisture barrier at a faster rate in the skin causing more break outs. There are also specific locations where Eczema starts. Mostly at the inside of where the knees and elbows bend.


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

[User]
[Marvel and DC] From a storytelling standpoint, why doesn't Hell have a single supreme ruler?

Not counting Vertigo for the latter universe.

[Assistant]
Marvel: The throne of Hell is perfectly open for any demon lord or archdevil who wants to plop their ass in it. The only problem is that their countless colleagues would surely contest it, strenuously; that might just be the one act that could get all your rivals to agree on something and kick you back off. Then there's the even worse possibility: that sitting on the Throne of Hell would catch the attention of whoever it is that rightfully ought to be there. Nobody knows exactly who the "real" Satan is- he could even be one of the demons we've already met, trying to bait his less loyal underlings out- but catching his attention that way seems like it could be a Really Bad Idea.

DC: Lucifer got sick of ruling Hell and left to become a nightclub singer. His two co-triumvirs, Azazel and Beelzebub, immediately started fighting over scraps. (Yeah, yeah, you said no Vertigo, but this honestly is the answer)


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

[User]
ELI5 How does UV light reveal bodily fluids

Weve all seen it in movies and stuff but how does it work?

[Assistant] Basically, when a photon uv particle hits a phosphoric material (like pee or sweat) it excites the electrons in the phosphorus. When the electrons move back to their original position, it's releases energy which we see as light :)


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

[User]
Whats the difference between fire and plasma?

People have described some fires as plasma, but is all plasma a fire? I guess more specifically is a plasma cutter a flame?

[Assistant]
Plasma is just gas where some of the electrons have been knocked off so that it becomes electrically conductive and responsive to magnetic fields.  Fire can produce a plasma, but most of what you see when you look at a campfire is actually leftover carbon particles from incomplete combustion that have been heated up to the point where they glow.  If you want to take a closer look at actual plasma, just turn on a gas stove or a bunsen burner.  The bluish flame comes from electrons moving around in the orbitals of unstable reaction intermediaries like CH and C2.

Flames aren't the only way to produce plasmas, though.  Plasma cutters, for instance, generate their plasma by passing an electrical arc through gas that's being forced through a nozzle.  Neon lights do the same, only the gas is kept in a glass tube.  The sun makes it's plasma with gravitational compression and fusion.  You can even cut a grape in half, stick it in your microwave, and make a little ball of plasma.


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

[User]
[Skyrim] Why don't more Nords learn the Thu'um?

The Greybeards said that to become a "Tongue" would require a great deal of study and training, and it was not limited to special cases (like the Dragonborn). If people can devote their time to studying Magic, why not in Shouts?

Special mention to the Nords since they worship Talos 24/7 anyway.

[Assistant]
A: Shouts are a form of magic, while Nords dislike magic.

B: Takes a LONG time to learn even a single one if you're not absorbing dragon souls.

C: Someone has to teach you, dragons won't do that, Ulfric is a busy man, and greybeards will only teach it to you if they chose you as a new greybeard, not so that you can go and shout Imperial army back south.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do we know the verbal pronunciations of words and phrases from dead languages?

I've been playing a lot of civilization 6, and one of the cool things it does is have the characters speak the language of their Civ, even if nobody speaks it anymore, like Sarmatian, for example. It got me wondering about how we know the pronunciation of those words even though we've never actually heard a native speaker speak it. Thoughts?

[Assistant]
Basically it just involves a ton of extrapolation through related languages that still exist, or through the modern descendants of those languages. For instance, we know how ancient Egyptian sounded because of modern Coptic, which is the religious/ceremonial language for Christians in Egypt, and the only living descendant language of ancient Egyptian.

If it's a language with a ton of writing, as in the case of Latin and Greek, there's a lot of ancient writings of people complaining about how people pronounce things wrong and explain how to pronounce things phonetically. Also poetry is huge. Based on the meter and rhyme, you can figure out how a lot of things should be said.


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

[User] Why do humans/mammals bleed from the mouth after head/chest trauma? Why is this always the imminent death factor in movies?

[Assistant] Think of what the mouth connects to - your lungs, stomach, and the passageways to your nose and ears. Head/chest trauma can lead to bleeding into one of those areas, which is usually a sign things are going pretty wrong.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are work unions and how do they help employees?

In the recent Activision/Blizzard controversy I've seen the word union being thrown around a lot. Whilst I understand it is beneficial for employees, I just dont understand how it works.

[Assistant]
A union is basically a club workers join that negotiates on their behalf with the company they work for and provides benefits for members like help finding a job, professional advice, arbitrating disputes, running pension plans, or providing monetary support.

Workers who are in a union can use their "collective bargaining" power to get better wages and conditions at work because all the workers negotiating as one unit has a lot more impact than a thousand people all trying to negotiate individually.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are females generally shorter than males?

[Assistant] Evolution.  Male humans had to fight other male humans to survive so they grew stronger and taller and bigger through natural selection.  Females did the nurturing and child rearing and did not need height since they weren't out hunting food and killing rivals.


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

[User]
CMV: There is no reason to have two chambers of a state General Assembly

In U.S. government, all states but one (Nebraska) have a General Assembly almost identical to the national Congress. That is, with a Senate (upper/less members) and a House of Representatives (lower/more members). At first, it seems logical to mimic the federal structure because it's safe.

In states, the Senate and House both use districts of their state. As opposed to the United States Senate, state Senates are based off population just like the House. The only reason the national government has two houses is to compromise between those who wanted the states equally represented in Congress and those who wanted representation based on population.

These results in a Senate and House who are basically copies of each other, doing about the same thing. Sure, they usually have different term lengths, but they lack the prestige and consistency of the U.S. Senate bc they are not representing permanent borders. It is redundant.

I think instead of paying salaries for 50-200? state politicians, states should just consolidate both houses into a unicameral Assembly, like Nebraska.

[Assistant]
I like the fact that there is a second layer of protection between a bill and a law.

If the governor and the one body are on the same page too much can happen. Having a 2nd body where things can be compromised with or shutdown is an advantage.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do wheelbarrows use only 1 wheel? Wouldnt it be more stable and tip over less if they used 2?

[Assistant] Tipping over is a feature, not a bug. For many wheelbarrow uses, the end result is to tip out all of the contents into a single place. If stability is needed, there are other options like a garden cart.


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

[User]
[ LoTR ] Why didn't Sauron just wait it out? Why the rush to destroy Minas Tirith?

I haven't read any of the extended material, just the main books and "The Hobbit". Sauron's been waiting for thousands of years to come back to power. It seems like the only thing that can really foil his plans is the one true ring. Why not just wait until he reacquired it? Instead of sending his army towards Minas Tirith, why not just send every last filthy goblin to search for it? Is there a ticking clock that's explained elsewhere or is he really worried about the humans getting strong enough to beat him?

[Assistant] His enemies had the Ring - Aragorn in particular forced his hand when he revealed himself to Sauron in the Palantr. There were those among the Free Peoples with the strength to master the Ring - Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel he knew about, and now the Heir of Isildur revealed himself right on the eve of war. But mastering the Ring would require time, so if Sauron struck first, he could win the war before it became an issue.


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

[User]
What is the ideal mass for a ball so it can be thrown the furthest distance?

So, this is something I've been wondering for a while now. If I were to throw a really heavy ball, it would barely go anywhere, because I can't throw it very fast. If I were to throw a really light ball, it would also not go very far, because air resistance would stop it quickly. Something like a tennis ball seems like an ideal mass between these two extremes. So I ask, what is the ideal mass to make a thrown object travel the longest distance.

To define the situation more precisely, there is a ball of radius R (you choose) at ground level. It is given kinetic energy E and launched at an angle of 45 degrees. When it hits the ground again, it stops. What mass maximizes the distance?

[Assistant]
IMHO you need to add some basic assumptions: A human, when throwing an object of moderate weight (lets say, lighter than 150g), is primarily limited by *speed*, not projectile energy: You won't be able to throw a 10g projectile significantly faster than you could throw a 150g projectile.

So the ideal projectile should be throwable (near) top-speed, but be as heavy as possible (exact weight depends on human anatomy and throwing technique).

Empirical evidence suggests that 45m/s is a pretty hard-to-break limit for ~150g, baseball-shaped projectiles- no significant improvements of this speed have been achieved in the last 20 years.


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

[User] [Jason Bourne] Due to a simple clerical error with the govt., Jason Bourne is sent to take you out. What actions give you the best chance of survival?

[Assistant] A halfway decent assassin will scope his target for a week or two before going in for the kill.  Continue being a boring Internet putz and Jason will likely contact HQ and ask to double check if unguarded underwear guy is the right mark.


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

[User] [MCU] Once Wakanda opened up to the world, was there a large call for democracy inside Wakanda, instead of the monarchy?

[Assistant] Wakanda wasn't ignorant of the existence of Democracy. They kept an eye on the outside world. So establishing contact with the outside world wouldn't significantly change public feelings on the monarchy. They stick to it by choice.


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

[User]
ELI5- Why arent pregnancies discovered earlier on?

Im not totally sure how to ask this. So most people find out theyre pregnant between 6-8 weeks. And its relatively common knowledge that one does not get their period while pregnant. So my question is, how do people not find out theyre pregnant until around 6 weeks if the average menstrual cycle is 4 weeks? Ovulation occurs on, I believe, day 14 in the cycle, so shouldnt more pregnancies be discovered at 2-3 weeks when the initial next period would occur?

ETA: thank you for the responses! My confusion began with the the whole youre 6 weeks pregnant when its more than likely 3-4 weeks of legitimate gestation due to how doctors begin the clock at the end of the last menstrual cycle.

[Assistant]
The *average* menstrual cycle is 4 weeks. But:

* Many, if not most, women have some irregularity in their cycles.
* Menstruation can be light and difficult to notice for some women or for some specific rounds of it.
* Some women do not closely track their cycle.
* Cycles can be significantly longer or shorter than the usual 4 weeks.

All of these combine to make a missed period not necessarily immediately obvious.

And finally:

> so shouldnt more pregnancies be discovered at 2-3 weeks when the initial next period would occur?

The ages given in pregnancies ("gestational age") are from the *last* menstrual period, not from the first missed one. So 2 weeks after conception is, on average, ~6 weeks after the last menstrual period. Counting from conception, the child is about two weeks younger than this number.


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

[User]
Factors influencing eating disorders?

I have always heard that all eating disorders (for the sake of simplicity Ill only mention the three big ones: Anorexia, Bulimia and Binge Eating) come from the same place: low self esteem, using food as a coping mechanism etc.

However, I have always wondered why people with eating disorders ^use^ food in completely different ways. Isnt the original issue quite similar most of the times? What are the factors influencing whether you emotionally cope with not eating, purging or binging?

[Assistant] Speaking from experience and some research, Id say unhealthy family dynamics plays a big part. Im doubtful low self esteem is a prevalent issue. Rather, eating disorders seems to mostly stem from control issues, either too much control or lack thereof, or alternating between those. The need for control can also relate to an unstable home, issues regarding sexual development or emotional needs not being met.


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

[User]
To grad students/established professors: how do you get rid of researchphobia or just general anxiety of doing research?

So I am planning to enter grad school. I know I just have to because my dream job requires me to have at least a masters degree( I want to teach college). I only have like one or two research works (one special problem and one undergraduate thesis) and both are deemed unpublishable in journals. Now this may have put a dent on my confidence doing research but I can summarize my reasons on why I generally loathe/fear doing research:

1. What if my research is not journal worthy?
2. I feel like I lack the training to even pull off a good research topic. I haven't done a lot of laboratory techniques  on my field (cell biology). Most of my trainings are pure lecture classes with a little bit of paper reportings.(Case in point: molecular genetics. I know the gal and ara operon machinery and viral genetics but I have never done a recombinant DNA technology experiment.)  And most research technician jobs require experience so I cannot apply to those either prior to applying to grad school.
3. I feel like everything has been discovered already.
4. They said that in academe you should be writing for grants. I don't even have the creativity to think of a good topic. My thesis was just a sub topic under a project of one of my professors, so I know the idea didn't come from me.
5. I feel like my writing skills are not up to par with like science standards. I still make grammar mistakes from time to time.
6. I sometimes lack the comprehension skills to understand a single paper. Takes me like 2-3 days just to fully absorb everything in it. I blame my lack of hands on training lol
7. Overall I think I just have some rejection sensitivity dysphoria lol

How did you overcome this (if ever you went on this stage)? Any suggestions? I think I gotta clear my mind of this if I am to enter and apply to programs next year.

Your advice is greatly appreciated.

[Assistant]
Read lots and lots of papers. Read so many papers that you properly understand them and can see the flaws in them. IME this is around the 100-200th paper mark, if youre reading casually (which you usually will be).

Nothing shatters those rose-tinted glasses quite like reading the kind of flawed work that gets published in reputable journals. No one has discovered anything, and what they have discovered, they have incorrectly characterised. And the same will be true of your work too. Everyones work is a work in progress, and then we die and hand the baton on to the next generation.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is media allowed to extensively cover the details of a crime investigation if it essentially makes it impossible to form an unbiased jury later for the trial?

Yes, I've been binge watching "Making a Murderer." Is it simply a right provided in the first amendment which allows reporters to cover anything they can about the investigation as it progresses? At least in today's modern society, it seems to me that by not restricting access to the details of a crime investigation to reporters, it is inevitable for at least some of the jurors to be previously exposed to the information through media (and therefore form their own biases) prior to the trial. Wouldn't it be more consistent with the right to a fair and unbiased jury to conceal the details of the investigation until the actual trial is underway, and then allow reporters to cover the trial in real time?

[Assistant]
In the USA, freedom of the media is an extremely strongly protected right -- *especially* coverage of things the government is doing.

They can always find a  jury, since (1) not everyone follows the news and (2) if necessary they can relocate the case.


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

[User]
Why haven't American stocks suffered amid the trade war?

Emerging market stocks have been taking a pounding over the past few months (from my understanding mostly due to the increasing strength of the USD). It's understandable that these stocks would be taking more of a beating than American stocks but why would American stocks not be taking any beating whatsoever? Increased tariffs would presumably result in increased input costs for many American companies resulting in lowered margins and profits, right? Why hasn't the American stock market been affected by this trade war?

[Assistant]
They have, but the effects seem to be counteracted by the tax cuts and the economy generally being good otherwise. The trade war has created lots of volatility and short-term swings in stock prices, but they seem to recover.

Check out the 1month chart for AAPL.


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

[User]
How did we, as a people, lose the Egyptian hieroglyphics?

I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but I learned a bit about Jean-Franois Champollion today, about how he had a Rosetta Stone w/hieroglyphs, how he translated the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. I was kind of confused as to how we, as a people, had forgotten it.

I'm just extremely curious to know... what happened? Where did all the people who spoke (or could read) Egyptian hieroglyphics go?

I just find it remarkable that we found their civilization to be "alien" just 300 years ago.

[Assistant]
A clue for an answer is right in the name 'hiero', it means sacred in ancient Greek. The language commonly used by the time of its extinction, as others have pointed out, was Coptic. Scribes used it for communicating among the different levels of power.

The hieroglyphs however were taught to a few select priest. When the priests died out due to changes in power, no one was left to translate them into a language that people understood.


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

[User] [Spider-Man] Is Peter Parker actually a good photographer? Or is he just good at getting high-quality photos of Spider-Man?

[Assistant]
He's actually very skilled as a photographer, and has had multiple jobs not just for the Daily Bugle, but other publications who wanted to use/display his work other than Spider-Man pictures.

It just so happens that his super powers allow him access to angles and opportunities that other photographers don't have. Granted, Peter is a good guy and mostly just exploits it for his Spider-Man photos. But every now and then he's used his wall crawling to get up to places other photographers could only dream of.


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

[User]
[Kingsman] Where did the new Arthur even come from?

We saw Arthur was the new head of Kingsman after his predecessor died. Where did he come from? We certainly didnt see him at the hologram table in the first movie.

[Assistant] Holograms are for active field agents and their leader (EDIT: and sometimes a tech support guy just in case they need to know if they've got the right gear for a mission). He was probably a former active agent who'd retired from active duty and was hanging out (out of sight) at the mansion or working at the companies that provide their base technology to make their spy gadgets or something.


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

[User] Why is it that you can only make memory cards with powers of base 2? (eg.128,256,512,1024 etc.)

[Assistant]
The short explanation is that to be able to recall the information, the memory needs to be accessed. This is done by putting a signal on certain wires and 'strobing' the chip. The strobe is the signal that tells the chip to put the data on the data signal wires.

The memory is arranged on a grid. Every time you add a wire to the grid, you increase the size of the grid by a power of two.


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

[User]
What is going on with heat creams such as Deep Heat?

How do the active ingredients generate that sensation, and if it is simply a trigger to the heat/pain receptors, how does it relieve muscle tension?

Does the cream penetrate the upper skin layers in any meaningful way? Are there any physiological differences that can change the effectiveness (for example, if you are hot and actively sweating would the effect of the cream be more or less?).  Just some questions that occurred to me last night.

[Assistant]
They trigger receptors.

Most rubs use menthol for cooling and methyl salicylate for heating. Menthol triggers TRPM8 receptors (cold sensitive ones) and methyl salicylate acts as a rubefacient and irritates the skin.

I have no clue how methyl salicylate irritates the skin though.

Edit- Also, menthol wouldn't cool you off. It would stop you from sweating, but your actual body temperature wouldn't decrease.


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

[User]
[WH40K] What would Angron be like if he was raised by the Emperor?

There is something to be said about nature vs nurture when it comes to primarchs. Clearly they were all heavily affected by their upbringing but they each seemed to have certain abilities and characteristics built into their DNA. These abilities and characteristics were likely chosen by the Emperor to allow them to fulfill certain roles in the founding and running of his new empire.

I have two major pieces of evidence for this:

* The space marine legions, composed of ordinary men who were enhanced and infused with the genes of a primarch, began to differentiate themselves and behave differently even before their primarchs were discovered.

* Magnus the Red was a very powerful psyker, and in order to be a psyker you have to have the genes for it. No matter how amazing the people of Prospero were at psychic stuff and no matter how good Magnus was at learning he wouldn't have become one of the greatest psykers without powerful psyker genes, it's like trying to be good at wine tasting when you have no taste buds or sense of smell. Furthermore Magnus was a primarch, that he had powerful psyker genes was no accident, the primarchs were made from scratch and each of their genes was hand picked or written wholesale by the Emperor or one of the scientists working under him. Given that the Emperor choose to endow Magnus with powerful psychic abilities while most of the other primarchs didn't get the same treatment means Magnus had a *role*, he was meant to be *the* psychic guy. If Magnus had a role it stands to reason that his brothers did as well.

These roles seemed to extend beyond the great crusade and into the running of the empire itself, Magnus could be an expert on all things warp related and help create and maintain psychic constructs such as the imperial webway, Roboute Guilliman could help create new infrastructure and deal with the administration of the imperium, Rogal Dorn could be in charge of military defenses of the imperium, either Horus or Sanguinius could act as a 'hand of the king' type person, being both assistant and substitute leader while the Emperor was doing other stuff, and so on. These primarchs could act as 'champions' of their schools of thought and run the imperium and enrich the minds of successive generations with the same wisdom that created it. There would be no chance of ever 'loosing' what made the imperium great because it's standing right there talking to you.

Even the really warlike or scary ones could have had roles after the crusade. Who better to break a rebellion (especially a heavily entrenched one) than a team of Perturabo and Russ? Who better to bring it down from the inside CIA style than a team of Alpharius / Omegon and Konrad Curze?

It seems to me that with the Emperor's guidance all of the primarchs could exist after the crusade. That is, except Angron. While Russ could sit around drinking and telling stories during times of peace (or hunting if he got bored) and Perterabo could do whatever Perterabo does for fun (knocking over people's sand castles?) Angron was pretty much always angry all the time. I have a hard time believing you could leave him alone for any period of time (without something to point that anger at) without him starting shit.

This brings us back to the nature vs nurture topic. Growing up in a brutal gladiatorial arena and having agression/anger magnifying all-other-emotion dampening implants put in his brain probably didn't help Angron to be the most well adjusted person. **The question is, would he be an angry guy even without that terrible childhood or would he have some other helpful qualities that were eclipsed by the anger (is there any evidence that Angron was good at doing anything other than wrecking shit)? In either case what do you think the Emperor's plan was for Angron? What was his role meant to be?**

[Assistant] His role, or wyrd as the Space Wolves call it, would have been similar; a blunt, brutal instrument to put fear into the hearts of the enemies of the Emperor. He would have been way better adjusted staying with the Emperor his whole life, however. The Butcher's Nails seriously fucked him up. He also had a huge grudge against the Emperor for letting his comrades from his homeworld die without him. Remove those two influences and you'd probably have a Primarch and Legion broadly similar to the Space Wolves, but less wolfy.


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

[User] ELI5: If feces is the bits of food that our body couldn't digest or use, is it possible to eat a diet that our bodies can use 100% and never have to defecate? And, if so, could such a diet ever be healthy or would it always be deficient in some nutrients?

[Assistant]
Ignoring water and focusing on the solid mass, more than half of your feces is composed of bacterial corpses and waste. The rest is about one quarter plant matter you couldnt digest mixed with some complex carbs that werent fully broken down, and the remaining quarter is divided between protein and fat that wasnt fully digested/absorbed; the exact fraction depends a lot on the person and their diet.

Back to the top though, healthy stool is 50%-75% water, so really your feces consists primarily of water, bacterial biomass, and indigestible fiber. Even if the remaining bits could be *perfectly* digested and absorbed, youd still have the same need to poop.


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

[User] ELI5: why can you move one eye inward independently but not outward?

[Assistant]
"Moving one eye inward" uses the same movements as focusing on a point very close in front of one eye. You don't actually need to move your eyes "independently" to do this; so long as the focal point is in front of one of them, that eye will appear not to move, but it can still be tracking a point together with the other eye.

Moving one or both of your eyes *outward* can't be done by focusing on a point.


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

[User]
What makes a philosopher a philosopher?

What I'm asking is, what is the difference between a philosopher and a layperson?

Also how can a layperson become a philosopher without formal education in philosophy?

[Assistant]
An academic philosopher requires a PhD and/or a job at an academic institution and/or publications in academic journals. This is a job with entry qualifications and specific teaching/research tasks.

Laypeople have better or worse philosophical thinking abilities, e.g. clear and critical thinking, comprehension of ideas and arguments, argumentation skills, etc. That makes some of them more philosophically inclined than others, so in a sense they are better at philosophy than others. More engagement with the subject is required though to make them philosophers.

Sometimes people have musings about life, the universe and everything, but their way of thinking about these things is not necessarily philosophically robust nor do they engage with other philosophically works. They may think of themselves as philosophers but that may be overreaching.


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

[User]
[LotR]What's the deal with the Mouth of Sauron guy?

In The Return of the King movie, he's pretty freaking looking and doesn't look like a human, elf, or orc.
Is he telepathically controlled by Sauron or is he like an ambassador for him?

[Assistant]
This is basically the only description we get:

>At its head there rode a tall and evil shape, mounted upon a black horse, if horse it was; for it was huge and hideous, and its face was a frightful mask, more like a skull than a living head, and in the sockets of its eyes and in its nostrils there burned a flame. The rider was robed all in black, and black was his lofty helm; yet this was no Ringwraith but a living man. The Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dr he was, and his name is remembered in no tale; for he himself had forgotten it, and he said: 'I am the Mouth of Sauron.' But it is told that he was a renegade, who came of the race of those that are named the Black Nmenreans; for they established their dwellings in Middle-earth during the years of Sauron's domination, and they worshipped him, being enamoured of evil knowledge. And he entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again, and because of his cunning he grew ever higher in the Lord's favour; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of the mind of Sauron; and he was more cruel than any orc.


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

[User]
Is personality dependent on memory? If you lose your memory, do you lose your personality?

If you somehow lost 100% of your memory, including all the subconscious memory (i.e. you even forget how to walk), would you lose your personality?

I've been thinking about what defines a person's identity. Is memory sufficient for identity? If personality is not a part of memory, then memory probably isn't sufficient for identity. This means that if you put someone's memory in another person's brain, the second person won't have the same personality as the first person.

[Assistant]
Psychology really doesn't have a great answer for this. The arguement of Nature vs. Nurture has gone on for yeras, although it is now clear both are important to the nature of a person. So no, memory by itself does not form an identity. However, if you were to receive brain damage that caused you to lose that much memory you would probably lost a lot of your personality as well.

If you are curious for more info look up identical twin studies.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do historians and archaeologists comfirm that every ancient documents that they read are real?

You know that in the ancient times there is no digital stuffs to verify that it is really happening, they really say that, etc. So it is very possible that some historic writings are manipulated. Like there is a saying: history is written by the winners. Then how do historians can know that all the ancient writings they found are legit and not manipulated?

[Assistant]
1. That quote is something of a joke among historians. The winners are rarely willing or able to get rid of every piece of evidence that contradicts their narrative.

2. Historians dont just take the documents they find at face value. Every piece of evidence is examined in the context of other pieces to determine what it means.


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

[User]
[Lovecraft] If someone felt no emotions or physical sensations like pain or pleasure was faced with a lovecraftian insanity object what effect would it have?

Insanity tends to be linked to emotions. The giggling loon, the primal rage, the suicidal despair, etc. But if you felt nothing at all except perhaps mild curiosity and maybe boredom how would it manifest?

[Assistant] The emotional responses to seeing a great old one are a secondary response to the primary response: The neural pathways of the brain rebelling, refusing to comprehend the information they're receiving, shutting down rather than expose themselves to something that terrible and unfathomable, even at the price of permanent brain damage or death. Your hypothetical person would still experience adverse effects, even if they were as mundane as impaired cognitive function, seizures, and/or death.


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

[User]
Just exactly HOW important is the dinner after a conference?

I am a second - year undergad student just begining a summer position at my university. There is a conference coming up and several of my lab mates (all in grad school or beyond) are presenting. I am not nearly cool or knowledgable for presentations yet, but still want to attend to get some experience under my belt. The conference organizers are allowing undergrads to volunteer by assisting with registration for a day, and in return get to attend the conference at a very low cost. My advisor thinks its a good idea for me to go and seems to appreciate my enthusiam.

While I can afford the price of attending, I do not think I can justify spending another large sum of money (well, large for me) to attend the dinner afterwards. However, I am torn because I have heard that is where the most networking opportunities come from. I am not sure how many opportunities will be available for someone as shy and as inexpereinced as me, but if its really that important, I wonder if I should just bite the bullet and go. All of thisis under the assumption I won't be called in for work at my otherjob at the university - in which case I will be attending the dinner, but as a doshwasherin the kitchen! Have to make ends meet somehow...

I thank anyone who has read this far, I would like to hear as many points of view as I can! My area of interest is agricultural science, if it makes any difference.

[Assistant]
If it's the formal awards dinner or conference dinner, don't bother. It's usually mediocre pseudo-fancy hotel food for way too much money. In those dinner you end up sitting with your group, other people you know, or sometimes at a table of strangers if you went by yourself. The former two doesn't help networking, and the last one is a crap shoot.

It's the informal lunches and dinner and drinks that are kind of useful for networking. But it's kind of a "you have to know a guy" deal. Sometimes the faculty or senior grad students will help make the introductions and the younger students tag along to start their networking relationships.


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

[User]
CMV: Contraception such as a drug eluting implant should be mandatory until say.. 21 and there is no cases where teenage pregnancy is a good thing

I cannot see any cases where teenage pregnancy is a good situation or certainly where it wouldn't be better for the parent to be a few years older.
In terms of lost opportunity for social, educational and professional development having a child when very young, is never the best situation.

Surely having better established parents would reduce poverty, welfare reliance and the likelihood of  single paternity?
Therefore the logical step of mandatory contraception sounds like the best option.
Let's say a drug eluting implant for both boys and girls. And for the sake of clean argument let's say the medicine is 100% safe and effective.

[Assistant] In a perfect world where some hypothetical unisex implantable non-hormonal side-effect-free reversible no-cost contraceptive device exists, maybe, but I'd argue that you can't force an adult to undergo medical care when they are mentally competent. How do you propose we rewrite the laws on consent for medical procedures for adults without setting a precedent that opens the door for serious ethical violations of an adult's bodily autonomy?


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

[User] [FMA] How is the "don't transmute gold" rule enforced?

[Assistant]
Largely education (Stupid people don't become alchemists) and, presumably, the threat of jail time or other harsh punishments if you're caught doing it.

Education? Well, if you transmute gold, you run the risk of destabilizing the economy! Amestris presumably runs on the gold standard, their currency being backed by vaults of gold much like Fort Knox used to be for. If someone adds more gold into the mix, it makes the current amount of gold less valuable! Thus making your gold worth less every time you make some.


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

[User] eli5: Why do most racing vehicles (F1, IMSA etc) lose control immediately the second they touch grass where a 'passenger' car would retain some control?

[Assistant]
A normal tyre is made to handle all kinds of surfaces.

Race tyres, especially slicks, are only made for race tracks. Also really stiff suspension means race cars loose traction even quicker than normal cars.


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

[User]
CMV: Age of consent in the USA should be federally mandated at 18 years old across all 50 states.

Abortion is the only exception, as I think there should be more autonomy given to the pregnant person rather than the parents in that decision.

If legal adult age is 18 in the USA, it should apply to all privileges. If a teenager wants to be in a relationship with an adult (barring the Romeo & Juliet laws), they should be at least 18 years old. This way, statutory rape can be considered a federal offense and might ward off more pedophiles.

There will be some who balk at the federal thing in favor of smaller government, but in my opinion, there should not be a safe haven in another state for a 16 year old to have sex with a 30 year old and not get in trouble.

EDIT: If both people are underage, obviously this doesnt apply to them.

EDIT 2: Why oh why did I go back and read those comments? Well I did, and I guess I have to say some stuff, or else I wont be able to sleep tonight.

1) Thank you to those who tried to keep the conversations in good faith.

2) I am no prude, I am no puritan.

3) My thoughts behind this CMV were to deter sexual relationships between clear minors and clear grown adults, so yes I should have specified such relationships with large age gaps. So a 14 year old having sexual contact (I dont give a crap what your definition of that is) with a person 18 and over is gross and predatory to me. Clearly there are some folks who disagree. A 17 year old having sex with an 18-20 year old is NOT WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. I am also no longer interested in discussing the what ifs behind different age combos. (17/25, 18/24, 15/19, 20/30, etc).

4) I have given all the deltas I am prepared to give on the subject, so if youre still harassing me trying to get me to respond, I am no longer entertaining said responses.

[Assistant] The Constitution does not allow for this. Any power not explicitly given to the federal government belongs to the states. This country was formed with the understanding (even with a much smaller footprint at the time) that it was going to be a huge place full of a huge variety of people and cultures, and that it wouldn't make sense to try and have federal laws about everything. The entire appeal of the US was and still is that our states are the primary legislators.


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

[User]
[General Superhero/Action Movies] Why does punching or hitting someone hard enough send them flying backwards instead of punching a hole through them?

An example would be in Kingsman with the bar scene (when he shoots the stun bullet-thing out of the umbrella).

[Assistant]
Assuming we're talking about normal people taking the punch, superheroes probably practice their punches to be more of a nonlethal "push" so they aren't indiscriminately killing people left and right.

Perhaps villains do the same so they can make their victims suffer more, if they're powerful enough to kill someone with their strength alone.


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

[User] ELI5: How come we can hear frogs and crickets outside very clearly when we are in our houses, but you can't hear people talking inside a house clearly when you are outside?

[Assistant]
Its also worth noting that animal noises like frogs and crickets that you describe are often very repetitive, patterned noises.  They are very predictable and easy for your brain to pick up on.  And also very much evolved to be AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE to travel over yards or even miles of distance.

In contrast, speech is much less predictable, being comprised of so many different phonemes and tones, and unless someone is having a domestic, probably not consistently shouting at the top of their lungs.  In fact, they are probably being relatively quiet decibel-wise, as they dont have it in mind to broadcast it across the entire neighborhood.

That said if you have an opera singer in your neighborhood it could be a whole different story where volume is concerned.  XD  Or, again, a domestic dispute.


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

[User]
CMV: The era of American global leadership has been not only a net positive, but the greatest era in human history for democracy, peace and prosperity, and the US must maintain an active foreign policy to preserve it and continue progress

Warning: this is nearly 1700 words, but theyre all important to my argument. Please dont engage me if youre not at least willing to skim over the post

	1.	Democracy

Democratic forms of government used to be a luxury reserved for mostly Western nations prior to WWII,. However, democratic forms of government are now the majority of world governments thanks to US influence. This is according to academic research done by privately run British newspaper The Economist in the 2020 Democracy Index. This widespread adaptation of democracy is due to nations wishing to copy the United States form of government in order to succeed like the US has. Look into the Washington Consensus for more info on this. These nations feel that giving rights to their people and embracing liberalism is the best way to develop. This is why America should remain interventionist, but I will talk about that later.

This spread of democracy is also thanks to American aggressive anti-communist actions during the Cold War which were controversial at the time, but the fruits of their labor are now fully grown.

Any modern analysis made between rivaling states backed by the US and USSR respectively grants a clear winner. South Korea is a fully developed democratic country whereas the North is a hermit absolute quasi-religious dictatorship which is almost entirely living in desolate pre-industrial conditions outside of the capital. Taiwan is a democracy with freedom of speech and by far the best LGBT rights record in Asia, while China is a state-capitalist oligarchy (slowly turning into an autocracy with the growing power of Xi Jinping) which is not by any means democratic and curtails both freedom of speech and access to information. East Germanys Stalinist dictatorship collapsed under the weight of its own tyranny, and the Federal Republic of Germany has almost entirely embraced the ideals of West Germany. With the fall of the USSR, America has no challenger to global hegemony, and accordingly, the rate of democratization has increased.

America has also done this in a very distinct way which still guarantees independence to the nations of the world. US policy in the Cold War was anti-colonization and puts forth no effort to colonize or enhance savages like European powers did before America took up the role of global leader. The US negotiated between the Dutch government and Indonesian resistance movement during the Indonesian revolution against Dutch efforts to regain their colony shortly after WWII, and produced a charter and model for Indonesian independence which the pressured the Netherlands to agree to. The same occurred in Vietnam, where the US refused to intervene on behalf of Frances efforts to regain their colony of French Indochina, but rather only supported the South Vietnamese, who had a desire for an independent sovereign government just as much as the North did, if not more so consider their ties to China.  I would be disingenuous to not mention the right-wing anti-democratic strongmen that America put in power in the nations they de-colonized, but I dont feel thats relevant because dictatorship did not permanently stay the form of government in Chile, South Korea, Taiwan etc. whereas it did remain in the communist satellites. Basically, as one example to prove this, Park Chung-hee did not stay in power permanently, and South Korea is now free and prosperous. On the other hand, the dictatorship up north never ended.

	2.	Peace

In addition to the spread of democracy and individual liberty, the era of American dominance has also meant an era of peace never seen before in history. Contrary to what many believe, the current era of peace is not because of the advent of nuclear weapons and the consequent threat which they pose, but because of the mechanisms for international diplomacy and problem solving created by the US after WWII. The Nuclear Peace theorys logic would only explain why the nuclear powers, of which there are less than 10 out of the 193 UN recognized member states, have been hesitant to go to war. That has not been the case. Instead, there is widespread peace among the non-nuclear powers as well.

This is because of the United Nations, a landmark creation and watershed moment in diplomatic history masterminded by the US. The United Nations often gets criticized as useless, but thats because the UN is badly misunderstood. It serves only as a negotiating table, and has done a terrific job of mediating conflict. All the governments of the world now work together to stop wars of aggression, and it overwhelmingly works, as nations are afraid of the global retribution which they would face by launching an aggressive war in most circumstances, just like how Saddam Husseins Iraqi Military was obliterated by a global coalition after the UN Security Council unanimously voted to condemn his war of aggression against Kuwait and deem the occupation illegal. There are examples of where this has failed, such as the Russian annexation or Crimea, and of course the US invasion of Iraq which I do not support, but human conflict was never be completely eliminated, but the era of US leadership has reduced it to the lowest rate humanity has ever seen.

	3.	Prosperity

Along with the democracy and peace which the US has brought the world, it has also provided the greatest area of prosperity ever known. According to the World Bank, the rate of extreme poverty globally has declined at what could only be described as an extreme rate under American leadership. 75 percent of the world lived in extreme poverty in 1945, and now that figure stands at 15 percent.

This decline is due to many factors, and most of them are directly tied to American foreign policy action. For one, the previously noted American opposition to colonialism during the Cold War. The vast majority of wealth inequality in the Global South, Africa especially can be argued to be a result of colonialism. The US sought to take the world in a new direction, and this included pressuring their European allies, which at this point served as junior partners to the US in NATO, to release their remaining colonies as independent nations. They feared the growing political dichotomy in the colonized world as being colonialism vs. communism, and offered colonized peoples an option for independence which did not necessitate embracing communism. This de-colonization by America was far more significant than the effort by the USSR simply because the colonial empires of  Western Europe were allies of the US, allowing them to force these countries to de-colonize. There is a direct link between de-colonization and a shrinking wealth inequality, as post-colonial nations are no longer forced to give their resources over to their imperial overlords.

Another way in which American foreign policy should be credited for this drastic reduction of global extreme poverty is the free trade networks that the US set up. The American world order created a new system of extensive global trade with regulations and charters in place to prevent widespread exploitation. The nations with many highly valuable natural resources but without advanced education, medical or other societal developments can now exchange those resources for that technology and development, as opposed to the older global market of colonialism where the nations with more advanced technology used it to simply impose their will upon those without it, and take their resources with no obligation to compensate the people living in those areas. Of course, this explosion still sometimes occurs, but every case of this in the developing world occurs in nations which have not embrace democracy, thus the dictators are free to take bribes in order to have the right to exploit labor and resources. This is why global poverty reduction is limited without global democratization

Even China, a nation I feel is a menace to the global democratic order as will be explained later, has benefited greatly from the American-established global trade system.  After the death of Mao, the Chinese government largely abandoned communism (at least the economic policies) and embraced the global order of trade and global mutual prosperity. They skyrocketed economically, and have undergone an incredible poverty reduction campaign never seen before in the thousands of years of Chinese history.

Conclusion: Why America must stay interventionist and active in foreign policy.

Weve now established how American hegemony had created the best times in human history, but much progress much be made. This progress can only occur if the US stays active in foreign affairs.

As was mentioned earlier and inferred through much of the text, these countries have embraced these systems because America is the most powerful nation in the world, and they wish to copy that themselves. If this is no longer the case, than that will no longer be the case. If China is allowed to surpass the US to became the global leader, then the whole world will suffer greatly. Nations will feel that being more like China is the best way to develop a country. This is already being thought of in some African countries, and it is very dangerous. While China embraces global trade, they are extremely repressive socially. In Chinese elections, political parties other than the officially governing Chinese Communist Party must be approved by the Communist Party in order to run. This completely prevents any meaningful opposition from forming and is inherently anti-democratic. The internet is also completely censored with some of the most advanced software programming ever seen, and the ubiquitous censorship engine is by far the most effort China puts into software engineering. Freedom of speech is also non-existent, as many have been arrested for criticizing the government even mildly, and were told that the Chinese constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech, is not admissible in court.

With the global pivot towards authoritarianism that would encompass a Chinese hegemony, democracy would fall. While it wouldnt be realistic to say that the entire world would become authoritarian, as China is not motivated by an ideology of authoritarianism like America is motivated by an ideology of democracy, it would likely be the end of younger democracies nourished by the US which currently have a weak foundation. The West would be democratic and free, while the rest of the world will suffer under tyranny, erasing all the immense progress America has made.

[Assistant]
Here is a quick list of some (but not all) examples of democratic elections that the U.S. intervened in, disrupting the democratic process solely to protect U.S. political and economic interests:

Italy, 1948  Funding and support of pro-American Christian Democrats against Socialist Democrats

Iran, 1953  Overthrowing democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of monarchial rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to prevent the nationalization of Irans oil industry

Guyana, 1953  Consistent effort to oust democratically elected leftists Cheddi Jagan, despite being successfully elected to his office three consecutive times

Guatemala, 1954  Deposing democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz and installing military dictatorship led by Carlos Castillo Armas (the first in a series of Guatemalan military authoritarians supported by the U.S.)

Indonesia, 1958  Instigating a violent coup against democratically elected centrist President Sukarno, merely because Sukarno made a diplomatic visits to the USSR and China

Congo, 1960  The countrys first democratically elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated at the request of Eisenhower due to their plans to nationalize the countrys mineral wealth; the assassination led to the CIA-supported authoritarian rule of Mobutu Sese Seko

Brazil, 1961  Covert CIA support for violent coup against elected President Joao Goulart, due to his opposition against sanctions imposed on Cuba and his general willingness to cooperate with communist leaders in his country; coup led to 15 year military dictatorship

Dominican Republic, 1963  Democratically elected president Juan Bosch was ousted by a military coup and went into exile; when Bosch attempted to return to power via popular revolt, the U.S. intervened on the side of the military dictatorship by sending 23,000 troops

Chile, 1964  U.S. election interference and propaganda against leftist president Salvador Allende and eventually the U.S. supported the military overthrow of Allende; the resulting military dictatorship was one of the most brutal in South America, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths

I think you get the idea. The U.S. has a long history of violating democracy whenever it is politically or economically in their best interests to do so.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do computers sometimes change special characters like "&" into "&" or " "

[Assistant]
This happens because of a bug in the software being used.  The content has been "double escaped"

In the code that is used to generate webpages (HTML) the & character is used in a special way that tells the browser to render specific characters.  ` ` for example is a code that tells the browser to render a space character that cannot be used as a break point for word-wrapping and multiples cannot be collapsed together.  Because the & is used for these special codes, if you want to write an actual & character, you need to use a special code for it which is `&`

When you see these codes in the text rather than what they are supposed to represent, that is a result of the software double-processing.  For example, the first time it processes the text it converts & into `&`.  The second time, it converts `&` into `&amp;`.  Your browser then renders the `&` as & followed by the amp;


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

[User] If we know all the naturally occurring elements and how they combine, is there a finite number of compounds? Do we know them all? Have we synthesized all or most of them??

[Assistant]
It's quite likely we know all naturally occurring elements, as all the ones heavier than those we know are naturally occurring are quite short-lived, and AFAIK it's not believed any more stable elements exist (even if an 'island of stability' may exist higher up, but then they mean _relative_ stability - they'd still be short-lived).

There's a finite, but very large number of compounds. You can build very long polymer chains and very large crystals, although their size is theoretically limited by entropy (although practical limits are far smaller). No matter how strong they're bonded, it's a finite strength, and if you make the chain long enough, it'll statistically be likely to break _somewhere_.

We do not know all possible compounds. Not at all. Although many of the possible ones are just quite boring variations. If you add another amino acid to a protein, you may have a protein that's never been synthesized, but it's not going to differ much in its properties from the original, or other proteins. Not in the way that small compounds are distinct from each other.

However, there are even relatively small compounds we still don't know about, because it's not always easy to predict whether a molecule is stable or not (especially if it doesn't much resembles ones we know already), nor predict how stable it is if it exists. We're also discovering new states and properties of old and well-known elements, e.g. it was fairly recently discovered that stable compounds of Fe(VI) were existed, where it'd previously only been thought to exist as an intermediate in certain reactions, at most.

There are a number of 'theoreticals', compounds that are predicted to be stable, but which we don't know how to synthesize, often because they're high-energy compounds. One example is Td-N4, four nitrogen atoms should be able to form a (somewhat) stable tetrahedron, with each bonded to three others. Nobody has been able to produce it yet though.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do trauma surgeons deal with the fact that the patients they operate on probably haven't fasted the night before given that trauma patients don't know in advance they'll be having surgery?

I know that with elective surgeries, patients have to fast the night before to prevent vomiting when they go under anesthetic, but I was wondering how this concern is navigated in trauma or emergency surgeries in which patients definitely didn't fast the night before? Do they just try to deal with the vomit or is there a special procedure to prevent vomiting from occurring?

[Assistant] There are some of the anesthesia drugs, like propofol, that have antiemetic effect but really trauma surgery is all about risk/benefit. If immediate surgery is required to save life or limb, then the risk of aspiration is worth taking. Also many emergency procedures now, like say appendectomy, can be done using a spinal and so the risk of aspiration goes way down without intubation. Also, in general, the science has changed on preoperative fasting, and unless you are having major bowel surgery, you can down have clear fluids up to a few hours before a lot of procedures. It has been recognized that the negative impacts of fasting on blood sugar (especially for diabetics), body temp regulation, and post op recovery is often greater than the risk of aspiration. Source - am RN.


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

[User] In a vacuum, will an electron cloud expand to fill a volume like a gas?

[Assistant]
In a sense, yes. If you have a particle in a box and you expand the size of the box, the wavefunction of the particle will evolve with time such that it "occupies" the entire available volume.

There are two limits to consider: the limit where the box is expanded rapidly (the sudden limit), and the limit where the box is expanded slowly (the adiabatic limit).

In the adiabatic limit, the box size is varied slowly, so if the particle starts in the ground state of the well at t = 0, it will remain in the ground state as the well expands, even though the actual ground state wavefunction and energy are changing with the size of the well. So the wavefunction will expand with the box as you slowly make it bigger.

In the sudden limit, the box is rapidly jerked to a larger size, so the wavefunction of the particle doesn't have time to change. So immediately after the box size is increased, the wavefunction will still be localized in the region of space that was originally available. As time goes on though, the wavefunction will evolve such that it occupies the entire volume of the box.

So either way, you end up with a wavefunction which extends throughout your larger box.


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

[User]
Is gravity infinite?

I dont remember where I read or heard this, but I'm under the impression that gravity is infinite in range.  Is this true or is it some kind of misconception?

If it does, then hypothetically, suppose the universe were empty but for two particles of hydrogen separated by billions of light years.  Would they (dark energy aside) eventually attract each other and come together?

[Assistant]
Gravity does have infinite range. So if you had two atoms of hydrogen, at rest with respect to each other, separated by billions of light years in a static universe, then they would eventually hit each other.

However, if they're in any sort of relative motion, they would instead end up in some (probably ridiculously large) stable orbit.


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

[User]
Do certain smells travel farther than others?

Sometimes, when someone is cooking in the opposite side of the house, I smell  only certain ingredients. Then, in the kitchen I can smell all the ingredients. The initial ingredient I could smell from farther away is not more prominent than the others.

[Assistant] Yes, smells are made of various oils and chemicals, all of which have different densities.  Some heavier compounds will sink and either not travel as far or settle near then ground.  Others are lighter and might drift upwards where you can't smell them.  Then there will be ones in the middle that may tend to diffuse everywhere.


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

[User]
Why does the the cosmic background radiation have a uniform temperature of 2.7 K?

I know that light is red shifted by traveling over cosmological distances, and the CMB was hotter and bluer in the past. What I don't understand is how it stays in thermal equilibrium as the universe expands. Does the light it come to an equilibrium temperature by interacting with matter? Does redshift change the wavelength distribution of light in such a way that it stays in thermal equilibrium?

[Assistant]
The light is redshifted not because it has traveled, but because the universe has expanded.

In the early universe, the photons were in thermal equilibrium with matter. When the universe was about 375000 years old, atoms formed, and the light *decoupled*, meaning that, generally speaking, it was no longer regularly interacting with other things.

At that time, the light was in thermal equilibrium at a temperature of 3000K. As the universe expanded, as you suspected, the redshift keeps the spectrum a thermal spectrum, just at gradually lower temperatures.


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

[User]
[Monsterverse] Does Godzilla actually care about humanity?

So, I watched all of the Monsterverse movies again before Godzilla vs. Kong finally dropped in theaters this morning.

It is said that he is an alpha predator hunting down other Titans by Dr. Serizawa. Is Godzilla actually doing this to keep humanity safe or is it just like Serizawa says that he is an predator that is hunting down those Titans to prove his dominance over the others. In Godzilla vs. Kong he got angry and when watching the movie we finally know why, it is because Apex created Mechagodzilla.

He was literally attacking and killing humans in the movie who even didn't do any harm to him (at least it looks like that when he was firing his atomic breath into the ground or where his dorsals destroyed that bridge even though he was avoiding destroying the bridge in the first movie while other people got escorted and staying on it).

So does he actually care about them or is he viewing them kinda like some of us view certain insects like ants, flies or bees, and the only reason why he is "helping" them is because he was actually hunting down the Mutos in the first movie and Ghidorah in the 2nd and the humans were just there by accident making it look like he wants to save them?

[Assistant] Godzilla does recognize humans and kinda cares about us. But it's more like how you see deer in a field and don't try to run them over but you see one in the road you're not gonna cry over it getting hit.


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

[User] ELI5: How giving money to the low-income population would boost the economy?

[Assistant] Low income people tend to spend most if not all money they get. When they get "extra" money they use it to pay off bills, buy more food, go to the movie they have been wanting to see, buy the replacement couch, fix their car, etc. It goes directly into the economy. People of higher economic standing save money when they get "extra" and so it does not help the economy as much.


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

[User] Does light/sound at different frequencies travel in different speeds?

[Assistant] In an ideal gas the speed of sound is independent of frequency, but in a real gas it varies slightly. The speed of light is constant in a vacuum, but it does vary based on frequency in a medium. This causes the frequencies to refract differently, giving way to rainbows.


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

[User]
[The Punisher] Does The Punishers moral code depend on the laws of the country he is in?

He dedicates his life to getting rid of criminals but the definition of criminal is completely relative. For example age of consent laws are all over the place.

[Assistant]
> He dedicates his life to getting rid of criminals...

Not really. He dedicates his life to punishing the wicked. If someone fucks a fourteen year old, Frank will put a bullet in their skull no matter what the age of consent laws might have to say about it.

There have been situations where Frank *did* go after anyone who broke the law - shooting jaywalkers, for example - but he was mind-controlled at the time.


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

[User] [The Mandalorian] If a mandalorian asks another one how to get to a specific location, would they be self aware and funny enough to point at the direction and say this is the way or do you think its a topic they would absolutely never joke about? How about Dad Mandalorians?

[Assistant] No, because joking about **The Way** would be very disrespectful and not honorable. It would be like a strict Christian making jokes about Jesus. Maybe during the Clone Wars, but we dont know if the Pacifist saw their Agenda as part of **The Way** or against it.


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

[User] ELI5: Why did it became common to say "Two-thousand fifteen" for the year rather than the one-syllable shorter "Twenty Fifteen", as we did in the previous century ("Nineteen Fifteen")?

[Assistant]
We got used to it between 2000 and 2009

While Twenty Fifteen is better, Twenty Oh-Nine doesn't sound right.

So for a decade we were saying 'Two Thousand and 8'

Twenty-Ten was kind of common, but 'Twenthy Eleven' sounds kind of odd...

Twenty-Twelve was popular, probably due to alliteration, same as Twenty-Ten.

Before 200 of course saying 'One thousand nine hundred fifteen' or 'Nineteen hundred and fiften' would be excessive, so 'Nineteen-Fifteen' was almost always better.

I think you will hear both Twenty Fifteen and Two Thousand Fifteen both quite commonly though.

You'll definitely hear '2016' as Twenty-Sixteen. because it's an election year for the US, and those years become used in slogans and catchphrases etc... 2012 had a similar effect with both the election and the stupid Mayan thing.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is it that every year there's a new WWII documentary with "never before seen" footage? Hasn't all the footage already been seen /released?

For as long as I remember WWII documentaries usually have the same footage and its been that way until maybe 7 years ago where channels like National Geographic & History started showing documentaries with "never before seen" footage.

For instance the other day I saw two documentaries about Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen that showed pretty graphic footage and it was being "advertised" as never seen. They actually talked about Nazi movies still being banned in Germany until this date.

So... to rephrase the question, where is all this footage coming from? Is it that some countries never released it? They just found out it existed? Its amazing that none of it has leaked to the internet (at least that I know). I would expect that almost 100 years later every photo and video have already been seen. Seems like I'm wrong!

Edit1: Spelling is hard.

[Assistant] In addition to what other posters have said, a lot of footage can wind up in archives and other storage locations where they aren't digitised, or are even mis-labeled or mis-placed, so it's very hard to search. Someone has to physically go through a warehouse containing god knows how many thousands of film reels, and examine them. Historians doing research can come across such recordings, and realise that they contain new footage or photographs that had not been available before. On the other hand, there could be situations where they knew film existed, but it was damaged, and only recently has it been fully restored.


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[User]
Why didn't the Elves just take the One Ring to the lands that they sailed off to?

Would the One Ring have corrupted their lands or was it just not a possibility for some reason or another?

[Assistant] Someone suggests taking it to the West at the Council of Elrond, and Elrond replies that the people who live there wouldn't accept it as for better or worse it's part of Middle Earth, and the people that live there need to deal with it.


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[User]
[Cyberpunk 2022/2077] Is Adam Smasher effectively Immortal?

From what we originally see him in the 2022 book (and the Flashbacks from 2077) he didn't seem to have slowed down at all, even more, he's stronger than ever.

While he is clearly an outlier with his tolerance to Cyberpsychosis being totally borg'd out and apparently ever adding more and more chrome, besides the scenarios where V kills him, how much longer could his body take while being so encased in metal?

[Assistant] Well eventually synaptic collapse will get him. Though in theory with enough careful monitoring his brain can be kept alive for a very very long time provided arasaka is willing to erase pieces of his memory or directly alter his brain with chrome. The only thing that's still ganic on his body is his brain and a little bit of something resembling a heart.  Everything else is metal purpose built to be used as a single piece by Adam. Really the only thing that Adam has to worry about is his brain stroking out or developing something like Alzheimer's from being alive too long. Everything else he's got going on is replaceable.


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[User]
[MCU] In Iron Man 2, what exactly does Tony do to create the new core for the arc reactor and how did he get that information from his dads old stuff from the Worlds Fair?

I know it has something to do with rearranging the pavilions into a model of something but what exactly did he do?

[Assistant]
Howard Stark's study of the Tesseract led him to theorize the existence of a new element that could serve as an exotic power source. At the time, however, there was no technology with which he could synthesize this theoretical element. What he hid in the pavilion was a model of the atom so that Tony could synthesize it in the future when the tech was available.

edit: He creates the new element by throwing together a makeshift particle accelerator in his basement.


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

[User]
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but why does it matter if life has meaning? And what does that even mean?

I read philosophy (mostly summaries from the Stanford Encyclopedia, but I read a full book if it interests me) casually. I'm sort of confused on the philosophy that seems to dominate people's understanding of philosophy in popular culture, people like Camus and Sarte arguing about "the meaning of life". I'm confused because I always found this term to be extremely vague, but more troubling for me was how it seemed to be unimportant, especially compared to normative, moral questions. If morality realism is true, then it makes sense to just "do what is right", and if it isn't true then there isn't really much of a reason to do anything is there?

I understand this is a question that could easily be solved by "reading a book", but Philosophy isn't something I feel like I have much time for as I'm a Senior in High School preparing to major in Computer Science, and I want to focus on that.

[Assistant]
If you were to believe that life has no meaning (in any sense of the word), and thus if you were to believe that *nothing matters*, then what would motivate you to do anything? When you choose to do one thing and not another, you are implicitly assigning the first with a greater value than the second, which you cannot sensibly do if you think that everything is valueless. And how do you choose which things are more valuable than others? You do it based on what you think is meaningful, in some sense of that word. If you truly think nothing is meaningful, you'll have a hard time doing much of anything. If you do think that some things are meaningful, then you'll choose to do different things depending on your beliefs about the value of the various possible actions you can take. In this way, one's beliefs about the meaning of life have direct implications on one's actions and psychology.

I think you're making a somewhat strange distinction between the question of the meaning of life and the question of normativity and moral values. If life has meaning, then that has direct implications for what people ought to do (or, for normative ethical claims), since we want to act in accordance with what gives life meaning. If life doesn't have meaning, then that, too, has direct implications for what people ought to do -- namely, it may suggest that we have no obligation to do anything in particular. Either way, the question is hugely important for anyone who wants to better understand the human condition, and it is in everyone's interest to do that.


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[User] ELI5: why do cats throw stuff on the ground?

[Assistant] Cats like to push things off of ledges to check if they are alive. Its a behaviour that exists to discover mice that are playing dead. Cats often play with their food and dont eat it right away so its a good idea to make sure that your meal isnt going to run away on you the second you look away.


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[User]
[Star Wars] Is Episode I the first time in thousands of years a Jedi had to face a Sith in serious lightsaber combat?

I was always wondering why someone so powerful like Qui Gon would die so early against Maul, but then I realized, the Jedi probably NEVER had to fight another combatant using a lightsaber their entire lives. Qui Gon probably didn't expect to in his lifetime.

[Assistant]
So the Jedi obviously spar, and practice with their light sabers constantly, but that's more akin to a Karate master going into an MMA fight.  There are lots of 'moves' that don't fall into the Jedi training manuals and when Qui Gon ran into someone doing f all what he expected them to do what ended up happening was the Jedi got punked.

Later when Obi Wan fought essentially the same duel vs Darth Maul he won because he knew the Sith tricks well enough to see what Maul was going to attempt and countered it.


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[User]
Do people who were sleep deprived during adolescence tend to crave sleep as adults more often than their body really needs?

I'm thinking in terms of people who grew up with not a lot of food. As adults when they eat they might tend to scarf it down or hoard it for later. Even though they have plenty to eat now, they are still psychologically effected from not having much when they were growing up. Would behaviorisms like that occur from sleep deprivation?

[Assistant] The short answer is (1) the science is still out on this, but mostly because (2) sleep deprivation during adolescence is linked to a number of other consequences that are much more influential on sleep such as depression and obesity. Adding in other factors including genetics and physique which determine how much sleep you need, it's difficult to control for a purely behavioral study such as the one you're describing.


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[User] Eli5, why do Mason jar lids typically come in 2 parts, threads and seal, as opposed to nearly every other commonly used household container?

[Assistant]
The seal bit is single-use when canning, where the contents is heated before sealing to kill bacteria which would cause it to spoil. As it cools the pressure goes down which creates suction holding the seal on to the can.

The threaded bit is reusable and can/should actually be removed once the jar is sealed. If the seal is disrupted then you will know as the seal fails, but if you left the threaded bit on then it could reseal and you wouldn't know the jar was contaminated.


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[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Why don't space marines use camouflage?

Of all the space marines, scouts appear to be the only ones to use camo from time to time. Why wouldn't any other space marine attempt to use camouflage in attempts to blend in? The imperial guard definitely use it to their advantage by having it on all of their equipment.

[Assistant] The vast majority of the time, the honoured Astartes do not engage in the types of combat where visual camouflage would provide meaningful advantages. The Astartes are masters at assaulting the enemy, and their mobility and control of the flow of battle, whether travelling on foot, in drop pods, or in vehicles limits the need for stealth. Any foe capable of putting them on the defensive would not fall for simple splotches of paint. The Arstartes are the ceramite fist of humanity, and whether striking or parrying a blow, it should loudly resonate through the wretched damned soul of our foes. Leave the subtlety to us mere mortals.


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[User]
Do countries that don't use the Latin alphabet, like China and Japan, have their own coding languages?

Do they have their own languages they have built? Thanks.

[Assistant] Those exist. None of them are particularly popular or widely used. Some people use scripts to make 1 to 1 translations so they can write in their own language and have it automatically search and replace to the 'real' thing but even that isn't super widespread. People all over the world just kinda go with the english keywords in programming for whatever reason, so far everything else is real niche use.


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[User]
ELI5: How come full siblings share only 50% genetic with each other and not 100% since they both have the same parents?

Someone told me that full siblings with the same parents only share 50% genetic material, but why wouldn't it be 100% since they both have the same parents and are both getting 50% from the same mom and 50% from the same dad? Isn't it true that they're getting 100% of the same amount of DNA from the same genetic source (their parents)? What makes it only 50%??

[Assistant]
During conception you get 50% of your genes from your father and 50% from your mother. But you still have the same number of genes so there is 50% of the genes from each parent you do not get. Your siblings will have the same distribution of genes. So of the 50% of the genes you get from each parent your sibling will have on average 50% of them and 50% of the genes your parents have not given you. So you end up sharing 50% of your genes with your sibling. For instance your dad have a gene for developing testicles which makes you into a man, however there is still a 50% chance that this trait is the same in your sibling then in you.

To better visualize how this works. You take a deck of cards and divide it into red and black suits. This represents the genes of your parents. Now on random chose 13 cards at random from each of those decks numbered 2 to A. The new deck will have equally many black and red suits. This represents your genes. Now repeat the task with another deck of cards and you end up with a deck for your sibling. Since you picked the cards at random you now share half the cards in the decks.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why humans enjoy spicy food?

I love spicy food even though it can be a bit painful to eat things as spicy as I enjoy. The aftermath of spicy food can be pretty awful as well, so why do people enjoy the mouth burning sensations of spicy food?

[Assistant]
Because eating spicy food causes your body (pituitary gland and hypothalamus, specifically) to release endorphins.

Endorphins are the same chemicals your body produces when you experience pain, orgasm, etc.  They have an effect similar to opiates, causing pleasurable feelings and numbing the sensation of pain.

That, and there is the social "my balls are bigger than yours, watch this" aspect.


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

[User]
[Persona 5] What could Joker have ACTUALLY been charged with?

SPOILERS BELOW!

In the interrogation room scene, according to the confession he was forced to sign, Joker's crimes as a Phantom Thief included obstruction of justice, blackmail, defamation, possessing a weapon, and manslaughter. But that was obviously written by corrupt people and do not necessarily reflect what he actually could have been charged with. So, if the police and prosecution were completely objective, what crimes could Joker have been charged with?

For one, most of the beings in the Metaverse were not real, just figments someone's imagination, and I also doubt Japan has any laws on either stealing ethereal treasure or beating the hell out of someone's cognitive form. He also only had a toy gun, it's just that it became like real in the Metaverse. Finally, did Japanese officials even have jurisdiction over what was happening in the Metaverse? I know that the criminal codes of a lot of countries even apply to people abroad (mainly in case one of their citizens commits a serious crime elsewhere), but in another dimension?

[Assistant] In theory he could have been charged with vandalism, breaking and entering, issuing threats, and conspiracy-- not for the heists themselves, but for the calling cards. Possibly also fraud or counterfeiting regarding the duplicate treasures (e.g. Kamoshida's olympic medal, Madarame's copy of *Sayuri*, Kaneshiro's fake stacks of bills...)


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

[User]
How does a black hole's singularity not violate the Pauli exclusion principle?

Pardon me if this has been asked before. I was reading about neutron stars and the article I read roughly stated that these stars don't undergo further collapse due to the Pauli exclusion principle. I'm not well versed in scientific subjects so the simpler the answer, the better.

[Assistant]
It does violate it. The math for a non-rotating black hole isn't that hard, as such things go, but it requires everything inside the black hole either a) be compressed into a mathematical point or b) exceed the speed of light.

It just means that we know for a fact that our physics is imperfect. Whenever we manage to study a black hole more closely, we'll likely find some discrepancy, and that'll give us a clue that lets us produce more accurate theories. Much as Einstein improved on Newton.


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[User]
How did the early solar system sort itself out?

Why did the lightest gas, hydrogen, migrate to the center of the dust cloud?  Why are the rocky planets and the asteroids next, then more gases to form the gas giant planets?  It seems the original disc/cloud was complex, so how did it sort?  Was it homogeneous initially?

[Assistant]
Yes, you start with basically a homogeneous cloud, which is mostly hydrogen, followed by helium, and then a sprinkling of everything else.

This composition is what you then get for the Sun, in the center.  This composition is also what you start with everywhere else in the cloud.

The cloud has heated up as it has collapsed into a disk, and the center will collapse all the way into making a star, so that will become very hot indeed, but the farther out you look from the center, the more things will be cooling down.  Heavier more refractory substances (rocks and metals) will be the first things to be able to coalesce and freeze out--if you're in the inner solar system, the temperature will drop below the vaporization point of, say, iron oxide, while still being above the vaporization point of, say, ice, so you can get solid particles of rocky stuff forming, but not of ices.

At any given point of time, you can draw a line in the disk and say "inside this line, it is too hot for anything solid to form, but outside this line, it is cold enough for rocks and metals to solidify," and call this the rock/metal line.  Similarly, you can draw another line farther out and say "inside this line it is too hot for ices to form, but outside this line, they can," and call this the frost line.  Between these two lines, solid planets can form.  Outside this line, not only can solid planets form, they will be much bigger, because they can form from not only the rarer rocks but the much more plentiful ices.

Now, at all of these places, you still have the full mix of elements--about 75% hydrogen by mass, 25% helium by mass, a sprinkling of heavier atoms--but in the very center they're all gases, in the middle zone, the rocks are solid, and in the outer zone the rocks and ices are solid while hydrogen and helium are still gases.  The planets grab onto atmospheres made of whatever gases are nearby; the bigger they are, the more atmosphere, so the outer ones grab much bigger atmospheres.

Now the Sun kicks in with an early phase of intense solar wind and blasts all the loose gases out of the solar system.  The inner rocky planets are too small to hold on to anything and are stripped down to bare rock.  The outer rock+ice planets are big enough and far away enough that they hold on to their atmospheres, which are huge, so that rocks and ice are hidden deep away inside and all we see are those atmospheres. Jupiter is still basically the same mix of elements as the Sun and the original cloud, but Earth is now very different.


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

[User]
[Superheroes] How slowed down would time have to be in order to dodge a bullet?

Im working on a character for something, and they have the power to essentially slow down time in a ten foot radius around them, They dont have any superhuman reflexes, though. How slow would a bullet fired from something like an AK-47 have to be in order to be feasibly dodged from that distance?

[Assistant] So an AK-47 fires 7.62x39mm ammo at a muzzle velocity of around 715m/s (2350 feet per second). Let's slow it down to around NERF dart speed. Google clocks NERF darts at 30-45 miles per hour, so taking the low end: 30mph ~ 44 fps. So time would have to be about 53 times slower than normal (1/53) to achieve 'NERF time'. That being said, without good reflexes, you may want to double that to around 1/100 to safely dodge AK bullets.


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[User]
[Spider-Man] About No Way Home

Warning: My question does contain major NWH spoilers. If you click on the blocked text despite not having seen the movie yet, thats not my problem.

>!In the movie, each of the villains are taken right before their deaths. So, Petes plan was to cure them, or rather deprive them of their powers, so that theydont die. Thing is, is that the cure wouldnt solve anything. Green Goblin, for example, died because he was impaled with a glider. Not because of his mental illness. So sending them back, even while cured, would do nothing. What am I missing?!<

>!Also, does this mean their deaths arent canon anymore? I just need somebody to lay this out for me. I throughly enjoyed the movie, but this is a bit of a mindfuck!<

[Assistant]
>Green Goblin, for example, died because he was impaled with a glider. Not because of his mental illness.

Well Norman impaled himself on his glider because of his mental illness. A reformed Norman wouldn't kill himself in an attempt to kill Spider-Man. He would surrender rather than die at his own hands.

It's before their deaths, but not *immediately* before. Doc Ock for example, doesn't get pulled while he's submurged in the river, he's pulled while he's fighting Spider-Man at the docks before he reforms.

Electro was pulled while shocking Spider-Man, but without his electrical powers, he would stop shocking Spider-Man and his energy couldn't be used against him.

>Also, does this mean their deaths arent canon anymore?

No. Everyone is taken from different moments in time, so you end up with split timelines. Tobey, Andrew and Sandman come from after the events of their movies, so for them nothing changes.

For Electro, Lizard, Ock and Green Goblin, their timeline does change.


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

[User]
[DC] Did Future's End go anywhere?

I found a cache of old Five Years : Future's End comics on my laptop. It's been maybe 5 years since the event and it's one shots came out. Did any of it have any bearing on the future of DC? I know Tim Drake and the Batman Beyond timeline were changed, but what about the things to come one shots? Did Bruce successfully create his Miracle Machine? Is Barbara a body builder?  Did Project Cadmus start pumping out Joker clones? Is there any specific series I should pick up to follow up on this? (Future's End was trash, but the Earth 2 War implications and one shots seemed interesting to me)

[Assistant] Lol nope. Only thing that survived is in the Batman Beyond Series that came out since Future's End. Theres been too many crisis and retcons since then for Futures End to truly come into existence in the prime universe.


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[User] Eli5: How come I can get really tired reading a book or watching tv, but when I try to go to sleep immediately after I toss and turn for hours before finally falling asleep?

[Assistant]
If you're like me, it's because your mind races. Reading or watching TV means something is effectively doing a lot of the "thinking" for you. You can start to doze and still have the thoughts be fed to you. When thinking in bed, some thoughts lead to more and it just spirals out of control.

Funny thing is, when you're in bed and can't sleep and your mom texts you to take out the trash. Sleeping is almost instantaneous.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is a network port?

I've always seen it on some devices and games (like terraria) where you specifically have to configure the port too so that you can successfully connect a server. But never truly understood what it was.

Similarly I never understood wether a port is represented by data inside the computer that associates something to something or if for every port there is a specific cable/wire that transmits only the information from that port or if a port is just a medium of input in the computer.

[Assistant]
Think of it like a big building with many apartments. The building has a street address. That is basically equivalent to the IP address of your computer.

But since there can be many tenants (services) in the same building, you also need to know the apartment number.

More technical explanation: Many services (e.g. email server, web server, file server, print server, etc.) can be running on the same computer, sharing the same network interface and therefore the same IP address.

To keep those apart, each service is listening on a different port (e.g. \`25\` for email, \`80\` for web server, etc.). When you send a TCP/IP message, you have to specify the recipients IP address, but also the port on which the message is to be received.

Ports are a logical concept. They physically use the same cable as all other messages. It's just an additional number encoded in the TCP/IP package. When your operating systems network stack receives such a message, it will read the port number and forward the message to whichever service (tenant) is currently holding that port.


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[User] [Pokemon] Are all masterballs built by Sliph Co or have they been independently manufactured/discovered by other entities? Has the design improved in the decades since their invention or is the ball essentially the same still? Do they have any upper limits?

[Assistant]
Yes Silph Co has the sole ownership and rights to produce master balls as we were the ones who invented it thou it is still in the devolpment stage of the product , but we unfortunately for the world ceased the production and testing of the master ball after the Team Rocket attack at Silph Co in Kanto. That's not to say there aren't any master balls period. It's just there are only a few and only in the hands of the most experienced and influential trainers such as Red the champion of Kanto. The ball is essentially the same over the decades as again Silph Co ceased any tests of them and stopped their production.  The upper limit of the master ball is basically none existent as it can catch Arceus or so it's been rumored as no one owns an Arceus to verify the rumors. But it definitely wouldn't work on pokemon owned by other trainers like other Pokeballs made by Silph Co and ball makers like Kurt as that's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

TLDR: Silph Co has sole rights to make master balls but don't anymore. The design hasn't improved. It's only likely limit is other trainers pokemon for obvious reasons.  We here at Silph Co hope you are pleased with our customer support. If our information was satisfactory please leave us a 5 star review.