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

[User]
ELI5: Are Formula 1 drivers the most skilled drivers in the world, or could some random people be unknowingly better drivers?

I mean I'm sure you need to know your racing to be a F1 driver, but are they the best drivers in the world, or could some people in the world unknowingly be better drivers than F1 champions?

 I've been thinking, watching shows like Britain's Got Talent, new talents are discovered from people who don't look the part.

Could this be the case for race car drivers as well? Could someone have a hidden talent at driving F1 cars? How much of it is down to their connections and opportunities?

[Assistant]
To be a Formula 1 driver, you need to have a detailed knowledge of how to drive a racing car. You need to be able to understand the engineering aspects of pretty much each area of the car, so you can work with the engineers to make it perform the way it needs to perform. You need to be physically fit, and have excellent reflexes.

Is it possible that there is someone out there, who, if they started racing karts at the age of 8, might be (or have been) better than the greatest Formula 1 driver ever? But instead, that person never set a foot inside a kart, and now works as an accountant? Yes, it's possible.

Is it possible that there's an accountant somewhere, who, if he was given a chance to drive a Formula 1 car tomorrow, and even if he was given 6 months to practice, would be better than the greatest Formula 1 drivers? No. He simply wouldn't have the experience, the knowledge, the fitness, the reflexes and so on, which the best drivers have been working on for literally their whole lives.

For an interesting insight into this, see if you can track down the Top Gear episode where Richard Hammond has a go in a Formula 1 car. Hammond is not a racing driver - but he has spent lots of time driving fast cars around racing tracks. Watching him struggle with the F1 car shows just how far Formula 1 is from the experiences of even people who are used to fast cars.


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

[User] [Various animes] In animes where it is a worldwide known thing that there are individuals out there that can take down armies all the way up to crack planets, why are people not more skeptical when a 11 year old jumps in front of an army/group of baddies they not more cautious?

[Assistant]
There are multiple reasons:

1) *First Contact Scenario*: In some worlds this is the first time it happens.  Using DBZ as an example.

Nappa was the first time this was demonstrated and shown large scale.  Flying ki users who were any destroyers were rare, see teen Goku against the Red Ribbon Army.  But, he had problems with mechs and mostly took on infantry.  Nappa was the first to show Earth a ki user could take on and destroy naval fleets.

2) *Rarity*: Such beings are unlikely.  In DragonBall Z there are only six humans that could destroy the Earth if you count the two mutants.

Then you have four, or three depending on Kami's status, aliens who are leagues above humans.  Then they begin breeding and this doubles the world nukers.

Expecting this one individual to be a powerful as you say is almost nil.  Hercule is strong.  He makes most humans look weak.  He is a one in how many million?  These one man armies are to Hercule what Hercule is to us.  So rare and reclusive that over time the world thought the last time they showed up on camera was a hoax.


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

[User]
Are there ways to find caves with no real entrances and how common are these caves?

I just toured the Lewis and Clark Caverns today and it got me wondering about how many caves there must be on Earth that we don't know about simply because there is no entrance to them.  Is there a way we can detect these caves and if so, are there estimates for how many there are on Earth?

[Assistant]
There are, many of them former from trapped gas pockets during volcanic eruptions, or groundwater eroding softer stone and then changes in flow leave the chamber intact but unreachable.

There are several ways to find such voids, we can detect them by drilling when the bit drops unexpectedly, if they are close enough to the surface using ground penetrating radar, from orbit if they are large enough by temperature variances where none should be there, or using a technique to measure electrical resistance across a given section of dirt in areas with the right soil type and moisture content (the void space doesn't conduct electricity so the value is lower than a solid chunk)


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

[User]
[The Mummy] Why didn't the Medjai kill & cremate the surviving Americans to prevent Imhotep from absorbing them?

You would assume that Imhotep would never reach full power if he didn't have the 'parts' to absorb, & the Medjai explicitly stated that they were willing to kill innocent people to prevent the high priest from ever reaching power again.

[Assistant] There's no indication they knew the fine details of Imhotep's powers, or what he needed to do to reach full power.  It's not like he has ever gotten free before.  Even if he had, the book on him was lost, and would have been taboo to read even if it wasn't.


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

[User] [Foundation] What exactly is psychohistory?

[Assistant] It is the study of human interaction.  Not at interpersonal levels, but at this if entire societies.    As with anything, long term study of a field lets patterns emerge, and those can, if universal enough, be called "laws." Hari Seldon codified this into a branch of mathematics, with a complete internal logic built up around his understanding of these laws. This then allowed him to make predictions about societies, so long as they could not see them themselves.


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

[User]
[Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade] Does Santa build time into his busy schedule to attend, or is that a representative?

Its so close to Christmas, does he really have time to be at that show?!?!

[Assistant]
I see that nobody has told you the truth of Santa Claus yet: hes the unparalleled master of relative time travel.

What, did you really think that he could bring gifts to all the children in the world with only one night to do so? Santa is capable of altering the flow of time for all matter in the universe. Its how his elves are always able to create the proper amount of toys; hes been slowing everything else down so that they can work, take breaks, play around, and still manage to fulfill their duties.

When Christmas Eve comes, Santa slows down the temporal activity of the entire world while everybody is asleep, granting him all the time he needs to deliver everyones presents. What a single night is to you, is decades or even centuries of time thats been created solely for Mr. Claus to keep on schedule. And on Christmas Day, Santa gives everybody at the North Pole a thousand years of free time for R&R after all the hard work theyve done, in whats no more than a couple of hours in real time.

With that in mind, of course he has time to be at Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade! Hes even been known to slightly pad the time it takes, so that all the people there will be able to enjoy for that much longer.


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

[User] I learned that when the US federal government borrows money, it gets it at a low interest rate, because other entities have a high confidence in our ability to pay them back. Are there other countries/entities that get lower interest due to even higher confidence?

[Assistant]
The Japanese yen is often considered a safe haven currency (as is the US dollar) so debt denominated in JPY has very low interest rates. Indeed many Japanese government bonds have negative interest rates. Even longer term bonds like the 10 year bond has a zero percent interest rate.

I do wanna point out that low default risk is probably not an important factor here. Really the more important things are the stability of American institutions, price level stability, and low duration risk that causes low interest rates in the US.


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

[User]
ELI5: each time a new wireless standard comes out, it seems better and faster than before. Any reason we couldn't have accomplished this sooner? What are the enablers we now have that we didn't have before?

I'm asking because I happened to be reading about Bluetooth 5. This is also applicable to wifi etc. Did we discover new encoding / compression algorithms or what?

[Assistant] Every engineering problem comes down to a trade-off between cost and capability. A wireless standard is limited by what the cost effective electronics of the day can accomplish. As time goes on, processing power gets cheaper, so you can do more at a target price point.


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

[User] ELI5: If the affordable care act requires that people with pre-existing conditions can not be denied by private insurers, why wouldn't everyone just wait until they were sick and then purchase insurance?

[Assistant] You can only apply for insurance during "open enrollment periods" (the 2015 one ends February 15th) or under certain specific circumstances called "qualifying life events" (get married, be born, change jobs, things that might require you to change health insurance basically). If it's not an open enrollment period, and you aren't undergoing a qualifying life event, then you can't sign up for insurance and are out of luck if you get sick.


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

[User] (Star Wars/Mass Effect) Are biotics and the force the same thing? If not how do they match up against each other and which one is stronger?

[Assistant]
Biotics and the force are definitely not the same thing. When matched up against each other, the ability to throw a krogan across the room is insignificant next to the power of the Force. While biotics are (theoretically*) limited to gravity manipulation tricks, force users can also benefit from precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, extended life spans, and more.

\* ^in ^practice, ^though, ^some ^biotics ^users ^have ^been ^able ^to ^accomplish ^things ^like ^draining ^health ^and ^controlling ^minds.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do coughs happen during sleep and not sneezes?

Roomie is sick. Coughs though the night, but sneezes during the day. Why the difference? Brain activity level difference?

[Assistant] You're on the right track.  You sneeze when an *external* irritant enters your nose.  However, the neurotransmitters that send signals to the brain in order to initiate a sneeze are shut down during  REM sleep.  Also, because of reduced movement, you don't encounter as many particulates in the air.  You can sneeze if the irritant is significant enough, but you will wake up to do it  (you can test this on your roomy with some cinnamon).  On the other hand, coughing during a cold is to expel *internal* mucus from your airway, and is instigated by internal stimuli and those nerves are not suppressed the same way while sleeping.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do people hate the font Comic Sans?

[Assistant]
The font has been bundled with every version of Windows since 95 and was/still is incredibly overused because of that. People seeing it everywhere is what first led to a backlash.

There are plenty of worse fonts out there design wise, but there's no movement against them because people don't necessarily come across them on posters/web design/emails/adverts/invitations etc as much as they do Comic Sans.

The main problem with the font is how it's been misused. It was originally conceived as jovial, literally comic like font, but because it was on so many people's machines, some of them started to use it in inappropriate contexts - warning signs or serious business emails. That's a bit like turning up to a business meeting in a clown suit.

Its case isn't helped by often being used in garish colours, or in the wrong size - mostly too big.

It's less common now, but was an epidemic in the late 90s - a period where the majority of people on the internet were effectively noobs, and we now look back a bit like how you might look back at an awkward adolescence. Web sites were ugly, chain emails were annoying, and Sans was often a part of the collective disaster.


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

[User]
CMV: The ability to fly is OBVIOUSLY a better superpower than the ability to become invisible

Disclaimers:

1) I'm not really interested in debating the nuances of how the superpowers would work. Let's just go for the simplest definition: you can engage in either superpower whenever you want, and there are no weird tricks or complications.

2) Let's not get stuck up on edge cases. I'm sure that, for a certain hypothetical person, the ability to become invisible would be more useful. But I'm talking in general terms here.

3) To clearly define the question: "which superpower would bring the most overall joy to the recipient?"

OK so I can kinda see (hehe) the appeal of becoming invisible. But the benefits all seem to (inherently!) involve deceiving other people in some way. What can I do with invisibility? I can sneak around, I can spy on people, I can hide, I can eavesdrop. Fine, great, but I don't have a particularly burning desire to do any of those things! They're all a bit unsavoury and, frankly, petty. We can think bigger, guys.

What can I do with flight? I could travel anywhere, for free, quickly. I could wake up every morning and soar around in the dawn's light, floating around with the birds, seeing the world from an entirely new perspective, feeling the rush of the air against my skin. At night, I could float among the stars and the clouds, looking down at the villages and cities and farms and beaches and all the twinkling lights and all the little people. How fucking glorious does that sound?

Obviously this post is inspired by that classic "would you rather..." question. It genuinely blows my mind that so many people answer "invisibility". I think that answer is insanely wrong. But a large proportion of people seem to disagree with me and I want to understand why that is.

[Assistant]
Flight is a very public power, you can only exercise it with everyone seeing it and drawing a ton of unwanted attention to your self.  Its very likely if you can fly you will end up captured and tossed in a lab somewhere and subjected to all sorts of weird experiments.

Invisibility is something you can more likely keep secret/private while still benefitting from it.


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

[User] eli5 why is a little inflation good for the economy ?

[Assistant]
"The economy" is just a term for "money moving around".

If you think your money will be worth *more* next year or the year after, then you have incentive to save it until then. More people saving money instead of spending means less money moving around, which means a weaker economy.

If you know your money will be worth the same or less next year, then you have incentive to spend your spendable money now. More people spending money means more money moving around, which means a stronger economy.


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

[User] ELI5: How do they transform Fenway Park into a football field with almost no evidence that it usually is a baseball field?

[Assistant] You can see the foul lines on the field. They take out the pitcher's mound out when the field is not being used for baseball. They also take out the infield dirt. Take those out and you can put in grass. Then all they have to do is draw football lines in the grass.


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

[User] ELI5: why does the skin used on grafts for burns look different to normal skin and will technology be able to improve this?

[Assistant]
Usually the skin used for skin grafts has been meshed---cut into a sort of honeycomb pattern using a machine. This allows a smaller skin graft to cover a large area of skin, and curve to fit the shape of the body. The problem is, that the lines of the mesh will show up in the healed skin.

There are two ways around this. One is not to do the meshing. The problem with this, is that more skin is needed for the graft, leading to more scaring and pain at the donor site. The other is to use a different type of graft: new technology is allowing skin to be "grown" in the lab, using the patient's skin cells. This takes more time, as the cells need to be taken to a lab and grown up, so it's not helpful for emergency surgeries, but is used in other cases.


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

[User] If i can imagine a better world than this one... why God (an omnipotent being ) didnt create a perfect world. Or at least something better than this.

[Assistant]
Maybe you can, but often this kind of thing just isn't so clear.

Surely what you're not suggesting is that you ran a whole-universe simulation through a utility calculation which you know to be not just plausible, but (somehow) 100% unassailably true and then compared that utility calculation to one about this world.

Which is to say, you've definitely imagined *something*, but it's not at all true that you've imagined a better world than this one.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Were there ever siths who DIDN'T kill/want to kill their masters?

Are there siths who preferred to be a duality? Maybe they realize they both need each other in fights, or even a sort of friendship?

[Assistant]
According to Legends. Plagueis thought he and Palpatine could co-rule the galaxy as buds. But that didn't go well for him.

But the entire Sith philosophy is built around the concept of the master-apprentice relationship. To get rid of that would be to denounce the ways of the Sith.


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

[User]
In string theory-Brane cosmology: Is the collision of two branes considered to be the cause of the big bang?

A follow up question: How many other ways can branes interact with one another?

[Assistant]
Not necessarily, but in some models yes. If the BB comes from a brane collision, you speak specifically of an ekpyrotic cosmology.

>A follow up question: How many other ways can branes interact with one another?

Many, but all of them can be modeled as the exchange of strings between the branes. In fact, all of the dynamics of branes, motion, decay, collision, forces, thermodynamics, everything can be described in terms of the strings that are attached to them. That's a very cool thing about string theory.

Branes can act on eachother at a distance with (very complicated) forces that are analogous to electromagnetism, and are carried by virtual closed strings. Plus, they can interact gravitationally, and the graviton is also a closed string.

They can moreover merge and split and scatter whenever they get close. You can describe this in terms of open strings stretching between them in a way, though it is definitely more complex.

Also, branes can host lower-dimensional "sub-branes" inside themselves.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are trains still not fully automatic but the world talks about fully autonom cars?

Isn't it way easier to make the railtrains full automatic?
Streets are much more complicated to drive and yet there are already cars which can drive without a human.

[Assistant]
Automatic trains already exist in many areas (Paris metro, London DLR), however you still need a person present in case of problems and occasionally to take manual control. Also as Shenko-wolf says the systems aren't as reliable as the networks would have you believe.

On the other face of the coin, there are the unions fighting any change which is slowing down implementation, however you can't blame them - it is their job to protect the jobs of the workers.


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

[User] ELI5: if outerspace is a vacuum what stops it from sucking up our atmosphere?

[Assistant] The gravity of earth is stronger than the vacuum of space. One example of an element that is not, is helium. Its too light and after it has been released into the air, it rises and exits out atmosspere (which is why weather balloons use helium). The rest of the elements are too heavy ro escape without propulsion.


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

[User] eli5 Why does the new year lag behind the winter solstice by 10 days?

[Assistant]
For most of the ancient world the new year began with the arrival of spring. For the Romans this was March...although the March 20/21 equinox is considered the "first day of spring" this is more of an astronomical event and not a definitive herald of when "spring" actually begins. To the peoples of the ancient world "spring" began when it got warmer, and that was a few weeks earlier than the equinox.

So the first Roman calendar ran from March to December, and then they just tacked on "winter" at the end without really even consistently counting how long it was. When this began to get silly they finally added in two extra months for winter, January and February. Around the 2nd century BC, toward the end of the Roman Republic, they moved the new year from the beginning of March to the beginning of January for short-term political reasons. It's stayed there ever since, at least in the Western world.


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

[User]
[The Walking Dead] What would happen if you put a mirror in front of a walker?

Came up in conversation in TWD subreddit and piqued my curiosity.

[Assistant] Probably nothing. Walkers seem to not only lack any form of self-awareness, but also any interest in their surroundings except as it relates to feeding. And even if the walker recognized it as potential food or a fellow zombie, the fact that it has no scent and produces no sound would likely be enough to dispel any interest the image might generate.


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

[User]
When one unit is divided by another, that makes intuitive sense - m/h is "miles per hour," or "x miles for every hour". But what is the interpretation of units multiplied together? For example, work is defined as force times distance.

This is a big obstacle for me in understanding work and related concepts in my Physics course. I have a good intuitive understanding of *divided* units - X/Y means that for every unit Y, there is an associated proportion of X.

But for something like work, they're multiplied together. I've seen sources say that work is "the amount of force required to push through a unit length." But if that was the case, shouldn't the unit be force *divided* by distance? Why the multiplication?

[Assistant] Work is *not* "the amount of force required to push through a unit length." That statement is not really well defined. Work is the amount of energy imparted to an object by pushing it with force F for a distance d. When things are multiplied like this (actually integrated), you can think of an area. Plot the force on one axis and the distance traveled on the other. The work is then the area under this curve. You can then think of the units force*distance as one unit square on this plot.


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

[User] [Lord Of The Rings] Why did Bilbo age so quickly after losing the One Ring and Gollum didnt?

[Assistant] Gollum is more than just an old hobbit at that point, he's become something else. Think of it like a rubber band. You stretch it out for an hour, it bounces back. You stetch it out for  years, it's permanently changed.


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

[User] ELI5 in economics, how does inflation work?

[Assistant]
The money supply represents all the available 'working value' in an economy. By increasing the money supply, you can't change the 'real' value of the work, but now that you have more tokens representing the same economy, each token is worth less.

Let's look at an economy of 10 people, and a money supply of 1000. If you increase the money supply to 2000, then you have inflated the money by 100%. There are still only 10 people, though, and there is still only so much work those 10 people can do. Because of this fact, and because of the eventual distribution of the extra money, the money can only possibly be worth half as much as it was before.


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

[User] ELI5: When a part of your body swells, like from a bee sting or as an allergic reaction, what makes the swelling and how?

[Assistant]
ELI5: Skin acts like a wall to invaders (pathogens/foreign agents, etc.). When the wall breaks invaders enter and the body defends itself by sending its army (immune system cells) to the location causing the swelling.

After a sting, or bite, to an area, histamine signaling molecules localize to the site resulting in increasing blood flow to the area so other immune cells can come and elicit a response to the foreign body/pathogen/sting.   If someone has a severe enough reaction (anaphylaxis) this occurs over the whole body which results in blood vessels dilating and tanking an individuals blood pressure which impairs oxygen and nutrients systemic circulation. That's why it's a life threatening issue and needs immediate intervention with drugs such as epinephrine (e.g. Epi-pens) to constrict the vessels and combat the histamine mediated vessel dilation.

Hopefully that answers your question.


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

[User] ELI5 why does CPUs/CPU cores seem to be capped at 3 - 4 Ghz since almost a decade?

[Assistant]
We(intel specifically) learned the hard way that past a certain clock frequency(bout 3GHZ) going any higher will lead to unacceptable levels of heat and power draw(semi conductors actually ~~increase~~  lower electrical resistance as temperature rises):.

 instead they figured that improving the instructions sets and  having more cores at a lower clock was more efficient.

this was the main reason why the later pentuim 4's while with impressive clock speeds were actually underperforming vs the Athlons of the time because this clock speed was wasted on an inneficient instruction pipeline(the step the CPU needs ot execute an instruction safely) and were drawing too much power and getting too hot ot achieve this.

EDIT: corrected a goof.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is a high level of wealth inequality a bad thing?

I have no agenda or ulterior motives in seeking an answer.

Why is a high level of wealth inequality in a society/country considered a bad thing?

[Assistant]
I'd also point out it can be harmful economically.  If you have 10 people, one person has all the money and the rest are on welfare, Ford can only sell one car.  The people on Welfare can't afford it.  But if that money was split evenly, then Ford can sell 10X as many cars without a single additional dollar.

This is good in that Ford will sell more cars, make more money, and employ more people.


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

[User]
[MCU] Who knows what happened to Natasha?

Just watching the new Hawkeye show and wondering whether the general public knows or only the Avengers and those close to them.

[Assistant] Everyone knows. She was among the people shown in the "in memoriam" segment of the school announcements in Far From Home. The surviving Avengers wouldn't want her sacrifice to be forgotten, especially since during the Blip she really stepped up as leader of the team while Cap was focused on humanitarian efforts, Tony retreated into his family, Thor went into a depression spiral, Hawkeye was off murdering people, and Bruce was mastering himself.


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

[User]
Why do we give pressors in patients with shock?

If increasing systemic vascular resistance (SVR) increases the afterload, doesn't that reduce stroke volume?

[Assistant]
You're increasing SVR in a situation where the SVR is life-threateningly low. Increasing the SVR with vasopressin is one way your body itself manages perfusion, now it just needs help. Also when the SVR is too low, venous return would also suffer, further decreasing CO and systemic hypoxemia.

In cardiac babies, it's not uncommon to have a fresh post-op Norwood on drips of epi, vaso, and norepi all at the same time. All work slightly differently, so you can get pretty precise BP management while minimizing side effects (like increased HR with epi, or acute kidney injury with too much vaso) since the doses are so low (0.01 mcg/kg/min)

Edit: in the above situation, you're also dealing  with a mixed systemic and pulmonary blood flow system, so you're balancing SVR and PVR. Changing things such as fiO2, RR, and TV on the vent can have just as significant an impact on BP.


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

[User] ELI5: What would happen if the West just told the Middle East "we're done"?

[Assistant] Russia supports "pro-separatists" who suddenly appear in all middle eastern countries. Moves in to prevent violence toward citizens who identify as Russian. Pro-Russian gangs who look amazingly not middle-eastern crop up everywhere. Straw poll successfully "votes" that all countries in Middle East are belong to New Russian Union. All glory to New Russia.


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

[User]
My 4 year old asked me, "why do you not feel like you are moving when you are on a plane?"  What is an answer he'd understand?

My 4 year old wants to know why you don't feel like you are moving when you are on a fast-moving plane.  I had difficulty explaining this to him on an overly-simplified level.  Any suggestions?

[Assistant]
You never feel like you are moving. What you feel is when you go faster or slower or up or down or left or right, or if you are spinning in circles. So when the airplane is cruising along, you don't feel anything, just like when you're sitting still.

You can prove/demonstrate it to him if you have a car, or on a bus!

Then you can blow his mind by saying that even when he's sleeping in his bed or sitting at the kitchen table eating cereal, he's moving **1000 times faster** than a jet airplane, orbiting the sun!


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

[User]
[Twilight Zone] What was the thing on the wing that Robert Wilson saw in 1963? Is it related to a similar creature spotted in 1983?

What was the creature? Was it truly intelligent? If so, was it actively malevolent or not?

Why did it look and act so differently from the similar creature seen by John Valentine 20 years later? Are they separate species?

[Assistant] They're both species of gremlins (no relation to the Mogwai), primates with surprising natural diversity that have somehow evolved to survive high altitudes. They are extremely intelligent, and many have learned to scavenge by causing airplane crashes.


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

[User]
Do stars "turn on" immediately when fusion can occur, or do they gradually increase in brightness as they gain mass?

Basically, does the first fusion event "kick-start" the star into life in a violent, sudden reaction? Or does the star slowly grow in luminosity at the rate at which it is able to add mass to itself?

[Assistant] When the pressure and temperature of the collapsing cloud of hydrogen is sufficient to initiate fusion, it begins and the star lights up.  Some mass blows off during this, the T Tauri phase, and there is a pulsing effect as the star expands and contracts while it settles down, but as soon as the radiation from the region of fusion makes its way out itll light up.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do only female mammals produce milk from their breasts to nurse young? Males have nipples too, wouldn't it be helpful energy-wise for a species if parents took turns?

[Assistant]
Males have nipples because for roughly 2 weeks in the womb we all develop as female. After that sex begins to define itself and work on breasts and a vagina is indefinitely halted.

Nipples are only the exit hole for milk, for males to produce milk we'd also need mammary glands. Not to mention milk production is tied to reproduction, too. So males would need to have periods of fertility, like ovulating females.


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

[User] ELI5 Why is it so hard to overturn Ticketmaster's monopoly?

[Assistant]
What Ticketmaster is doing is using their near -monopoly in one area to get a competitive advantage in another area. In many countries this would be considered an "unfair" advantage, particularly in the EU.

Ticketmaster's parent company owns a huge number of concert venues. If a band wants to play in one of those venues they must use Ticketmaster to sell their tickets. Using a monopoly in one industry to gain a monopoly in another.

As to why it's so hard to overturn, it's mostly because the political will just is not there. The merger of Ticketmaster with Live Nation should never have happened, and it could have been prevented by the competition/anti-trust authorities. Lots of monopolies have been broken up in the past in the US, most famously Standard Oil and AT&T.

Perhaps the obvious solution is to simply have the venue owning part of the company spun off from the ticket selling part. Without owning venues, Ticketmaster has elss leverage to force artists to use it's ticket selling service, and competitors will be able to enter the market and hopefully drive down fees.


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

[User]
[LOTR] How are Kingdoms (e.g. Gondor, Arnor, Angmar) established if people already live there?

It feels like Elendil just sailed from Numenor to Middle Earth and set up 2 kingdoms. Why would the people who already lived there simply accept new rulers, especially since he only had 9 ships of the Faithful? Similarly when the Witch King established Angmar, how did he convince the existing people to accept him, especially since he was still weak from Sauron's defeat and without an invasion army. How did Sauron, still weak, establish himself in Dol Goldur in Mirkwood when elves already live there? How did Arnor instantly reestablish itself after Sauron's defeat and have it's inhabitants automatically accept it. I have not heard of any major conflict in establishing these kingdoms.

[Assistant]
Over the millennia, Numenoreans had emigrated into Middle Earth and established colonies. The Faithful claimed kingship over these Numenoreans (besides those south of the Anduin who refused). Not all people accepted their rule, being driven out North of Arnor or East of Gondor (Dunlandings, Black Numenoreans, etc.).

Agmar was founded by the Witch-King with the help of the Black Numenoreans and was founded close to a massive orc stronghold (Gundabad) in a region known for being inhospitable to humans for the most part.

Sauron established himself in Dol Guldur precisely because Elves didnt live there; when the elf king Oropher who lived there was slain in the war of the Last Alliance, the elves retreated to Northern Mirkwood (Elves would continue to slowly retreat further north from encroaching dark creatures).

No kingdoms replaced Arnor after its fall, the inhabitants for the most part accepted Aragorns claim because it was the Dunedain who had continued to protect the northern lands after the fall, and because there werent a lot of people living in lands that until recently had been known for being dangerous.


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

[User]
CMV: Defunding the police will move it to the private sector, making it less accountable

So Im seeing a lot of Democrats on twitter pushing for defunding the police because of all the abuses. Ive noticed the Imagine posts going around detailing all the new mental health, counseling and anti-poverty services that could ostensibly replace police services. Lets say that addresses the supply side of the issue.

On the demand side, however, I believe wealthy individuals and businesses will still want 24/7 security that can intervene at a moments notice. Not being able to turn to the government for the specific type of manpower that will allow them to sleep comfortably at night, they will create a market for basically mercenary forces. And of course, theyll have plenty of talent to recruit from disbanded police departments and possibly militias like the Proud Boys. Given the 2nd Amendment, Im not sure what government at any level will be able to do to prevent this from happening to some degree.

These private mercenary forces will have every incentive to act ruthlessly. They will not be official public servants tasked with protecting the public.
They will be protecting property and VIPs.

Well thus have a two-tiered security apparatusone public and nonviolent, the other private and violent. Local governments will surrender their monopoly on violence to people likely less certified, less trained and less answerable to the government than police officers currently. In fact, I suspect they will allow private interests to exert pressure on elected officials in new ways.

Given that conservatives would probably be the ones
mostly hiring and staffing such groips, this could also have some uncomfortable repercussions on public debate.

So thats my view. Im definitely open to having it changed, so please have at it.

[Assistant]
>These private mercenary forces will have every incentive to act ruthlessly. They will not be official public servants tasked with protecting the public. They will be protecting property and VIPs.

Such a private mercenary force would not have governement contacts. That means no qualified immunity, no sweetheart deals with DA's, and so on.

It would be easier to hold them accountable, than to hold the police accountable.

The second amendement just allows a person to have a gun. It doesn't give them any power beyond that.


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

[User]
ELI5 : if perfect white paint absorbs no lightwave at all, what is a mirror ?

I was wondering if both objects acted the same. On which one of them does light bounce entirely ? The white wall, or the mirror ?

[Assistant]
This is a great question, both of them reflect (almost) all the light that hits them, but obviously they look different.

A mirror reflects light a the same angle it that came in. That means when you look at a mirror all of the light came from only one angle and you see an image.  If you are directly across from a mirror you see your self.  If you are looking at a mirror at an angle you see something else at the same angle but on the other side.

White things reflect the light fairly evenly at all angles. When you look at something white the light that reaches your eye came from all over the room.  You don't see an image because the light is all spread out.

TL;DR:

**mirror**, light from left bounces right

    \    /
     \  /
    __\/__

**white thing**, light from left bounces every which way

    \
     \\||//
    __\|/__


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does salt numb the pain of oral wounds but cause excruciating pain in wounds everywhere else on the body?

Salt-water numbs an open cut when I bite my tongue, but burns like fire if it gets into a paper-cut...

[Assistant] I've never known salt to numb pain, but it will help clean out sores or wounds. Salt raises the pH (makes it more alkaline instead of acidic) of the mouth, making it less friendly to bacteria. The pain from oral wounds is often made worse by bacterial infection, and rinsing with salt water cleans and helps protect against bacteria that would otherwise thrive in the mouth.


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

[User] Why do grapefruits and grapefruit juice interact so much with so many types of medications?

[Assistant] Grapefruit juice inhibits an enzyme (CYP3A4) that is very important in metabolizing many different medications. So when you drink it, the enzyme function is reduced, and less drug gets metabolized (and so it stays in the body longer than normally, which leads to it accumulating) and can result in toxicity of the drug. Hope that helps!


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

[User] [MARVEL/DC COMICS] If Apocalypse went to the DC universe and had the same information an average reader had who would he pickup as his Horsemen?

[Assistant]
War - Doomsday. He's pretty much Apocalypse's dream come true, the ultimate evolutionary survivor who can't be stopped, and keeps coming back better.  Apocalypse used Hulk as War in the past, so this is pretty much the same thing, but BETTER because Doomsday doesn't have a human half fighting to regain control.

Famine -  Parasite. He absorbs the energy and power of people, so it'd be easy for Apocalypse to tweak his powers to work in mass rather than just one on one, sucking everyone's energy, making them starve to death. He's also an easily controlled minion.

Pestilence - Dr. Poison. He'd have to give her a power upgrade, sure, but that's par for the course, and having a scientist who has no morals and loves to test poisons on people is something Apocalypse would approve of. He needs a replacement Sinister anyways.

Death - Slade Wilson, Deathstroke. Yes, this is another case where Apocalypse is going to have to give a power upgrade, but the world's deadliest mercenary is a good choice for this. He's already ruthless, fast and agile. Just dial it up and he can be a serious threat to the world.


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

[User] Why does heat make people drowsy?

[Assistant] Hot weather causes peripheral vasodilation of blood vessels to increase heat loss. This results in low blood pressure which causes fatigue. That's also why you get thirsty in hot weather. Drinking more fluid increases blood volume and helps counteract the drop in BP.


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

[User]
[Fallout] What happened to every other country apart from China and America?

I know that America and China nuked each other, but what about places like U.K and Australia? Was every single country nuked? There is a lot of land mass, how did every piece be destroyed?

[Assistant]
What high civilization there is in Britain is to the north in Scotland, with Hadrian's Wall standing as a renewed bulwark against the tribals that hold the south. The British Government still exists, but it's power is pretty much limited to the fortified city of Edinborough. Ireland wasn't actually nuked, but fallout and hordes of desperate survivors have reduced it to a post-apocalyptic wreck like the rest of the world.

No one has heard anything out of Russia in the two centuries since the war. As far as anyone knows, it's a frozen nuclear wasteland. Anyone who goes there (or into Eastern Europe in general) never returns.

For a long time there were gaping atomic scars all over Africa, nuclear missiles having rained down on China and America's respective "protectorates". Of late, the nation-state of Mali has reformed and begun a trade in pre-war tech, gathered from the remains of Saharan U.S. outposts.

Japan has pretty much regressed to back to the age of the samurai, except this time the feudal warriors are wearing power armor. The rest of the Orient is hauntingly quiet, with the exception of a few whispers of a new Khan in the North.

South America is pretty much hell. There's not a whole lot else to say about that.


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

[User]
Is there a scientific system for describing various patterns of bird flight (e.g. the equivalent of terrestrial 'sprinting', 'walking', 'running', etc)?

With horses you have galloping, trotting, etc., but I can't seem to find anything about bird flight.

[Assistant] Some common types of bird flight are hovering, gliding, thermal soaring, dynamic soaring, diving, undulating, and bounding. Not all birds are capable of all types of flight though and it is more common to classify birds by wing type than flight type.  The four common wing types are elliptical wings, high speed wings, high aspect ratio wings, and soaring wings.


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

[User] Is the amount of caffeine absorbed into the bloodstream dependant on the same variations that alcohol absorption is based upon?

[Assistant]
Well, it's dependent on the same mechanisms in your GI tract. So all chemicals from food and drink end up in your blood stream the same way. There are a few differences specifically between caffeine and alcohol that I'll mention, but everything is a little different.

What you are ultimately talking about is something called bioavailability. That is the measure of something you put in your body that actually reaches where it has to go. So, alcohol and caffeine have to get to your brain, but not 100% of what you eat or drink of them makes it there. The amount that does, that bioavailability in percentage.

All the blood from your stomach and intestines flows out and immediately goes into your liver. This is a great setup because your liver is like a chemical processing plant. If you eat something toxic, it ends up in your liver and the liver might be able to break it down before it makes it to the rest of your body. Alcohol is heavily broken down by the liver so only a small portion of what you drink ends up available to make you "drunk."

About caffeine:

>Caffeine absorption is rapid and complete in humans, with 99% of orally ingested caffeine absorbed from the digestive tract within 45 minutes.2 Absorption is not modified by gender, genetics, liver disease, or the ingestion of drugs or alcohol.3 Caffeine crosses all biological membranes and is distributed in all body fluids.

And Alcohol:
>Orally ingested alcohol is rapidly absorbed into the human bloodstream from the stomach and small intestine and distributes into total body water. On an empty stomach, peak blood alcohol levels occur about 30 minutes following the oral ingestion of alcohol.7 For ingested liquids, the principal determinant of the gastric emptying rate is volume; large volumes empty at an exponentially faster rate than small volumes.8 Because alcohol absorption occurs more rapidly in the small intestine, delays in gastric emptying decrease the rate of alcohol absorption. Food in the gastrointestinal tract slows alcohol absorption; the higher the dietary fat content of a meal, the longer the absorption process takes.7 A small amount of alcohol is metabolized in the stomach by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). Compared with men, women have lower activity of ADH in their stomachs, causing a larger proportion of ingested alcohol to reach the bloodstream.

Obviously that a little dense for ELIM but let me know if you have any questions.


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

[User]
Plain English Explanation of Foucault's Archeological Method?

I really want to understand Foucault's arguments, but I'm having trouble understanding his methodology, and every explanation of archeology I've found is super convoluted.

I get that it's an alternative to traditional methods of uncovering history, but what evidence is used? And what exactly is the discursive level? Hopefully this isn't a dumb question.

Edit: Thank you. It probably isn't easy to distil a concept like this, so I really appreciate the answers given. I'll definitely be looking more into Foucault to try to grasp the complexities of his work, and with this confusion sorted out, I feel more confident in doing so.

[Assistant]
Archeology is the study of systems of thought by attending to the way in which they are governed by rules which the subjects of those rules are not aware of (they are below or beyond the consciousness of subjects).  The rules, for instance, constrain conceptual possibilities (what they can think and therefore do).  The subject matter of Archeology is, as you suggest, discourse - literally just how people talk at a given time.  So, the Archeologist selects a subject at a particular time, studies how people talk about that thing at that particular time and tries to induce out of that the rules for talking about that particular thing.

The assumption is that the historian can discern how we think (even unknowingly) about [x] by observing how we talk about [x].

So, in *History of Madness*, we look at how people talk about insanity at different times and try to discern the conceptual rules for talking about insanity.  We will quickly discover that insanity is different at different times - the rules for talking about it are contingent to a certain discursive situation.  So the Archeologist goes about comparing these different conceptual sets by looking at how people talk about things.  It focuses on the conceptual consequences of different ways of talking about what you otherwise might think was 'the same thing.'

In general this disrupts the kind of historiography that tries to see history as progressive and continuous in some clearly rational way.  This is why, for Foucault, science is such an interesting object of study since it purports to be progressive with respect to the acquisition of knowledge.

ETA - I've tried to say this in a way that avoids too much Foucaultian talk.  Some serious Foucaultians will be (perhaps rightly) offended by that minimization.


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

[User]
[MCU/DC/MARVEL] Are heroes tax exempt?

Are they exempt from paying taxes?

SHOULD they be exempt from paying them?

[Assistant]
In marvel, not as private persons. The fantastic four get taxed as mentioned now and then. Nobody knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man so h pays tax.
Maybe the avengers are exempt because theyre often a governmental organization. Or at least government sanctioned. (Depending on period. Stark has funded them often too. And stark should be paying tax as a business owner would)

I dont think people should be exempt from paying tax on principle.


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

[User]
What is Camus point regarding Kierkegaard?

In the Myth of Sisyphus, Im struggling to understand what Camus means when hes mentioning Kierkegaard and his leap of faith. Can I get a clear cut explanation?

[Assistant] For Camus, the "Absurd" is the inherent contradiction between an indifferent, meaningless universe and man's search for meaning. Throughout The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus seeks to understand how different figures reconcile this contradiction. Camus accuses Kierkegaard of wanting to be cured, specifically in a way that relies on the devine. Camus sees in Kierkegaard a wish to go beyond the Absurd through God and says this "leap of faith" is a form of philosophical suicide, something Camus seeks to avoid.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do periods hurt?

Like the title says, I'm curious as to what exactly happens when periods come. Why do women get cramps during their periods? Why does it hurt so much, when it's just blood coming out from there (Which sounds bad enough on their own)?

[Assistant] A females uterus has a layer thats made out of muscle. During the time that the uterus expels blood through the vagina, the uterus is contracting to help the blood move out of it and the muscle contractions are what hurt.


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

[User]
[WH40K] For a bunch of immortals, the Eldar don't seem particularly good at the long game.

My base assumption is that the Eldar's reproduction rate is basically near 0 right now. Every other race outbreeds them except for maybe the Necrons (sub question, how do Necron's reproduce, if they do?). In order for the Eldar to hold on, they need to win by vastly more than they lose.

The Eldar have, on some occasions, tried to help The Imperium. They've tried to warn the Primarchs/Emperor, they've allied with the Blood Ravens briefly. The problem is, the Eldar, 9 times out of 10, will betray you. It sets a precedent. I realize that a human life is worth less than an insect, perhaps even a bacterium to the Eldar, but there is a reason for cooperation and mutual support. If you show yourself to be reliable 9 times out of 10, you'll get a lot more mileage out of your mutual interests. Maybe that's not a skill the Eldar ever learned in their thousand year life-spans, but it seems like the Tau and Imperium picked those traits up in a much shorter period.

[Assistant]
You act like it's the Eldar who are to blame. The Eldar race who have lost everything and are merely trying to scrape together what's left of the Galaxy with their dwindling numbers and ages of wisdom.

Versus the Imperium, who hates anything that isn't human (and even many humans) and won't listen to what an alien has to say until it's tried killing it about a hundred times.

> (sub question, how do Necron's reproduce, if they do?)

They don't. They are basically legions of metallic undead.


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

[User]
[DC]Does Superman need to urinate or defecate?

First off, why does he like pie? He doesn't even need to eat or drink.

So if he does eat food, does he urinate or defecate?

[Assistant]
He doesn't need to eat if he is exposed to yellow sun light but he can if he wants to.

Superman had a normal upbringing by loving parents with traditional values, meals with the whole family is an important part of that so he definitely sees the social value in eating and enjoys the taste.

And as we all know if you eat you have to poop.


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

[User]
[Daredevil] How is it that he can hear a heartbeat but not get his senses blasted and desensitized by gunshots?

Gunshots are loud! Even people with bad hearing are incapacitated and ears ring for days without protection. How can daredevil not be desensitized or temporarily disabled by something as loud as a gunshot near his face?

[Assistant]
He has commented from time to time that using a gun is not the greatest idea.

Matt has trained himself to ignore a lot of the sensory input coming his way. When we experience pain from a loud noise, it's because our ears are actually being damaged. When *Matt* experiences pain, it's from overload, not actual physical damage. He has simply learned to fight through it.

It's also possible that the accident that gave him his enhanced senses made his sensory organs more durable.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do they call it 'knock' in regards to gasoline/petrol?

I've read that 87 Octane has more 'knock' than say, 93 Octane, but my mind seems to only comprehend knock in the more physical sense such as knocking on an object such as a door/window/etc.

Which, in my experience, if that's heard from a combustion engine it usually means "Something's **really** screwed up."

[Assistant]
So, contrary to popular belief, there are actually two separate kinds of knock. Both kinds are detonations, but one is hilariously bad for the engine, whereas the other is more a sign of poor operation but isn't inherently "bad" unless the engine runs for an extremely long time.

The less bad (and more common) kind is knock after ignition; basically, as your combustion flame expands outwards from the ignition source you end up with small pockets of fuel and air in the periphery of your engine cylinder. If those pockets are ideally mixed, the shockwave of the combusting part of the cylinder can actually compress these pockets to the point of autoignition, at which point they essentially detonate, which you hear as a pinging noise. It's honestly not that bad in the short run (the pockets are relatively tiny), but in the long term it can turn your piston heads into something resembling a moonscape of craters. This can happen in both SI and diesel engines (fun fact; this is actually why diesels have their characteristic "rattle" sound), but it's only really a problem in SI engines.

The *other* kind of knock (which arguably isn't knock, but that's another story) is true autoignition of the fuel. In spark-ignited engines, this occurs when the fuel-air mixture ignites prior to the spark plug firing, and typically ignition occurs *way* in advance of the intended timing. At best, this robs you of power. At worst, depending on how the engine fueling system functions, it robs you of control over the engine, and it puts relatively large stresses on the engine components that aren't used to dealing with early combustion.

As for why it's called knock; eh, it just is. Thermodynamics (and fields where thermo has an outsized role, like engines) has all sorts of weird naming conventions, owning to the entire field being a nationalistic hate-fuck between the English and the French.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where were all the autistic kids in the 60s/70s/80s? No one in my family remembers friends or classmates that were on the spectrum, now I seem to see them everywhere.

I don't mean to sound insensitive or sheltered.  I'm in my 30s and I know two different parents of autistic children.  Conversely, my parents never knew anyone with autism, period.  I was wondering if any teachers might be able to weigh in on where these kids were in the 60s/70s/80s...were they diagnosed?  We they just deemed "awkward" and ignored?  Is ASD just far more prevalent now?

[Assistant]
As was mentioned, we're now better at diagnosing it.

In the past, people with mental disabilities (not just autism) were more isolated from the general public. Special schools when they're kids, and then institutions when they're adults. The idea that mentally handicapped people are capable of being productive members of society (in whatever capacity they can manage) is fairly recent. Better understanding of what their difficulties are and how we can treat/mitigate problematic behaviors combined with general public awareness/acceptance allows more integration into "normal" society, which is why you see more of them now.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does our vision distort things when we stare at something too long without blinking?

[Assistant] the cells in your eyes that let you see things get fatigued over time. They just keep trying to send the same signals constantly and they stop working. Moving your eye even a tiny bit is enough to resolve this problem instantly since each cell is now receiving different wavelengths of light than they were.


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

[User]
If susceptibility testing is already difficult and sometimes highly specific for patients who arent immunocompromised, how do doctors select antibiotics and antimicrobials for burn victims and patients who have a severely compromised immune system?

Is there a gauntlet of drugs that are used against common skin or nosocomial flora that doctors administer until the skin or immune system can kick back in?

For background for anybody reading: We test susceptibility for antibiotics by exposing bacterial cultures to samples of specific antibiotics to see what happens to the bacteria in the plate. When you expose a bacterial colony to an antibiotic it is susceptible to, there will be a reaction that tells us that the doctor can use that antibiotic on a patient to treat an infection.

The reason I am asking this question is because Ive never worked in the ER or burn unit, only small labs. And Ive seen how in Micro its necessary to run multiple tests just to determine the proper antibiotic for a single infection. But for a system wide entry wound like a massive burn, I imagined it must be grueling to find a proper treatment when bacteria come in from every surface possible.

[Assistant]
Doctors use broad spectrum antibiotics that are active against the bacteria that typically cause an infection in that area.

Then based on culture data, they can narrow or broaden their coverage as needed.

Susceptibility testing is no different for a competent or immunocompromised patient, because we're testing the bacteria, not the patient.


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

[User]
What does the development/testing process look like when working with dangerous systems?

Think things like power plants, refineries, heavy machinery, etc. When bugs can potentially be fatal, how does the industry approach problems like this? When people rely on fail-safes for these systems and the fail-safe is carried out through a computer program, how can we be certain that the fail-safe will work every time?

[Assistant]
I worked at the UK National Grid for seven years. They update stuff as seldom as possible.

A major refresh happens about every 5 to 8 years. They run the old and new systems in parallel for about six months before it gets formally certified.

They have an upgrade cycle of six months, and every change is tested by the vendor, then by the client on a development system, and then on one of the live sites for two weeks to allow for instant roll-back.

They run an eight-way redundant system. A server has two of everything -- apps processor, database cluster, telemetry/control managers, raids, UPS, diesel generator: and three supervisory processors (so they get a majority vote) which switch the rest of the units in and out as needed.

A site has two complete server complexes, far enough apart that a terrorist attack cannot get them both.

There is a complete duplicate of that site 80 miles away, behind a range of hills, so one nuclear hit will not get both. The sites are connected by six private circuits.

And yet, the main vendor managed to cause the US north-east blackout in 2003, which killed around 100 people, and took down NYC subway, Amtrak, water supplies, cell-phones, airports, and the power supply to 50 million people. They lost stability of the power network, they lost 265 generators that turned themselves off for their own protection, they lost all the system alarms because the telemetry was overloaded, and then --- they managed to lose all power to their own control room.

When a fail-safe system fails ...


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

[User]
ELI5: What actually happened at the V.I Lenin powerplant to cause the Chernobyl accident?

I've read a lot about this topic, but a lot of it is contradictory, circumstantial, or just plain confusing. Can anyone lend some concise enlightenment?

[Assistant]
From memory, and in eli5 terms:
They were running a test, which set up conditions that rapidly heated the reactor. The folks in the control room were unclear on what was happening, reacted the wrong way, and caused a huge release of heat.
Because of the design of the reactor, there was room between the top of the reactor and the top of the heated water.  This meant that when the heat spiked, the water close to the fuel boiled instantly, threw the rest of the water upward like a giant, multi-ton hammer, smashed the reactor to bits, exposed the fuel rods to air and caught the graphite that was supposed to help protect things on fire instead.
The roof of the entire building blew off and bits of it also caught fire, and everything, including a lot of the fuel, was able to burn into the atmosphere.
The Soviet government refused to say anything was wrong until multiple days later, when radioactive particles were detected falling in Sweden.
Many Russian workers and soldiers died (or received lethal radiation doses then died later) trying to put out fires and cool down the remaining reactor fuel. Eventually this included tactics like dropping bags of sand onto the hole in the building from helicopters.
The whole city around Chernobyl had to be evacuated and remains so to this day.
Edit: should say Soviet workers and soldiers, not just Russian chernobyl is in what is now Ukraine.


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

[User]
ELI5 how do hostile takeovers work.

And what's up with 5%.

[Assistant]
A "hostile takeover" allows a bidder to take over a target company whose management is unwilling to agree to a merger or takeover. A takeover is considered "hostile" if the target company's board rejects the offer, but the bidder continues to pursue it, or the bidder makes the offer directly after having announced its firm intention to make an offer.

A hostile takeover can be conducted in several ways.

A tender offer can be made where the acquiring company makes a public offer at a fixed price above the current market price. Tender offers in the United States are regulated by the Williams Act.

An acquiring company can also engage in a proxy fight, whereby it tries to persuade enough shareholders, usually a simple majority, to replace the management with a new one which will approve the takeover. Another method involves quietly purchasing enough stock on the open market, known as a "creeping tender offer", to affect a change in management. In all of these ways, management resists the acquisition, but it is carried out anyway.


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

[User] ELI5: When you eat some bad food and you have diarrhea right away, does your body still absorb the calories from the food?

[Assistant]
Diarrhea means for passes right through intestines, before they could break down and absorb energy from it.

So the answer is no. Very little to barely any energy absorbed from food and body loses lot of water and salts in process.


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

[User] [LOTR] what physically happens to a mortal race person (Gimli, Bilbo etc.) when they reach the undying lands? Do they de-age back to their youthful prime or just spend forever as old men?

[Assistant]
According to Tolkien in one of his letters:

> As for Frodo or other mortals, they could only dwell in Aman for a limited time  whether brief or long. The Valar had neither the power nor the right to confer immortality upon them. Their sojourn was a purgatory, but one of peace and healing and they would eventually pass away (die at their own desire and of free will) to destinations of which the Elves knew nothing.

So they certainly wouldn't be able to de-age, but they would spend whatever amount of time they wanted in the West, aging either very slowly or not at all from the state they were at when they came.  Eventually, they would feel healed and content enough to understand that their life had run its course, and die at peace.


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

[User] What is the most fascinating emerging field in Philosophy in your opinion?

[Assistant] Probably the most response you  get will be problems from bioethics field. New problems in that discipline are just piling up> nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, genetics, cryogenics, etc, etc. Maybe the better question is> what is the most fascinating author or theory. New fields, as subdiscipline of philosophy, are hard to codify.


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

[User] ELI5: How can you stick your entire hand into an open flame[camp fire, lighter] for a few seconds with minimal damage, but touching a hot metal [stove] burns instantly?

[Assistant]
Air is a poor thermal conductor, but a great insulator.  In other words, air is greedy.  Once gets heat it wants to hold onto it and doesnt like giving it away.

Metal on the other hand is a great thermal conductor. But a poor insulator.  Metal likes to share heat with anything that wants some, like your hand.

Metal gets a gold star in kindergarten for sharing its heat, while air gets a time out for hogging the heat for itself.


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

[User]
ELI5 request - Michael Burry's inflation issue

In the past few weeks. Michael Burry, the famous big short guy, been sounding alarm saying how printing money is bad for economy and it gonna crash the market. In my simple mind, all these newly printed money in the system has to go somewhere, and most likely end up in company's, hence, market should actually goes up. What am I missing?

[Assistant]
Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon. Burry has been posting Austrian fearmongering. The money *has* been going somewhere - to fight deflation. Most of the inflation Hawks tend to forget that things like a global pandemic and massive unemployment are massively deflationary environments.

Otoh there is a lot to be said for keeping an eye on inflation, especially given the fiscal stimulus that is coming up, but thus far, the Fed has proven pretty credible when it comes to fighting inflation.


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

[User]
[Marvel Cinematic Universe] Why does Tony Stark insist on fighting some opponents in hand-to-hand?

Two instances leap to mind where using repulsors would have been the wiser choice.  When he fought Thor, it was rather obvious that Thor was a better melee fighter, and yet he chose not to get distance.  Of course, given that Thor has Mjolnir, distance might not have helped, but the question remains.

On the other hand, in his fight against Aldrich Killian, he kept engaging him up close, when repulsors would have worked quite well against him.  With no movement powers and no long-range attacks, shouldn't Tony have just picked Killian off at range?

[Assistant]
First, Stark didn't know much about Thor. Keep in mind that the only intel on Thor was from SHIELD and it was based on a very brief encounter with him in New Mexico. *Most* of their information was from his penetration of the SHIELD facility set up to study Mjolnir, and Coulson thought Thor was just a badass human, not a super. Even after the Destroyer came and Thor regained his powers, the only thing humans saw was that he smashed it with his hammer and then flew away. If anything, that just makes Thor look like a Norse Iron Man, not a god.

I think Tony's reaction when Thor crushes his suit *with one hand* shows how little he and SHIELD understood about Thor's capabilities.

Another factor is that Iron Man generally has only limited ranged powers. Bullets, missiles, lasers, and repulsors are his repertoire. The lasers are limited energy *and* burn themselves out. He only has a few missiles. Bullets are pretty weak, and his repulsors have a rather short range.

Also, he's not an experienced fighter. He had killed a few terrorists, then fought Stane (an even less experienced man), then blew up some Hammeroids. In fact, his only formal combat training is boxing, courtesy of Happy Hogan.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do internet browsers fail to prevent "add extension" advert pages from locking up the browser?

[Assistant]
There's lots of Javascript and HTML(5) APIs around that allow websites to provide cool content such as web apps and games. Sadly, since the authors of these APIs forget that there are evil developers around, they end up giving the APIs a lot of control over the browser that loads the page.

This is also how some shady ads are capable of vibrating your phone, taking you to the app store, etc. Improper sandboxing and APIs with too much power.

You can reduce this by installing an Adblocker and NoScript, which makes pages incapable of doing much without your consent.


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

[User]
[Toy Story] When does a toy die?

Do they live only until they're completely destroyed?  Are there millions of toys buried alive in backyards, sandboxes, and landfills right now?

[Assistant]
The toys each possess an level of "toyness" which is a measure of how much of a toy they are. It is this quality of toyness that animates and enlivens the toys. Toyness is imparted by the subconscious will of humans. When a person thinks of an object as a toy, it confers a degree of toyness on the object which causes it to develop sentience and sapience. When a toy is abandoned and no longer thought of as a toy, it no longer possesses toyness and it returns to its original state as an inanimate object.

A toy buried in a yard, but still remembered by a person would be alive. An action figure that was made by a machine and not seen by a person would not be alive. An object like a stick that was never meant to be a toy could still become one if a person played with it.


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

[User]
Is there any reason why global warming couldn't be mitigated by pumping sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere?

I'm trying to wrap my head around why there isn't more attention to this from the public, and more effort to bring this potential solution to light. The sulfur produced by oil and gas extraction sites would provide more than enough feedstock, and it's a simple process to convert it. Obviously there are some challenges (getting the SO2 as high as it needs to go), but are there any reasons this wouldn't be a viable solution?

[Assistant]
Mainly because Sulphur dioxide is a huge air pollutant. It is *the* major component from which acid rain is formed. Add sulphur dioxide to water, skip a few steps, and you get sulphuric acid.

Nasty stuff. We really don't want any of that in our atmosphere. What we're currently pumping out is already too much.


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

[User]
[Dc] What happens when a speedster dies ?

What does "become one with the Speed Force" mean ?

[Assistant] The Black Flash grabs the speedster and returns them to the Speed Force. Becoming "one" with it means have your consciousness become pure energy and become part of the Speed Force itself. Where you will remain unless your physical form is reborn somehow, but despite becoming part of infinite sea of lighting you are conscious and able to observe the events unfolding through the Speed Force. And since it is connected to everything you can be rather well informed.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why arent cars shaped like teardrops?

If teardrops are an extremely aerodynamic shape, why arent cars shaped like them?

Are modern car designs the most aerodynamically efficient they could possibly get? Or is there another reason why cars arent seeming to get more tear-shaped?

[Assistant]
Cars need to balance aerodynamics with other considerations such as ease of manufacturing, cargo space, passenger space, curb appeal, etc.

Modern car designs are certainly not the most aerodynamically efficient they could get. Ever seen a Toyota FJ Cruiser? Or basically any Jeep?


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

[User] ELI5:Why does a sniper need a spotter, when both of them are using scopes to look at the target? And how does the spotter know the wind speed if there are no moving objects like trees or a flag?

[Assistant]
They're both using devices that give them that information.

A spotter is used because while a sniper is certainly capable of gathering all that information and calculating it, having someone to feed him/her numbers speeds up the calculation of a long shot significantly.

That's especially important if lives are contingent on the sniper taking down a target quickly.

As for wind speed, etc., an electronic anemometer has been available for almost 2 decades now.

A spotter gets to position this and other devices and convey the data to the sniper in a single package. And the spotter isn't in the same place, so assuming good communication, you have a much wider "field of vision" based on the spotter's reports.

Wind speed, direction, presence of glass, movement, possible civilians nearby, etc. are all concerns for a sniper. A spotter alleviates many of those concerns and allows the sniper to focus on accuracy.


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

[User]
[DC] I'm the new advertisement guy at a large fruit company selling bananas, if I defeat The Flash in battle will Gorilla Grodd be willing to film a commercial for me?

So I don't want to say the company but it has the same name as a former senator who ran for president. Anyways too many people are eating apples after someone did a "Hungry for Apples?" campaign and I was thinking that we could totally take that market back if Gorilla Grodd was willing to eat a banana on camera for us and say he's "ape for bananas." I've already promised my boss that this is going to happen but I need a way to contact Gorilla Grodd and earn his respect, to this end I've decided to defeat the Flash in battle. Let's just say I'm totally capable of this (lots of free banana peels, he's doa) would this be enough to get Grodd interested in working with me?

[Assistant] OMFG. "ape for bananas"? That's incredibly offensive. Grodd will not do that - Grodd is highly evolved! He'd be APPALLED! He would scorn you, and embrace other banana makers, for when he needs that special pick-me-up.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is water so difficult for 3d animation?

[Assistant]
Water presents a number of challenges. First off, since it's a liquid it can move in a huge variety of ways, which means it's difficult to simulate well, and the more accurate you want to get, the more computational time it's probably going to take. If you're simulating something where the water is constantly moving (a river, or waves on a shore), that's a lot of work to be doing if you want it to look really good. A common method of doing this is having the computer represent the water as a whole bunch of spheres that collide with each other and with the surrounding geometry. This determines where the water is going, and then graphics shaders render it to look like a continuous liquid rather than separate spheres. The more spheres you add, the more fine grained and realistic your water moves, but the more you increase the computational requirements.

Second, water is mostly transparent, but not entirely. So for it to look good, you want to be able to see through it, but not have it be completely clear. If there's enough water, it eventually absorbs a significant amount of light, and not equally across all wavelengths. So you have to try to get that right. Also if you're looking into the water from above it, you get refraction, and if the surface of the water is moving and/or has waves/ripples/etc. then that's even more complicated.

Third, while being transparent, water is also reflective. So there's another layer of complication, and again it gets even crazier if the surface of the water is in motion.

Now, a lot of this stuff can actually be simulated pretty realistically, and we've figured out ways to make it look good. But the better of a job you want to do, the more work the computer needs to do, and if you're playing a game there's only so much processing time that the computer can spend on water for each frame.

So a lot of times various tricks/shortcuts/etc. are used to make something that looks good enough that we'll accept it as water, even though it's not a particularly accurate simulation.


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

[User]
Why does 238U take billions of years to decay to 234Th, if the difference between them is one alpha particle?

I thought decay was a continuous process. Why does a 238U take billions upon billions of years to eject a single alpha particle? Or is there something I'm missing?

Thanks.

[Assistant] The answer is that there exists a potential barrier. In a simple model the -particle exists inside the U nucleus, confined in a deep square well potential representing the attractive nuclear force. However, the -particle wave function penetrates some distance into the wall of this finite square well potential, where the -particle will be out of the range of the nuclear force, but not out of the range of the long-range electrostatic repulsive force of the other protons in the nucleus.If the total energy of the -particle inside the well is larger than its potential energy outside the well, the a-wave function can re-emerge oscillating at some distance. There is some finite probability of finding the -particle shooting away from the nucleus. The actual probability of this happening depends on how much the wave function decays as it tunnels through the barrier, which depends on the total energy of the particle. For U238 the wave function decays so much that that the -decay has a half-life of over a billion years.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it so difficult to tell if clothes are damp or just cold?

[Assistant]
It helps to first realize that there isn't really a "cold." When you feel something, like a metal door knob, that appears cold, it's actually because your body is warmer than the knob, and what you feel is your hand actually heating the knob up! The knob robs heat from you.

Clothing can also be at a lower temperature than your hand (like if you've left it in your dryer in the basement overnight), and you'll feel that same feeling; your hand heating up the clothing.

Water is really good at robbing heat from you. A warm pool will still feel cold when you first get in, and your sweat robs the heat from your skin when you're warm. We have deep memories that water having that "chilly" feeling.

Sometimes, your brain just gets confused whether clothing is cold or whether it has a small amount of water held in it that's robbing the heat from your hand.

Hope that helped.


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

[User] ELI5: Since blue whales have aortas large enough to swim in, do they have fewer issues with blood clots?

[Assistant] considering they have an extremely active lifestyle (swimming constantly all the time) and a relatively low cholesterol diet (mostly plankton and krill iirc) they are presumably at very low risk for blood clots in the first place.


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

[User]
ELI5: when "persons" is appropriate

I'm Dutch and have always learned that "persons" is not a word. The plural of "person" is "people". Yet I come across the word "persons" regularly. What's up with that?

[Assistant]
"People" refers to a body of people, collectively. It generally implies that they have something in common or are in some way cohesive.

"Persons" means than one person, in the sense of several individuals.

> "The people of this country want justice!"

> "Persons on premises subject to search."

In the first case, you're wanting to refer to a group by their common nationality; in the second case, you're just wanting to say that any person found may be searched, even if more than one, not that you're going to collectively search a group (or even that one person you're searching is associated with another).


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

[User] ELI 5: Why am I so disgusted with the porn video I am watching after I've "finished"?

[Assistant]
Probably because of the refractory period - a period at which the body "rests" after climax. No one knows for sure why such a period exists for men, but a leading theory is that after orgasm, there is an increase in the chemical prolactin. Prolactin inhibits another chemical, dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for arousal.

TL;DR: You're probably disgusted by the porn to begin with, but too horny to act upon it until your brain juices made you come to your senses (pun intended).


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

[User] ELI5: What happens to atoms when a body dies and decomposes?

[Assistant]
Most of them relocate to other areas. This happens in a number of ways.

- The molecules that they are in decompose into a gas that is given off and blows away.

- The molecules they are in get eaten by bacteria, bugs, worms, maggots or other little beasties. These often turn into adult bugs, worms, maggots and other beasties and travel away, or get turned into stuff that kind of liquefies and gets digested further in other plants or animals.

- They stay behind and, over many years, are washed away or moved away by land or water movements, including movements such as getting sucked up as nutrients into trees.

- They stay behind and crumble into the regions of soil around them or are washed away by water movements. Most bones eventually do this.

- A very few get transformed into rock or petrochemicals, which creates fossils or coal.


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

[User] Why are Nirnroot so abundant in Fourth Era Skyrim but so uncommon in Third Era Cyrodiil?

[Assistant]
The Nirnroot is not like other plants.

Nirnroot is a magical plant. Before the Sun's Death in 1E, it was yellowish. However, the species as a whole magically adapted its metabolism to process ash salts, a magical substance contained in the ash that clouded the skies. The diminishing ash content of Cyrodiil's soils led Nirnroot to become far rarer in Cyrodiil by the time of the Oblivion Crisis.

In the interim between the Oblivion Crisis and 4E201, Nirnroot may have adapted itself again, causing it to flourish once more. It is also possible that Skyrim's soil and environment is uniquely suited to the Nirnroot.


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

[User]
[Resident Evil 4] Who is this guy who sells everything and buys random weird treasures I bring him? How'd he amass an armory so large, how does he carry all of it and what does he do with the money and treasures I give him?

Just... Kinda curious. Oh.. The blue fire? How does he do that?

[Assistant]
He's just a merchant, nothing more, nothing less. From what we can tell, he's probably not native to the area. He's got a British accent and speaks English, no hint of Spanish at all. He's a capitalist who buys and sells for the sake of accumulating more money. The stuff he's buying from you is WAY more valuable than what he buys it for.

He's buying MASSIVE spinels from you for 2000 pesetas. Pesetas at the end of their use in the early 2000s were about 150:1 against the US dollar. So he's buying huge chunk spinels from you for about $13 USD. A good pink spinel will sell for MINIMUM $50 per carat, even wholesale, and the spinels Leon is finding are massive multi-carat beasts.

He's selling the weapons as loss leaders. He won't accept USD payments, only pesetas, when HE provides you (at horrible rates) in exchange for valuable gems. The dude is making a KILLING selling to jewelers.

As for the blue fire? Chemistry 101. A lot of alcohols burn with blue flames- ethanol, for example- and numerous metallic salts or solutions do too, such as copper.


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

[User]
Are there "rare" emotions?  Do some people experience types of emotions that no one else experiences?  If they did, how would they know?

Due to what we've seen with evolution, I would have to guess that there are a select number of humans on earth who experience undocumented/undefined emotions.

[Assistant] A true answer to this question would require a thorough understanding of what an "emotion" actually is at the most basic level (i.e., neuronal, synaptic, neurochemical, etc).  Unfortunately that's an understanding we just don't have yet.  Stay tuned, hopefully we'll have a better working understanding of this in the next 50 years!


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

[User]
[GotG Film] Why didn't Thanos punish Ronan... (Potential Spoilers)

Ronan double crosses Thanos and straight up tells him he's doing it. What struck me is that Thanos then does nothing to punish Ronan or to get the stone off him.

Do you think that was all part of some wider plan by the Mad Titan, or is he going soft in his old age?

[Assistant] Ronan telling Thanos that he was going to kill him with the infinity gem is like a little kid telling Brock Lesnar that he's going to beat him up with a stick.  Even *if* Ronan was powerful enough to take Thanos, Thanos, being the genius that he is, would have devised a master plan to kill Ronan during his attack on xandar.


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

[User]
What are immunosuppressants, and are the immuno-boosters?

I understand organ recipients need to take immunosuppressants. How do they work? Do different people require different amounts? And is there a reverse immuno-booster?

[Assistant] There are some drugs that would boost parts of the immune system but only really to be used in specific situations, for example someone with neutropenia post chemotherapy might be offered a drug called filgrastim which can stimulate the bone marrow to produce and release neutrophils.


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

[User]
[Terminator] Why name him John Connor?

Why doesn't Sarah change her name and name John something else?

[Assistant]
Sarah was sort of convinced and obsessed with who her son was and who he would become.  She wanted him to be proud and confident of himself and his identity, and for him to be a sort of beacon for humanity.

In her mind, the savior of mankind (JC - get it?) wouldn't have spent his life hiding under a fake name.


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

[User]
[DC] Is there an admittance process for the Justice League or is it by recommendation only?

Say I'm a new hero and I'm pretty good at. I've foiled my share of devious plots and I'm looking support and kinsmanship. Can I apply to join the justice league or is it more of a who-you-know type thing?

[Assistant]
It's definitely more of a networking thing. If you show extreme potential and get noticed by a JL member, they're likely to talk it over with the others and make contact with you to see what kind of person you are. More often than not they would keep tabs on you for a while (depending on your abilities and moral choices) before approaching you, but once past that stage they would move on to integrating you into the JL or some sort of trainee/apprentice position first.

So it really depends on your training, powers, morality and who notices you. But most likely you would be under the observation of the JL for a while before being approached for some kind of trial membership/apprentice position before joining the big kids like Supes and Batman.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that the liver can (to an extent) regenerate but other vital internal organs cannot?

[Assistant]
The liver itself is made of individual hexagonal units called hepatic lobules made of liver cells (hepatocytes), blood vessels, and connective tissue that all together perform all the functions of the liver. Think of them like honeycomb cells in a bee hive or individual solar cells in a solar panel.

Cutting off a portion of the liver reduces the total number of lobules, reducing the overall function of the liver. The liver cells can replicate to create more lobules in order to regenerate liver function. However, this is not true regeneration as the form of the regenerated liver (shape) is not the same as the original liver.

The other internal organs are not made of individual units or cannot survive having a piece cut out. Organs like the heart are uniquely shaped and designed for its function. Removal of any part would completely ruin its function. Organs that are made of individual units like the lungs (small air sacks surrounded by vessels) or kidneys (filtering units surrounded by vessels and fluid ducts) cannot have a piece cut out since the organs themselves are specially sealed. You cannot breathe properly if there is a hole in your lung and such a hole could result in fluid filling the rest of your lungs. Any removal of lung has to be completely sealed, which prevents that cut region from regenerating. Similarly, because of the large blood flow to the kidneys, injury to the kidneys could easily be fatal. Cutting off a part of the kidney means it is not sealed from leaking the massive amount of blood that flows through it.

EDIT: Replaced "punctured" with "cut" in second paragraph.


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

[User]
What type of data does a Supercomputer process?

Google only seems to show the uses rather than a specific type of data. Any help would be appreciated.

[Assistant] There isn't a specific type of data. A supercomputer could be used on any type of data for which a non-supercomputer could be used. The reason to use a supercomputer is because of computational power. This could be due to the data set being very large, but it could also be just a computation with a very high cost.


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

[User]
CMV: A border wall is a within a country's right to construct and not inherently xenophobic

I'm on neither extreme: the let everyone in or let nobody in camps. But it's not xenophobic for a country to protect it's borders. Most of us live in safe homes and if a homeless man were to enter against of our will, we are well within our right to remove him, even if it means putting him back onto the dangerous streets. The US is not the bad-guy in this situation and is not being xenophobic. While I do disapprove of my President in nearly every vein, illegal immigration is still just that: illegal.

The inevitable retort "these are asylum seekers, not aliens" is a good argument. No doubt these people face hardships back home that they wouldn't face here. But this is a slippery slope in my opinion because this definition extends to millions and millions of people, and the US would surely collapse if we were to let all of them in. Of course it wouldn't and that's an extreme example, but somewhere between taking one person and two hundred million is a tipping point that couldn't be reversed.

Thanks for reading. I intend this for debate, not arguing or bickering. I'm open to being convinced and will reward someone a delta if they change my view.

[Assistant]
>But it's not xenophobic for a country to protect it's borders

A border wall is the most expensive most ineffective way to do that. Real border security involves manpower, infrastructure and sensor technology. Nobody is opposed to any of those things. **Nobody wants open borders**. Stop watching Fox News. The only consternation comes from paying billions and billions for a useless wall.

So if all of the experts say a wall is extremely ineffective, then why do conservatives push for it? Imagery. Thats it. They want the PR of erecting a 30-foot concrete barrier extending to the horizon. Never mind that it will take decades to build and people will just figure out where the wall isnt built and go there. Never mind that without patrols, a wall do nothing more than slow people down by a matter of minutes.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Before the prequels, what did the EU have to say about the period before ANH? Did the movies contradict any of it?

Like, did they say anything about the Clone Wars?  What about Anakin and Obi-Wan training together?

[Assistant]
Very little. George mostly had that as a no-go. There were two Han Solo trilogies - one by Brian Daley, one by AC Crispin. There was also a Lando Calrissian trilogy.

But the Clone Wars and things like that were mostly verboten. Only Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy hinted at the Clone Wars being different, and the timeline extended some (40-50 years back instead of just 20).

Otherwise, most of the EU written in the eighties and nineties was either set during or just after the OT, or several thousand years before the films (the *Tales of the Jedi* comic series was the first to explore that era, and the video game *Knights of the Old Republic* really drew a lot of material from those comics).


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

[User] How many ants would you need to lift a human?

[Assistant]
It would depend on the type of ant.  The average ant weights approximately .1 milligrams and can typically lift 10 times their weight as a conservative figure.  This means one ant could lift 1 milligram.  A 150 pound human being would weight 68,038,855.5 milligrams.  Therefore, it would take approximately that many ants to lift a 150 pound human.

However, depending on the ant, it may take far fewer ants to life a 150 pound man.  Dragging the weight is a different story as well.