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

[User]
What happens if you leave our solar system "going up"?

That is, as I understand it, Voyager, the man-made object that's traveled furthest from us, traveled out across the solar system roughly along the same plane that the planets exist in. What happens if we sent a probe along a path perpendicular to that one, "up," as it were, instead of "out" (though I realize these terms have basically no meaning in space)? Is there anything preventing this?

[Assistant]
Nothing different would happen. The solar magnetic field might be a bit different but other then that you wouldnt be able to tell te difference.

The reason the Voyagers are "shot" on the planetairy plane is that the earth already is moving in this plane thus making it easier (less fuel needed) to continue along the lines of the motion of earth's orbit around thee sun. Nothing is stopping us from launching another voyager orbiting the sun in exactly the opposite direction the earth is or making it travel completely out of the solar systems planatairy plane, it just would cost enormous amounts of fuel extra... With no extra benefits.

(the stuff you learn from Kerbal space program :) )


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

[User] ELI5: A common model for gravitys effect on space is a sheet of elastic material with some stuff put on it to make wells and such. But how does that apply in 3D?

[Assistant]
The whole "rubber sheet" model is effective for the limited number of dimensions that we can visually represent. If you wanted an accurate representation of the effect of some mass (e.g. a planet) on spacetime, you would need to make in at least four dimensions (three for space, one for time). The problem is that we cannot draw a truly four-dimensional (or *n*-dimensional) picture - we exist in and directly perceive three spatial dimensions, while time is perceived as sequential differences.

The solution? We exclude something. In the case of a drawing like "the Schwarzchild radius of a black hole," this looks like a "bottomless" funnel around an infinite mass. In the rubber-sheet depiction, it appears as a depression in an otherwise flat surface. Trying to add dimensions simply does not work - even if the underlying physics is true for the additional dimensions - and so to represent a system completely we need multiple such reduced depictions.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is causing the death of Kmart?

I saw an article showing pictures of empty Kmarts and it made me wonder what is causing such a large chain's slow death.

[Assistant]
Kmart is losing to superior competitors in its field.  It's a discount department store, and it competes against brands like Fred Meyer, Target, and Walmart.

Target is beating them on customer service, media exclusives, and hip-but-affordable clothing and household items.  Walmart beats them on size, variety of in-store services, outdoors/sporting goods, pharmacy services, and open hours.  Both Target and Walmart tend to beat Kmart on price.

Target also dominates in urban areas, especially with its new City Targets, and Walmart dominates in rural areas.

Fred Meyer is popular due to its variety and large grocery sections, as well as its frequent coupon sales.

So where does that leave Kmart?  They aren't the cheapest, they don't have the nicest merchandise, they don't have the best customer service, they don't have other non-shopping services, and they don't have much variety.  Essentially, they have no advantage over their competitors.  Their only recent innovation was to bring back layaway services, but now their competitors do it as well.


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

[User] [Pac-Man] What was Pac-Mans reason for his imprisonment in a labyrinth guarded by deadly ghosts? What did he do to deserve this punishment?

[Assistant] You have it backwards. Pac-Man is a demon who tortures the souls of the damned. They can never escape the labyrinth which twists on itself, and they're eaten by Pac-Man over and over, forced to reform and be eaten anew.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How openly could a citizen express their dislike of the Empire?

While obviously in the early days of the Empire you couldnt speak ill or resist it, what were things like by the time of A New Hope? Was it like if a citizen shit talked the Empire it was all good so long as stormtroopers werent walking by? Or was it more that if you ever dared you got accused of Rebel sympathies and arrested?

[Assistant] It very much depended on what kind of leader you had in charge of your sector/planet/region/city. Some leaders ruled with an iron fist and cracked down at the slightest hint of disgruntlement about the Empire. Others took a more insidious approach, allowing the common folk to voice their relatively harmless complaints while keeping track of the people who would do more than grumble about their distaste for the Emperor. The major theme of the Empire was the facade of order when in fact it was the most unstable the Galaxy had been since before the Golden Age of the Old Republic.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Is the transporter room necessary in order to beam people?

In TNG, the regularly beam people from the planet directly to sick bay. And from one random room to other ships/planets. So why is the actual transporter bay necessary?  Is it just for safety with other options for emergencies?

[Assistant] I don't know how all this works, but it's possible that they can only beam people directly from and to the transporter bay, so if they want to send someone from a planet to sick bay they beam them to the transporter bay and then from there to sick bay, but it all happens so fast you won't actually notice anything in the transporter bay. But you still need to make sure nothing is in the way.


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

[User]
When Intel or AMD build a CPU, do they know in advance how high the CPU will be able to clock?

I know they probably have targets but I was wondering if there was some method they use to simulate the physical properties of the CPU before production.

[Assistant]
CPU developers have to find the maximum clock speed at which their architecture will be stable. They should have a pretty good idea of where this stable speed is, since they developed the architecture and roughly know the limitations of the hardware design, but there's a lot of testing to find the true maximum.

If you set the clock speed too high, one instruction may still be processing while the next instruction tries to read its result. This is what makes an incorrectly overclocked computer unstable.

Once the engineers find a stable clock speed, they turn it down to have of a safe space between an unstable clock speed and the speed at which they sell the CPU. That buffer is why you can safely overclock by a certain amount.

Source: university course

Edited for clarity.


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

[User]
Does 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 ... = 1?

Does the sum of 1 / 2n for all n's 1 -> infinity = 1 or does this sum just approach 1?

[Assistant]
It equals 1.

Note that there are two things here. First you have the sequence of partial sums:

    0
    1/2
    1/2 + 1/4
    1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8
    1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16
    ...

This is an infinite object. There is no meaningful way to talk about its "end". It simply does not have one.

We don't care about that, though. Instead we seek a *singular* number which might sort of summarize the behavior of this sequence. In particular, we seek a particular number that the sequence can be said to be "close" to no matter how someone might define the term "close".

In this circumstance, let's say a malicious enemy of ours says close means "less than 10^-300 of a part away from you so-called limit". By choosing the limit as 1, we know that this is true for all elements of the sequence of partial sums above the thousandth or so.

If we can prove that for any malicious definition of "close" that the sequence still eventually achieves that level of closeness, then the limit exists.

But remember, limits are finite, singular things. They do not pretend to be an infinity. They just sort of make for good stand-ins.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does sleeplessness hinder brain function?

We know that not getting enough sleep can cause deliriousness and that sleep is needed for effective brain function-

But why?

[Assistant]
Think of your brain as a warehouse.

When you're awake, pallets of information and memories get unloaded, stored, and removed. However, this is a messy process. In the middle of all this scramble, things get misplaced, forklifts run into other goods, and the warehouse gets messier and messier.

When you sleep, the normal work crew clocks out and the evening cleaning shift comes in to tidy things up. Fallen goods get placed back on the shelves. Fresh memories get moved so they are more easily accessable or to long term storage. And the warehouse aisles are cleaned to be ready for a new day.

If you don't sleep, the warehouse starts out messy. It takes longer for your brain to do anything because the workers have to avoid all the spilled goods. Other things may not be organized so it takes longer to find the relevant information. Things that you crammed when you pull an all nighter are precariously stuffed on the shelves rather than safely placed in long term storage.


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

[User] [Heroes] its established that Claires blood can and has brought a dead person back to life. Given that, why isnt her blood used more often for both that and healing injuries?

[Assistant]
For the vast majority of the series, Claire is trying to avoid attention.  Whether it's hiding from Sylar, hiding from the Company, or blending in with the superpowered carnies, there's always *someone* who wants to exploit her powers, or lock her up in a lab.

Not a lot of things draw attention like a bunch of people literally coming back from the dead.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come when I eat a decent amount of fruit/veggies, I don't feel satisfied. But a $1 cheesebuger leaves me full for hours?

I ate two oranges, an apple, and a banana earlier in one sitting. I felt like I could've eaten a few more. But when I eat 1 cheeseburger, I feel full for hours. What's up?

[Assistant] Fat and protein lead to a lot more satiety when eaten. Vegetables can also make you feel full as a virtue of the fiber content. Oranges, apples and bananas also have a little fiber, but they also have sugar, which will often make you feel hungrier than had you eaten nothing due to how insulin and leptin work.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does someone end up owing thousands in back taxes?

I keep hearing ads for agencies that help people who owe tons of back taxes reach settlements, but how does that happen to start with?

[Assistant]
Easy. Your W-2 was't filled out right and didn't automatically withdraw enough taxes. Then come tax time you owe thousands of dollars because you didnt pay enough during the year. However you didnt realize this was happening and don't have the money to pay right away.

Boom back taxes.


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

[User] ELI5: how do residential street numbers work in the U.S? For example 742 Evergreen Terrace, where I live that would imply that there is at least 742 properties on that Street, with the odd numbers on one side and the even numbers on the other side.

[Assistant]
It depends.

Sometimes they are strictly sequential like you describe. Other times they might number them by block, the buildings on the first block on a street may start at 100, the buildings on the second block would start at 200, etc, even if there aren't 100 buildings in each block. Another method used in some places numbers buildings based on a formula that represents distance from the beginning of the street....something like 742 may be roughly 0.75 miles from the beginning of the starting point.

Most of the time though they still stick to evens on one side and odds on the other.

tl;dr - There's no enforced standard in the US for building numbers. They generally do follow a specific pattern, but it can change from area to area.


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

[User]
Could a future civilization reverse-engineer electronic computers from a bunch of binary program instructions?

Hey all, this is really vague, I know. It didn't seem quite right for AskArchaeology, so I hope here is okay.

Basically my question is the title. If some future archeologists with no knowledge of electronic computers found printouts of the binary instructions of a number of programs, is there enough information there for them to deduce the purpose of the instructions, and how we ran them?

[Assistant] If they only found printouts of machine code, and knowledge of electronic computers hadn't survived to their day, then it's just meaningless gibberish to them.  If there was a processor databook accompanying it, then maybe they'd have a chance of understanding it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are firm mattresses recommended but sleeping on the floor isn't?

So I am almost 20 years old and have been diagnosed with scoliosis. While it is not severe at all, my lower back does hurt if I don't sleep in a good mattress. Today I started wondering about sleeping on the floor and a quick google search showed me that it CAN be beneficial! So my question is. Why isn't this recommended by doctors more often? And do you have any experience regarding this topic? (as doctor who recommends it or individual who sleeps on the floor)

[Assistant] A hard floor and a 'squishy' mattress are opposite extremes. The floor will fully support your body, but will not conform to your body shape. A mattress that is too soft will not support your body well, but will contour to your body well. Ideally, you will want a mattress that can still conform to your body but with sufficient support. This will ensure you can maintain the proper spinal support while sleeping without having too much or too little support.


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

[User]
Why does food you heat up in the microwave cool down faster than food you heat up in an oven?

Is this real life? I've noticed that food, say a slice of pizza, can be just as hot coming out of the microwave as out of the oven, but it cools down in what feels like a few minutes, where the pizza out of the oven would stay hot much longer. I can tell because I can start eating the microwaved pizza without burning my mouth much sooner than if it came out of an oven. Or is this all an illusion?

[Assistant] All heating sources tend to heat the outer layers of food first. Microwave ovens transfer heat into food much more efficiently than convection ovens, so food generally spends less time in a microwave. In a convection oven, the heat on the outer layers of the food has time to diffuse into the inner part of the food, resulting in food at a more even temperature. In a microwave oven, it is possible to heat the outer layers of your food to a similar temperature very quickly, but the inside of the food is cooler. When you take the food out, the outside layer is loosing heat to the environment and to the cooler inner part of the food, so it will cool much faster than food which is a fully uniform temperature.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] What is life like for a retired Ogryn Guardsman?

Being that the Imperial Guard *eventually* succeeds at taking back a world, and that their standard operating procedure is to just leave the guardsmen on that planet to resettle or colonize it, it is inevitable that at least a few thousand ogryn will sooner or later manage to survive to retirement.

Being that Ogryn don't really have the intellectual capacity to take care of themselves post-training, more or less depending on the commissariat to guide them through life, what might their life be like after essentially being retired and left to resettle/repopulate a planet? What about Bone'eads, with their marginally superior intellectual capacity, what would their life be like?

[Assistant]
Im guessing it depends on the type of planet theyve been stranded on, the state of things post-capture, and which faction happened to assault the planet.

If the planet was attacked by Orks, Tyranids or Chaos, the Orgryn are likely to end up being very busy fighting all the tiny fires that pop up long after the main event is over. (Im assuming a miracle intervention by a Space Marine chapter somehow managed to stop the Ork/Chaos/Tyranid invasion before they got too big of a foothold)

If the planet was former Tau territory, theyd probably be employed by the newly installed Planetary Governor as enforcers that beat up anyone still clinging on to thoughts about the Greater Good. Thats assuming the Inquisition doesnt decide to just mass execute the billions of humans tainted by the alien ideology.

So basically they just join the local planetary defense force and/or law enforcement.

I dont think the Imperial Guard would be sent for a Drukhari raid or an Aeldari attack. By the time the guard arrives, the belligerents would be long gone, and they dont really hold territory that can be recaptured and colonized.

Either way, the claustrophobic Orgryn might have a tough time adjusting to life on a former Hive or Forge world.


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

[User] ELI5: If you are completely blind, how do you get your guide-dog to take you where you want to go? How is that communicated?

[Assistant] It doesn't work like that. The guide dog does not lead the blind, it restrains them. The blind person goes where they want to go and the dog will pull back to avoid danger such as roads. If the blind person wants to go to the market or something they need to go themselves; the dog doesn't know where that is, there is no way to communicate it, and it isn't part of their training.


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

[User] ELI5: What are the pros and cons of the UK leaving the European Union?

[Assistant]
Pros of leaving: They will better be able to control their borders. They will no longer be paying dues to the EU. They will be able to set more tariffs on imported goods.

Cons of leaving: Their citizenry will no longer be able to freely travel around Europe and so would need to get tourist visas. Their citizenry would not be able to work in other EU countries without getting work visas or fully immigrating to those countries. They may have fewer international students studying at university. Their exports can have tariffs placed on them by EU nations. They may get fewer tourists as EU tourists will have to get tourist visas.


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

[User] [Cthulhu Mythos] What would happen if two ancient unkillable beings actually fought?

[Assistant] This happens all the time actually. Immortal, immense, cosmic beings don't fist fight though. Their battlefield could be reshaping a plane of existence or manipulating the laws of nature to make the other not possible in the territory they are trying to take or building a cult and having it conflict with another using rules the beings decide on. For a good example A Night in the Lonesome October by roger zelazny.


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

[User]
[Naruto Shippuden] Why Obito didn't capture Naruto when he was a kid?

We know Obito is around since Naruto was born. Obito is pretty broken with kamui and I'm sure he could go to the hidden lead village unnoticed at any moment.

Is there any canon explanation or is it just bad writing?

[Assistant] I always assumed it was because Naruto was basically easy pickings at any time and Obito had more important things to worry about like orchestrating world politics for the next 15 years. The tailed beasts didn't factor into his plan for a long time and when they would eventually he had created a whole organization that he would handle the captures for him.


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

[User]
Is a rain (snow?) of carbon dioxide possible in Antarctica?

Wikipedia says that temperature in Antarctica can be less than -80 C. Carbon dioxide boils at -57 C and melts at -78 C, but I've never heard anything about such rain (snow). Is it possible or it isn't because of some reasons?

[Assistant] It's cold enough, but there is very little CO2 in the atmosphere.  You can't look at the sublimination point at 1 atm because the partial pressure of CO2 is much lower.  The low partial pressure of carbon dioxide would cause it to subliminate in this environment--some molecules are freezing out, but at the same time others are sublimating and there is no accumulation.


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

[User] [MCU/Age of Ultron] Tony Stark mentions how Ultron keeps taking to the human form despite its inefficiency; if not a reference to something, what IS an efficient physical form for an A.I. to take?

[Assistant]
Whatever optimizes the form of locomotion relative to the mass and can also contain his intelligence.  Likely it would be some sort of small orb with multiple legs, like a very large insect.

Since Ultron can occupy multiple bodies at once, he could have a variety of forms, each with a particular specialty.  Large bulldozer-types for moving earth/demolishing buildings, streamlined jet aircraft for transcontinental/inter-solar travel, pocket-sized infiltration units, humanoid bodies to utilize human tools, etc.

He complains about humans having no imagination and then ends up making thousands of identical clones of himself.


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

[User]
[The Godfather] How did Tom Hagen get the position of Consigliere as a non Italian?

Yes Tom was raised by Don Vito, was loyal to him and viewed him as his true father, but the position of Consigliere would go to a full blooded Sicilian born in the code of Omert, and Tom isn't even a bit Italian. With the question of blood so important in that era of the Mafia, how would a German-Irish American ever be accepted in such a high role in the Family by the other members of he never even served in the roles of Soldier or Capo because of his ancestry?

[Assistant]
The role of consigliere is an odd one in the Corleone household. Traditionally, half the point of having one is to have someone to deal with outside business, someone who is otherwise clean of Mafia work. Hagan's role as close advisor beyond his "clean" legal work is the exception, since normally you want a lawyer who can look the cops in the eye and honestly say they don't know about any criminal activity. Having a "made man" in that role is the exact opposite of what you want, since getting "made" requires being a notorious career criminal with explicit mob ties.

Hagan was an outlier; Vito came to value his guidance so much that he was willing to accept a loss of his efficiency as a family lawyer in exchange for having a dude on his side who he could trust 100% to deal square. Michael, who was raised in this household, ends up with a skewed perception of what Hagan's job is, seeing him as advisor first and lawyer second, hence why he has it in his head he needs a "war consigliere" to guide him.


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

[User]
[Marvel/Dresden Files] Since locking eyes with Dresden makes people see his soul (and him theirs), and locking eyes with Ghost Rider makes people have their souls burnt, what'd happen if Dresden locked eyes with Ghost Rider?

Would Dresden's soul burn with Ghost Rider's conscience trapped inside it?

[Assistant] With Dresden's soul gaze, both parties aren't trapped in either persons soul. They are merely looking at the others soul. So if Harry and Ghost Rider locked eyes, Ghost Rider would see Harry's soul, and vice versa, and Harry's soul would be burned.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does insulin price gouging work? Shouldn't competitors be interested in selling for $1 less until it gets close to actual cost?

Given that its insulin and not some new pharmaceutical, I assume the method of making more is available to everyone?

[Assistant]
You're assuming insulin is insulin.

Unlike aspirin which is aspirin, the different insulins on the market are not all the same, and what works well for one person may not work well for another. (Chemically they are different).

There are widely available, *relatively* cheap insulins on the market, but they might be too fast/slow acting, require too frequent injections e.t.c. If the only insulin that works well for you is a relatively recent one still under patent, then you're at the mercy of whatever the manufacturer wants to charge.


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

[User]
[Dragon Ball/Z/Super] Why can someone like Krillin get so much stronger then someone like Mercenary Tao?

They're both humans and they both had A1 training (Tao at least trained under Shen, possibly under Mutaito), but Tao is over 300 years old. Why was Krillin able to overtake him so quickly?

Within 3 years of training with Tien, Chiaotzu, and Yamcha off in the wilderness he already overtook Tao. Past that, with the one year of training between Raditz and the Saiyans arriving, Krillin massively jumped again making Tao almost laughable.

What is it about guys like Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu that makes it possible for them to grow so much more powerful than someone like Tao, Shen, or Korin?

[Assistant]
i think it got something to do with them being around powerful beings and the ability to sense ki.

what they are doing isnt training their muscles, they are training their ki. and considering that stronger people increase in power much faster (by sheer numbers atleast) than weaker people, they are probably doing something with their ki that the weaker persons arent.

so if you can sense ki, and you train with someone strong, you can sense how they move their ki around and what they do with that, and you can immitate that. krillin trains with goku, and he can learn from goku how to do ki stuff better. im assuing this is also why traning with superpowerful dudes are relevant, since by now they know every way to there is to lift a weight or throw a punch. i also assume this it got easier and easier to become super sayian and unlock those other transformations other seeing others doing it, culimating in the u6 sayians who learned it very quickly from goku and vegeta. i think roshi even mentions it to krillin in ressurection F in dbs, that just by being around so many superstrong beings, krillin grew acustomed to their power, and in turn got stronger himself (and especially faster, which that scene is about)

case in point, goku trains  with king kai and gets a lot stronger, krillin and the z fighters learn from goku, Tagoma got a lot stronger from training with freiza, future trunks in dbs by fighting with goku and vegeta against black, and goku and vegeta from whis and so on. train with someone stronger, and you can learn how to become as strong as them, as long as you can sense ki to see how they did it.

so what tao and shen and the others lack was a guy like goku, who could show them how powerful you can become and help pull them up to that level.


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

[User]
First Time Literature Review. Burning out.

Hi All,

I just started a masters program in logistics and supply chain management. My first paper, after a break of about five years, is a literature review on cross-culture and the US auto industry (my choice). Unfortunately, I am about half way through and experiencing massive burnout. Any helpful advice would be so deeply appreciated.

[Assistant]
Literature reviews are like eating balsa wood while getting your fingernails ripped out. They suck. Fortunately they make up a small part of the actual work. If you're feeling burned out, take a break, do something else, then make a time to go back to the work and just power through it. It doesn't have to be genius. It's just gotta do the job. And in the end, you'll probably find the knowledge you gained was useful, even if the process was _lame_.

Or to put it another way: congratulations! By finding a literature review really tedious, you have just proven that you are a human being. Don't trust anyone who likes writing literature reviews. They are probably replicants.


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

[User]
How is dirt/debris/inorganic material handled or processed when a caterpillar passes through the pupal stage (and digests itself)?

Where I live (rural area) there are always lots of caterpillars seen near the fields and crossing roads this time of year. It is hot and the roads are oily and lots of tar/rock chip, etc. There have to be oil / tar / debris that sticks to the hairs of the caterpillars, and I was wondering how this stuff is accounted for when the caterpillar turns itself into soup inside the chrysalis. Do they shed an outer layer or dispatch of the hairs/fur before going through this process, to avoid complications? Could certain debris or chemicals cause issues during this transitional phase?

[Assistant] When a caterpillar transforms into a pupa, it is actually undergoing ecdysis (shedding its exoskeleton) for one final time. The new cuticle (in this case the pupal casing) is forming underneath the cuticle of the caterpillar during its final instar, and transforming into a pupa is just shedding its cuticle, allowing for all the debris/inorganic matter to be shed along with the former exoskeleton. As for the material inside the gut of the caterpillar, often times the larva stop eating before pupating and may purge their guts of undigested organic matter before pupating.


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

[User]
CMV: Culture appropriation is incredibly stupid and negatively impacts equality movements

This is literally the dumbest shit i have ever heard. Culture Appropriation is negatively impacting further development towards equality if you ask me.

Like braiding your hair is suddenly offensive to Africans who 'had it first'. And that you are stealing their culture by taking minor shit like hairstyles, i just don't understand how that could be taken as offensive, if anything i would take it as a compliment that they like and enjoy my culture! I am British and i don't think i could care less if someone decided to use my culture in whatever way they want.

I don't get why we can't all use each others culture and embrace it together. If we truly wanted equality why are we attacking people who like bits of other cultures and want to use it themselves?

More bullshit examples i have seen are:

Taking another country's food dish and adding your own twist to it. Eg when a white chef took a twist on pho, a Vietnamese dish, apparently appropriating their culture?!

Offence over music, if an artist uses different styles of voice or dancing that come from other cultures, is somehow wrong and offending to the culture. Or if a remix of a 'traditional song' is somehow also considered offensive.

When people use other cultures clothing/fashion, eg hennas, braids as i said before, and other accessories.

I just don't get why we can't all just appreciate other cultures and use them in our everyday life, without everyone assuming it is done to cause chaos and offence.

It goes without saying mocking another culture is too far and shit like that, but general use that has no means of wanting to be offensive is just stupid, idiotic and negatively impacts societies where there are many cultures.

[Assistant]
appropiation is usually the most literal one, where companies take something and try to own it or sell it. Examples would be Disney trying to trademark day of the dead or european fashion companies taking indigenous people's designs.

As a mexican i dislike how beer companies have taken one of our holidays and turned it into a day of drinking in USA and how they are ignorant to what it is, also i don't really care for their taco bell or wathever. The only thing is that being USA that shit goes international and gives a false idea to our culture. This doesn't just happen when a foreigner does it, many traditions are being "comercialized" and being changed to be able to be sold.

So basically, while the idea you can't cook something or wear/style your hair one way because "you're not x" is baffling and dumb, there are times you should probably not contribute to what i would call "culture consumism". For example you as a brit are free to cook mexican food and dress like a mariachi and celebrate day of the dead as anyone else, but if british *companies* started selling "day of the dead" things with a very different meaning it would be similar to  what people call "appropiation"


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

[User] ELI5: The differences between karate, judo, kung fu, ninjitsu, jiu jitsu, tae kwan do, and aikido?

[Assistant]
All of them have different origins and all have different focuses.

Karate is about strikes with hands, feet, elbows and knees (as well as some grapples).

Judo is mostly about throws and takedowns.

Kung Fu is an umbrella term for any Chinese Martial art.

Ninjitsu is about striking pressure points and sensitive areas.

Jiu Jitsu is about trapping, locking, takedowns, etc.

Tae Kwan Do is about striking and kicking.

Aikido is about turning the momentum of the attacks of your opponent.


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

[User]
Why are prions so hard to destroy?

Most proteins denature below boiling temperature. Prions, as far as I know, are just a type of protein.

Is there a specific reason why prions are so hard to destroy? And is it in any way linked to the diseases they cause? Or is it just pure coincidence?

[Assistant]
Prions are proteins folded into special configurations that are extra stable.

Theyre folded into alternating rows and form sheetsthink something quilted into a big square blanket. Theres a high amount of cohesive forces in between each row, so its held together quite well and takes an extremely high temperature to overcome those forces.

The shape of these sheets also makes it amenable to crystallization where one protein stacks on top of another very well, and they form large aggregates, and this is what causes prion diseases.

It basically all results from what is the lowest energy configuration.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do surgeons leave the old kidney in the patient when transplanting a donor kidney?

[Assistant]
Removing it is additional work and risk that isnt really useful unless the kidney is infected or something.

Usually its fine and just not working, so its easier and safer to leave it in instead of chopping around in there.


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

[User]
[Pirates of the Caribbean] How were Jack and Will able to use a capsized boat underwater?

Wouldn't the pressure that would push it to the surface be greater than their combined body weight?

[Assistant]
It's all about that neutral buoyancy.

Put the boat in the water.

Roll the boat so that it is full of water.

Fill the boat with rocks or lead shot until it sinks. Secure the lead shot in containers in the fore and aft.

Roll the boat underwater.

Fill an airtight bladder with air. Mostly airtight is acceptable. (Denim would work, so canvas sacks would as well.)

Push the bladder under the capsized boat.

Release the air.

Repeat.

One person needs to keep the boat from rolling and releasing the air back to the surface.

Once the boat reaches neutral buoyancy, it would actually be relatively easy to walk it across the cove floor. Visibility might be a problem. Depth is definitely a problem, a depth of more than 35 feet might be enough to cause Decompression Sickness.

The more significant problem is the lack of oxygen. For every cubic foot of air you put into the boat, you are displacing 45 pounds of water. To balance this you need to add eight pounds to the (now upside down) boat's weight, or put 45 pounds in your pockets and hold on really tight.

Now a single cubic foot of oxygen will last about 10-20 minutes (exercising, talking and anxiety all increase oxygen intake). So, assuming they start with fresh air, they don't need to travel more than 30 minutes across the bottom of the cove, then they need to load the boat with about 6 cubic feet of air. (Which is about what we see inside the boat actually.) And this would be the weight of 10-20 cannonballs. At least those are readily available.

However, there is a bigger problem! CO^2 poisoning. Unless you start with pure oxygen, (not recommended at higher pressures!) you'll actually start to suffer from CO^2 poisoning in 1 /5th of the time it takes to actually breathe all of the available oxygen. However, there's an explanation for that too. See, in high pressure situations like the bottom of the ocean, the CO^2 can be reabsorbed by the saltwater, allowing one to live almost indefinitely in the cold and dark.

What isn't explained is why no one noticed all of this preparation, or the giant wooden crab invading the cove. Seriously, that water is like glass.


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

[User] ELI5 how does file compression work? As in .zip, .rar, etc.

[Assistant]
To give a really simple example....

Say you want to compress a text file that contains:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Originally that file is 20 characters long. You can compress it by doing this instead:

"Ax20"

You've now reduced it to 4 characters with no loss of information.

In reality, compression works similarly to this, it looks for patterns that can de described in a shorter way. For example it may take less space to say the word "and" appears at certain locations than to actually list the word again and again.


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

[User]
CMV: There are some countries where democracy just can't function

Democracy needs two things:

1. Some accountability to the people, so that the elected officials need to accept losing and step down.
2. The national identity of the country is stronger than the tribal identity, because if it isn't, the dominant 'tribe' gets elected and oppresses the other 'tribes.'

If these two things aren't true, then I don't think a democracy can work and a constitutional monarchy might be a better form of government. I think this applies to a lot of countries in the middle east.

[Assistant]
> CMV: There are some countries where democracy just can't function

**YET**

Countries are not static, people and politics changes over time. We evolve into other system. Its not an on or off switch.

By starting democracy early, people in that country start to have the discussions over how it works, why its good, what is bad, ext.

Over time, people will become more accustomed to the system and learn to respect it over time.

You say democracy needs 2 things, accountability and unity. How do you achieve this better in another system? If you cant achieve this in another system, then those countries need to transition into democracy.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why does the wizarding world act like it is the "real" world and that muggles are some sub-class of people kept in the dark?

We must outnumber them by billions. If anything, they're hiding in *our* shadows.

The wizarding world just seems... entirely ignorant of the broader scope of Earth.

[Assistant]
Just the normal ethnocentrism you see in most cultures. Their world is real to them because that's the one they live in.  They rarely visit ours, or interact with it in any meaningful way, and many wizards don't even bother to learn much about our world, because frankly, they don't need to.

Given all that, it's pretty natural that their behavior would exhibit a preference for their own world over ours.


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

[User] [Batman] If Bruce Wayne was actually killed while crime-fighting, would the Joker just continue the mind games with whoever takes up the Batman identity? (say, Dick Grayson) Or, having lost his antithesis, would he go on one last murder spree and then kill himself?

[Assistant]
The last time Batman died and the Joker was still around (Final Crisis), several members of the last human organization to try to kill him, the Black Glove, started dying one by one in unorthodox ways. An English crime author, Oberon Sexton, arrived and announced that he would be tracking down this killer, nicknamed the Domino Killer. He also assisted Batman and Robin several times, both physically and with their deductions as to who the Domino Killer was. In the end, Dick Grayson as Batman deduced that the Joker was both Oberon Sexton and the Domino Killer.

...So in this case, the Joker basically took it upon himself to run an introductory tutorial scenario for the next Batman.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do computers start to slow down over time?

[Assistant]
There's many different things at play here, but here's just a few.

First and foremost, your software programs become more demanding over time, while your computer's physical hardware stays the same. As software is updated and made more complex, your hardware falls behind because it's still the same old hardware running new and more complex software.

Another major factor is *how much* software you've installed over time. Lots of programs run automatically when you start your computer, and many users have a tendency to install many programs over the years and never uninstall them. They build up over time, and eventually your computer will have to launch a couple dozen programs every time you turn it on, and keep them all running in the background while you use your computer.

There's other more subtle factors as well.

Battery powered devices like cell phones are often designed to intentionally slow down as the battery ages, to prevent situations where the old battery can't supply enough power to drive the phone. If you've seen an old phone that randomly turns off even though it still has some battery remaining, that's what happens when the battery can no longer support the device at its full speed.

Devices with cooling fans such as laptops, computers, and gaming consoles also fall to another culprit -- dust. Over time, dust will pile up on the cooling vents and block the flow of air through your fans. This makes it harder for your computer to stay cool. Over time, as your computer gets hotter and hotter, it will start to slow itself down to prevent heat damage to its components. This is especially common with gaming; cooling is very important because the computer is working very hard.


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

[User] [X MEN] If every tissue of Wolverine's body can regenerate and self heal,why did he mention in LOGAN that he can kill himself using an Adamantium bullet?

[Assistant] By the time he says that, his ability to regenerate has noticeably deteriorated.  Severe enough brain trauma may take long enough to heal, that his body dies before it is able.  And even if it fails, it is likely to destroy enough of his memory and personality that "Logan" effectively dies regardless, even if something else in the body one day regains consciousness.


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

[User] ELI5: If all dog breeds today came from interbreeding certain types of wolf, coyote, and fox, why aren't they considered to have 'evolved' from them?

[Assistant]
That's mostly a matter of semantics. When we use the term 'evolved', scientists are referring to the gradual change of a species over time due to natural selection. Dog species came from artificial selection, which is essentially man-made evolution.

Plus when we use the term 'evolved from', we're usually refer to a separation of species. All breeds of dogs are still considered one 'species' - Canis lupus familiaris.


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

[User] ELI5: How do smartphones measure remaining battery capacity?

[Assistant]
2 main ways.

A battery is like an inflated balloon. You can pump it up with air to inflate it. Then, you can release that air and use the air pressure to do some worksay, blow out a candle.

If you inflate the balloon all the way, the force of the air that comes out is high. If you inflate it halfway, the force is weaker. So you could measure how inflated a balloon is by measuring the pressure of the air as it comes out.

*Voltage* is what we call pressure when it's electricity. Voltage is electric pressure. The voltage at the battery terminal is higher when the battery is more charged for the same reason the air pressure is higher in a more well-inflated balloon. There are more electrons pushing into each other trying to get out.

The other way you could measure the remaining air in the balloon is to count how much air came out. If you put 10 breaths worth in there, and it takes 1 breath's worth to blow out a candle, and you used the balloon to blow out 5 candlesyouve got 5 breaths worth remaining.

*Coulombs* are what we call breaths when it's electricity. Coulombs are a measurement of electrical charge. At a given voltage, they can do a specific amount of work in a circuit. Some battery systems count coulombs by keeping track of how much work was done. This way is harder to do, but can be more accurate than measuring voltage.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Does a lightsaber blade cast a shadow?

[Assistant] Not any more than a lightbulb does.  Presumably if you put it in front of a light source brighter than the blade itself, it would cast a shadow of sorts, but that's not what we usually think of as casting a shadow.


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

[User]
What's outside the universe?

So firstly im just some dumb 17 y.o with a question, and the question is... So space between all the objects in space is a vacuum of nothingness or spacetime or whatever but what is beyond that, that the universe is expanding into. Is there no space no time laws of physics???

[Assistant]
This is a very interesting question! And part of the answer is that physicists use the word "universe" in multiple ways that can be quite confusing.

First off there's the "observable universe": the area of the universe that we are able to see, because light or other signals have had time to reach us from there. This is a spherical region centred on us, with a radius of about 47 billion light years. [Important note: the fact that we are at the centre is not special, people in a neighboring galaxy would see a slightly different observable universe, centred on them.]

And then there's what we could call the "full universe" (not a technical term): the whole of everything that exists, even the stuff outside of the observable universe that we can't see. At the moment the evidence we have seems to indicate that this is infinite, it keeps going on forever and ever. Certainly, our observable universe is only a tiny fraction of the "full universe".

Within our current understanding of physics, there is nothing "outside the (full) universe", in that the concept of "outside" doesn't really apply. If the universe is infinite, then it never ends, it just keeps going. And if it's finite then it loops back around on itself, the same way you'd end up back at your house if you started walking North and kept going in a straight line for long enough. There's no "edge" either way.

Now, within theoretical physics there are models that consider our universe to be embedded within some kind of higher-dimensional space (the way the text on this 2D screen is embedded in your 3D room), and you could consider that a kind of "outside" but there's no evidence at present to support that idea.

To answer "what is the universe expanding into?" is tricky. The answer is straightforward: nothing. But explaining why is hard. When you blow up a balloon, it expands out into space that was occupied by the air, we naturally understand this. But that's an example of a higher-dimensional embedding: the balloon's rubber is a (curved) 2D surface embedded in 3D space. In the case of our universe, it isn't pushing out into some external space, it's just that the distances between very far apart galaxies are getting bigger.


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

[User] ELI5:Why is it when I get strep throat it hurts to swallow my own saliva, but not food/drink?

[Assistant]
First thought would be that with saliva you are swallowing a very small thing forcing your throat to contract more than it would with a pile of food or a mouthful of fluid.

Edit for analogy: A toothpaste tube is your throat. Squeezing out the toothpaste is swallowing. Much easier to push out the toothpaste when there is a decent amount still in the tube. Swallowing a bit of spit is like trying to squeeze out that last little bit. Now imagine the tube is sore. Poor tube :(


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

[User] [Marvel] Why do people use the term "healing factor" instead of "regeneration"?

[Assistant] Imo healing factor refers to natural healing processes that are supernaturally faster whereas regeneration can reconstitute vaporized limbs or other things that would lean more towards naturally impossible


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

[User] When astronomers say that "space is expanding," does that just mean that the things in space are moving away (say, from 3 to 7 cm on a ruler), or does it mean the unit length itself is being distorted (it's still 3 cm, but centimeters themselves are now longer)?

[Assistant]
They mostly mean the former  the things in space are moving away (from 3 cm to 7 cm on a ruler).  A meter is still a meter.

However, there is a legitimate sense in which space is "scaling up" although our units of distance are not scaling up with them.  In terms of the formal mathematics of general relativity, space is equipped with a metric tensor which serves to provide a geometric notion of distance ... and over time, the scale factor of that metric tensor is increasing.  This is why the expansion of space is sometimes described as a "metric expansion" rather than an inertial expansion (like a conventional bomb)  physical distances are increasing even for objects which are initially at rest with respect to each other and upon which no forces are acting to drive them apart.

However, even though this is how our expansion of space is formally described, a meter is still a meter ... and something like a meterstick is not itself changing in length because electromagnetic forces still hold rigid objects at a characteristic size.  The consequence of the metric expansion of space is that distances between unbound objects are expanding  bound objects (including those bound by gravity, so including galaxy clusters and everything else smaller) are not expanding at all.  The expansion effect *only* happens across vast cosmological distances, where it is a real physical increase in distance (in whatever constant units you want to use).


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

[User]
[Mass Effect] How are Gillian and Hendel able to survive aboard the Quarian Migrant Fleet?

In the book Mass Effect Ascension two humans are taking refugee in the quarian Migrant Fleet, which makes me wonder how they would be able to survive there. The quarians are a dextrobased species, which means they must be able to grow levo food in that spaceship for Gillian and Hendel. But thats not the only issue. Theyd need to acquire levo food for the time in between until anything has grown, and their doctors must be able to treat them in case they have medical issues. Since theyre levo based they also would need to get special medicine. Not to mention that I wonder why they had two human sized environmental suits for Gillian and Hendel. Quarians have different body shapes than humans so they must have had suits that were made for humans, but why, when no one is allowed to visit the Fleet?

Is there a plothole?

[Assistant]
The chirality issue is not as... severe as it's made out. Humans naturally consume dextro-based proteins on Earth, usually from native plants. So long as thorough research is done by a professional medical or nutritional specialist, there is likely preexisting dextro-based products on the Migrant fleet that could be identified as human-safe and provides necessary nutrition, once properly processed.

And this assumes that quarians never evolved in an environment that has levo-based proteins they themselves could consume.

The warning for cross-chirality consumption is for regular citizens and tourists under everyday circumstances. Chirality-based poisioning is rare, but *when* it occurs, it is usually an emergency situation due to severe complications. And even in the best-case scenario, consuming cross-chiral proteins your body wasn't designed to use or process results in "empty calories".


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

[User] [Star Wars] A senator has just had a heart attack while in session in the senate chambers. She can't be moved, and medical transport is unavailable. Can we drive our repulsorpod balcony out of the building to the nearest hospital?

[Assistant] If it is dangerous to move the senator, it may be faster to deploy a medical droid to the Senate than to turn a short range hover platform into an ambulance. A droid can take a small vessel at high speeds from the nearest hospital and arrive faster than the senator could travel to the hospital by hoverpad.


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

[User] ELI5:What effect does catnip have on a cat and which drug(s) would a human have to take to experience the same reaction?

[Assistant] Catnip operates through smell. Unlike insufflated drugs for human recreation (which still need to enter the bloodstream) the smell of nepetelactone (a chemical in catnip) triggers a psychoactive response simply from perception. The effects vary between kitties, from drowsiness to paranoia and aggression. Many cats are not susceptible, sensitivity is hereditary. The exact mechanism of action remains unknown.


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

[User]
Will opening a door darken a room?

Suppose you are trying to sleep in a small room with several doors and a lamp.  It is hard to fall asleep because of the brightness of the lamp.  Will opening the doors "darken" the room (the rooms on the other side of the doors are dark)?  Will some of the photons now travel to the other room as opposed to bouncing off the walls in your room?

[Assistant]
Yes, very slightly. Light that would have previously been reflected off the surface of the door will now move through to the adjacent dark room, lightening it by a very slight degree.

However, the brightness of the lamp itself (as the source of the light) will not get any darker and it won't help you sleep better. This is because you could say that there are two different light sources: the light coming directly from the lamp and hitting your eyes, and the light that is heading out in different directions - away from your eyes - and reflecting off the surrounding walls and doors back at your eyes. The latter is the background light which illuminates the room, while the former is the direct light which is the cause of the glare.

By opening the door, the light is lowered in two subtly different ways: the light that would have reflected off the door and at your eyes is no longer there, and the light that would have reflected off in other directions and scattered / bounced around the room - raising the lux levels around the room in general - is also gone. However, these are both very slight reductions (also mediated by the fact that any light going into the next room could also reflect back, such as if the lamp illuminated the carpet in the open doorway). So, to answer your question, opening a door will probably darken the room *very* slightly, but not the perceived brightness of the lamp itself. Maybe it's time for a dimmer switch?

*/edited for clarity*

/architect with many years of dealing with environmental consultants and lighting engineers.


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

[User] What does antimatter look like if produced in a lab?

[Assistant] Theoretically, antimatter atoms should look the exact same as its corresponding regular matter atoms. The way something "looks" is determined by how it scatters and emits light. Theory predicts that an antimatter atom scatters and emits light exactly like its corresponding regular matter atom. But we won't know for sure until we run the experiments, which are currently underway.


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

[User]
[GOTG 1 & 2] About the relationship between the different planets in the MCU galaxy

The Earth is named "Terra" in the MCU and appears as a default location on the starships maps/destinations.

Why does this happen if the Earth doesn't have the space technology nor the knowledge of the galactic community?

[Assistant] I don't know about the MCU, but in the comics Earth is important to aliens because it is located in a strategic point between the Kree and Skrull empires. In fact, both races have already tried to conquer Earth, but they never managed to do it thanks to the unusual concentration of super beings on Earth.


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

[User]
What purpose does chilling the instruments of a telescope serve?

Let me preface this with I have no formal education in advanced physics or engineering or astronomy or anything relative to this question/questions. My background is in biology focusing on zoology, so please forgive me if I use incorrect terminology in relation to measurements or any other lingual blunders I may commit. OK, so I know I'm way behind on this one, but I've only just started looking into it. My question is about the Lucifer Telescope. Why is it necessary to chill the instruments to about -351  (I'm American and this unit of measurement for temperature is what's most comfortable for me in terms of comprehension. I'm sorry) to make near infrared observations? What is the relationship between the temperature of the instrument, the temperature of the galaxy/universe (I guess -455), and the ability to observe near infrared wavelengths? Is the telescope used to search within different wavelengths? Or is none of this even a thing and they're just chilled because it is a very high powered telescope requiring a lot of cooling? Again, I apologize if these questions are gibberish, just trying to find the right way to word this with such limited knowledge of proper terminology to convey what I'm asking has been exceedingly difficult. Thank you.

[Assistant]
You cool the instruments to reduce the thermal noise produced by the instrument itself.  You are trying to measure very weak signals so it is essential not to have any background noise from the instrument itself. (The noise you see on a digital camera picture taken under weak lighting conditions shows you how hard this is to do if you are not cooling.)

Some semiconductors have small bandgaps (e.g. high purity germanium) that need cooling to liquid nitrogen temperatures to function as a detector material, as too many electrons would be thermally excited into the conduction band if left at room temperature.


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

[User] Why are engines that use the Diesel cycle able to produce more torque than engines using the Otto cycle?

[Assistant]
Former caterpillar Diesel engineer here. Here is an ELI15.

The torque from an engine is a result of the cylinder pressure and the geometry of the engine. This is intuitive because torque is simply a force multiplied by the length of a lever arm.

Geometry.

Highly undersquare engines tend to have higher torque but lower RPM.  An underquare engine has a longer stroke than its cylinder diameter. This gives the piston a long lever arm to work the crankshaft. An engine like this has less surface area in relation to its cylinder volume near top dead center and thus has less heat loss and better fuel economy. The trade off is that peak rpm for this engine is lower because the amount of area in the Cylinder head is less for a given cylinder volume.

Diesel engines tend to be undersquare. This is because diesel fuel burns slowly with air, so high RPMs are not going to be achievable even with lots of valve area. Diesel engines are also often designed with reducing fuel costs in mind, so there is added incentive for undersquare designs. Diesel engines being undersquare helps them achieve high levels of torque at low rpm.

Cylinder pressure.

Diesel engines cannot knock. Knock is a process where fuel begins to explode in a cylinder before a spark plug fires. This sets up destructive pressure waves in the cylinder. Diesels do not premix fuel with air before the combustion event in the cylinder and thus avoid this phenomena. This allows for very high compression ratios.  In addition, Diesel engines tend to be turbocharged. Turbocharging greatly improves fuel economy, power and drivability with few downsides in a diesel. All of these things contribute to diesels having relatively high cylinder pressures.  Put together, these factors allow for very high cylinder pressures to be achieved.  Thus this helps these engines achieve high torque.

That being said, Gasolines engines are also capable of achieving very high torque figures if they are designed along similar lines. And increasingly, with the trend towards direct injection, turbocharging and under square design in gasoline engines for the sake of fuel economy, we are seeing gasoline engines with diesel-like torque figures.


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

[User]
Does having a single currency in the EU homogenize prices of goods?

I understand that that this same question can be asked of any two neighbouring countries, but I'm confused for the case of the EU because the barriers to travel are very small.

[Assistant]
No. There's many more factor that goes into the price of goods.

A. Salary of the sales people selling it to you is different.

B. The rent of the store is different.

C. The distance the goods had to travel.

Just these 3 can make a hell of a difference in the price of  a baguette in Calais and Dover.


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

[User]
How can heat be transferred in a vacuum?

I cant figure a way beside maybe the infra red radiation (for something in room temperature) thats being emitted, but is that the only way?

[Assistant]
You got it - radiation is the mechanism for heat transfer in a vacuum.

When you're immersed in other matter, like on the earth, then atoms can bump each other and transfer heat by conduction. Similarly, if your hot object is immersed in a fluid then convective cells can form which also carry heat.

In space, you have no matter to transfer heat to, so energy is only lost by black body radiation. Everything is glowing in the EM spectrum with a characteristic spectrum determined by its temperature. Hotter things produce more radiation with higher energies, while lower temperature objects produce less radiation with lower energies.

Pretty much everything aside from sun, lava, and fire are too cold to produce radiation in the visible spectrum, so instead they radiate in the infrared. Or, if they're cold enough, they radiate in the radio or microwave.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why doesnt the Enterprise-D have a dedicated science officer?

Seems odd the most important ship in the Federation doesnt have a chief science officer. The chief engineer and chief of ops have to double up and do that job in addition to their own whenever a big science issue arises. We know there are science officers and science departments - who does the biology officer report to?

[Assistant] I saw a good argument once that Picard himself was the senior Science Officer.  Each of the departments reports up through different senior staff because of the size of the -D's science efforts (astronavigation, biology, warp field physics, would report up through Ops, Medical, and Engineering respectively).  Picard and Riker act as the point people for questions that focus on running the ship, otherwise individual experiments are too varied for any one person to understand all of them.


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

[User] How far could Baumgartner travel if he wore a winged suit during free fall.

[Assistant]
Wikipedia says:

>On 31 July 2003 an Austrian, Felix Baumgartner, jumping from 29,360 ft (9 km), successfully crossed the English Channel in 14 minutes using a wingpack, having covered over 35 km (21.8 mi).

That would mean he had a glide ratio of 35/9 = 3.9

For his Stratojump the distance would be 39km * 3.9 = **152km**

Edit: You have to take into consideration, that the glide ratio is not constant for all altitudes.

Edit 2: Quote from SaliciaKeyz
> A wingpack and a winged suit are two completely different things.

 This is correct, according to Wikipedia the glide ratio would be 2.5, the distance therefore about **98km**


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

[User] ELI5: Why do public toilet seats have a gap in the middle and ones at home don't?

[Assistant]
I know this!

When a man sits on a toilet, the head of his penis often comes in contact with the inside of the toilet seat.  By having a gap, this prevents germs from being transferred from dick to dick. (Ladies never blow your man if hes just taken a crap in a public restroom without the seat notch)

Men also for some reason refuse to lift public toilet seats, so when a man urinates any dribble will hit the bowl, not the seat... in theory.


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

[User]
ELI5 why do people have such a strong urge to take a nap when you have a full stomach?

Couldn't find a decent answer on here or Google.

[Assistant]
Basically, your nervous system has two 'modes' - Sympathetic, which gives a 'fight or flight' response, and Parasympathetic, which tells your body to 'rest and digest'.
When you eat a ton of food, it triggers your parasympathetic nervous system, so your body focuses more on digesting your food than activity.
Eating a lot of food also causes your pancreas to make insulin, which in turn causes your brain to produce certain neurotransmitters (serotonin and melatonin to be precise) which make you drowsy.


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

[User] What should you be learning in a typical undergraduate senior-level econometrics course? What about in a PhD level econometrics course?

[Assistant]
Undergraduate senior level: the theory behind optimality of OLS.  Introduction to general methods of calculating asymptotics of estimators, so that you can understand biasedness and consistency.  Regressions in multiple variables.  Time series and panel data.  Introduction to instrumental variables and 2SLS.  In a sufficiently advanced course, logit models and other nonlinear models.

Phd level: two courses.  First course: probability theory underlying econometrics.  Theory underlying estimation methods besides OLS, to be used when OLS assumptions are violated.  This includes instrumental variables/2SLS more generally, GMM, maximum likelihood estimation, etc.  Methods for calculating variance of estimators in practice, eg bootstrapping.  Nonparametric estimation methods, like kernel density estimation.  Second course is more time series: estimation in time domain and frequency domain, vector autoregressions and impulse response functions, state space modeling, conditional heteroskedasticity, Gibbs sampling, Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.


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

[User]
ELI5: Is it really important to human in critical condition to stay conscious, and why?

In many action movies we see how paramedics etc. prevent injured person from loosing consciousness, like "Stay with us!"
Is it true? Does this improve the prognosis? Why?

[Assistant]
> Is it true? Does this improve the prognosis? Why?Is it true? Does this improve the prognosis? Why?

No, it doesn't help them live. But what it can do is identify health threats which would otherwise be difficult to detect. Someone who has hit their head needs to remain awake because a brain bleed needs immediate attention and is basically undetectable if the victim is asleep. If they are awake you could notice them becoming incoherent and falling unconscious.

> In many action movies we see how paramedics etc. prevent injured person from loosing consciousness,

In movies allowing your actors to fall asleep in a scene is generally bad for the movie because there is a really limited range of acting they can perform while miming unconsciousness.


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

[User]
[Jurassic Park] Why do people in the Jurassic Park universe keep cloning dinosaurs? Three times before it resulted disaster.

Why are they doing it again? Every time scientists play with dinosaurs they end up eating a bunch of people. Where is the government oversight?

[Assistant]
>Three times

What are you talking about? The had one hitch pre-opening but that was the work of a malicious hacker. Since then the park has been running 20 years without incident!

[Can't do this without breaking the 4th wall, and it's impossible to truly answer before the movie comes out, but a couple of articles have said they're making it a "direct sequel" to the first movie and ignoring the other two.]


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

[User] Why do we get hot under pressure / when embarrassed?

[Assistant] Fight or flight instinct.  Whenever you're in a stressful situation (and being embarrassed does count) you start releasing a lot of adrenaline, causing your heart to pump faster, which means increased blood flow.  More blood flow means you feel hotter.  The increased blood flow is also why you blush when embarrassed.


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

[User]
[MCU/Far From Home] Why couldn't Fury call The Falcon and the Winter Soldier?

I would trust them with taking on the elemental over a 16 year old kid who prioritize a vacation over saving the world.

[Assistant] It wasn't Fury. It was two Skrulls Fury had tasked with giving EDITH to Peter, and shit got out of hand and they were basically playing it by ear. They relied on Parker because he was there. They probably didn't even know how to get in contact with anyone else.


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

[User] ELI5: How did Black Friday become so huge and seemingly out of control?

[Assistant] In a word, or two or three, consume, consume, consume. The magic of "saving 2, 3, or 400 dollars is powerful. Except for the fact that you don't "save" anything. If you did, you'd have $200 more in your account  today than you did yesterday. Marketing at it's best, or worst.


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

[User] ELI5: If protons repel each other, how do they all stay all together in the nucleus of an atom?

[Assistant]
You have two competing forces here: there's electromagnetism, which tries to push the protons apart and there's the strong nuclear force which tries to hold them together. As the name would suggest, the strong force is much stronger, but only over short distances. Get too far away and it is almost impossible to see.

Think of it this way. You have a T-Rex trying to compress a spring. The T-Rex is very strong but it has tiny little arms, so it can't reach very far. If the T-Rex can manage to grab the ends of the spring, it can force them together even though the spring really wants to extend. However, if the ends of the spring are too far apart, the T-Rex can't grab the ends and the spring extends like it wants to.

This is also why heavier nuclei (like uranium) have more neutrons than protons versus light nuclei (like carbon), which tend to have about an equal number. Once the nucleus gets too big, the strong force can't really reach everything and starts to have a hard time competing with the electromagnetic force, so it will prefer lots of neutrons over protons.


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

[User] ELIF: How do our sanitary systems filter out the waste and unwanted objects that we flush, such as pencils or chewing gum, to produce clean water?

[Assistant]
Typically they don't turn waste water into clean drinking water. In most places, the water is cleaned until it's safe enough to dump back into a nearby waterway, like a river, where it can be washed out to sea. Some places truly recycle water, but it's a lot more expensive and energy intensive.

Regardless, the process to clean water involves running it through a series of filters, each removing smaller and smaller debris, before chemically treating the water to kill off anything left living in it. You can Google pictures of this filtration process, but it isn't pretty.


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

[User]
Why don't the gases of Jupiter mix?

If planets like Jupiter and other gas giants are made up entirely of different gases, why don't the gases disperse and mix to become one solid color?

[Assistant]
They do. The color bands are just slight chemical and temperature variations of the same stuff. But here's the cool part - we see them as bands because those are convection currents. There's so much heat in the middle of Jupiter, and Jupiter is rotating so fast, that the various convection areas get formed into bands by 370 mph winds. The light colored bands are actually at a higher altitude than the dark colored bands, too.

In short, Jupiter is one weird place.


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

[User] How come in an emergency on a plane, someone on the ground will ask "How many souls on board?" Why not just ask how many people on board?

[Assistant] It avoids ambiguity.  The count will include all humans on board, including crew and those not occupying seats (infants).  The use is traditional, a carryover from nautical usage.  Having a formalized script to follow during an emergency aids in keeping everyone organized and avoiding confusion and panic.


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

[User]
ELI5: The use of "with," "featuring," "and starring" in TV credits.

My guess is that it has to do with money and clout. But *just* that much doesn't make a ton of sense to me: Jason Alexander was the singled-out one in Seinfeld ("Starring Jerry Seinfeld.....Michael Richards.....Julia Louis-Dreyfus......and Jason Alexander as George.") -- but how does he have more pull than Jerry?

For Six Feet Under it was "Peter Krause... Michael C. Hall... Frances Conroy... Lauren Ambrose... Freddy Rodriguez... Mathew St. Patrick... and Rachel Griffiths as Brenda."

Did Rachel's agent (or Rachel herself) just have a ton of pull? (Am I correct to assume that it's a "plus" to be listed separately?)

Do you have to be a "known" to be so featured?

[Assistant]
Actors preferentially want to come first in credits rolls because after the first couple people zone out and the later people don't get name recognition and it doesn't help their career.

The last person/people who get the intro+character name combo get it because its a consolation prize for coming last, plus by including the character name you might hear. "Brenda" on screen and recognize that its Rachel Grifiths. Where unless you knew what Mathew St. Patrick looks like you don't *know* who he was playing.

**tl;dr** Actors wanna be first, when they can't be first they want to be special, that makes them special.


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

[User] What is the second fastest thing in the universe after the speed of light? How big is the difference?

[Assistant]
Whatever you want. In a suitable reference frame.

Relative to Earth: High energy neutrinos are *extremely* close to the speed of light. Some of them should be slower than light by significantly less than one part in 10^(30). After traveling 1000 light years (10 quadrillion km), they are just something like the diameter of a proton behind light in vacuum.


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

[User] [Superman] why doesnt superman just go inside a giant star and overcharge himself to the point of godhood? wouldnt that be more beneficial to helping ppl?

[Assistant]
>wouldnt that be more beneficial to helping ppl?

Not really- He doesn't need more power. He's good for that- if anything, he feels he has *too much* power.

The main issue with him helping as many people are limitations, either in the sense of he wants to have a life outside saving people or in that he has ethical objections to lasering tyrants from space. He doesn't want to give those up (he's not a utilitarian) and if he changed his mind, he wouldn't need to overcharge to do that.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] We've just figured out how to mass-produce lightsabers. Now what?

Assume that you're a corporate development exec at a weapons and industrial machinery company on Coruscant. It's just after the events of Phantom Menace: the Separatists are getting a bit uppity, but it's not full blown war yet. Your company has no strong allegiances to either the Republic or the Separatists.

An engineer comes in, very excited, and tells you that the R&D boys have just figured out how to mass-produce lightsabers. The Jedi like to talk a big game about how they can only be hand made by a Jedi Knight, but it turns out that we've reverse-engineered the process, and now we can crank them out at a rate of thousands per day, at retail price about the same as a high-end blaster rifle. We can make them as big or as small as we like, and they can come in any color blade.

Obviously waving a light saber around is as likely to kill its user as anyone else absent of Force sensitivity, but there have *got* to be some highly lucrative markets for these things.

So who do we sell them to, and how do we market them?

[Assistant]
You could market it as a tool for industrial use, you could use the technology maybe for larger more powerful lasers for cutting metal and stuff fast and with precision, although i think things like those could already exist and maybe cheaper.

If you could produce a smaller model it could pretty much work as a neat knife/multi porpose tool.

Maybe as a concealed assasination weapon? Like the one on assasins creed, get the little handles close, activate it to penetrate and instantly killing or doing a lot of damage.


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

[User]
PhD in Computer Science -- Do you get time off/take vacation over the summer?

I have been hearing people say that they treat their PhD like a 9-5 job. Do you also get breaks over the summer or take days off for a month or so to travel/relax? Or is it work all year round. Let's assume I am talking about a PhD program is CS/Math/related Stem field at a top 50 PhD school, assuming you want to finish your PhD in 5-6 years max.

I will be applying for PhD programs myself this fall so was just curious on how life outside of the labs look like for PhD students compared to undergrads who get summer, winter breaks etc.

[Assistant]
It depends entirely on your thesis advisor. Some are militant about number of days off and hours worked per week. Some don't care at all.

But generally, the academic calendar doesn't matter. Don't expect to automatically get the undergrad spring and summer breaks off. But also, you can take other days off. In that sense, it's more like a "real" job.


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

[User]
ELI5: the term 'Bourgeois Nationalism'

'Bourgeois Nationalism'. The Wikipedia entry is very baffling...I can't tell what it is or whether Soviet Union was against it or for it.

[Assistant]
The first line in the Wiki is perfectly put:

>InMarxism,bourgeois nationalismis the practice by theruling classesof deliberately dividing people bynationality,race,ethnicity, orreligion, so as todistractthem from initiatingclass warfare.

Think of the bourgeoisie as the richest people in a society which has a huge wealth gap, where most of the country is very poor and a select few have access to the majority of the wealth (bankers, politicians, industrialists, etc.)

Everyone else is pretty much the "working class", and if enough of the working class are poor, they might start to notice and get upset, and might consider protesting and rioting, or maybe overthrowing those bourgeoisie guys with all that money...

The bourgeoisie guys understand that this could be a problem, so they go to their other bourgeoisie friends who control the newspapers, the radio, TV, etc. and get them to start controversies and debates that will divide the working class people on issues other than wealth inequality. So now, the working class people are fragmented on issues such as religion, ethnicity, gender, etc.

It all just comes down to dividing up the majority of your citizens to make it less likely that they can band together and overthrow you and your rich cronies, basically.

The Soviet Union in principle was against "bourgeois nationalism", but in practice emulated it routinely via corruption.


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

[User] ELI5: How does formatting a 90% full 3TB hard drive instantly erase everything on it, yet deleting everything on it takes a few minutes?

[Assistant]
Think of it like a huge book with a table of contents at the front telling you where everything is:

* **Formatting**: Ripping out the Table of contents and replacing it with a blank page
* **Deleting a File**: Carefully using white-out to remove an entry in the table of contents
* **"Shredding"** or **Securely Deleting** a file: like Deleting a file, but also replacing the actual pages for that section in the book with new, blank pages.

As you can see, formatting a drive doesn't matter how much of the drive is "full", and doesn't require much modification, so this is always quick.

Deleting a file is similarly quick, but still slower than formatting because you have to find the file's metadata (name, what folder it's in, where on the disk the actual data is, what time it was created) and carefully erase just that one record. The actual data is left alone.

Secure deletion involves not only deleting the metadata, but also writing over the actual file data on disk several times with random data. This takes the longest.

(Note, you may see options to "Quick" format or "Full" format - I've described a quick format above, a "Full" format is a quick format followed by writing zeroes to all the rest of the disk. This can take several hours on a 3TB drive.)


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

[User] ELI5: Why is there a lot of air in a chip bag?

[Assistant]
It's actually nitrogen. They replace the air with nitrogen to inhibit the growth of air-breathing bacteria and increase the shelf life of your chips.
Also, by partially inflating the bag there is less likelihood of the contents being all broken and smashed by the rough and tumble of transportation.


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

[User] ELI5: If IQ is standard deviation, why isn't there a ceiling that no IQ can surpass?

[Assistant]
Standard deviations, and by extension, normal distribution, tell you data is likely to be distributed, but it doesn't impose limitations.

In fact, if data has a perfect normal distribution, it *can't* have ceiling, because the normal curve extends to infinity in both directions.  At it can tell you is how unlikely it is for very high or very low values to be included in your data set.


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

[User]
ELI5: In betting, how does the 'Both teams not to score' bet work? And why, if one team does score, do you still win the bet?

It just seems to make no sense the way it's phrased, if someone said to me **both teams not to score** and then one team **does score** I don't understand how you still win the bet.

Surely that wording means the score must be 0-0 for you to win? Where's the sense behind this that I'm clearly missing?

[Assistant]
You are betting against BOTH teams ending up with at least one point, not against EITHER team scoring, if that makes any sense.

If the bet was 'neither team scores' then a 1-0 win to whoever means you lose. But as you were betting that 'both teams will not score', if one of the teams stays on 0 points, then you have fulfilled that, i.e BOTH teams did not score.


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

[User] ELI5: How exactly does cling film work?

[Assistant]
Static electricity.

When you pull it off the roll, some electrons get pulled from one layer to the one peeling off, making some bits positive and others negative.

When you wrap it back over itself, those positives and negatives attract each other and it sticks.

That's why it doesn't work if you leave it for a while before wrapiing or try to stick it to metal - the electrons go back to the right place making things neutral again.


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

[User] ELI5: Difference in drinking distilled water and mineral water. How it affects your health?

[Assistant]
Distilled water doesn't contain minerals (and actually draws tiny amounts from your body), but you usually take in enough of them from the food you eat. Also it tastes blandly, and that's about it.

So if you're in a situation where you don't have access to bottled or safe tap water (or if for whatever reason you love its non-taste), you can drink distilled water instead.


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

[User]
How exactly did the 2008 bubble pop?

I understand the basics of what caused the bubble. Subprime mortgages being rated higher than their worth by investment banks believing housing prices would continue rising, even if homeowners defaulted on their mortgages. Theres much more complexity to the picture than Im detailing, but what Im most curious about is what finally popped the bubble. What news leak or report or analysis finally caused housing prices to plummet.

[Assistant] Slowly at first, then very suddenly, when an inability to cover their obligations for mortgage-backed derivatives caused Bear Sterns and then Lehman Brothers to fail. The Lehman collapse caused an immediate stock market crash. Businesses all over ceased discretionary spending at once and the whole global economy slowed pretty much immediately. It all came back to those major issuers of derivatives being unable to meet their commitments and everyone realizing how much mortgage-backed securities risk was embedded in global finance.


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

[User]
[WH40K]What's the deal with Alpha Legion?

I know the Alpha Legion primarchs were acctually loyal to the big E despite there betrayal. So what's up with that now? Are those primarchs dead? Has the Alpha Legion truly turned to Chaos?

[Assistant]
Nobody knows for certain.

The Alpha Legion did turn traitor, but it'd be more accurate to classify them as renegade. Alpharius and Omegon betrayed the Imperium not because they were seduced by Chaos, but they were shown a vision by a group of xenos called the Cabal. This vision showed two possible futures for the Horus Heresy.

1. Horus wins, and the galaxy burns as Chaos goes to town on the quadrillions of souls with nothing to stop them. However, a spark of Horus's morality and honor would eat at him non-stop. This would send him down a self-destructive path and create conflict amongst the traitors who had helped him. Only ending when humanity is completely annihilated a few centuries later. But Chaos would've sank it's teeth into humanity so deeply, the destruction of humanity would erase Chaos from existence. Leaving only an empty Warp.

2. Horus looses, and it creates the modern 40K universe. The emperor is forever trapped between life and death on the Golden Throne, and humanity slowly implodes on itself. Chaos would only grow until it overran the entire universe.

The twins believed the in the lesser evil and chose to support Horus and destroy Chaos. However, this plan backfired spectacularly when Horus was killed. Now the legion was caught in limbo; they seek only to destroy Chaos but they're also the enemy of the most powerful faction in the galaxy.

As for the primarchs, nobody knows if they're dead or not. Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines, claims he killed Alpharius personally. But there have been multiple claims Alpharius or Omegon, or both are still very much alive and Guilliman's victim was a decoy. This rumor was only furthered enforced when the Imperium discovered the Alpha Legion not only survived but prospered. Swelling to a force complete with a massive battlefleet, standard infantry, and possibly hundreds of thousands of marines.


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

[User] Eli5: How do we know how many colors other animals can see?

[Assistant] Color perception is defined by the anatomy of the eye, specifically, photosensitive cells on the retina with specific pigments. If there are more types of these cells and they are sensitive to a wider range of electromagnetic waves, it means the animal can see more colors. If there are less colored cells or none at all, color perception is worse.


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

[User]
My friend hates Focualt and thinks he is a dangerous thinker and is one of the causes of intolerant identity politics and cancel culture is this true?

I was speaking to my friend the other day about Foucault, who I have been reading for the past year or two. He hates Focault's work because he thinks his work is dangerous because it subverts the traditions of the west in the same way Marxism does and he believes that Foucault is one of the foundational thinkers that lead to Cancel Culture and intolerant identity politics and victimhood. He has read parts of work but finds it hard to read him because he dislikes him so much. My friend's objections to Focault are the following. 1. One objection he has against Foucault (which I sympathise with) is in relation to the History of Sexuality. My friend was understandably outraged about Focault's reaction to and description of Charles Jouy's abuse of a young girl as 'bucolic pleasures'. (This is made all the worse with the new allegations made against Foucault) 2. He is also angered by Foucault's idea that power is everywhere and everything he believes this makes people paranoid and prone to sensationalized victimhood thinking, he points to parts of contemporary feminism as an example of this(This reminds me of Wendy Brown's book 'states of injury' which argues that the politics of *victimhood* is a part of contemporary feminism). 3. He also rejects F's idea of power-knowledge-subject as this leads to the contemporary idea that gender is just a social construct (which he rejects).  4. My friend is also not left-leaning politically which is another disagreement that my friend has with Foucault. Because of all of this, he thinks we should not read Foucault because by reading him you end up thinking like him. Do you think my friend is correct or even valid in this concern, if so why? if not why not?

[Assistant]
You can't say a philosopher is bad just because you disagree with their conclusions, you have to actually demonstrate how the arguments themselves are bad.

>he thinks we should not read Foucault because by reading him you end up thinking like him.

Sounds like his own beliefs are on shaky grounds if he believes simply reading Foucault will cause a fundamental change in them.


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

[User] [Dragonball] If Future Trunks dies in the regular timeline, which afterlife does he go to? The future timeline one or the normal one?

[Assistant]
tl;dr:  the normal one, at first.

The Dragonball afterlife is an excessively complicated celestial bureaucracy, so keep in mind that things like 'justice' and 'common sense' may not apply.

Souls are physical, in a sense.  They don't have a recall function to send them back to their point of origin.  Individuals who die on a specific planet are under the jurisdiction of that planet's gods and go to that planet's afterlife (see:  Raditz, Frieza, and Dabura going to Earth's afterlife after dying on Earth, despite being alien visitors).  So Trunks' soul will remain in the timeline he dies in, and will go to King Enma (if he dies on Earth) or an alien judge (if he dies elsewhere) with jurisdiction over his place of death.

(Note that if filler is considered canon, we *know* that visitors from other timelines go to the main timeline's afterlife, because Cell, who originated in a possible future timeline, ends up there.)

(Also IMPORTANT EDIT:  If Super is canon, Future Trunks' original afterlife no longer exists to return to - the entire timeline was wiped out by Future Zeno and everyone in it ceased to exist.)

What happens to Trunks afterwards depends on how he's judged and how many friends he has in the afterlife.  Entities higher in the bureaucracy than mere planetary gods (King Kai, Shin, etc) can take jurisdiction and relocate souls to different afterlives (see:  all the Earthlings and Namekians King Kai takes to his planet), so one can expect that Trunks will end up wherever Goku, Vegeta, etc., are.  But changing timelines is much more difficult - as far as we know, only angels like Whis and Bulma's time machine are capable of doing it.  To get Trunks back home to his timeline, Goku would need to ask Whis for a favor.  (Whis reconstructed Trunks' entire multiverse after Zeno wiped it, so he'd probably be amenable to helping out one more time.)  If Whis wasn't around, option 2 would be to give Trunks a temporary body and let Bulma drop him off in his home timeline.  Either way, he'd probably make it home eventually, but it wouldn't be an easy or automatic process.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How did Darth Maul survive bring cut in half and falling down a massive pit while Qui Gon Jinn got sabered in the chest and died? Wouldn't the saber have cauterize the wound and prevented him from bleeding out long enough to get him to a doctor?

[Assistant] Everyone is answering with medical concepts, but there's a deeper answer: Maul was willing to tap into the dark side of the Force to keep himself unnaturally alive, whereas Qui-Gon instead accepted his death and proceeded to supersede it as a Force Spirit.


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

[User] Do any organisms besides humans make non-biodegradable materials or make use of non-renewable resources?

[Assistant]
Most coal comes from the Carboniferous.

Plants with a structural polymer called lignin in their wood evolved then and completely dominated the planet. There were forests of woody club moss relatives called lycopsids that looked like Dr. Seuss trees all over the place.

These days we have organisms like termites with symbiotic bacteria in their stomachs to break down lignin and eat wood, but it took millions of years for decomposers and detritivores to figure out how to eat it fast enough to keep up with the supply of dead trees. For ancient life all this wood might as well have been plastic. Vast, vast amounts of lignin-bearing wood piled up and was buried and we have named lignite coal for it. Carboniferous means carbon-bearing.


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

[User]
If you were traveling faster than the speed of sound in a jet, what would you hear?

Like the title says, if you were traveling faster than the speed of sound in, say, an F-18, would you be able to hear your own engines, or would you outrun the sound your plane is generating.

[Assistant] The sound you're outrunning is the sound that's propagating out of the plane and into the subsonic air around the plane. Since when you're inside the plane, the majority of the sound you hear is propagating through the air of the plane, you'd still hear that engine sound.