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

[User]
CMV: Answering questions about race or ethnicity can only lead to discriminatory results

This question pertains to those questions on applications, often government applications, which ask about the racial background of the applicant. At least in the US these are normally marked as optional, I very rarely if ever see one on an official application (rather than some weird online thing that doesn't matter) that is actually required. But, for whatever reason, the application to enroll or oldest kid into kindergarten has questions for 'local race (select one)', 'is the student of Hispanic origin?' and 'federal race (choose all that apply)'

I fundamentally disagree with the asking of these sorts of questions because while I believe the data may be interesting at times, I don't see many ways in which it can ultimately be used that are not discriminatory toward one race or another, or simply used to contextualize things in a racial way that I feel we need to move beyond.

Thus, I typically simply or these questions. But the rigid online school application won't let me move on without these required questions being answered. My default impulse was to fill in obviously useless data (i.e. for question 1: asian; 2: yes, of Hispanic origin; 3: select black, white, Asian, Pacific islander, all the ethnicities!) Having had the night to sleep on it I decided it may be a better approach to come here and see if there are actually useful but non-discriminatory ways in which this data is likely to be applied and which may thus motivate me to answer honestly rather than get into it with the school right off the bat :)

[Assistant]
I live the in a community that has a large Arab population. Since 9/11, they regularly refuse to fill out their race and ethnicity on government forms, fearing that to do so will lead to government surveillance and harassment. Or if they do they fill out white.

Last election rolls by, and there was surprisingly high turn out by the community. Out of a community of several tens of thousands, normally only a hundred show up to vote. (Again they are afraid to register to vote, believing it will be used against them). This time over a thousand show up to vote. Yet many are turned away at the polls (which is illegal, separate issue) because the polls do not have enough translators or forms printed out in Arabic and Farsi.

The government needs this sort of information to properly serve communities.


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

[User]
What does Math in Quantum Physics "look like"? Is it still much like applied math, or does it start to look more like doing proofs?

I've heard that a lot of the really theory-heavy areas of math show up in quantum mechanics a lot; things like linear algebra, group theory and complex analysis. Moreover, it seems like there are some folks in the pure math camp that are also doing stuff related to QM.

Does quantum physics mostly rely on the computational results coming out of these fields, or do you start working at a higher level of abstraction and do a lot of proving?

[Assistant]
The two main ways of "doing" quantum mechanics are through the Schroedinger equation and through Heisenberg matrix mechanics. The path integral formulation is generally used in quantum field theory.

The Schroedinger equation is a second order differential equation, which is solved according to the boundary conditions giving a wavefunction describing a probability amplitude. The expectation values of various things (like the average position of a particle) is found by integrating the product of the wavefunction, the thing, and the adjoint of the wavefunction.

In matrix quantum mechanics, the vectors representing the state of a system are eigenvectors of the Hamiltonian matrix, with each eigenvalue being a discrete energy the system can take. Bra-ket notation is generally used here.


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

[User]
[MCU] What have the world militaries been up to lately? Did Tony Stark really privatize World Peace?

Sorry if this sounds long or rambling, I just wanted to post my observations and discuss the state of the world's different militaries as they stand in 2018 and beyond.

It seems like military branches in the MCU have less and less influence on the world as time goes on. During Iron Man 1 and 2, they get involved but kind of eventually let Tony Stark do his own thing. He has even gone as far as declaring that he has privatized World Peace. The US government played a big role in The Incredible Hulk, but have since stepped down and backed off. After The Avengers, we don't see much government stuff, as the focus is put onto SHIELD (Which is later shut down).

I know General Ross is in Civil War and Infinity War, but we don't really gain much understanding of what the military does, or how influential they are in this post-Avengers world. The Avengers pretty much still tackle every major threat, and the Army never exactly steps in to help. Where were all the tanks or soldiers in NYC during Infinity War? Where were they in Endgame? I acknowledge Thanos probably did a ton of damage to the army, but surely, there would be some kind of organization trying to keep things in order or enact Martial Law or something?

[Assistant]
In the years since Captain America saved the world from Hydra, the world's militaries spent a significant amount of time and resources trying to recreate Erskin's super soldier serum. The end results were things like the Hulk, Black Widow, and a variety of other enhanced individuals. Governments witnessed the effect of deploying a single super-powered individual into combat zones and it changed the face of warfare in their world as much as the atom bomb changed ours.

Given this sudden emphasis on intelligence and espionage over large scale conflict, government focus (and funding) went less into stockpiling nuclear arms and into designing and creating super soldiers and arming them appropriately. Of course, no one was really as effective as they would have liked to have been, but this new military landscape led to the rise of clandestine organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. and facilities like the Red Room. It was in everyone's best interest to keep their inner workings locked down, since everyone was trying to copy everyone. And when dealing with super-powered individuals, mistakes tend to be... abominations.

To answer your specific questions;

The military's involvement in the Battle of New York was delayed because they had no idea what was going on. The National Guard was deployed because when reports started coming in that there was an Alien Invasion they assumed it was hysteria. The military officials that were involved and actually understood what was going on fired a nuke at the city.

In Infinity war, there was no response team because there was no response time. By the time the military had mobilized, the fight was over.

Same thing with Endgame.  Strange and the sorcerers didn't open up a portal to a military base because they would have had to convince the soldier's to march through it. They needed a timely response to Thanos.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does whacking the remote when it's low battery actually work.

[Assistant]
Microscopic(or larger) corrosion can occur between the battery ends and the controllers contact terminals.

This corrosion increases circuit resistance - making it harder for charge to flow from battery to device. Basically more resistance lower voltage, and every electronic device has a minimum operating voltage.

By wacking the controller, you are repositioning the contacts ever so slightly and may get a better contact between power source(battery) and the controller. This better contact lowers resistance, allowing a slightly higher voltage to flow in to the controller, letting it work a little longer.


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

[User] [Planet of the Apes; 1968] How did Taylor, an astronaut, not immediately realize they were on earth simply by looking at the stars or realizing the moon looked just like Earths?

[Assistant]
Taylor's natural assumption was that they had landed on another planet.  Since this is a first time deep-space voyage, they would have little to no point of reference to identify that planet's constellations nor any reason to.  Trying to analyze the stars would have been pointless so he probably never bothered to even attempt it.

Also, despite the absence of a moon (for whatever reason) one of the astronauts comments that "there's always a strange cloud cover at night."  (Again, for whatever reason) so viewing the night sky probably wasnt possible.


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

[User]
[Pirates of the Caribbean] I pierce Davy Jones' heart in the middle of Germany, far away from the sea, surrounded by a small army of soldiers. What happens?

The Dutchman must have a captain. And the crew will seek out the person who pierced the heart of Davy Jones to make them their captain.
But what if I do it while I'm about as far from the sea as possible, far from water, surrounded by men armed with the finest sabers and muskets?
Does the crew manage to find me and cut out my heart?

[Assistant] The crew can teleport, and it's only Jones who can't walk on land except once a decade.  They will find you no matter where you are. Your army won't be able to stop the immortal crew of the Dutchman.


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

[User] ELI5: How do game show award money amounts work? Some game shows are only able to give away a few thousand dollars and others can give away millions. Who sponsors / funds shows and how are final award amounts decided?

[Assistant]
gameshows basically buy an insurance against larger winnings. it is then the banks job to figure out the probability of such large wins, and offer a premium to the gameshow they have to pay regardless what is won.

for small amounts (a few thousand) the gameshows itself can probably handle, for larger ones you need insurances (but are great advertisements). In the middle range you would basically still need insurance, but the premiums (and financial overhead) would probably be too high.


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

[User]
Does DNA change over time?

Does the human DNA genome change as a person ages? By this I mean could you test the DNA of a child and get an exact full profile match to the same person when they have reached old age?

[Assistant]
Every cell division can result in random mutations. Also DNA of single cells can mutate due to radiation and other events. So you would not get a 100% match in a DNA test, wenn you sequence a single cell. Certain cell types also change their DNA permanently (B and T lymphocytes to be able to produce the same antibodies permanently). However, when you sequence a sample of a lot of cells these mutations won't be visible in the results because it would be just noise. So overall, the result should be close to 100% but there will always be sequencing errors as well.. And there are telomers sequences, which get shorter every cell division. So these will be different as well.
On the other hand when you look at tumor/cancer the DNA can be very different. But this is a topic for itself.
I hope this helped!


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

[User]
ELI5 (or an American) - European Soccer Schedule

I understand that each country has it's own league (la liga, EPL, etc) and that the Champions League are the top teams from each league.  But when is the Champions League played?  How do you get into the Champions League (is it like the postseason).  What happens during world cup and euro cup years?

[Assistant]
Most 5-year-olds would have fallen asleep during the answers so far. Soccer schedules are ten times simpler than North American sports schedules. Here's what you need to know.

1. Champions League matches are played during the regular season.
2. Qualification for the Champions League is based on the previous season's performance in the national league.
3. The World Cup and European Championships are played every four years in the off season (i.e. summer). The European Championships are happening now. The next World Cup is in 2014.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40K] what if the Empire managed to find all of the lost Standard Template Constructs (STCs), how would that change things? One more question as well.

* Is Warhammer Fantasy considered to be in the historical past of Warhammer 40K?

[Assistant]
You don't need to find them all, just a complete one.

Officially 40k and fantasy are two completely different settings, but there are many fan theories of Sigmar being a lost primarch and the world being stuck in a warp storm.


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

[User]
[MCU] In Captain America:TWS the hydra guy cap interrogates states hydra are monitoring people of interest and mentions "Stephen Strange" why was he of interest to hydra back then?

Was it just because he was an extremely talented Surgeon/Doctor?

[Assistant]
He was brilliant, extremely driven, focused and not one to respect authority.

He's exactly the kind of person who could be a major problem should he turn his attention from surgery to the world around him.


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

[User]
Is it possible to slow a photon down?

Is there any way of reducing the speed of a photon, or making it stationary? (in our frame of reference)

[Assistant]
No.

You might be thinking of the way light "slows down" in a medium (glass, air, whatever), but what is actually happening is light is travelling at *c* between the atoms that make up the material, but being absorbed and re-emited by the atoms. This process takes a little time, so the overall macroscopic effect is that a light beam seems to slow down.


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

[User] ELI5: Why isn't there a non-invasive/non-surgical test for diagnosing endometriosis? What's wrong with ultrasounds, MRIs, pelvic exams, etc?

[Assistant] Ultrasounds can't detect small endometrial growths. Pelvic exams can detect bumps, but can't confirm that they are caused by endometriosis. MRI is pretty good, but it isn't as good as just using a camera (laparoscope) to find lesions, or biopsy if the lesions are too small to be visible.


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

[User] ELI5 : How are science able to determine what colours animals can and can't see?

[Assistant]
You test the animals.

You teach an animal that if it sees a $ in a pattern of dots, touching it gives a food reward.

Then you put a red $ on a blue card, and see if the animal reacts.  Then a red $ on a green card, then ....

When you look at the pattern of right vs wrong, you know which colors the animal can distinguish.

BTW, this is also how we test for color-blindness in humans, only without the food rewards.


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

[User]
Why does it seem that all planets around a sun are on a 2-dimensional plane? Can they be 3-dimensional?

If you look at any picture of our solar system, every planet is is on a flat plane extending out from the general center of the sun. Why is that? and can some planets go "above" and "below" the sun as an orbit?

[Assistant] because all the planets were formed out of the same disc that our star did. as the "cloud" of matter rotates, centrifugal forces flatten the cloud into a disc shape, then as matter clumps together, it continues to rotate in this disc getting bigger and bigger, until it forms an asteroid, a planet, or our sun.


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

[User]
Has new life ever appeared on Earth since the first life arose 3.7B years ago?

So the world is filled with life, and in surprising locations and immense diversity. And every bit of it shares a common blueprint in the form of DNA. This to me, suggests that all of life shares a common origin. That there has only been one instance of abiogenesis (spontaneous creation of life) that has happened.

So, has there ever been a form of life on earth that has arisen more recently and not from the first lifeforms? I.e. Has life popped up since, say 2 billion years ago or say 5 minutes ago?

And if not, why in a world so resplendent with life, has new life not arisen from scratch?

[Assistant] We don't know what the life looked like 3.8 billion years ago or if it stuck around. All we know is that there was indeed life back then. This life could have died out at 3.75 billion years ago and new life began at 3.74 billion years ago. This however is incredibly unlikely. We assume that it only started once because we don't know how life started and or how difficult it is to start having life. We aren't even sure where life arose for the first time. We are pretty sure that it was in the form of bacterial mats but even that is mostly speculation. The thing to note however is that life at 3.8 billion years ago was already fairly complex so it probably originated before then.


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

[User] When you hear about a space craft slingshotting off of a planet, does that really increase speed? Wouldnt the craft just slow down again as it moves away from the planet?

[Assistant]
It does increase their speed. When the smaller object turns around the larger object, it steals a little bit of energy from the larger object, and leaves with a higher kinetic energy. It still slows down as it moves away from the larger object, but the net result is still a higher kinetic energy than it had initially.

Gravity is a conservative force, so if the larger body was fixed in space, the smaller body would lose as much energy as it gained, and there would be no net change in its speed. But since the larger body is not fixed in space, its motion is perturbed by the smaller body, and some of its energy is stolen.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happened to MySpace and why?

I know Facebook happened but is there more to it than that?

[Assistant]
In hindsight, MySpace's initial dominance in the social media space seems to have been a "first mover advantage".  They were the first to tap into social media in a way that captured the attention of a critical mass of people.  Social media was still a very new world though - an undeveloped market - and what MySpace offered was a niche in the context of what social media has become.

Picture present day social media as a big pie, of which MySpace is a little sliver.  Most of the pie hadn't been made when Myspace came around, so everyone jumped on board, but as social media has become bigger broader, MySpace basically stayed the same.

Facebook put pictures, messaging and social planning at it's core, and those features appeal to a broader base of people than the MySpace core that includes site ("space") design and music sharing.  Subsequently, many of the people that joined MySpace because "OMG, social media" found that newer social media sites (mostly Facebook) actually suited their needs better.


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

[User] How come I can eat salt and drink water but I can't drink salt water?

[Assistant]
Seawater is very salty.  About 3.5%, which makes that pint of water you have with dinner about 17g of salt.  The RDA of salt is around 6g, so in that one glass you have three days worth.  When you drink it, your cells dump out water to try and balance the salt levels in your cells and your blood and you essentially dehydrate.

Water with a little bit of salt in it is fine, and can be found in diarrhoea treatments.


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

[User]
[The Emperor's New Groove] Why DO they have that lever?

You know the lever.

The lever specifically designed to drop the puller into a moat of crocodiles.

Yzma's lever.

[Assistant] If someone intrudes into the lair they are greeted with two levers. They don't know which one does what. 50/50 shot your trespasser enters your lair or gets eaten by crocodiles. And (if you aren't Kronk) you know which lever it is, so you never screw up.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] End of Palpatine's emergency powers?

Why was General Grievous's death the event that prompted Mace Windu's appointment to ask the Chancellor to give up power? Wouldn't the war still be going on, just with a new Separatist general like perhaps Trench?

[Assistant]
With the deaths of Grievous and Dooku, the Separatists had lost their key military and political leaders, and were essentially losing the war even before that.

With their deaths, the Jedi felt that the war was drawing to a close, and all the "emergency powers" Palpatine had grabbed were no longer necessary - not that they trusted him with them to begin with, but they were in the middle of a war and acting as generals in it so they couldn't just say that he didn't need those powers at that time.


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

[User]
Why can I smell static electricity?

Maybe I cant smell static itself, but there is a particular odor I always attribute to static. Am I smelling something else or does the static have an affect on the air creating a unique scent?

[Assistant] The most likely source of the smell is from the ozone created by the electrostatic discharge - that is, static shock.  When a spark is created between your body and, say, the doorknob, the air molecules along the spark path are ionized.  If the spark is strong enough, it can also break some of the molecules apart.  In the case of oxygen, which is naturally diatomic (O2), the separated oxygen atoms can join onto other oxygen molecules, creating ozone (O3).  Ozone has a pretty characteristic sharp scent.


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

[User]
Is standpoint theory self-contradictory?

According to standpoint theory, something like objective truth doesn't exist. If we want to learn something about the world, we have to consider different standpoints, especially due to existing social inequalities which result in people having very different experiences.

But isn't that contradictory?

1) If everything is a matter of standpoint, then inequalities do not objectively exist, either, do they? If there is no objective truth, then how do we know there is inequality?

2) more generally speaking: isn't standpoint theory itself only a standpoint? If there is no objective truth, then standpoint theory is (by its own reasoning) again just another POV on the same level as the perspective "there IS universal truth".

[Assistant]
Standpoint theory does not take it that there is no objective truth. The claim is that our epistemic access to objective truth is mediated by our standpoint. Its an epistemic theory, not a theory of truth. Its a theory about how we know things not what is true or anything about truth.

Every worry you have just follows from this misunderstanding.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] How did The Doctor get his 51% to pass the academy?

It's well established that he did poorly at the academy, passing after multiple attempts with a bare minimum 51%. But it doesn't seem like he's baseline competent with the breadth of the academy syllabus; he can't really control his regeneration, multiple times other timelords mention that he never paid attention. So what subjects did he excel at that allowed him to compensate for the ones he bombed?

[Assistant] He's able to pilot a Tardis solo, something that is meant to be done by a team of trained Time Lords. He's a prodigy in that regard, (though part of it is that Sexy likes him), which means his knowledge of temporal mechanics and how to navigate time and space must be excellent.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are Tesla batteries lots of little batteries wired together. Can't they just make big ones?

Is it more efficient to use little ones, or is it technology limitations?

[Assistant]
Making a semantic comment rather than a technical one.  If there was only one electrolytic cell it wouldn't be a battery.  For example, a 9V battery is a battery of six 1.5V cells in series.  In contrast, a AA cell is not a battery at all; only a cell.  The word battery means many units working together, as in a battery of guns.

Back to the technical.  Electrolytic cells produce only a low voltage so it's necessary to connect them in series, multiplying the voltage in a battery.  It's impractical to drive high-power motors with a low voltage because the extremely high current required would need thick and expensive cables.  Also, some of the losses involved in the power control electronics are of a constant voltage; losing 0.5V might be acceptable with a 100V supply but if you're only working with 3V the loss of efficiency is too great.  Much the same issue would arise in any attempt to step up the battery voltage with a DC to DC converter.


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

[User] If space is ever expanding, where does it expand into? Is it a place that even exists?

[Assistant]
Space doesn't expand into anything. Distances just get larger between galaxies.

Suppose you have an infinite rubber sheet and draw a grid on this sheet. At each intersection point you mark a dot which is just a galaxy. Now this infinite sheet is stretched everywhere equally in all directions (both the x and y directions). You will see your grid correspondingly stretch as well. That is, the distance between two given intersection points increases.

This is what we mean by the expansion of space. The sheet isn't expanding into anything. The sheet started out infinite and it's still infinite. The sheet itself still occupies the same space. But the distance between two given fixed galaxies is increasing over time.

On a side note, your grid establishes what are called co-moving coordinates. If you label the intersection points of your grid with coordinates then the labels of the grid points do not change as the sheet is stretched. That is, each galaxy has the same coordinates no matter what.

We could have also had some fixed grid that did not stretch along with the sheet. (Think of marking the galaxies on the sheet but the grid itself is made of some rigid wire suspended above the sheet.) Then the coordinates of galaxies do change over time. These coordinates are called proper coordinates and differences in proper positions gives the proper distance. It is the proper distance between galaxies that increases over time because of expansion.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k/The Culture] How close is the Culture to birthing a Chaos god like Slaaneesh?

Assuming of course that the two settings overlap (maybe the Culture represents the golden age of technology).

[Assistant] If they were suddenly exposed to the warp they would spawn a chaos god of peace, knowledge, understanding, and progress. It would be like Tzeentch but thousands of time more skilled/powerful and having the best interests of all sentient beings as his primary goal.


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

[User]
Do you think high levels of immigration is good or bad for the economy and why?

I was having a discussion with a few peers about it and would really like to know other's opinion.

[Assistant]
For me it would depend on circumstances.

Does the destination have a cheap worker shortage? Do the immigrants typically have a strong educational background or work ethic? Do they speak the language of the place they are immigrated to, if not, are they willing? Is there housing opportunities for them? How widespread is discrimination, racism, or xenophobia?

These matter because it's better to have a Japenese immigrant here to work in silicon valley than it is to allow African war refuges to work there (or elsewhere) in the USA. Japan is technologocally similar, has a good school system, and many who move speak at least basic English already. An African War refuge likely won't have the same level of education, may be bilingual but perhaps no English, will have to adjust to our society, and may not have easily transferrable job skills.

Historically, it's usually a good thing.


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

[User] [Dragon Ball] Would Android 16's self-destruct bomb been enough to kill Cell?

[Assistant] Honestly, probably not. Given what we know of Cell's power compared to 16's, he probably would've been able to shield himself from it. The bomb would've had to be as strong as Vegeta's full power Final Flash to even maybe kill Cell.


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

[User]
[Jeepers Creepers] What is the Creeper's original form, before it started eating people?

In *Jeepers Creepers*, when the Creeper gets a new head, we see these weird, tentacle-like protrusions coming out to connect with it.

Is this a glimpse at its original form?

Also, if it's "just" a creature, how did it grow to be so sadistic and evil?

[Assistant] Based on the creeper's rules (every 23rd Spring for 23 days it feeds), the creeper appears to have ties to the Wendigo from Native American folklore. According to information from various hunters such as the Winchester brothers, Wendigos are made when people are forced to commit cannibalism to survive. Consumption of another human grants them power, but they become addicted to it. This particular Wendigo appears to have been active for a long time, and has lost itself to its cravings to the point where it seems to enjoy its curse. Perhaps it was born of a hunter who enjoyed the chase, who loved the smell of fear from its prey. As for the tentacle-like protrusions, this may be a result of its metamorphosis over a long period of time, similar to its bat-like wings.


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

[User]
Why would an insurance company not renew a policy rather than raise the premium?

Our homeowner's insurance in San Diego is being "not-renewed" due to fires. But isn't it more rational to raise rates? I understand what's called "material change in risk," such as renovations. But, to effectively cancel a large portion of your region's customers' policies seems like found money. What am I missing?

[Assistant]
That just means that insurance companies believe that nobody would buy insurance at the price they would charge.

There is an important distinction between idiosyncratic risk (1% of houses will have kitchen fires while 99% will not) and systemic risk (with 1% probability a natural disaster will burn most houses and with 99% probability it will burn none).

Because of the way probability works (law of large numbers) insurance companies face little risk when insuring idiosyncratic risk. Maybe one year 0.8% or houses will burn and the next year it will be 1.2%, but it will never be 50%.

In contrast, when it comes down to systemic risk, we are talking about a 1% chance that the insurance company suffers devastating losses on a given year. Therefore, providing insurance from systemic risk is much more expensive.


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

[User]
ELI5: Dreaming for people who were born blind.

How does someone who has never experienced visual stimuli their entire lives dream? Is it in sounds, feelings, textures, the shapes of things they've experienced through touch?

[Assistant] I work for a state school forr the Blind. All of the students that have been blind from birth say that they just dream in sound. Same goes for the deaf community. They just dream in pictures and no sound.


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

[User]
Not everything in real life is normally distributed

Taking a data science online course and the guy keeps giving out problems beginning with assuming height of males in USA is normally distributed, what is x,y,z.

Sure the math is easier if you give me the mean and std for a population thats normally distributed but in real life this assumption cant possibly be made?

What am I missing?

[Assistant]
Pretty much nothing in real life is ever _truly_ distributed with respect to some parametric distribution (discounting certain asymptotic situations such as when central limit theorems hold (but we're never in asymptotia anyways)).

All distributions, really all models are some sort of simplifying assumption about the real world. In your quote, the word **assuming** is doing a lot of work -- it's not necessarily saying "we are assuming that the height of males is _truly_ normally distributed", but rather "we assume that the normal distribution is an appropriate model for our analyses such that the  differences between real life and our model are insignificant for the outcomes of our analyses".

We make assumptions because we must and we make assumptions because in many cases the answers we seek are appropriately answered even though our models simplify reality.


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

[User] ELI5: Why don't physical copy's of books you buy come with a code to download a digital version?

[Assistant]
Book sellers *could* say, "Buy the physical book and you get the digital version for free."

But then they miss out on the opportunity to sell you a different useful thing (the e-book) and earn more money.

As for-profit corporations, most book sellers have decided not to miss out on the money-making opportunity.


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

[User]
CMV: All teens should get government provided long term birth control.

At age 15 (or whatever age is deemed appropriate by physicians), I think all teens (at the moment it only applies to females) should recieve long term birth control from the government (e.g. IUD, shot, etc.) which can also be requested for removal at 18 if so desired. If they want to stay on long term birth control, the government should continue to provide/renew it until the person wants it removed. This program should be opt-out and obviously have exceptions for medical reasons etc. As soon as a medically approved long term, fully reversible, male birth control hits the market, it should also apply to males as well.

Basically, it seems to me that teen preganancy is one of the most easily preventable issues that has a huge impact on quality of life, cost to the government, and impact on our society, which also dispraprotionately hits lower income families who are both more likely to get an unwanted teen pregnancy as well as being less able to financially deal with it.

I can't imagine that such a program would possibly be more expensive than the various social programs that currently help support families with teen pregnancies.

I will admit that such a policy is basically impossible with the current political climate in regards to reproductive health, what I am looking for to have my view changed is that such a policy wouldn't be an overall social good if it could be implemented. When I discussed this with a friend of mine, he thought it represented a huge reach into private lives by the government that was distasteful to him, but I think that having it opt out mostly alleviates those issues while still providing a dramatic reduction in teen pregnancies. So, CMV: why would such a policy be a bad idea/what better way is there to achieve similar results.

-edit- for a few issues that keep coming up: Several people have asked questions about bodily autonomy. If someone can explain to me why an opt out program (for which their is no deadline after which you can no longer opt out) takes away bodily autonomy, I would award a delta. Also, for clarification, this program is not supposed to replace a good sex ed program and easy access to condoms. It is meant to supplement those things.

[Assistant]
And what happens when some future Congress decides you have to meet some financial standard in order to have it removed?

What happens when, now that they don't need to worry about pregnancy, teens start having more unprotected sex- *because they absolutely will have more unprotected sex.*


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

[User] ELI5: In the house, why does heat set at 68 feel different than ac set on 68? Its the same temperature but they feel very different!

[Assistant]
Others have mentioned humidity which can definitely make a difference.

Another big difference is from radiant heat. On a hot day, the heat not only warms up the air, but also the walls of your home as well, and those walls radiate heat back inside. Your body absorbs radiant heat much more readily, thus why you can feel warm by a campfire on a cold evening. Your standard thermostat can't accurately account for radiant heat, so even though the air temperature may be the same, you'll feel warmer on hot days as the walls warm you up.


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

[User] [Star Trek] How does the United Federation of Planets deal with Chernobyl & similar radioactive zones?

[Assistant]
Transporters make situations like Chernobyl almost trivial to deal with. The bulk of the hazardous material - already contained within the Sarcophagus and New Shelter - can simply be transported away (either to a prepared safe location, or converted to energy and purged entirely).

As for the fallout and contamination around the exclusion zone already; deploying an array of sensors and transport enhancers would allow them to slowly identify and filter even trace amounts of radioactive material out of the soil.

The main hurdle is where radioactive material has already being incorporated into organic life, but between Starfleet's medical transporters and other treatments, that too could be dealt with given time.

A coordinated effort by the Federation could likely render the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone safe for human habitation in a matter of weeks. There are already a handful of people still living there, and it has become a sort of accidental wildlife preserve in the years since the incident.


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

[User] ELI5: How was Germany under Nazi army able to find the money to fund WW2 when their economy was in shambles just a few years ago?

[Assistant]
I just wish to highlight there's a good page on wikipedia that goes into depth about this.

But in short, almost instantly after ceasing powers the nazis reorganized the economy into a state-driven and controlled "free-market", loaning credits to companies and making their rivals illegal. They also relied heavily on "special credits" given to corporation that worked with the Nazi regime.

Essentially what happens is you tell a company you will give them money in the future if they do something - with the promise of money coming in the company hires more people - these people then buy stuff in the economy and the government get's revenue from those purchases and the loop continues until it all falls down.

A lot of credit was taken as a guarantee as Hitler had assured people and the party that the east was German Living Space - and therefor the riches would come with eventual conquering of all of Europe.


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

[User] [DC] When The Flash is trying every combination on a keypad, how does he not get mind-numbingly bored?

[Assistant]
That's part of being a hero, isn't it? Flash isn't the big manly tough stoic dude like Batman or Superman. He's a nerd who does nerd stuff and has a scrawny nerd body. Which we love about him because we're nerds too.

You have to get through the door so you try every combination on the keypad. It gets boring. But you keep at it. You're tired. But you keep going. And because of how you experience time, it feels like it's taking forever.

But you keep at it. Because people count on you. Because it's important. Because if you don't there won't be a keypad to punch anymore. Even when your finger starts to bruise and bleed, you just keep at it. Because that's part of what it means to be a hero: persistence.


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

[User]
[Terminator Series] How many different timelines are there? What is seen to be the most agreed upon cannon?

Possible Dark Fate Spoiler:

After Terminator 2 it seems like their are 3 separate timelines: Rise of the Machines + Salvation (where John Connor is needed after all), and Sarah Connor Chronicles + Dark Fate (where John is not neccessary needed after altering the past), and Genesis (T1, T2, T3 and Salvation all occur in order). Its all so confusing... Any Terminator experts out there have the real answer?

[Assistant]
I think the timelines are basically:

T1-T2-T3-T:Salvation

T1-T2-T:SCC

T1-T2-T:Genysis

T1-T2-T:Dark Fate

And that's not including various comics and book series.

In terms of 'official' canon, it's pretty much whichever film series is most current, so Dark Fate at the moment.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does eating strong mint chewing gum clear a blocked nose?

[Assistant]
Basically, menthol (naturally found in mint plants such as peppermint or spearmint), activates the TRPM8 receptor (a protein that in humans is encoded by the TRPM8 gene) and is also the primary molecular transducer of cold somatosensation (touch, position and movement). This nerve cell signals the sensation of coldness. Unlike the actual change in temperature described for sugar substitutes, coolness is merely a perceived phenomenon, so when you breathe in, the nerves signal that cold sensation stronger than it generally would.

Similarly, capsaicin (the active component in peppers), activates receptors that signal hot.

Menthol stimulates cold receptors. As a result, you get the sensation of airflow, which leads to you to think your nasal congestion has actually cleared up. It's just a sensation, however; menthol has no real effect on clearing nasal congestion.


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

[User] Eli5: Why will a broken piece of ceramic from a spark plug, break a car window, easier and far more efficiently than a hammer?

[Assistant]
Car windows are made of tempered glass. Tempering is a process during which glass is cooled very rapidly by quenching in water. This causes extremely high internal stresses in the glass, as the outside shrinks and solidifies first. Basically, the glass is pulling on itself very tightly all the time. This gives it the strength to resist hammer strikes and the hardness to resist scratching by most materials, but also means that if a flaw is introduced, such as a scratch, the internal stresses will release around it and cause it to grow rapidly, releasing even more stress, until the entire pane shatters.

The piece of ceramic has higher hardness than even tempered glass and can easily scratch it, starting the chain reaction.


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

[User]
How did the underwater internet cables get there?

There are cables underwater that basically send signals throughout the entire world and make up the Internet. How did they get installed? Did someone have to swim to the bottom of the ocean and put them in place?

[Assistant]
These underwater cables are deployed by boat. It essentially involves outfitting a ship with a large cable reel and sailing from one coast to the other while deploying the cable. The cable is dense enough to sink to the bottom.

More interesting is the process to repair such cables. Because defects happen from time to time and they need to be fixed. By measuring reflections in the signal emitted from the shore, it's possible to determine the location of a defect and a ship is sent out to that spot. The ship will use a long grapple to fish up the cable and the repair is done on board the ship. If the cable is relatively heavy, the ship will first deploy an instrument to cut the cable two pieces and then fish up each piece. Repair and reconnection are done on board. Finally, the repaired cable is lowered back into the ocean.


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

[User] ELI5: how is gallium made if it is not naturally found on earth?

[Assistant]
Gallium is naturally found on earth.

It just isn't found in a purely elemental form, but instead only in compounds.

Imagine if chlorine was never found as chlorine alone, but only as salt (sodium chloride). You could then make chlorine by extracting it from salt but it wouldn't occur in nature in its elemental form.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does video production take so long? I have a friend who was in a commercial last year and did two 12-hour days for it, but was only on screen for like 3 seconds. And it wasnt even an ad with special effects- just him in a car making a face.

[Assistant]
Because they require a lot of people, dozens, possibly a hundred or more in larger productions, all being where theyre supposed to be at the right time.

The lighting crews, the sound crews, the camera crews, the actors, the make up artists, the crews who provide catering to all these people, everyone, needs to make sure they get their job done at the right time whens its needed.

And now youre in charge of it all, what is easier?

A. Coming up with a complicated hour-by-hour schedule of when people need to show up and then when they can leave, and hoping that it runs perfectly smoothly and nothing goes wrong or gets messed up or no one is late.

Or

B. Just have everybody just show up and be there the whole time so you dont have to worry as much about a scheduling nightmare. And if something does go wrong the people who can fix it are still their, and none of the actors will ever be late because you made them show up 4 hours before theyll probably get infront of the camera.

Tl:dr its way simpler and causes less headaches to just have everyone involved in a shoot be there the whole time, instead of making a complicated ass schedule.


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

[User] ELI5: how are Forbes able to estimate/calculate the wealth of the people on their billionaires list and how accurate is it?

[Assistant]
>This is our 29th year publishing the Forbes Billionaires list. Though weve been at it a long time, it is never an easy task. Our reporters dig deep and travel far. To compile net worths, we value individuals assetsincluding stakes in public and private companies, real estate, yachts, art and cashand take into account estimates of debt. We attempt to vet these numbers with all billionaires. Some cooperate; others dont. We also consult an array of outside experts in various fields. The Forbes Billionaires ranks individuals rather than multi-generational families who share large fortunes. So Maja Oeri, who has a disclosed stake in pharmaceutical firm Roche, makes the list, but her eight relatives who, with a nonprofit foundation, share a multi-billion fortune do not. In some cases we list siblings together if the ownership breakdown among them isnt clear, but here, too, they must be worth a minimum of $2 billion together to make the cut. We split up these fortunes when we get better information, as we did with the heirs of Colombias Julio Mario Santo Domingo this year. Children are listed with their parents when one person is the founder and in control. Those fortunes are identified as & family.

>We do not include royal family members or dictators who derive their fortunes entirely as a result of their position of power, nor do we include royalty who, often with large families, control the riches in trust for their nation. Over the years Forbes has valued the fortunes of these wealthy despots, dictators and royals but we have listed them separately as they do not truly reflect individual, entrepreneurial wealth that could be passed down to a younger generation or truly given away.

TL;DR: Using dozens of sources they value everything the billionaires possess, including debts, and compile the values. They attempt to vet the values with the individuals and some agree while others don't. They have a team of financial analysts listed on their website and other consulted experts in various fields.


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

[User]
Did Top Gear really find the source of the Nile and are they the first?

Reddit seem to be fairly avid watchers of Top Gear so I assume most people know that in their end of season special they attempted to find the 'true' source of the Nile in 1500 estate cars. They claimed that no one had truly found the source and that some explorers have claimed to have found it but that this was not the case. They succeeded in finding a spring somewhere to the South East of Lake Victoria that feeds it and ultimately into the Nile. Could someone clarify specifically what they mean by the source, why it hasn't been found yet and just general information about the geological side of these episodes?

[Assistant]
One definition of a river's source is the tributary starting farthest from the river's mouth. Using the point where the Nile empties into the Mediterranean as its mouth the possible sources of the Nile are on the west side of Lake Victoria.

For the Top gear special they redefined the mouth of the Nile from its delta in Egypt to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic. Using that definition of the Nile's mouth the streams on the East side of Lake Victoria are suddenly the candidate sources instead of those on the West. Allowing them to "discover" the "true" source of the river.

Problem is defining the Strait of Gibraltar as the mouth of the Nile is really really stupid. So, no, they did not find the true source of the Nile.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Overtime work? How is it profitable for a company to pay it and why is it offered?

Thinking of working for a private ambulance company and they offer a lot of overtime (up to 60+ hours a week). Why would they pay me 1.5x my base salary during my overtime hours, when they could just have someone else do the work for 1x? In addition, why not just give me the extra hours and pay me 1x as usual?

[Assistant]
Paying overtime past 40 hours a week is required by law, otherwise companies wouldn't do it. People died to get labor laws like this to be passed so don't take it lightly.

Staff cost money to train and maintain. Secondary costs like training, benefit, uniforms, insurance, etc cost money and the company has likely done the math and determined that paying staff overtime is cheaper in the long run then hiring more staff.

It's also possible they are just badly understaffed and have to pay overtime because they can't get/retain enough people.


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

[User] [ELI5] Why is it that homosexuals are considered to be born gay while pedophiles are considered to have a mental disorder?

[Assistant]
Those aren't mutually exclusive options. To be considered a disorder a condition must cause some sort of difficulty that would be improved if it were somehow treated or removed.  So homosexuality is not considered to be one by the medical profession as a whole.

That has no real bearing on whether it has a biological cause or not.


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

[User]
CMV: Most of the Socially Conservative politicians currently in Washington are huge hypocrites just courting votes do they can execute their pro corporate agenda and it didnt used to be like that.

Like the tile says.    Im a liberal and do not and likely never will agree with mainstream American conservatism.   Thats not what Im writing about.   I want to hear from people who genuinely believe that people like Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Donald Trump sitting at the top of the Republican Party truly care about issues like Abortion, Gay Marriage, prayer in schools, what a bunch of NFL players do while the national anthem is playing and so forth.  Im also interested in whether these religious people agree on the economic issues like lower
Taxes for the rich and a smaller social safety net or if theyre just pretending to be to court the votes of people who truly are because their other policy positions are so incredibly unpopular that if they didnt also do things like they to ban abortion they wouldnt win elections.

[Assistant]
>I want to hear from people who genuinely believe that people like Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Donald Trump sitting at the top of the Republican Party truly care about issues like Abortion, Gay Marriage, prayer in schools, what a bunch of NFL players do while the national anthem is playing and so forth.

Do you think left wing politicians care about those issues? If so, why do you think that?

>Im also interested in whether these religious people agree on the economic issues like lower Taxes for the rich and a smaller social safety net or if theyre just pretending to be to court the votes of people who truly are because their other policy positions are so incredibly unpopular that if they didnt also do things like they to ban abortion they wouldnt win elections.

If this were the case, then someone would try to run on a position of banning abortion, or whatever, and then not doing those horribly unpopular things. that this doesn't happen is very strong evidence that it's not particularly popular.


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

[User]
CMV:Bodybuilding isn't a real sport the same as custom car or motorbike or PC building isn't a real sport.

As painful as this might be for some please follow my logic before downvoting.
Bodybuilding has a few objective goals which as easy as they are to state will always be judged subjectively by judges, participants and fans.
These goals include
-building muscle mass on the participants body to be larger than genetics would ordinarily dictate without training.
-this growth should be full throughout the body and propotional to typical anatomical models
-For competition purposes the competitor should be the lowest body fat possible for the sake of muscle definition and perceived "hardness".
-competition showcase would be inclusive of posing on stage to give the competitor the maximum advantage.

These are the fundamentals and you'll notice everything is quite subjective. The judges score what they see, that is all. They probably could be more objective and include dexa scans, blood tests but as bodybuilding is a showcase, not a sport they don't.

This is similar to other showcase events including automotive, computer and fashion/ beauty because competitors although required to meet internal standards such as drug testing or( sometimes not) are generally not constrained as to HOW they achieve their specific look where as looking at something like weightlifting, you have specific criteria to meet in each movement as you perform and failure to meet these criteria even with a broomstick is a failed lift.

Futher proof of bodybuildings showcase classification is the contention and debate that every Olympia or any other major competion brings about unless conclusively won in indisputable fashion. The best example is the 1980 Mr. Olympia competion held in Sydney Australia.

No other sport has such an open ended conversation regarding the result.

There it is. Change my veiw.

[Assistant]
I challenge your view that judge decided competitions are not sports. Many classical sports are decided by a panel of judges. Gymnastics, synchronized swimming, and diving, are all Olympic sports that are decided by judges.

From the outside, the layman can't really tell what the difference between at 9.8 or 10.0 vault is, but the judges can. The same can be said for bodybuilding. There are certain muscles that can be difficult to develop and these are noticed by the judges. These small details separate the losers and the winners.

Bodybuilders are also in a league with other athletes in their commitment to their competition. World champions spend every day at the gym and eat a specialized diet. This is not unlike Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps or basically any other world class athletes.

I will concede that bodybuilders are not competing in the sense that they perform some incredible feat. However, having physiques like they do is an incredible achievement and could be considered an incredible achievement.


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

[User]
CMV: Employees Should Not Give Notice When Quitting

A few things first:

First, let me say that there are exceptions. Surgeons probably shouldn't quit without notice due to public health reasons. Attorneys shouldn't leave their clients unrepresented in court.

Second, anyone is free to do as they wish. I'm merely talking about what the norm should be. So on to it:

The largest part of my post focuses on those working in the corporate world. I believe the standard notice period of two weeks (or any notice period) is inappropriate. The reason for this is because:

1) If you are fired or laid off it will generally be on no notice with no out placement help or severance;

2) The impact to you being let go, in most cases, will be far greater than to the company should you up and quit; and

3) if the company wanted to secure notice, they should guarantee at least an equal term severance or pay you upfront at hire for the requested notice period.

Any "impact" to your team, even if you like everyone (manager included), is countered by the fact that the company would still let you go with no notice and no help. If a manager thought they could hire someone cheaper or better (at the same price), they would.

So, please, change my view.

Edit 1: Let me clarify, I'm arguing about what the norm should be. I agree employers may bash you for up and leaving. That's because we have a system where the expectation is two weeks. That should change.

Does no one else think it's manifestly WRONG for an employer to bash you to a future employer based on your last two weeks versus your entire tenure (which would be supported with actual performance reviews)?

[Assistant] You give notice because a good word from past employers of you being a good employee is very valuable to you. If the person you're interviewing calls up and the last thing they remember about you is you leaving without notice that doesn't look very good to the interviewer because it means you could do it to them too.


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

[User]
If I keep betting the same number in a lottery, do I have more chances at winning than if I choose different numbers each time?

If the winning numbers are random, and my betting numbers are also random, then there are two random variables, meaning that there are fewer chances for me to win.

However, if I keep betting the same number over an over, there is one fewer random variable in the equations, giving me more chances to win. Is this right?

[Assistant]
Your odds will be the same if you pick the same number or random numbers, assuming a fair lottery.

If the lottery is fair, it means that each winning set of numbers are drawn randomly and are not dependent on any previous set of winning numbers.

Instead of worrying about the specifics of a lottery, consider a simple example of a dice roll. You can bet on any one of six numbers, so every time they roll the die you have a 1/6 chance of winning. That 1/6 chance is independent of whether or not you bet on "1" every time or if you a bet on a random number. A lottery is like a dice roll, only the die has like 100 sides and they roll it 5 times.


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

[User]
[My Hero Academia] How many quirks would someone be able to inherit from their parents? As in if Todoroki had a kid, would they be able to inherit his Fire and Ice quirks as well as their mom's quirk(s)?

My question pertains mostly to the Todoroki example. Would a person be able to inherit 3 or more quirks from their parents? If he had a kid with someone else who inherited both of their parents' quirks, could they inherit all 4 quirks?

[Assistant]
Technically people can only have one quirk.

Todoroki doesnt have two quirks, he has one quirk thats more complicated and intricate than his parents.

Even All for One only has one quirk. Its just a quirk that allows him to manipulate other quirks.

Bakugo is another example. His quirk is a composite of his parents quirks, but he only has one quirk.

So as we go on, quirks will get more powerful and weird, but itll still just be one quirk per person.

So Todorokis kid has a few options: 1) inherit no quirk. 2) get a completely random quirk. 3) inherit on of his parents quirks. 4) inherit a quirk that has aspects of both quirks.


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

[User] ELI5: why do some medications need to be directly injected into the bloodstream, while others can simply be injected into a muscle?

[Assistant]
It depends on the situation. IV meds that go directly into the blood act faster and the dose can be changed easily. These are typically useful for inpatient care.

IM injections can be long acting medicines that stay in the muscle and slowly gets released over time. Or it could be something like Haldol where someone is acutely psychotic and it is easier to hit a muscle than it would be to setup an IV on someone who is trying to fight you off.


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

[User]
[Finding Nemo] Who built the Minefield?

And why?

[Assistant]
The Royal Australian Navy laid thousands of mines during World War II; Japan also laid mines and German surface raiding ships performed a handful of mining operations in Australian waters as well.

Since these were moored contact mines and not airdropped floating mines, I'd say it's likely that they were German models laid by one of the raiders. The submarine Marlin and Dory discover is American (as evidenced by the "ESCAPE" sign), and the sub would have detailed maps of any Allied minefield.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why are caesium and quartz used for timekeeping?

What is special about these elements that makes them good for clocks?

[Assistant]
The quartz crystals used are piezoelectric crystals. There are crystals, rocks, which produce an electric current when you bend it, and similarly will bend when you apply an electric current to them. So you can hook it directly up to an electric circuit without any additional interfaces. This makes them easy to use as pendulums in electric clocks. A wafer of piezoelectric quartz crystal will vibrate at a specific frequency and the electric current generated can be amplified and fed back to form a harmonic system. Just like old grandfather clocks with pendulums except that the mechanics have been replaced with electronics.

The caesium clocks work on a completely different principle. It is based on the way that materials glow at specific frequencies when exited. You may have seen red neon lights or blue hydrogen lights. For measuring time caesium-133 have been selected as the definition of time, its output frequency is the definition of time. Unlike piezoelectric crystals an atom requires that you interface with it using light, so you can not just hook up wires to it but need a lamp to excite it and a light sensor to read its output. You can use other atoms then caesium and this might be cheaper but caesium gives the most stable results. Hence why it is used for the definition.


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

[User]
[Superheroes/General] Why do Superheroes wear such unorthodox/impractical clothing and have cheesy code names? I get the need for a secret identity but why isn't there even one superhero named "Mark" in jeans and a t-shirt?

Sure, they need day jobs and need to hide their faces occasionally. That doesn't mean they also need to wear spandex and capes. Why not wear something more comfortable? And their names are just ridiculous: Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Cyborg...are you shitting me? Those are names my 5 year old son calls himself when he plays with his toys. They're right up there with "Monster Destroyer" and "Super Awesome Galactor".

Yet no one questions it. Like these are  all fine things for adults to be running around calling themselves.

[Assistant]
A lot of them didn't name themselves but wete named by the media.

Also, most try to craft themselves into larger-than-life personas. How well does that work when you wear jeans and a t-shirt and call yourself Mark?


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Can an ion canon form Hoth disable the Death Star?

Or would it only disable partial aspects of the battle station?

Also, if it was shot at a person, would it shock them to a coma or kill them?  i.e. Hoth ion canon firing at a defenseless Palpatine.

[Assistant]
> Also, if it was shot at a person, would it shock them to a coma or kill them? i.e. Hoth ion canon firing at a defenseless Palpatine.

Yes it would. Ion canons fire ionized particles (meaning charged particles). So basically it just depends on how much power you put in and it will fry a person.

> Or would it only disable partial aspects of the battle station?

It likely wouldn't disable the whole station. That canon was built to disable capital ships but the Deathstar is quite a bit bigger. It also has way more surface area and volume and likely way more fail-safes to guard against something like that.

An ion canon basically functions like an EMP in that it overloads the systems with so much electricity that they fry / shut down. Sufficient electrical and thermal shielding will keep you safe.


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

[User] Do people bleed out mouth when shot or stabbed like in the movies?

[Assistant]
Blood welling out of the mouth can either be coming from the stomach or digestive tract, in which case it is called haematemesis (vomiting blood), or from the lungs and respiratory tract, when it is termed haemoptosis (coughing blood). Another alternative is that the bleeding is from a structure inside the mouth, such as the tongue. So generally speaking, trauma to the abdomen may cause haemtaemesis, while trauma to the chest would be more likely to cause haemoptosis.

Its pretty unusual for an abdominal wound to cause a large amount of haematemesis, as an injury that damages a blood vessel inside the abdomen will cause the bleeding into the abdominal cavity, but not into the digestive tract itself. So, one might see a distended, tense abdomen, and a low blood pressure, but unless there was also a hole in the stomach or intestine, there may well be no bleeding from the mouth.

In contrast, damage to the lungs is much more likely to cause haemoptosis, as the lungs are full of blood vessels, and its very easy for blood to leak into the airways, and so be coughed up. A wound to one of the major pulmonary blood vessels can lead to massive, torrential bleeding from the mouth and can be very difficult to treat.


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

[User] Assuming there IS silicon based life there in the universe, what would they use as "water" or as their organic solvent?

[Assistant]
If water is available, there's not much reason to believe they wouldn't use it - carbon and silicon have near enough identical chemistry with water.

Otherwise, your options are quite limited. If it's too hot for water, you're really too hot for most simple liquids - you also don't really expect silicon at high temperatures, as its bonds are weaker than those of carbon, so it would run the risk of breaking apart. If it's too cold for water, you could possibly use some of the simple hydrocarbons (methane, ethane) if they were around in suitable quantities.


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

[User]
Does anything have the opposite effect on vocal cords that helium does?

I don't know the science directly on how helium causes our voice to emit higher tones, however I was just curious if there was something that created the opposite effect, by resulting in our vocal cords emitting the lower tones.

[Assistant] Yes. Its called Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6). Sound travels slower in denser gasses and SF6 is 5x more dense than air so it makes the sound waves move slower through the gas which makes your voice deeper even though your vocal cords are still moving at the same rate.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do crustaceans turn red when steam/boiled/cooked?

Have always been puzzled about why they specifically turn red no matter what Color they were before they were cooked.

[Assistant]
The shells of crabs and lobsters contain a pigment called astaxanthin. This pigment absorbs blue light and causes a red slightly yellowish color.

When the crab or lobster is alive, another pigment called crustacyanin wraps the astaxanthin and influences the light that gets absorbed, giving it a blue greenish color.

When cooked, this pigment bond falls apart and the shiny red pigment of the astaxanthin comes through.


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

[User]
How do movie illegal movie streaming site like movie2k, couch tuner, etc manage to even survive and make money?

How do movie streaming sites like movie2k, couch tuner, etc even manage to survive and make any money? I would imagine the hosting, server fees for that many movie would be a huge overhead cost. Then you have the movie studio, etc should be suing the crap out of them.

[Assistant] I think it's because they don't host the illegal videos themselves, just provide links to them which isn't explicitly illegal (or google would have been tanked under lawsuites). If you notice, the links on the sites go dead frequently.


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

[User] ELI5: How did the English crown lose all of its power to a modern form of government?

[Assistant]
Well in 1215, King John of England signed the Magna Carta, which stated that his will was not law, meaning that a man couldn't be punished because the King wanted him to be, he had to have done something that went against the law of the land. This was the first step towards a modern form of government.

Henry III was the first Monarch to call parliament (first recorded occasion of them being called) in 1236. Edward I, who reigned 1275 - 1307, then began to call parliament frequently, and, along with calling noblemen and churchmen, also issued orders for the elections of one representative from each county (knights of the shire) and two from each city (burgesses). This set the precedent for parliament to comprise of three aspects; the commons, the lords and the monarch (which remains the same to this day), although their main concern was primarily to consent to or decline the taxation the King suggested.

During the 14th century Edward III stated that parliament should meet annually, and their increased activity lead to them becoming move involved in issues other than the King's taxation wishes. In the late 14th century the parliament became more powerful and started having influence over the King's ministers and Lords, forcing corrupt ministers to step down, and by 1399 they were so powerful they forcefully removed Richard II as King. After this the commons held a very powerful position, and managed to secure an equal role in lawmaking in order to secure a deal with future king Henry IV.

Henry VIII then affirmed parliament's power around 1529, because he gave them the power to remove the pope as head of the Chruch in England and replace him with the Monarch. This meant that Henry VIII was head of the church, but also left parliament even more powerful. The civil war of 1642 - 1651, which resulted in the temporary abolition of the Monarchy, further proved that the King was not all powerful, and the restoration of the Monarchy was done with the people's consent, meaning that the Monarch was aware that parliamentarians were capable of overthrowing him if he acted in an unconstitutional way.

Further limitations to the power of the crown were:

- Bill of Rights 1689, which guaranteed freedom of speech in Parliament, a right to petition the King without fear of retribution and regular elections to parliament.

- Habeas Corpus act 1701, which meant courts had to examine the lawfulness of a prisoner's detention.

- the Petition of Rights act 1860 that set out liberties of the people that the King was prohibited from infringing. This included unlawful taxation, use of the armed forces for unlawful means and infliction of martial law, amongst other things.


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

[User] Why do some viruses, such as influenza, quickly mutate (thus require different vaccinations annually), but other viruses, such as smallpox seem to barely mutate at all (or at least much more slowly)?

[Assistant]
One reason why is that viruses like corona and influenza are single stranded RNA viruses and small pox is a double stranded DNA virus.

If you have a single stranded genome, there is no repair mechanism and mutations occur much more frequently.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] Why are wild pokemon so aggressive?

You cant walk in tall grass without being attacked by at least one pokemon. What makes them so aggressive?

[Assistant] Well, to begin, many Pokemon are quite territorial, which means they'll chase off anything they deem to be a threat to either their territory or their their young, which often as not can be found in the area. To add to that, most wild Pokemon are afraid of humans (with the number of trainers there are running through their territory, and then incapacitating and capturing their friends and family, not to mention people who belong to gangs such as Team Rocket, who can blame them?), and will attack humans out of fear. It's only after consistent contact with benevolent humans that Pokemon will become domesticated and open up to them, which usually only occurs after they are... incapacitated and captured by a trainer.


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

[User] What causes Amino Acids to "fold" into proteins?

[Assistant]
The amino acid sequence of a protein is going to ultimately determine how it is going to fold, and the folding is stabilized by several factors.  The biggest factor driving protein folding is hydrophobic interactions.

If you're unfamiliar with this, its basically the same idea as when you add oil to water, they dont mix and the oil will move together.  This is because although the entropy of the oil is going to be decreased by being near each other, the overall entropy of the system is increased by the water molecules being moved away form the hydrophobic oil.

This same principle drives the folding of proteins.  There are several amino acids that have big bulky hydrophobic groups that water wants to push away from and forces themselves to be near each other.  Once folded the protein's folded form is further stabilized by other interactions such as di-sulfide bonds, electrostatic interactions between polar side chain groups, hydrogen bonds, and van der waals interactions.


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

[User] [General Sci-fi] I just shot the electronic lock on a door fleeing my captors but it rendered the door useless instead of opened it. Why did the last one I shoot open the door and this one not?

[Assistant]
Different doors made for different purposes.

Your average door is wired so it will open when the electronic lock is destroyed. It's so people aren't trapped inside in case of fires and such, and for rescue workers to get inside.

However, a high security door is wired so it will shut itself tight when the lock is smashed. Yes, it is a risk in case of disasters and such, but it's a risk some people take to protect their stuff.

Edit: Or you may have come across an older/cheaper model of door, which wasn't really designed with emergency situations in mind.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes the brain to spaz out and let me chew my tongue/cheek/lip while I'm eating food, even though I'm real good at it after so long?

[Assistant]
Your brain does a lot of stuff in background, which takes a lot of resources (e.g. energy.)

Your brain 'spazes' out either when you are so tired/out of energy that other more important functions are given more priority (breathing >> stability) or when it tries to find ways to save energy.

That last point could be what happens: your brain has a long history of you being good at not chewing your tongue that, some times, it thinks it can be turned off and at in those times you bite your tongue (not all the times, of course.)

Also, if you are eating a lot of stuff quickly, it's harder to keep track of your tongue and you bite it.


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

[User]
How come gasoline isnt more expensive? Why dont oil companies jack the price way up?

People arent going to stop driving their vehicles if gas prices are higher, and its in the oil companys best interest to make stacks on stacks on stacks of cash. So why isnt gasoline more costly? They could pretty much charge what they wanted and people would pay; theres always a demand.

[Assistant] OPEC did this in the 70s. All the middle eastern oil producers created a cartel, promising to artificially keep prices high. And it worked. For awhile. But the problem with cartels is that there is always a huge incentive to cheat. If just one of the oil producers starts selling oil for a little less than the rest of the cartel, they can make bank because everyone wants oil at their lower price. As soon as one producer cheats, the rest have to follow and then boom youve got market competition again.


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

[User]
[MCU] Did the snap kill half of all microbial life as well?

Did it only kill the half that was inside people to be snapped anyway? If not, did survivors experience an epidemic of gut-microbe related illnesses?

[Assistant] Although word of god says that all life was snapped away, plant, animal etc. The fact that we see no deforestation in the last scene in Infinity War proves that, no, Thanos only targeted sentient life/intelligent life. So no microbial life wasn't hurt unless it was sentient or intelligent.


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

[User]
Why does the ice in my ice cube tray sometimes climb upwards as if on an invisible wire?

This has been happening for years and years, different ice cube trays and different freezers. I will pour water in my ice cube tray and let it freeze and when I come back one or two of the ice cubes will have a stick of ice about 3cm coming out of the top, a little stick of ice.  Is it climbing an impurity somehow? This has always struck me as odd.  I have a photo but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to post those here.

Edit 1: I use cheap plastic ice cube trays and I have no idea the strength of the blower in my freezer, I have always rented so I just get whatever random freezer I get, but it's always happened.

Edit 2: All I have ever used for ice is unfiltered tap water.

Edit 3: Tanks for shiny silver!

[Assistant] The ice first freezes at the surface, and can result in a small "hole" of liquid at the surface, through which interior water is forced as more ice forms.  The water so expelled forms the spike as it freezes.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does a deadly cancer like melanoma actually kill you?

What's going on in your body that actually causes your death? Why are some tumors benign and others malignant? What about a tumor makes it malignant?

[Assistant] A malignant tumor is one that spreads to other tissues.  This can either happen directly to nearby areas, or it can happen by metastasis. Metastasis is when distant tissues can be infected by, for example, crossing into the blood stream via the lymph nodes.  There they can spread to dangerous area like the liver or the brain.  Once they get to these new locations they continue to grow, crowding out the normal cells that should be growing there, and causing organs to fail.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a person's brain respond if they believe they are in a situation where death is inescapable, e.g., plummeting from a great height without a parachute?

[Assistant]
Many survivors of such accidents testify time slowing down a lot. How fast time moves in the brain turns out is not a constant. It can burn more fuel more quickly and increase the resolution of time, in other words slow down time.

Why would the brain want to do this?

It is believed it has to do with the fight or flight response. In moments where split desicions are crucial for our survival the brain speeds up so we can think faster. When the thinking is sped up, that increases the resolution of time. You have more time each second to think about what to do.

It might be that in an accident where the person is convinced they are going to die, that the brain is stubborn and sees it not as the end but as an extra difficult challenge and slows down time _even more_.

It is better to burn all the fuel it can than to give up, it decides.

Some believe "life flashing before one's eyes" when falling might stem from this. Maybe the extreme resolution of time lets the person imagine big spans of their lives in great detail in what would be just a few seconds.


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

[User] ELI5: what happens as a banana ages? The more brown the banana, the thinner the peel. Does the peel become the banana?

[Assistant] If you're only interested in the peel, it's pretty simple. The peel loses moisture through evaporation. It dries out. Since a large part of it is water, if it loses most of the water, it loses most of its mass (and volume), so it becomes thinner.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is a "firing solution"?

In regards to missiles and torpedoes, what exactly do they mean when they are working on a firing solution. Especially when most modern missiles and torpedoes seem to have automatic homing / target funding technology?

[Assistant]
Firing a torpedo involves three or more factors while attempting to maintain stealth.

The directions and speed of the ships, the current, and possibly terrain, means that shooting a torpedo is a tricky bit of math especially when the other ships position speed and such may not be known perfectly.

On top of that, while torpedoes CAN use sonar, the later it goes into active hunting mode the better chance to hit the target so the goal is a shot with a course that maximizes the chance of putting the fish in striking range  and minimizing the chance to the enemy escaping it.


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

[User]
US Presidents should serve one six year term without the ability to be re-elected. CMV

As it stands, a four year presidency is a short amount of time to initiate new policies, test to see if those policies work, and foster new plans should they need re-adjusting.  Thus, to make any long-lasting impact, each president strategically expends their political capital to make just enough changes as to satisfy their base, while constantly keeping an eye out for re-election threats and opportunities.  It's only in one's 2nd term do we really get to see a President in their true form, without their constant pandering to the masses.

I submit that a single six year term, without the possibility of re-election, gets the best of both worlds.  We get single-minded leadership focused on national priorities, without ever being swayed or influenced by the temptation to curb their goals in order to foster votes.  Six years is enough time to implement positive changes, but also long enough to undo mistakes from the previous presidency, should that be necessary.

I also submit that amending the constitution to make this change would be relatively straightforward and few would argue against it.

[Assistant] How would changing the executive power, affect the legislative? The congress is the problem when doing new policies, not the president. The president could be God almighty, and the congress would still bicker and crap on changes in the name of money.


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

[User]
[Dragon Ball Super] Does the title ''God Of Destruction'' give a boost in power?

So i rewatched the Tournament Of Power not too long ago and that made me wonder ;

Is Lord Beerus really that strong, or does his title as god give him significantly more power than without? Top also gained a great boost in power as soon as he made his decision to become a GoD, but other than Hakai nothing really changed about him, so why did he get so much tougher?

Hence my question ; does the God title alone already give a power boost?

[Assistant]
The title alone does not confer additional power, but access to Divine Ki.

Think of regular ki as charcoal: burns dirty, inefficient, takes a lot to produce useful energy. Certain transformations like the Super Saiyan forms make ki generation more efficient: i.e. gasoline: more bang for buck, more energy with less volume. Divine Ki is antimatter fuel: the most energy-dense of all the ki types and able to produce a purely destructive attack known as the Hakai. Goku's and Vegeta's Super Saiyan God forms are imitations: very close to Divine Ki but not quite.

What Toppo did during the Tournament was to accept his nomination to be a God of Destruction, essentially allowing him to convert his regular ki to Divine Ki and lets him to briefly overpower Frieza and Vegeta. Unfortunately for him, while Vegeta's SSG ki was not as efficient, he has a bigger fuel tank.

As for Lord Beerus, he's really old and has trained for a long time, when he wasn't sleeping away for years. It's possible that Goku and Vegeta can reach his level in a far shorter time as long as they keep training.


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

[User]
ELI5: If I moved 1 meter/second below the speed of light, why does it appear to move at light speed from me?

The Speed of Light is 299,792,458 meters / second.

If I move at 299,792,457 m / s why would I witness light traveling at relativistic lightspeed from me? or am I misunderstanding and i'll witness photons moving at speeds of 1 m/s?

I'm quite confused.

[Assistant]
your time will go slower the faster you travel. therefore, if an observer at our "speed" looks at you and a photon he will see you traveling with a speed difference of 1m/s. For you, since one second will be much longer time, any photon can travel through much more space in that second, effectively increasing its speed conceived by you.

Another effect of special relativity is space dilation. The faster you go, the smaller one meter will be. Therefore light even has to travel less meters in that longer second to obtain speed of light.


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

[User]
[Mass effect] Is there an in universe reason to why ships in the Mass Effect universe are smaller in comparison to other Science fiction series?

The largest ships in mass effect are the dreadnoughts which range from 800 meters to a kilometer. This seems large but when you compare it to the Punic-class supercarrier seen in Halo (4,000 meters longer) it just seems strange. Especially considering the tech level differences in these series. The mass effect universe seems far more advanced than other series and yet it's ships are a quarter the size.

Obviously the universes are completely different but I would think with a mini cold war between the humans and the turians that they would just keep building ships larger and larger.

[Assistant]
While you can get bigger, you also have to scale up the size of mass effect fields you have to create for them.

Additionally, the drive cores make a lot of heat and build up a charge that can fry the crew if not discharged, and the rate of both scales with the size of the drive core, and past a certain point you end up where you are having to discharge even before making it between planets.


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

[User] ELI5: Why hitler didn't attack the mentally defeated british army in Dunkirk?

[Assistant]
Because he could not, only his armour was in the area, and the terrain was no good for armour, and armour without infantry can be a sitting duck. And the armoured units were low on fuel and supplies. It would take some time for the infantry, fuel and supplies to arrive.

The Germans had some concerns about a possible break-out attempt too.

And Goering claimed the Luftwaffe could finish the British, Belgian and French troops on the beach by air-force.

"Mentally defeated" is an interesting choice of words.


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

[User]
[Portal] What would happen if you sent a portal through a portal?

Say if the portals in "portal" existed. If you put one of the portals in a box, close the box and throw it through the other portal. What would happen? Imploding sounds like a reasonable thing but I dont know.

[Assistant] Once the distance between two portals becomes of the order of a few nanometers but before they intersect each other, the Casimir force between them becomes significant and causes the portals to collapse.


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

[User]
ELI5:Who ended up deciding the standard monitor resolutions and what's the origin?

One thing I've noticed is that most of them, mathematically make sense, since they're all multipliers of 8. I'll give you some examples.

8 * 96 = **768**

8 * 160 = **1.280**

8 * 180 = **1.440**

8 * 200 = **1.600**

8 * 240 = **1.920**

8 * 320 = **2.560**

8 * 480 = **3.840**

Why the 8 as a multiplier, you ask.
**One byte = 8 bits**.

Don't ask me why, but it seems to be related.

Yes, there's some that don't follow the rule.

For example, 8 * 170.75 = 1366.
The reason for it, I think, is because they came up with this one while trying to turn the classic 1024*768 into 16:9. So, (768 / 9) * 16 = 1365.333 and they rounded it (above, to be a pair number, I'd say).
So the (laptop) resolution was born: 1366 x 768.

This may just be a coincidence and that's what I want to know. What truly is the origin of all these sizes and who decided them?

[Assistant]
Back in the olden days a standard screen was big enough to display 80 characters across and 60 vertically (for a 4:3 aspect ratio) and each character was 8 pixels wide and 8 pixels tall. Thus the overall resolution was 640x480. There were smaller ones before but this was considered a universal standard by that point. From there every resolution was a multiple of 8 more pixels. This standard comes from IBM who were *the* powerhouse in personal computing at the time.

The reason 8x8 was chosen for a character size is so that in an 8x8 grid you can address both the vertical and horizontal using only one byte for each. In fact, if you tried to make it lower, such as 7x7 you would still need one byte for each since a byte is the smallest addressable unit in a computer. The vast majority do not support addressing the individual bits and to do so would require another more complex hardware. Thus 8x8 is the most efficient and 16x16 is too big.

So more or less you are correct.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do companies, like Coca Cola, not brand their products, like Minute Maid, with their names?

[Assistant]
To give the illusion of choice.   They don't want you to realize how many products they own and appear as  a monopoly to someone that uses a lot of their products.

Also, they have acquired many of these companies AFTER coke and want to keep THAT products name to preserve loyalty and brand recognition.


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

[User]
Could the fact that we can't tell if a black hole is made of matter or anti matter explain the matter-anti matter disparity of the universe?

I'm asking if matter and anti matter could have been created in equal amounts at the big bang, and more anti matter than matter formed black holes, and the rest annihilated, leaving just matter and black holes made of both.

[Assistant] When the universe was young, it was more homogeneous than it is now (it is quite homogeneous now too). So, the chances of anti-matter clumping together to attain energy densities requires to form a black hole are pretty non existent.


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

[User]
[Death Note] If Light was so smart, then why didnt he use multiple ways of killing people instead of just heart attacks?

I get that at some points he used different forms of killing, but those were mainly for experiments or to mess with L. Why didnt he just use all different forms of killing to murder the criminals?

[Assistant]
Because Light's entire goal was to be noticed.

It wasn't just about murdering criminals or some black and white version of justice that drove him. Light wanted to be Kira. He wanted to be god. And the best way to be a god is to make sure everybody knows about you, and knows what the consequences of disobeying you are.

Causing the mass heart attacks of every known criminal across the entire planet is a pretty sure fire way of making sure you're known.

The only reason he bothered with any other forms of murder at all were, as you said, either as experiments with the Death Note or to keep people from tying him to Kira in any way.

That and the fact that attempting to mass murder people efficiently and in different or natural seeming ways is functionally impossible. There's only so many ways to die, and regardless, patterns would be picked up eventually anyway, leading to a Death Note style investigation and Death Note style Kira.


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

[User]
[GOT] Why do so many of the Wildlings have such finely crafted weapons?

No doubt that they're skilled at smithing, but most use fairly simple, unrearkable weapons. So why do a fair few (Tormund, Thenns) have weapons that look far more decorative and well forged than many of those seen further south.
Are the wildlings simply better weapon smiths than we'd expect from their culture, or did they obtain them from elsewhere?

I doubt they got them from the Watch either as they're not particularly well armed themselves.

[Assistant] I think we are seeing the "aristocracy" of the wildlings in most scenes.  These are the leaders of the various tribes, they would have claimed the best weapons from plunder as their own, and would pass them down to their children.


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

[User]
[Spider-Man] Does Spidey Sense alert Peter about regular, everyday dangers?

For example, if he goes to grab a piece of paper, but the way hes gonna grab will give him a nasty papercut. Will Spidey Sense kick in and tell him to grab a different way?

Just for example.

[Assistant]
Maybe not, but itll probably warn him right before someone opens a door, regardless of their intentions. He probably just knows the door is going to open.

Theres a thing in the marvel universe that Peter makes the best pancakes because his spidey sense alerts him as to when to flip them.

So it seems it can be used for not dangerious things, but also things hes focusing on?