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

[User] [General videogames] I just felt a shotgun blast to my face, a grenade to my feet and felt off a cliff, but I can somehow move and function at full speed, yet my mind tells me only 2% of my body is functioning, What is happening? Are my senses fooling me?

[Assistant]
**Wall Of Text Incoming**

You are the pilot of a Combat Offensive Drone, a long range infantry robot designed to mimic humans in appearance for the comfort of foreign noncombatants. The C.O.D is controlled via secure satellite uplink to a classified room in an undisclosed location somewhere within the United States.

Inside that room, your actual human body is strapped to a padded cot set at a 45 degree angle. Several neurofiber cables extend from a synapse-to-signal conversion box into your skull while other fiber optic cables connect the box to the satellite uplink.

From your perspective, an attractive nurse in a uniform strapped you to a table and injected you with something, causing you to close your eyes for a second or two and open them to find yourself lying face-up on the ground inside a military base in an undisclosed country.

You were then guided by another C.O.D to the armory, where you were given your equipment, and then to the command post, where a C.O.D piloted by your commanding officer gave you your orders.

The sensations you are feeling are damage-to-pain indicator signals. When your C.O.D takes physical damage, it sends a signal via the uplink back to the synapse-to-signal conversion box, which converts it to a pain receptor signal proportional to the damage and sends it to your brain.

The purpose of this is to enable you to recognize when your C.O.D is damaged so that you can pilot it in a way that minimizes said damage. C.O.D's are expensive, after all, and the military would very much prefer that you avoid outright destroying one through operator error.

 The pain is dialed down to a level the military officially certifies as "sub-traumatic", so that you aren't rendered incapable of continuous operation of the C.O.D and also so that you can't claim compensation for PTSD after you leave the service.

Your brain cannot reconcile the feeling of pain all over what it believes to be your body while at the same time finding itself not incapacitated by that pain, which is where your confusion stems from. Most pilots find that over time they are able to train themselves to ignore the conflicting sensations and push through.

 If you find yourself incapable of this, please inform the nurse when you are disconnected. She will ensure that you are reassigned to a more suitable position.

We hope that this information resolves your concerns.


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

[User] [Star Wars] what's the difference between a Sith and a Dark Jedi?

[Assistant]
All sith are dark jedi, but not all dark jedi are sith. Eloquently summed up in the novel *Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil* by Jedi Master Obba;

> "What's the difference between a Sith and a Dark Jedi?" Lucia asked.

> The Ithorian stopped pacing and turned to face them, instinctively addressing his audience like a teacher giving a lesson.

> "The Sith were the sworn enemies of the Jedi and the Republic. They sought to wipe us from existence; they sought to rule the galaxy. They united their strength in the Brotherhood of Darkness, drawing countless followers to their cause with false promises. They amassed an army of individuals foolish and desperate enough to believe their lies, and they plunge the galaxy into a war that threatened to destroy us all."

...

> "A Dark Jedi, on the other hand, has much smaller ambitions. He - or she - thinks only of himself. He acts alone. The ultimate goal is not galactic conquest, but personal wealth and importance. Like a common thug or criminal, he revels in cruelty and selfishness. He preys upon the weak and vulnerable, spreading misery and suffering wherever he goes."

The Sith, therefore, have had many differing incarnations (the ancient Sith order of Marka Ragnos/Naga Sadow, the Rule of Two, Brotherhood of Darkness, Rule of one) but are all unified by vastly similar secrets, rituals and end goal of galactic domination. It is very much a club that not just any Darkside user can join but must be inducted by a member into.

Non-Sith dark jedi tend to be out for their own non sith goals, unless they are part of a group of Dark Jedi under the control of the Sith (not inducted into the Sith order but generally following the Sith in order to take the eventual chance).

The Sith also believe themselves to be inherently superior to all non-sith dark jedi - The Sith use their emotions, but can also control them and not let themselves be slaves to them. Furthermore, at least according to Count Dooku in his first encounter with Asajj Ventress, the Sith don't allow themselves to feel any fear, which although leads to the dark side does not provide much use and is a liability for a Sith Master.


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

[User] Is Maths a branch of Logic or is Logic a branch of Maths? Why? What does it mean to be a "branch of" a discipline?

[Assistant] A branch of another discipline would mean everything contained in the branch is a subset of the parent discipline. This would be like calculus being a branch of mathematics since everything in calculus is math but math is more than just calculus. Neither math not logic is a branch of the other since both has a scope beyond what is tought in the other. Mathematical logic is a branch of both logic and math but Math has more topics beyond that like calculus and logic has more topics beyond that like logical theories in formal languages.


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

[User] ELI5:why do pro gamers retire in their early 20's? Do your reflexes really drop so significantly that early in life?

[Assistant]
Several reasons:

1) you don't really make that much money.  Only top players make the big money.  For every guy making over $100k a year, there are hundreds who don't.  It's kind of like the acting industry.  The top 1% of actors make huge money, the other 99% are broke.  At some point these guys realize they will never be a top player and they can make more money doing something else.

2) it not all fun and games, it is a job.  These guys play the same game every day for 12+ hours a day to be as good as they are.  Just imagine that.  It would get real boring, really quickly.  Also, they are not playing to have fun, they are playing to win.  They only get paid when they win, so there is a lot of stress to win.  Even if these guys are on contract with guaranteed pay, they are always at risk of losing that contract if their performance slips or if the team finds a better player to replace them.

3) medical reasons.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Carpal tunnel syndrome is real and extremely painful.  Using all those fine motor skills in the hand can actually damage the muscles and tendons in the hand.  Our hands were not designed to use the fine motor muscle constantly for hours on end.  Also, the pressure and constant stress to win takes a physical toll on the body.

4) games change.  Most professional gamers specialize in 1 or maybe 2 games.  After a few years, and as new games come out, older games stop getting media coverage and the prize money for their tournaments drop.  In some cases, tournaments cease to exist for that game and there is no more demand.  If you are lucky, your chosen game will have several iterations (like Halo or COD) that only have minor changes as each new version comes out.  If not, there is no guarantee that you will be as good at a different game.

5) At some point, you want a normal life.  You want to be able to date, get married, have kids, etc.  You need a stable career and free time to do this.


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

[User] ELI5:How does Thermal Imaging work?

[Assistant]
Heat sources emit electromagnetic radiation with a frequency respecting to their temperature. The visible spectrum of EM radiation ranges from red to violet. The sun's surface is about 5000 Kelvin hot and our eyes happen to see this light. Infrared means that the frequency of the EM radiation coming from an object is below the visible specrum due to lower temperature than the sun, anyway it can still be detected and it's frequency measured pretty accurately.

But How do we get a picture we CAN see?

Like digital cameras have light sensitive chips that render visible light directly to true red- green- and blue information in their memory, we can build a chip that detects light of lower frequency and renders it to any other colour and intensity value in real time.

It's just a microchip doing real time calculus, mapping the gathered frequency and intensity information to another color map we can display and see.


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

[User]
[To Kill a Mockingbird] Why was Arthur "Boo" Radley stuck inside his house?

Is he imprisoned against his will by someone or does he simply want to be a hermit/recluse? Was he expected to stay inside for the remainder of his life?

[Assistant]
The only detail we get is that his father used to lock him up in the basement, suggesting he was a victim of severe abuse.

Judging from his extreme pallor and strange, halting speech patterns, the implication seems to be that he is in some way mentally ill and not able to handle basic social activity, either a consequence of his illness or his mistreatment at his father's hands. It may be that he is dangerous- though given what happened to Bob Ewell, if he IS dangerous, it's probably not to innocents (not that people in this provincial community would make such a distinction)


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

[User]
[DC] Does the Joker like lesser villains that he either might find funny, or have similar taste?

Im thinking of The Trickster, Toyman, are his taste but he wouldnt find them threatening-so no murder possibly.

Kite-man, 10 eyes man, Condiment king-I could see him laughing his ass off at them.

[Assistant] Nope. He has always hated his "imitations." The only one he considers a peer is the Riddler. He's more playful and less scary when he picks on him. In the War of Jokes and Riddles, Riddler enacts a giant elaborate plan to make Joker (who has been down) laugh. He unintentionally gets the laugh when he tries to stab Joker in frustration and Batman steps between them.


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

[User] How big would a sphere (or planet) of water have to be for ice to form at the core?

[Assistant] You must specify what temperature this sphere should have to be able to answer the question. If it was just put in empty space it would cool to close to the absolute zero temperature and freeze no matter what the size.


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

[User] [The Truman Show] What did they do with that giant set of his after Truman escaped?

[Assistant]
They opened it up to the public as a very expensive theme-park.

After the world watched the producers try to kill Truman to prevent his escape without divers in the water or any other sort of reasonable controls, the process became a legal nightmare as they had to offer Truman a nine figure settlement for emotional duress, back pay, and exploitation of his likeness which included a large portion of the royalties.


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

[User] ELI5: when I'm very intoxicated why does the cold weather not bother me?

[Assistant] Alcohol dilates (expands) your blood vessels. This makes you feel warmer because more blood (which carries heat) is being pumped to your extremities. However, this is bad because it means you're losing heat faster and your core (heart and other organs) is losing heat which leads to hypothermia and potentially death.


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

[User]
CMV: I believe that professional porn stars and prostitutes (both sexes) are the same, and since one is legal, they both should be.

It doesn't make any sense to me how prostitution is illegal in the US (except for that one area in what, Nevada?) but professional porn companies that pay people to have sex on the camera are completely legal and legitimate businesses. I feel as if these companies are simply exploiting sex workers and that prostitutes could greatly benefit from being able to legally exchange sex for money. They make the rules, they decide who they work with and how often they do it, where they want to live and work, and all their income goes to them. There's no middle man and no pressure to do something they're not comfortable with. Why do they have to work for someone else? Why can't they run their own business?

[Assistant]
In the result, it may seem they are similar.  However, this is how it is different:

Porn is still considered a function of film, and thus creative artistic license.  What does that mean?  That means it's an issue of freedom of speech.  Yes, quite a bit of porn out there isn't really much of a film in terms of how we would normally judge a film.  But there are plenty of films that tread this line, so where does it end?  In banning pornography, can there never be a sex scene in a movie again?  That's why it's legal- because to outlaw it is to create a slippery slope that inherently violates some freedom of speech issues.

Prostitution is a direct business transaction, and therefore does not fall privy under freedom of speech.  As a business interaction it can be open to regulation, or being outlawed.  That's the fundamental difference between them.  Although it seems silly because the end product seems basically the same, how both mediums actually interact with society as a whole are vastly different.


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

[User]
How far is a meteor from an observer?

When I see a shooting star in the sky, how far could it possibly be from me? Clearly, it varies, but what would the maximum range be?

[Assistant] They become visible around 100 km altitude. So if it's overhead or nearly so then that's roughly the distance to it. If it's near the horizon then it could be much further away. 100 km altitude and exactly at the horizon would be about 1,100 km away. Unlikely that you could see one exactly at the horizon but you asked for the maximum.


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

[User]
CMV: The only valid moral philosophy is one that compels minimization of suffering and maximization of happiness. The disdain at the idea of killing someone for their organs is not evidence of a flaw in utilitarianism, but in human evaluation of ethical conundrums.

Since the dawn of moral philosophy, it seems, people have attacked systems of ethics with a variation of this tactic:

Person 1 - "I've come up with a system of ethics. Let me explain it to you. It's based on these principles..."

Person 2, after thinking - "Ok, but imagine y scenario. It feels weird to just allow y scenario to happen, but it does, if your ideas are true."

This is ridiculous. A moral system can't be wrong because "it allows x to happen and I don't like that because x seems axiomatically bad". Moral systems serve to evaluate our actions and tell us what the right thing to do is, not to just conform to our ingrained sense of morality. They should only care about how we feel about certain scenarios inasmuch as they have to factor that into their analysis. Suggesting otherwise is a naturalistic fallacy.

And yet, a ton of arguments I see time and time again utilitarianism in general falls into this basket of bullshit reasoning.

"A single healthy mans life is greater than that of four dying people because muh feelings"

I cant push a fat man onto the train tracks to save 5 people why would I do that how could you suggest I do that

These are not arguments against utilitarianism. Theyre statements about how you feel about certain scenarios in ethics. You havent argued for anything, unless your goal is to establish a moral philosophy of my personal inclinations.

Actions should be evaluated by their consequences. If an action does not cause suffering, then, even if unsettling, it is either good or neutral.

The only bad thing in the world is suffering. The only good thing in the world is joy. All else is meaningful because it means a subset of these emotions or a mix of them. The child dies, but the bad part is the fact that you/the childs family are suffering from it. Things like eating and having sex are fun not because all sentient beings are somehow objectively attracted to these things, but because weve evolved to have those value systems. We care about our young because we were programmed that way by nature, and that doesnt make it less meaningful, but it does show that whats really bad about children dying is the suffering that results. Not the death of the child.

Given this I find it hard that hedonistic utilitarianism isn't more accepted. Minimization of suffering and maximization of happiness should be the basic goal of all people. Good and bad emotions are the only things that are, in of themselves good and bad.

The reason, I think, that something as obvious as utilitarianism is not more accepted, is because human morals arent bound by what is going to actually help us as a society. Not just that, anyways. I think humans care about things like whether or not the person was involved in the trolley accident. The reason most people flip the switch to divert the trolley into 5 people instead of 3 but refuse to push the fat man onto the tracks to stop it wholesale is because the fat man is an onlooker. Hes not involved. Humans care more about people that didnt get themselves into situations where they would be tied onto train tracks. Theyd rather get rid of the bad humans than the good ones. Not only do I think this is faulty reasoning, I find it disgusting as well.

Note: I have to answer you guys from my phone and I cannot type as quickly as Id like, so I will be answering fewer comments until I reach my home desktop computer.

Edit: I'm going to be back in an hour, something came up, I made some quick replies.

[Assistant]
> Minimization of suffering and maximization of happiness should be the basic goal of all people. Good and bad emotions are the only things that are, in of themselves good and bad.

This isn't well-defined though. Minimizing suffering and maximizing happiness can be in conflict. Consider the following scenarios:

Scenario A: 10,000 really happy people

Scenario B: 20,000 really happy people and 50,000 content people

Scenario C: 50,000 really happy people, and 100,000 desperately miserable people

Is B preferable to A because there is more happiness, even if the average happiness is lower? Is C preferable to B because there is more happiness, even if there is more suffering?

If there's no logical order of preference to those scenarios, the goal is impossible.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are rocket exhaust ports increasing in diameter, while jet engine exhaust ports are decreasing?

[Assistant]
Wasn't going to answer, but a lot of these answers are missing the main point.

The point of an an engine is to shoot gas out the back as fast as possible. The faster the gas goes, the more thrust per mass you get.

For gas flows below the speed of sound, increasing the pressure makes them faster. All nozzles, jet or rocket, will include a section that decreases in size. This accelerates the gas until it reaches the speed of sound, and for most jet engines that's all that we do.

However, rocket engines really need more thrust per mass of gas expelled, because every gram of gas expelled takes up space in a very limited fuel tank, so they accelerate the gasses even more, using what is called a de Laval nozzle (converging-diverging).

For supersonic flows, the effect of pressure changes. Now, low pressures make the gas go faster, so we expand the gas as much as possible as soon as our flow reaches the "throat", where the gas flow reaches the speed of sound.

Of course, we can't expand the gas until it has lower pressure than the atmosphere, because then the atmosphere kind of pushes back into the nozzle, and we can get some really weird shockwave-type effects. But that's talk for another day.


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

[User]
ELI5:how is blood transfusion biologically possible?

i don't know if i am being too stupid right now, but this question used to scratch my head for years. well, as i know due to my school-level biology knowledge, DNA's literally everywhere in one's organism; thus in a blood too.

what i can't get is the fact that blood transfusion is very viral and common in medicine nowadays; when one gets another human's blood, it's logical he gets different dna too. and what does happen then? are these two kinds of dna mixed together? how one can have dna different from his own and original one (and especially both his own and transfused ones?).

shouldn't new blood change a person due to the fact he has new dna?

[Assistant]
Actually, red blood cells, RBC for short, mature, their nucleus and its DNA shrinks and disappears.  This allows that concave shape that they appear to have, which fills with oxygen/CO2. Only mature cells have no DNA or nucleus.

The thing that gets tricky is the antigens and antibodies associated with the blood types. For example, if you have Type O blood, you hold no antigens (acceptable types of blood) to types A/B/AB, so your body will attack them because your body holds antibodies to these. (Keep in mind type O is recessive and considered harmless to the other types of blood)

Say you have Type A, you hold antigens to type A, meaning it's an acceptable type, but to O as well, since it's the recessive blood type. You have antibodies to B. The same way if you hold type B blood, just the opposite to A. If you have AB blood, you hold antigens for A, B, and AB (And O because O has no antigens since it's recessive and harmless)

As for the negative and positive, this is based off the plasma of the blood, being negative or positive.

If the wrong blood is placed into the body, it causes an immune system attack, and you will most likely die.

Source: school for hematology.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we get "the bends" when we climb down a mountain too fast but, we can jump out of a plane thousands of feet in the air and land in a matter of minutes without negative effects?

[Assistant]
It's actually in the other direction, going from high pressure to low, that causes the problems.

People who skydive must wait 24 hours after going scuba diving, due to the risks created by blood gases that have not had enough time to return to "sea level" concentrations.

(and it's not the skydive that causes the problem, it's the ascent to 14,000 or so feet in an unpressurized aircraft...)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that paper cups get mushy and starts to fall apart within an hour when holding cold fluids, but are perfectly okay with holding hot fluids like coffee indefinetly?

The Starbucks I go to ran out of cold cups for my ice coffee. They put in a hot cup instead. In a matter of a car ride,  it almost fell apart as I picked it up.  This never happens with my hot coffee?

Edit: i get it, I get it. It sounds like my coffee is hot indefinetly.

[Assistant]
Paper cups are coated with a waterproof layer on the inside, but not on the outside. When they contain hot drinks, the liquid is touching this impermeable barrier, so doesn't get the paper wet. However, a cold drink cools its container, making water vapour from the atmosphere condense on the outside - that's why your ice water glass "sweats" on a hot day: the water forming on the outside is not seeping through the glass, but rather condensing out of the air, just like when you breathe on a mirror and it fogs up.

However, the paper cup only has a waterproof barrier on the inside. This condensation on the outside of the cup can soak into the paper and make it go soggy.


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

[User]
[Fallout/Elderscrolls] What's a sweet toll taste like?

Can someone tell some of the ingredients so I can eat and gain its power to fight this dragon?

[Assistant]
1 x Salt Pile

1 x Jug of Milk

1 x Sack of Flour

1 x Butter

1 x Chicken's Egg

Judging by the ingredients, Nords had a pretty limited idea on what was "sweet". They are a hardy people, but not particularly blessed in the kitchen.


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

[User]
ELI5: is autism more prevalant these days or has our awareness & diagnosis increased?

If it IS more prevalant, why?

[Assistant] "Autism" encompasses a much larger spectrum than it used to. Decades ago, many people with high functioning forms of autism would've just been brushed off as weird or awkward. We now know a lot more about autism and can assign it accurately to more people. At the same time, it is misdiagnosed more often because it does encompass so much more now.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did humans in Asia evolve to have narrower eyes, why did Africans skin stay black while Arabic and European peoples became lighter?

No offense meant, just phrasing the question as best I can as to how some humans evolved with certain traits and how the process occurred.

[Assistant]
If you live in the tropics, dark skin is a helpful adaptation, because it protects your skin from sunlight (fewer sun burns and cancers).

If you live in the northern latitudes where there is significantly less sun certain times of the year, light skin is a helpful adaptation, because it allows more sunlight to penetrate the dermis, thereby creating more vitamin D.

The primary characteristic of east Asian eyes is called the *epicanthic fold*, and we believe it may have evolved to protect the eye from harsh winds, but the jury is still out on that one.


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

[User] ELI5 : Why aren't we hibernating in winter like most of other mammals ?

[Assistant] Humans evolved in a tropical part of Africa, and are adapted for existing in that sort of environment. We can adapt ourselves to live in colder environments, but have to provide shelter and clothing to survive there. You can live naked in the jungle with very few tools--ask any of the tribes all around the world who pretty much live that way. For the same reason, we're never going to be able to hibernate, we simply did not evolve that way.


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

[User]
ELI5: Would we eventually run out of space on the "cloud" to store data?

If I'm understanding this correctly, the cloud is effectively servers that are running in data centers... But as more and more people are storing things in these data centers and that we have to build more, would we eventually run out of places to store them?

[Assistant]
Not until we run out of bigger and bigger and more hard drives, servers and data centers to store them in.

As storage tech gets better, we retire older, power hungry inefficient storage drives and move all our data over to newer bigger faster small devices. So yes, even though the volume of data that that generate every day is not only constant but increasing, our capacity to store it all is catching up. Eventually we'll come up with cool crystalline storage cubes where individual molecules are reoriented to reflect bit status and we can pack the entire known internet (like as of today) into a bowling ball or something.

But yeah, if storage and server tech wasn't also continually increasing and improving, we'd "fill" all of the existing cloud storage and server capacity probably in a matter of months.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do people go bald on their heads, but not their faces?

Every bald person has a beard....why does the face not go bald as well?

[Assistant]
Baldness, if we're talking the typical male-pattern-baldness you seem to be addressing here and not fringe/rare cases, is caused by the hair follicles found on the scalp reacting to androgens in the body.

Other body hair does not have this reactivity to the particular androgen, dihydrotestosterone (DHT), that the scalp follicles do... which is why you see completely bald men who have huge beards, hairy arms, hairy chests, etc. None of their non-scalp hair is in danger of falling out because of sensitivity to androgens.


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

[User]
ELI5: How companies (Arizona, Santitas) can regulate the price that every retailer charges for their product

I am curious about how this works because no end retailer or anywhere in between can only charge one price since it is labeled directly on the product.

[Assistant] I think that's why they label it like that. If you want to sell their product your only going to be able to charge the price on the can or look bad to your customers. If they don't want to sell for that price carry a competing product.


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

[User] Why does light not bend when it hits perpendicular to a new medium?

[Assistant]
Here's a symmetry argument: Which way would the beam get re-directed?  There is no preferred direction, so it wouldn't be consistent for the light to be deflected one way or another.

More precisely: If the situation is rotationally symmetric along the axis  along which the incoming light travels, the behavior of the outgoing light must be unchanged under rotations about that axis.  Consequently, the beam of light going into the new medium has to go along the same direction as the incident light was traveling in the situation you describe.


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

[User]
Why does my shower curtain blow inwards while water is running?

All I want to do is have a shower without the curtain constantly sticking to various body parts.

[Assistant]
Prof. David Schmidt, who did computational fluid dynamics modeling of this phenomenon and won a 2001 Ignoble Prize for the work, has a shower curtain across his office door at UMass-Amherst.

The spray of water causes a vortex of air to form (a sideways tornado), and the low pressure region in the middle of the vortex pulls the curtain inward. This is why it also happens with cold water. Thermal buoyancy effects aren't enough to move the curtain

Solution - use an air permeable shower curtain made of polyester fabric.

Source: Was one of his students.


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

[User]
eli5: Why are video file sizes so small?

A normal image stored on a phone is around 5 mb, if you calculate that way, a 1080p 60 fps video should be 60 frames X 5 mb X 600 seconds = 180000 MB= 180GB. But if you check a file size of an actual 10 minute video, it is only around 1GB. How can it be so small?

[Assistant]
Video compression. The video file doesnt store every frame, it just stores what changes between frames.

Periodically there will be a full frame, called a key frame, just to reset everything but most of the frames in the file are just a small list of changes from the prior frame. Unless theres a jump cut, there is usually very little difference between adjacent frames.

Basically, the video file isnt the video, its instructions to the software on how to recreate the video in real time.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is Mexico so poor compared to the US and Canada?

They all were settled at similar times. Is it due to the Spanish taking out all of the gold? Does it stem from their loss in the Mexican-American War? Is there a more recent cause?

[Assistant]
Canada and the USA were settled by parceling out land and by bringing excess labor from abroad (Europe, Africa, etc.  Mainly Europe though) to develop the land.  So this lower population density allows for a more equitable distribution of land.  This also affects the way the colonists are treated by the governments that were set up.

Mexico and South America had the larger native populations and the system for settling was not to develop and make life better for colonists, but instead to extract wealth and labor to Spain. The majority of the labor was done by natives and when they died off Africans were brought in massive numbers.  This method of colonization also set up governments that were more oppressive for the people of Mexico since Spain didn't view Creoles as highly as England saw USA and Canadian colonies.

Another important aspect is the environment.  Jungles, deserts and mountains are a lot harder to develop. Those are the main habitats in Mexico and the rest of the Americas.

These reasons are more of roots,  but there's plenty more reasons that require more reading and can't he Eli as easily.


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

[User]
[Truman Show] Does the main cast ever get down time to live some kind of life outside the show? If not, aren't they just as much prisoners as Truman?

I'm thinking especially Truman's wife Meryl. She has been with him since high school. She lives with him, sleeps with him (and has sex with him). She can't really leave him for any long period of time so does she even have friends in the real world anymore? She crossed her fingers when they got married but what was the point? If you end up living with someone for 10 years and having their baby you're functionally in a monogamous relationship anyway, even if you're only doing it for your career.

EDIT: clarified what I meant by "sleep with"

[Assistant]
Truman's at work all day and sleeping at night.  There's plenty of down time for everybody, even his wife.  She may leave the dome while he's working and go to Los Angeles to run errands, go shopping, and have lunch with her friends.  Or she could just go to her house in Beverly Hills, lounge in her pool, and crash for a few hours.

Regulars could have it in their contract that their real-life families get a house in Seahaven.  There's a hell of a lot of space to fill, so using family as extras kind of makes budgetary sense.

They probably even get annual vacation.  They have to travel to "visit a sick mother" or something.


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

[User]
At what size does a wire mesh stop acting as a Faraday cage?

Wire meshes can often be used as Faraday cages to shield the inside from exterior electromagnetic waves. At some point,  the mesh should stop being a Faraday cage if the holes keep getting bigger. So at what size of mesh does the mesh stop being effective at screening incoming waves?

[Assistant] Faraday cages stop being effective as the mesh size approaches the wavelength of light. For microwaves, notice that the protective wire mesh has mm-sized holes in it. If they were cm-sized, it wouldn't screen the microwaves as effectively.


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

[User]
What causes the film on hot milk?

I've noticed that when I heat up milk or another liquid that is mostly dairy it forms a thin film on the surface if it gets hot enough. What causes this and is there a way to prevent it?

[Assistant] Milk contains proteins, for example lactoglobulins. When you heat it up, they denature, that is, they lose their structure, stick together and form that surface film. There's really no way to avoid that except for constant vigorous stirring to prevent the coagulation.


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

[User]
ELI5 how the body has developed to not have an upper limit of the fat it can or wants to store

The question came up when thinking about phones stopping to charge when the reaching 100% battery. It appears the body keeps accumulating fat even when it's excessive.

[Assistant]
Because, historically, it hasn't been a problem.  Evolution doesn't have a goal or an end state it is after - it simply 'rewards' traits that grant increased reproductive fitness.

Up until the last ~50 years or so, having _too much_ food has not been a problem, so it was rare for people to get so fat that it caused health issues.  Since it wasn't a common problem, we never evolved to avoid it.


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

[User]
Advice on how to include or document code into a dissertation

Hi, the core of my dissertation is not coding. However to do all the studies I had to write a series of scripts to handle the data for either visualizations or any sort of analysis. For the niche group of researchers in this topic, we consider these pieces of code could be useful. So, besides including a github repository with mys scripts, could anyone share tips on how to include this type of work? Is it an appendix the best alternative? Or is this worth a chapter?

[Assistant] Apart from the appendix, which is a good idea, you can also create project for your dissertation on Open science foundation or Zonedo and link your GitHub repo, to make it more visible for researchers.


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

[User] Why is String Theory considered to be "un-testable"?

[Assistant]
To test quantum gravity theories, you need a situation in which both quantum and gravitational effects are significant. We only know of two such scenarios: black holes and the big bang. All the black holes are too far away and too big to yield useful information about quantum gravitational effects. We can only see back to about 400,000 years after the big bang, so any of the initial quantum gravitational effects are currently unaccessible, although there may be clues in the cosmic microwave background soectrum, as well as any primordial neutrinos or gravitational waves if we are able to detect them.

There is the other issue that string theory is not yet complete to the point where it can make unique predictions, but that can be said about any quantum gravity theory.


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

[User] What exactly happens when fruit becomes ripe? Why was it once sour and now sweet? Where did the sourness go, and where did the sweetness come from? Also, what explains the change of color in something like a banana?

[Assistant] When a fruit ripens, it converts complex carbohydrates, basically starch, into simpler sugars, glucose, fructose, sucrose etc. For bananas, and many other fruits, the signal to start converting the starch to simple sugars is ethylene gas. This is why "one bad apple can ruin the bunch" as an over ripe fruit is oozing ethylene which induces rapid ripening of the surrounding fruit. Fruit is often picked very under ripe because it is firmer and less likely to be damaged during transport, then, once it gets to its destination it is treated with ethylene to induce ripening.


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

[User]
By guessing the rate of the Expansion of the universe, do we know how big the unobservable universe is?

So we are closer in size to the observable universe than the plank lentgh, but what about the unobservable universe.

[Assistant]
We measure the size of the unobservable universe by measuring the curvature of the local universe. If it has zero curvature, the universe is flat and infinite. If it has negative curvature, it has a hyperbolic shape, and is also infinite. If it has positive curvature, it has a hyperspherical shape (like a sphere but in more dimensions), and we can use the curvature to work out the size of the universe.

Currently it really looks like the universe is very very flat, so it looks like it's infinite. Unfortunately, all measurements must have an uncertainty, which means that it's technically possible that the universe is finite in size - it's just that the curvature is so small that we can't actually see it.

Edit: For a flat universe, =1. For a spherical universe, >1. We have =1.000.02. For =0.98, the radius of curvature of the universe would be about 30 gigaparsecs, which is on the scale of the total size of the observable universe - although we've only observed galaxies up to about 4 Gpc, and only with tricky lensing techniques.


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

[User]
Why is high barometric pressure indicative of good weather and low indicative of rainy weather?

Isn't an atmostphere with more water vapor within it more dense than the one without?

[Assistant]
Actually its quite the opposite!  You may be thinking that water vapor is "added" to dry air which would increase the mass of a particular parcel of air but instead you should think of it as displacing the dry air instead.  As it turns out, Water Vapor is actually less dense than a parcel of completely dry air.  So the more water vapor you add to a parcel, the more buoyant it becomes.  If you think about the components of dry air and water this becomes a bit more evident.  A molecule of water is made up of 2 hydrogen atoms and a single oxygen atom.  Dry air is basically (not including trace components here and doing some slight rounding) made up 80% of Nitrogen (molecules of 2 Nitrogen atoms) and 20% Oxygen (molecules of 2 Oxygen atoms).  Both Nitrogen and Oxygen molecules weigh far more than a water molecule due to the very low atomic weight of hydrogen.  The molar mass of water vapor is ~.8g/mol while the molar mass of dry air is ~1.25g/mol.  So when that water vapor replaces other molecules in dry air, its easy to see why the density drops.

As a parcel of air rises, the water vapor will condense out due to the lower pressures and dropping air temperature.  However, condensation of water releases energy into the atmosphere which means the temperature of a more saturated parcel of air will drop more slowly as it rises and allows it to rise farther and faster.

So that addresses how air with a higher water vapor content rises but it doesn't really address your initial question about barometric pressure.  Areas of high pressure are generally associated with air that is sinking while the opposite is true for areas of low pressure.  Because rising air is necessary to form clouds and in turn form precipitation, areas of low pressure have a higher incidence of rainy weather.

That being said, low pressure isn't going to produce rainy weather if no water vapor is present, so the barometric guidelines are just used in a general sense.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does one get a weird and somewhat unusual feeling when coming back to their home after a long trip ?

Do you all know what I am talking about? When you go on vacation or a trip away from your home for about a month or more and then you return back to your home, you get an unusual or a sort of "weird" feeling. Your house smells different when you walk through the door and it seems kind of unfamiliar. This weird and unusual feeling usually goes away after a day, but what is going on here? Why do we feel this way?

[Assistant] I don't know for sure, yet it seems rather obvious to me. Normally, when you are not on vacation, you wake up in the same bed, in the same house, and that is the place that you spend most of your time in. When you've been on vacation for a while, your brains have adjusted to living in a different environment, and they have sort of "forgotten" about your home. When you return home and see it again, the memories of your home flood back. It smells and look different from the place that you have been having a vacation at for the past days. That's why it feels kind of outplaced, different.


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

[User] ELI5: How do linguists research pre-written languages like Proto-Indo European without any evidence?

[Assistant]
tl;dr: It's a (very carefully-thought-out) educated  guess.

A little background first:

Languages change over time, usually very slowly and in subtle ways. For example, some sounds are so similar that when someone is talking fast, you might not hear the difference and learn the "wrong" version. If enough people hear the other thing and teach their kids, the word changes *in that village*.  Twenty miles away, they're still saying that word the way they always have, but they've changed some other word that your village didn't.

Stick some wolves in the forest so no one travels that way, and eventually, with the two village never talking to each other, they start talking differently. The teenagers make up cool new slang. They start hearing an "accent" when they meet someone from the other village. The accent gets stronger as they keep changing without each other. Then, one day, their kids can't understand each other. They speak different languages.

Now, to answer your question:

Let's say they all start writing at the same time. So you know how they talk at that point. It hasn't been that long since village A and B were talking the same, but you can see some differences. If they both have the same word for something, they probably had the same word when they were together. If the word is different, but it's still pretty close, then you do have to guess at what it used to be.

BUT we can make pretty good guesses. It's fairly likely that only one of them changed. Say village A says the word "fifth" and village B has the easier-to-say word "fith". Do you think village A added an extra sound to "fith" to make it harder to say? Or that village B simplified the word over time? Both are possible, but one answer makes a lot more sense, and matches what we see modern languages doing.

Researchers do this with grammar too, not just words, and they have a lot more than just two languages/dialects to work with, all at different stages of "time spent apart".


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

[User]
[The Flash] What were the ethics around the The Pipeline prison? It's basically indefinite solitary confinement.

*edit: Thanks for all the responses and discussion. You might notice I haven't added much to the conversation, and that's entirely because I have no idea what the ethical implications would be in this case; it may be better for me to just listen than spout off on something I know very little about.*

[Assistant]
Fascist dictatorships generally occur when people with power decide to start exercising it against those who don't. The Flash, a being of nearly infinite power (time travel, c'mon), and his then-mentor the Anti-Flash (by all accounts a major dick) decided that it was better to exercise his power over his captured foes by imprisoning them forever and "worrying about it later", rather than facing the present-day ethical issue of either killing these people, finding a cure for their super-powered mutations, or rehabilitating them psychologically.

So basically, the ethics are "it's easier to not think about it". Also, who knows if they're being fed or not, that gas guy is probably gonna leak out of any airlock designed to allow food in.


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

[User]
ELI5: If we are our brains, where am "I" (the voice in my head) inside of all that mass of neurons and connective tissues?

Mainly curious about the voice in my head when you think about things. Where am "I"?

[Assistant]
That's the problem of consciousness: we just don't know.

There are some who think that consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon: get enough neurons in one place arranged correctly and poof! conscious person.

Some believe that it's not physical, or that we don't know the physical properties that make it up yet.

Of course, it's also possible that you're the only conscious individual in existence, and everyone else is just a construct of your mind.  In that case, consciousness is a property of the universe, and you are the universe.


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

[User]
For mosquito bites, does the whole "Draw an X into your skin with your fingertips" have any basis in science, or is it just an old wives' tale?

I've come across this many time, including on Reddit, the idea is that if you press your fingernails into a mosquito bite twice (to make the shape of an X or cross), it will release the toxins, or spread them out over a larger part of the skin to reduce the itch, or some such thing. Does this idea have any scientific basis, or is it mainly a placebo (or replacing itchiness with pain :P)?

Also, some of the posts mentioned adding something (I've seen salt, butter, hot water, and other stuff) on the crossed-out area, not sure for what purpose really. Again, any merit to these? I'm a bit skeptical to be honest.

Thanks :)

[Assistant] I don't think it has the scientific basis that you explained. From what i remember, some sensations on our skin are stronger than others. Itching being one of the strongest. So the reason why we scratch something that itches is because the pain from scratching is stronger than the sensation of itching, there by relieving yourself of the itch. Marking an X does the same thing as scratching. There's no basis to believe that marking an X would release "toxins" that would relieve the itch.


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

[User] ELI5: How can phones have 8gb ram in such a small formfactor and pc needs these huge 4gb ram stick?

[Assistant]
This has to do with industry standards. The RAM slots on PC's are almost always the same size. A 64GB RAM stick is the same size as early 256MB RAM sticks. The size does not really represent the power/storage anymore. It's just a matter of standardization.

Addition: RAM chips in phones are often integrated and can't be swapped. Cell phone RAM is also a lot slower. It consumes less power, which means it doesn't reach the same temperatures as the far more powerful equivalents in desktop computers. In larger chips, it is easier to distribute heat than in smaller chips, so a larger stick is beneficial for desktop RAM. And well... Desktops simply have the room for it.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why do hatches and SUVs have rear windscreen wipers when Sedans rarely if ever do

What's the downside of having rear wipers on Sedan/why don't they have them?

[Assistant]
The aerodynamics of all cars creates a bubble of air behind them causing a loop affect when it rains. This loop effect causes rain to splash back on to the rear of the vehicle.  In an SUV or other trunk less car, this means it splashes onto the rear windows. In a normal coupe or sedan, the rear is the trunk which gets hit the most.

So essentially it just not a necessary expense to add to sedan like cars.


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

[User] ELI5: If you would throw an electrical device into the ocean , how big would the area where you can get electrocuted be?

[Assistant]
If you threw an electrical device (either 110v or 220v) into the ocean it would simply short out. The area that one could be electrocuted would be minuscule as the current would travel straight down to the nearest part of ocean floor. Unless your at the exact spot where you dropped something like a toaster in youd feel nothing.

Also if you tried just putting a cable in to the ocean hooked up a generator the same thing would happen. The generator would just short out stopping any current from transferring to the ocean water.


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

[User] ELI5: why do teeth hurt when eating extremely sweet foods?

[Assistant]
Note that this isn't normal. It's generally a symptom of mild or moderate gum disease and excessive plaque, resulting in recession of the gum tissue. This is usually a result of a lack of flossing and/or poor brushing routine, but pain in this instance can also be caused by cavities.

Either way if you have frequent tooth sensitivity to cold or certain foods, its a good time to see the dentist.

When gums are unhealthy and receded, it exposes living tooth tissue, known as Dentin, in the teeth root area beneath the layer of dead enamel on the exposed tooth surface. Often this happens in the space between teeth due to plaque trapped there. Normally the enamel is the only exposed part of the teeth and the gums cover the dentin. However bacterial overgrowth can weaken the connection between the dentin and the gum tissue causing gumline recession.

Sweets often contain citric acid as a flavoring agent. Bacteria in the mouth also are able to quickly break down sugars into lactic acid. These acids cause inflammation and irritation of living cells in the dentin. These send chemical signals in response to the central nerve in the tooth resulting in pain.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How does Spider-Man's spider sense work as a spider-based power? Spiders aren't psychic.

As Spidey shows in the first Amazing Spider-Man, spiders can sense movement on webs. However, that's not how it works. Spider-Man seems to have precognition. Spiders don't have precognition, even radioactive or genetically engineered ones. So, what's up? How does spider sense work?

[Assistant]
Spider-Man's powers aren't due to his body becoming more spider-like. For instance, a spider can climb on walls because it is lightweight and has many tiny, rough contact points that allow it to grip onto the imperfections in a surface. Spider-Man can climb walls because he can control the attraction between his molecules and those of whatever he touches, essentially bonding to them on an atomic level. (this has an interesting side effect-- no force on earth can make him let go of something if he doesn't want to, his arms will tear out of their sockets or the surface itself will break before his grip does.)

In short, it's probably just lucky coincidence (or the will of the spider-totem) that he got the powers he did and that they generally resemble abilities a spider has.


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

[User]
[Dresden Files] In the Dresden files does one have to be born with magic to be a wizard, or can one simply learn to be one?

I know that is theoretically possible to open the sight with things other than magic, but does that really make them a wizard?

[Assistant]
Wizards are born, and then made.

The short answer to your question is - you have to be born with it.  Magic use is a talent for humans, one that not everybody has access too or has in sufficient quantity to make use of.

However, a moderate talent can gain a great deal of power and ability through training and use and an exceptional talent can wither and fade if not exercised.  So a wizard like Mr. Dresden is a combination of those two things.  He is a massive talent, potentially the strongest in raw power in his generation, that has spent literally decades honing and refining.


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

[User]
ELI5: what makes quartz crystals so useful?

As far as I understand they are being used in clocks and computer technology - what makes them so special?

[Assistant]
One major aspect of quartz is that it is piezoelectric. This is when a material will produce a tiny amount of electricity when deformed by physical force. Such a behavior is very useful in things like sensors for microphones, guitar pickups, and ultrasound sensors for medical imaging.

Another major use is that the piezoelectric behavior works in reverse where the crystals will slightly deform when electricity is applied to them. A sort of "tuning fork" can then be constructed that will resonate at a specific frequency and kept resonating by applying a small electric charge. That resonance then can be used to keep time with high accuracy, hence the concept of a "quartz watch". There are other obvious uses for timekeeping in electronic devices.


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

[User] ELI5: If it is said that the gravitational pull of Black Holes is so strong that it attracts light, then wouldn't that require light to have mass?

[Assistant] Light always travels in a straight line relative to space-time.  Since a black hole creates a massive curvature in space-time, the light follows the curve of space-time (but is still going straight).  From an outside observe, it appears that light bends towards the black hole; in reality, light's not bending - space-time is.


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

[User]
Is Australia the most problematically in-debt nation in the world?

I'm a total amateur but trying to understand why debt is a big deal. It looks like a countries debt isn't as meaningful as its debt to GDP ratio. Better yet is it's external debt to GDP ratio, because countries with extraordinarily high debt like Japan don't seem to collapse cause it's mainly owned by Japanese citizens who don't want to collapse their government.

Better still is 'international investment position', which is basically the debts we owe other countries, minus the debts they owe us.

Australia has the one of the world's worst net international investment positions per capita of any debtor nation, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Yet, I never see this talked about? Wouldn't Australia or another country in that situation need to urgently real in it's foreign debt to underwrite it's economic security and the well-being of future Australians from unprecedented financial crises? I sure don't wanna gamble with my entire country's economic system.

[Assistant]
Australia currently inspire high confidence in their ability to repay debt (AAA rating), got much lower debt to GDP ratio than other developped country, and got self limiting borrowing power through the loan council, used to have a debt ceiling and don't guarantee 100% of the citizen deposits anymore.

Also owning someone debt doesn't mean you can collapse its governement. Debt is just a contract "I give you W and you repay me in X years with Y% of interest payed each Z periods".

The potential problem with foreign debt is when you borrow money in a currency that isn't yours, because change rate will move and maybe fuck you up.

(Also if your debt is owned by your own citizen, there may be capital revenues taxes, income tax, VAT and corporate tax on companies where your citizen spend their money so it is cheap debt).


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

[User]
CMV: Women 18-60 should be required to stay and fight in Ukraine if men are.

Its really been bothering me that this rule exists and is separating families. I feel like Im missing something since everyone else seems so okay and normal about it. Its heartbreaking. And while I dont think conscription should exist at all, I think it should be equal if it does. Its unfair that an 18 year old girl gets to leave while an 18 year old boy has to go die.

Who should care for the children? This can be decided on non-sex related factors.

This is coming from a completely non-political position. Change my mind because this is eating at me.

[Assistant]
Ok if it's truely coming from a non political position let us be frank

Life is not fair.
Men are biologically stronger than women.
Women and children are far more likely to be targeted with rape war crime.
Someone has to look after kids, women do that more than men generally.
Biologically speaking, to ensure your groups and cultures survival you need more women than men left at the end of war.
The only reason we can speak of equality is because our ancestors did all the hard work for us.
In a world of war or before societal development and human rights, equality does not exist. When society is attacked, things fall into a more natural state of chaos and instinct.

This is one of the only scenarios forced conscription could be tolerated politically and morally in this dat and age. Ukraine would be loosing if their men were not willing to step up to defend their homeland..and their women to feed them and care for their injuries or children in safety etc. Natural order of things and everyone plays a role..


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

[User]
[DC] What would happen if Eradicator!Lois (from Tales of the Dark Multiverse) met Injustice!Superman?

By the end of ToDM, Lois has gone insane with grief. Meanwhile, Superman has also gone insane, in a similar manner. What if they met? Would they try to kill each other? Would it be enough to snap Superman out of his current mindset?

[Assistant]
Power Couple!

Genuinely, both of them are consumed by the loss of the other, and by others who reuse to acknowledge that their ways are the best.

Meeting another version of their idealized lost love would prevent them immediately attacking, and realizing this counterpart agrees that we need to use brutal power to take out the scum of the earth?

It would be very sweet if it didn't involve the brutal conquest of the multiverse.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does FM radio sound better than AM radio?

[Assistant] AM (Amplitude Modulation) only uses 10 kilo Hertz of band width to get the sound across. On FM, they use 100 Kilo Hertz of band width. That allows for alot more fidelity of sound. The reason is how much of the spectrum is alloted for each band. AM band is .5 Megahertz to 1.7 Megahertz. But FM band is 88 Megahertz to 108 Megahertz.


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

[User]
Why finding academic jobs is more difficult today compared to how it used to be?

This might be a very stupid question, in which case sorry.

But Im ignorant. Why finding jobs in academia today, becoming professors and etc is more difficult than it was in the past ?

[Assistant] Many things, as other already mentioned. The management is also interested in having temporary/adjunct staff because they can be controlled much easier. Firing a tenured professor is difficult, with an adjunct, you simply don't extend the contract. Problem is that many incompetent people got tenure back in the day and they are still running the show.


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

[User] [WH40K] What exactly is the scale of human armies? On important battles could one make out the regiments from orbit?

[Assistant]
Regiments and individual movement of formations, unlikely. Disturbed terrain caused by the movement of millions of vehicles, and thousands of kilometers of fortifications? Absolutely.

A time-lapse of an Imperial war effort would leave very noticeable changes on the surface of a planet, even if you were unable to make out exactly what was causing it.


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

[User] [dragonball] how do planets like vegeta where most people can control their ki, stop things like bar fights or children's' tantrums destroying entire cities?

[Assistant] Mutually assured destruction? On a world like that, the strongest ones are probably in charge. Also, destroying businesses and citizens is generally frowned upon anywhere you go. Even under oppressive regimes.


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

[User] ELI5: Why when large company's earnings decrease(ex... by 3%) they freak out, talk about rough times, and sometimes decide to downsize, even though they are still making millions of dollars in profit even after all expenses?

[Assistant]
A leaky boaty still floats, but that doesn't mean you have to wait until it is sinking to fix it.

In a healthy, expanding, inflationary economy, earnings should grow a little bit each year.  If they shrink, that can be a sign something is going wrong, something you want to try to fix before the company actually starts to lose money.

Also, most companies are investing profits into growth, opening new stores, increasing production, expanding to new product lines, thing than usually lose money for the first few years.  This is always a balancing act between growing fast enough to keep up with the competition and not growing so fast you become overextended.  Often reduced profits means they misjudged their growth strategy or the economy can no longer support it, and the way to correct that is scaling back the growth.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can't you boil milk in a kettle?

I've burnt out my kettle attempting this. My thinking was that milk is just thicker water. I thought it would jusy take longer to boil.

I'm in hot water (pun intended) with the wife.

[Assistant]
Milk contains proteins. And just like eggs and flour which also contain a lot of protein, milk coagulates into a solid if you heat it up too much. The problem with heating milk in a kettle is that a kettle gets very hot on the bottom. This is no problem for water as it can easily handle the heat and will just distribute it throughout the water. However if you have milk in the kettle the milk in the bottom will coagulate due to the heat and stick to the bottom.

If you want to heat up milk you have to make sure to heat it up evenly either by turning down the heat, use something to distribute the heat better then the milk or make sure you constantly stir the milk. A microwave is optimal for this because it uses the liquid itself as a heating element but it is possible to heat up milk using almost any heat source if you are careful enough.


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

[User] If we replace bone at a cellular level every 7 years why do we have evidence of fractures 7 years after the injury?

[Assistant]
A fractured bone is usually repaired by a process where a callus is formed (formation of cartilage). Regular bone tissue then replaces that cartilage.   Callus formation is not perfect and forms a 'scar' just like scar tissue is formed over skin, for example.

Since the cells are gradually replaced, the 'scar' still remains at the point of fracture as new cells only replace the existing cells.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why there's a sense of motion even if you're lying still when you're drunk.

Like when you hit the bed and it seems like it's moving around.

[Assistant]
The spins happen because of an odd effect alcohol has on your ears -- specifically, on three tiny, fluid-filled structures called the semicircular canals. Inside each of these canals is a fluid called endolymph.
As you move around, the movement of the endolymph lags behind the more solid cupula, distorting and bending it -- and those little hairs. When the hairs bend, the electrical signal they send to your brain is altered, helping you to make sense of the rotations your head experiences on each of the three planes the canals sets.

LPT: Looking at a fixed object and keeping your feet planted on the ground can help lessen the effect.


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

[User] [MCU] Why did Black Widow switch sides in the middle of Civil War?

[Assistant] She knew that they needed to stop Cap, but she also believes Cap when he says that 5 Soviet super soldiers may be released very soon. Black Widow made a choice that would serve the greater good [THE GREATER GOOD]. Besides, she is a spy. Playing both sides kinda comes second nature to her.


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

[User] Why are they going to have to bring the ISS crashing back down to Earth? Why can't they leave it in orbit? It's history!

[Assistant] The options to keep it intact are to constantly refuel it in orbit to stop the orbit from decaying or to boost it into higher orbit with less drag. Both options end up with a large piece of space junk that can break into smaller parts making the situation worse.


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

[User]
Can you listen to anything while you work?

Hey all.

Recently I got a new job working in Ruby. Before this I only worked in the front-end in React and CSS. I could listen to any music I wanted to, and sometimes even podcasts.

Now that I am working with Ruby, and doing a lot of backend stuff, I cant even listen to classical music or soundtracks. Any noise makes it harder to figure out what I am doing and I need complete silence.

Ruby is a *relatively* new language for me, but its weird how I cant focus with even classical music.

Anyone else who works in backend who has a similar experience?

[Assistant]
Music serves the same purpose as fidget toys. It adds cognitive load, which is a good thing when you're doing something too simple to keep you challenged.

But when you're in a very new environment with new tech; your cognitive load is already maxed out.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happened to THQ?

I understand they went bankrupt and just sold all their licenses, properties, assets, etc. But how did a successful studio like THQ that was actively making games end up dissolving?

[Assistant] A while back THQ invested heavily in a peripheral device called the uDraw tablet. They threw money at it to develop it for some casual games, and it flopped. Hard. They where unable to recoup the lost money and have been on a slope downward every since.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we find accents attractive?

[Assistant] There is a genetic predisposition to seek out the exotic. In social terms, this is expressed very easily through finding folks that look similar enough but sound different enough to demonstrate that they are from a different genetic pool. This is one of the many remnants of our evolution that keeps us from inbreeding.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is that near identical movies are often released at the same time (The Illusionist/Prestige, Armageddon/Deep Impact, Wyatt Earp/Tombstone, Ed TV/Truman Show)

[Assistant] The same reason that Home Depot and Lowe's always pop up near each other. One guy gets a whiff of another studio doing a movie and they go, "WE'LL MAKE THAT SAME MOVIE BUT BETTER AND STEAL ALL THEIR MONIES!" This makes no sense, but movie people are extraordinarily stupid, so it makes sense to them.


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

[User]
CMV: The logic behind getting rid of the electoral college would apply equally to getting rid of the senate.

The argument that I hear for why the electoral college is bad is that it allows for situations where the president wins despite losing the popular vote. The argument tends to be that we are a democracy where each person should have equal voting power and equal representation but as it currently stands some people's votes count for more than others based on where they live.

Keeping aside whether or not I agree with the stance for eliminating the electoral college, I do think it's weirdly misplaced. The issue isn't the electoral college but is the fact that there's rounding errors in the House of Representatives and, far more importantly, that each state gets 2 senators regardless of their population. The rounding errors are minor and something I think everyone would be willing to live with, if only to _not_ bloat the House to obscene levels, but the senate is an egregious example of some people having more federal power than others based entirely on where they live.

Wyoming is the least populous state. California is the most populous state. When it comes to the electoral college Wyoming gets 3 votes for 577k people or 1 vote per 192k people. California gets 55 votes for 39.56 million people or 1 vote per 719k people. This is the extreme version of what people seem to argue about in regards to the electoral college. However it's so much worse when you look at the Senate. Wyoming gets 2 senate votes for 577k people, or 1 vote per 288k people. California gets 2 senate votes for 39.56 million people, or 1 vote per 19.78 million people.

The views I have that I want contested are the following:

1. The logic is the same between the two institutions.
2. Excluding potentially partisan reasons, such as your political party being more likely to win the popular vote vs the electoral college, this perceived unfairness is the only reason the majority people want to eliminate the electoral college.
3. People who want to eliminate the electoral college but state they do not want to eliminate the senate are hypocrites or ignorant.
4. Any argument that the average informed citizen would recognize as a decent argument for keeping the senate would equally apply to keeping the electoral college.

Edit 1: I've conceded the point that people might view it an issue if they do not look at it institution by institution but instead look at the federal government as a whole to everyone during my first pass at replies. Since my view on that particular notion has already been changed, further comments will not be getting a delta if it relies on that! Thanks so much for the discussion so far!

Edit 2: I've probably burned a decent chunk of my "be unproductive at work" time so far. I'll be back at lunch or after work and keep answering things as I can! I love the discussion so far guys. After that I'll be periodically checking in here!

[Assistant]
While the logic may be the same between the institutions - smaller states need to have a say in Federal matters - one can make an argument as to _how much_ say they should be allowed to have.  One can agree with putting their "thumb on the scale" and still feel that one should only be allowed "so many thumbs"

- The Senate is obviously weighted towards smaller states by design.

- The Reapportionment Act of 1929 capped the House at 435 members and guaranteed each state at least one House member to each state.  This _again_ favored smaller states, as small states like Wyoming or Montana would get a higher amount of representation, as you can't have less than one House rep regardless of population.

- The Electoral College, being simply the sum of the Senate and House reps, reinforces the smaller state advantage inherent in both the Senate and House.

So, in the three areas where we have Federal elections - Presidency, House and Senate - we give an advantage to smaller states in _each one_.  We put three "thumbs on the scale" and have no representative body that is truly decided by popular vote.

It is logical for someone to say, "Small states should have an advantage in _some_ institutions, but they shouldn't have an advantage in _every_ institution."  Eliminating the Electoral College and going with a straight popular vote would leave the advantage inherent in both chambers of Congress, yet eliminate the advantage in the Presidency, which some may feel is an acceptable re-balancing of power between state's rights and the popular will.


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

[User]
If I was in intergalactic space such that a nearby galaxy filled up my entire field of view, would I be able to see it clearly? Or would it still be as dim as the milky way is in the sky here on earth?

I got the idea when I was looking at andromeda the other night through my telescope.  Despite its relative size in the sky, it's barely visible because of how far away it is.  hell, the milky way is barely visible and we're inside of it!

So what would it look like to be "in the middle".  Not super far away like andromeda is, but also not inside the galaxy.  What would it look like to be in empty space staring right at a whole galaxy?  I know you'd be hundreds of thousands of light years away, but I don't know how that would affect how it'd look.

[Assistant]
**It would look about just as bright.** This is why you need about the same darkness of sky to see both the Andromeda Galaxy as well as the Milky Way.

As you approach an object, the brightness of an object increases as the distance squared, but the total amount of area in your field of view will *also* increases as the distance squared. The result is that while you get a lot more photons, it's spread over a lot more area, and the total amount of "surface brightness" - brightness per square degree - remains constant.

Note that this only works for resolved objects like galaxies and nebulae, when the entire object is already large enough to resolve as more than a point. For point objects like distant stars, it actually will get brighter; if you get twice as close to a distant star you'll get 4 times as many photons but it will still appear as a point, and thus appear brighter.

For nearby stars such as the Sun, though, this constant surface brightness *does* work. The total sky area the Sun takes up is about twice as large at Venus, so you'd get a total of about twice as many photons as we do here on Earth. However, if you cut a 1/4 degree x 1/4 degree hole in a black piece of paper and held it up to the Sun in both places, that tiny patch would be just as bright.


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

[User]
[Ben 10] Could Ben just continuously add animals from Earth to the ominitrix?

As I recall, the omnitrix registers any alien species that makes contact with it in its database. So what's stopping Ben from taking a  trip to the zoo and grabbing DNA from lions, rhinos, elephants, etc?

[Assistant] He probably could, but Earth animals are underpowered compared to the aliens he's already got, most of which have more to offer than raw strength or speed. He's got an alien that throws fireballs, an alien that makes spikes erupt out of the ground, an alien that's basically living Lego, and so on. They're more than just animals: they're practically superheroes.


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

[User]
If you stacked an infinite line of standard dominoes .5 inches apart and pushed one end knocking them over. Would the whole line fall, or would the energy eventually run out?

I was in bed last night wondering if the whole line would fall over, but I do not not think it would. If they do eventually lose the energy and teh dominoes stop falling, how many would fall before it stopped?

[Assistant] With dominoes, the energy supplied by the push is negligible. The real source of energy in the sequence of falling dominoes is the potential energy from gravity that each of the dominoes is storing. When you tip one, you allow that energy to be released and the domino settles in a lower-energy state.


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

[User]
CMV: "non-binary" is a meaningless identity that reinforces harmful sex stereotypes

To claim that because you enjoy things that fall outside of the typical expectations of your sex makes you 'neither male nor female' is ridiculous. It is the opposite of progressive to promote the idea that not conforming to your gender role means you must not have a gender. It asserts a new binary of cis/trans where "cis" people are assumed to be perfectly fine with all of the things expected of them based on their sex. No one is perfectly masculine and perfectly feminine and we should allow people to express that freely without assigning it a new label. Young kids are now clinging onto this label as a way to address confusion and frustration they feel about growing up. It is normal for men and women to feel uncomfortable with our sex roles and want to be free of them. It doesn't make you "non-binary." Also, saying that people must use they/them pronouns for you rather than the one they would naturally use for you is narcissistic.

[Assistant]
>To claim that because you enjoy things that fall outside of the typical expectations of your sex makes you 'neither male nor female' is ridiculous.

Can you find me a *single example* of a nonbinary person claiming that they're nonbinary *because* they enjoy things that fall outside of the typical expectations of their sex?


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

[User] ELI5: I was eating a clementine today. Some of the segments were extremely sweet, some were very watery and almost tasteless. What's going on here?

[Assistant]
* Clementines are citrus fruits and can be classified as a hesperidium berry.

* Fruits are pretty much mature plant ovaries, divided into carpels.

The segments of hesperidium berries come from the carpels of the flower. When fertilized, the ovary matures and develops layers. These layers are the exocarp, or flavedo, the mesocarp, or albedo, and the endocarp.

Flavedo is the outer colored rind of a citrus fruit. Albedo is the whitish inner peel. The endocarp is the juicy part and is divided into segments in citrus fruits. In the endocarp are huge cells called pulp cells, which are really juice vesicles contain all the goodness of your clementine. Pulp cells are made out of multicellular hairs, which are called trichomes. The hairs fill up with water and that is a pulp cell.

The fructose(sugar) that is stored inside the pulp cell can be easily evenly distributed through its membrane to other pulp cells, inside the same segment. This is not so easy for distribution to other segments. The covering over a clementine segment is made of the same substance making up the mesocarp. Albedo is made up of cellulose, and fructose can not easily diffuse through cellulose; it is the same sturdy substance used to create the protective plant cell wall.

Although this is not the case many times, the concentration of fructose in citrus fruits can vary segment to segment, in your case it was enough for you to notice. This doesn't explain why there may be fructose imbalance, but why a fructose imbalance can stay imbalanced. It could be caused by many things, such as the pulp cells bursting in some segments.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How advanced are security technologies at a Spaceport in comparison with todays airports?

[Assistant] It really depends on the spaceport, coruscant is fairly rigorous if you aren't part of the senate, Jedi or military. But just about every system has their own security and plenty of them have very little security. But the general rule of thumb is that security is tightest in the core systems and gets more relaxed the more you head towards the rim. For example Tatooine in the Outer Rim has no security, actually it's more apt to say it has negative balance of security.


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

[User] ELI5: How do you pronounce the music effect flanging and how does it work?

[Assistant]
Hard to do an ELI5 for this but I'll do an ELI10...

Flanging and many other audio FX like it such as phaser, chorus, delay & reverb, are achieved by manipulating time.

In the case of flanging it is achieved by doubling the original signal, delaying the duplicate signal by a small amount (10ms-20ms for example) and then combing the duplicate signal back with the original. This creates a phase difference between the two signals and causes some frequencies to combine and subtract, just like it would with any two waves arriving at different times. At some places the waves will get bigger, and at other places the waves will be less, or cancel each other out completely. This time difference is variable and changes fast to create the effect which we hear as flanging.

It is pronounced with a soft 'g', like the word 'changing'.


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

[User] Do amputees produce less blood than the rest of us? Or do veins/arteries "stretch" to fit the extra volume?

[Assistant]
They produce less blood. The body doesnt have a set quota for blood cell production that it tries to meet - your bone marrow isnt permanently set to produce 5 blood per day or whatever.

Instead your body reacts to the state of your circulation, as detected by stretch receptors and other signaling pathways throughout your body. Not enough oxygen reaching outlying tissues? Produce more red cells. Blood pressures too low? Retain more water and try to create more plasma. Homeostasis works based on target conditions, not target outputs.

Removing a limb removes the space that blood needs to fill and removes the sensors asking for more blood, so the body will adjust its output accordingly.


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

[User]
ELI5: If a Nuclear Powered Submarine were to be destroyed, what protective measures are in place to protect the reactor?

Just thought about this after watching Crimson Tide. If a torpedo or a depth charge were to destroy a nuclear powered submarine, what is installed to stop a runaway nuclear reaction? Assuming the coolant is somewhat disabled due to the explosion.

[Assistant] We've actually already lost two nuclear vessels at sea, the scorpion and the thresher. The cores are designed to be failsafe. Also, supposing the vessel was totally destroyed, you just gained a wonderfully effective heat sink; the ocean.


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

[User]
If I suspended two large masses in space sufficiently far apart such that they were not moving relative to one another, could I tether them and use the expansion of space between the objects to generate energy?

If two large objects were tethered to one another and a generator were attached to a string in the middle could you accelerate the two objects towards one another as space expands in between them and use this acceleration to generate energy from the work done? Where does this energy come from and is it dark energy? How much energy could you make with say, 1000kg objects 1 light-year apart? 1000 light-years? (I'm not sure at what scale the expansion of space starts beating the gravitational pull)

[Assistant]
Yes, there would be a tension in the rope. If the rope is approximated as a spring with spring constant *k* and the current distance between the two rope-tethered galaxies is , then the tension in the rope is just F(t) = ka(t). The number a(t) is the so-called scale factor which describes how proper distances increase over time. The potential energy of the rope due its displacement from equilibrium is simply due to the expansion of space, not necessarily dark energy. (This tension would be there even with zero cosmological constant.) Yes, this energy can be extracted to do work.

There is a bit of a caveat here though. This tension would not be uniform throughout the rope. Any signals within the rope travel at the speed of sound, so the central part of the rope doesn't really "know" it's being stretched until the sound wave has propagated from the ends of the rope and reached the center. In reality, the rope will break closer to the ends long before the central part of the rope ever begins to stretch.


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

[User] [Watchmen] Why did the comedian kill JFK?

[Assistant] Nixon had him do it. JFK beat Nixon in 1960 and he wanted a clear pathway to the presidency in 1964. It's also heavily implied that Nixon had the Comedian off Woodward and Berstien who were the reporters that exposed Watergate.


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

[User] ELI5: How is honey made?

[Assistant]
Bees suck up nectar from flowers.

Inside the bees stomachs, excess water is removed to concentrate the nectar, and hydrogen peroxide and antimicrobial enzymes are added to it.

The bees then vomit the concentrated nectar into cells of honeycomb.

The bees then fan the concentrated nectar with their wings to further evaporate excess moisture, turning the nectar into honey.

Finally, the bees seal the cells of the honeycomb with wax caps for storage.


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

[User]
How does half life work for individual atoms?

So I do know what half life means on a macroscopic scale. If you have an unstable substance with a half life of, say, a minute. It would mean that every minute, half of the atoms of that substance would decay in some other substance.

So when you start witb 120 unstable atoms with a half life of 60 seconds. Probably no more than a second after you start measuring there would already be one atom that has decayed. A minute later roughly 60 atoms will have decayed. The decay of the last atom, however, will probably be some minutes later.

Given that the decay of a single atom can be really close to t=0 and could also be really distant t=0 depending on the amount of atoms you start with. Why can some atoms hold on longer than others. And why even more so when you start with more of those atoms.

Note: While typing this I realized that it is possible that every atom has the same probability of decaying at any given time and more atoms will decay when you have more rather than less. So half life is basically just the average rate of decay for individual atoms of that substance. This would translate into a macroscopic observation of halving every half life. Is this a correct way of seeing it?

[Assistant]
>So half life is basically just the average rate of decay for individual atoms of that substance. This would translate into a macroscopic observation of halving every half life. Is this a correct way of seeing it?

Yes. Each individual decaying particle has its own independent probability distribution for survival as a function of time. Each one is parametrized by the half-life (and the half-life is the same for all particles of the same type).

Macroscopically, with a huge sample size, this translates into half of the particles decaying with each half-life, on average.


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

[User]
Why can people lift so much on a leg press?

I know people that can leg press like 600 lbs but can only squat about a quarter of that.

So I was wondering what the differences were? I was able to determine, using high school physics, that because the weight rests on the sled at about a 45 angle, only about 71% of the weight is effectively being lifted in the direction the sled travels.

However, this didn't satisfy me because a 600 lb leg press does not mean a 424 lb squat. So what else factors into this??

[Assistant]
A few more things to consider, besides the lower force required to move the mass, would be a shorter range of motion and musculature involved.

Most leg press machines don't allow the range of motion that a barbell squat does, effectivly cutting the amount of work being done.

Most people's squat is not being held back by lack of leg strength, but by their ability to support the weight with their core musculature (abs, lats, spinal erectors, etc). You're  not required to support the weight on your shoulders in the leg press and are therefore not limited by core strength. The solid back support does the work so your muscles don't have to.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we have nightmares?

[Assistant] One interesting thing is that children are much more likely to have nightmares about monsters chasing them. As we grow up we start to substitute that fear to things in our world. But maybe we have nightmares to prepare ourselves for terrifying situations, so that when you're being chased by lion you've had a couple practice runs.


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

[User] [General] Pros and Cons of strapping your sword on your back vs on your hip.

[Assistant]
Pros of having sword on back:

- Look badass as fuck
- Easier to carry larger swords
- better balance if only weapon

Cons:

- Potentially harder to draw
- Back movement slightly limited
- Unable to wear badass, wind-flowing cape
- MUCH harder to draw in tighter spaces.


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

[User] What happens if you are given the wrong blood type?

[Assistant] In an acute reaction, the patients antibodies attack and kill large numbers of the donated red blood cells.  The hemoglobin released into your blood stream from the destroyed red blood cells can then cause kidney damage.  Occasionally, you might also face disseminated intravascular coagulation (spontaneous clotting of blood cells that can block small vessels and cause organ failure.  These reactions are medical emergencies but most of the time are not fatal.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are companies allowed to buy and sell their customer's loans without their permission, and what is the purpose of it?

[Assistant]
You're referring to 'the customer' as the person who owes money.  That's not really accurate.  The loan doesn't belong to the person who owes money.  The loan belongs to the company that gave them the money.  The debtor is the *asset*.

If a bank gave you $50,000 dollars, with the understanding that you'll pay it back plus 4% interest, the thing of value in this transaction is *your promise to pay it back plus interest*.  The bank owns that promise.  It is their asset.  That's why they can sell it to someone else.  You chose to make your promise an asset for someone in exchange for money.  That asset doesn't belong to you.  You were paid for it.

Why do they do it?  Because some companies aren't interested in loaning money out long term.  It takes a long time to recover the investment.  So instead they get very good at setting loans up, and then sell them to banks who can afford to wait a long time for the payout.

If a bank stands to earn $10,000 over 10 years on the interest in your loan it is worth it to them to buy that loan from someone else for $2,000.  They'll see $8,000 in profit, eventually.

The person who set the loan up could keep it and make the full 10k over 10 years, but their business model wants that 2k NOW, as opposed to 1k every year.

Why?  Well imagine a bank that has 100 loans out, each one for 100k.  They need to have $10M in funds to cover that.  No problem for a big bank.

But a small fund might only have enough money for 5 loans at a time.  They don't want to start 5 loans and then sit and wait patiently for them to pay off over the next several years. They want to sell those loans for a profit so they can make another one to sell for a profit.  If they can set up and sell 10 loans a year, selling each one for 2k, they'll make 20k that year with less money to back it all up.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How is Earth able to keep up with all the alien civilizations around it?

Clearly, the Marvel Universe's version of Earth takes place in the present, but it is surrounded by all sorts of interstellar races. You'd expect the planet to be as significant as a speck of dust. Instead, it's able to fight off any alien invaders. And that's not counting all the superhumans and mutants that live on it.

How is this even possible? Shouldn't this be like a primitive tribe going up against the Army? I imagine aliens in the Marvel Universe having tech way more advanced than the stuff guys like Iron Man has.

[Assistant]
> Shouldn't this be like a primitive tribe going up against the Army?

Sort of. Now imagine that primitive tribe has a number of shamans who can summon dragons, call down lightning on their enemies and read the minds of the enemy generals. And imagine that their tribal god is a real, corporeal entity who takes the field during battle and he can take out tanks and fighter jets all on his own. And imagine that a few of those tribesmen, despite still being at the bow-and-arrow stage of technology, are smart enough to meaningfully understand and analyze the army's modern technology with only a couple of days of study. Oh, and the tribe doesn't need to completely defeat the army. They just need to make it too costly to justify the invasion. That's Earth in the Marvel Universe. Any alien with good sense is scared to death of that place.

When the Skrulls invaded the Earthlings sent a hit team to *murder their gods*. Gladiator of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard can conquer planets on his lunch break and Earth's heroes use him as as punching bag. I've lost track of the number of times Earth has beaten down Galactus. Some rando human made Ultron and that thing became a galactic threat. Almost everyone who's held the Infinity Gauntlet was from Earth or one of its colonies. They pretty much trip over Cosmic Cubes. Earth isn't even the underdog anymore.


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

[User]
[WH40K] Would the Emperor accept a slave race purely devoted to its master?

Lets say that the Emperor finds a slave race that had been idle after they lost thier masters. They became fanatically devoted to Humans after they find them and would take all the abuse even at the risk of death just so they can serve. The way they serve conforms to the ideal servant for Humanity and have proven themselves to be quite devoted.

Would this appeal to the ideal of the Emperor of a Xeno race thats not a threat to humanity or would the Emperor feel be a threatend by their devotedness?

[Assistant]
Absolutely not.

That basically screams trap and goes counter to the idea that humans only need humans to survive.

We would never turn over any modicum of power to a xeno no matter how small or trivial.

Only possible scenario is to use them as canon fodder until they are extinct. Even then there would have to be extenuating circumstances to even entertain that idea.