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

[User]
DIY wind turbine blade aerodynamics. what is the optimal size/angle/material?

I am using a old izuzu npr alternator for this turbine. I am using a belt system to increase RPMs making the automobile alternator a viable option for wind turbines with hopefully low drag. That being said - I have no clue how large I should make the blades/how thick the blades should be/what I should make said blades out of.

[Assistant] Why not make a half barrel wind mill? Seen one on a friends farm. Cut a 55gal barrow in half and mount each piece on a shaft facing opposite directions. Done. Should be cheap to build and they are surprisingly efficient.


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

[User] ELI5: How does siphoning work?

[Assistant]
Siphons are a way to make water "climb" through a pipe then descend to a lower point compared to its starting point.

Imagine a heavy rope hanging on a tree branch, with one end hanging lower than the other. The shortest end will go up because gravity affects the whole rope and the longest end weights more.

Water in a pipe acts a bit like such a rope, allowing the pipe to suck the water from a recipient as long as your pipe is full of water and descends lower than the recipient.


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

[User] ELI5: why is it totally ok and expected to haggle some items (like cars and apparently mattresses), while others have a fixed price? Why can't we haggle the price of chips or an iPhone?

[Assistant]
You're more than welcome to try, but for pretty much anything from a chain or franchise store, the prices aren't set by the guy behind the register. He has no authority to change the prices of the items being sold and he risks his job doing so. Now if you went to a local mom & pop corner store where the owner's also the guy behind the counter, then yes, you could theoretically haggle over the price of a can of soda.

Another thing is volume. The guy selling you chips or soda have no incentive to offer you a better price because there's likely a dozen people behind you in line who would be more than willing to buy the item at the price being sold. One or two iphones or bags of chips being sold is not going to change their bottom line at the end of the day.

Car dealerships and mattresses, however, are sold in smaller volumes but for larger revenue. Manufacturers often include rewards for those who sell their inventory faster as well. There's more incentive for the middleman (the dealership) to make their sales, as each one has more of an impact. For car dealerships, throwing in small extra or shaving off a few thousand doesn't hurt their margins as badly because they bank a lot of revenue on maintenance and other repair services, which can only be done once they sell you the car. They're not just selling you a product, they're selling you a commitment...one they can profit off of down the road.


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

[User] ELI5: Why, when looking at a computer screen from a lower angle, do the colors invert to a weird blue and black?

[Assistant]
A computer screen is made up of pixels. There is no single LED/crystal/light source that can display all the colors you want represented as a single piece.  Instead, there are multiple sub-pixels in each pixel.  The most common is to have one Red, one Green, and one Blue (RGB).  They adjust the relative brightness of each sub-pixel to mix RGB colors into the final color you want.

The sub-pixels are all meshed together in grid pattern.  Something like

      R
    G  B

Additionally, each pixel is surrounded by a mask to prevent the light from one pixel bleeding into the next.

Each pixel is optimized to cast light forward, towards you, the viewer.  Imagine you had 3 christmas lights, red green and blue, at the back of a toilet paper tube.  If you were looking directly at it, you could see all 3, producing a white light effect.  As you tilt the tube, there comes a point where one is blocked, and then a point where 2 are blocked, changing what color of light you would perceive at each point.

That is essentially what is happening when you look at a flatscreen from outside its optimum viewing angle.  The mask around each pixel is blocking one or more of the sub-pixels from your vision, preventing you from seeing that part of the color.  Different flatscreen technologies (TN vs. IPS vs. AMOLED) and different production qualities within each of those will result in different optimum viewing angles.


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

[User]
Why are Neutron Stars magnetic?

As the title states, why do Neutron stars not only have a magnetic field, but are some of the most magnetic objects in the universe?  Given that they are comprised of mostly neutrons, which I understand to be electrically neutral, I can't see how they generate their magnetic fields.  Even if say they're a slew of protons and electron in a given neutron star, combined with its rapid spin, I can feasibly see it generating a magnetic field, but the most powerful?

[Assistant] Part of the answer is that neutron stars aren't just made up of neutrons! There are "impurities" scattered throughout the makeup of a neutron star, in the form of electrons and other particles. Another part of the answer is that their magnetic fields are due to the electrical fields they create and the exotic states of matter that exist inside them. Neutrons themselves are made up of smaller particles called quarks, which have their own varying charges and masses. Basically, at the densities and energies that exist within a neutron star, matter interacts at the smallest possible level (it's a giant mess of quarks and exotic particles) and you end up with a soup of highly charged, highly conductive particles all moving around very quickly and creating a very strong electromagnetic field!


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

[User] So while we haven't discovered any life native to Mars, are there microorganisms that live on our planet that could survive on Mars?

[Assistant]
NASA did some studies where they sent stuff up into the upper atmosphere and simulated the conditions on Mars, and some of the spores survived.  So they believe that there  are some microbes on earth that could survive at least temporarily on Mars.

However,  we haven't found any living organisms on earth that would probably thrive and reproduce successfully on Mars.

There are a few issues such a lifeform would have to deal with:  Higher radiation, cold temperatures, very low pressure and oxygen, and a good bit less sunlight.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we (and other chordates, for that matter) have our respiratory organs on our head instead of torso, which would make a shorter path to lungs?

Also, why have a centralized respiratory system with lungs and a single airway in the first place instead of having many breathing holes all over the body, like insects do?

[Assistant]
Interesting question.  Openings to the body create other issues, one being the maintenance of a sterile environment inside the body.  All of them can be pathways for infection to enter the body.  The respiratory "tree" is lined with cilia that move mucus up to the throat, then it is swallowed into the stomach, where stomach acid kill any bacteria.

Also, having a single airway allows us to use the air for speech generation (larynx), which has been vital in the development of human culture, but also important for almost all chordates.  Having some dead space in the respiratory tree also allows for the air to be warmed as we inhale and for decreasing respiratory water losses due to evaporation.  Consider also that we use the same upper airway system (well, the oropharynx anyway) for eating and drinking, which minimizes the number of openings to the outside.


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

[User]
[Resident Evil / Dead Rising] When the zombie outbreak of Raccoon City happens, the survivors mainly make use of guns and long-range weapons. How would things fare if they used literally anything they can get their hands on?

There are suits of armor with weapons in the Spencer Mansion. Did no-one in STARS think to grab those?

[Assistant]
For one thing, melee weapons would be exhausting. Chris is a big bulky dude, but battle axes are heavy as hell, and it wouldn't take long to get winded. A two on one melee battle would almost guarantee the person would get grabbed. The weapons aren't really designed to bust through skulls or decapitate people either, especially if the STARS officers had never swung a sword before.

I also hold a firm belief that the virus does something to harden zombie's skulls. A particularly lucky zombie can take 10+ pistol head shots in some of the games, who knows how many mace hits it would take to get through their head. It would however be a whole different story if Resident Evil had Dead Rising zombies.


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

[User] Why are airplane propellers generally in the front and boat propellers in the back?

[Assistant] Most small boats are designed to glide over and even out if the water at high speed in a process called "planing," which can't happen if the propeller is in front. Airplanes can be designed with "tractor" or "pusher" configurations of propellers. Pusher propeller designs have many disadvantages,  like having to use an airflow disturbed by the fuselage, having to avoid hitting the ground when the pitching up during takeoff, center of gravity issues, vibration, ingesting ice from wings, heat dissipation...there's a long list of problems that are solved by using the tractor design.


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

[User]
CMV: People who label themselves "spiritual but not religious" are really just superstitious.

In my experience this is a belief held by the less-than-reasonable type, and is usually accompanied by an interest in horoscopes and destiny. While I have encountered this belief in more educated/intelligent people, it is usually just shorthand for "I value my feelings and nature more than the typical soulless worker." In short, it seems like a desire for the purpose provided by religion without any of the obligation or work involved.

Anyway, just wondering if this is something any of you have encountered (or believe yourself) and have a good rationalization for it.

[Assistant]
They could just be people who are sick of addressing the issue and ready to shut down discussion about it. It's an easy out, and a soft way of telling people that you're not buying whatever it is you're trying to sell them.

Particularly for people who are more inclined to identify with mainline religions, it's easier to respect someone who "believes in something rather than nothing," so the "Spiritual" folks have found a workable way to more easily avoid conflict with those sorts of people.


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

[User]
[Rick and Morty] So what would the beings living inside Zeep's miniverse experience when rick smashed the box?

In "The Ricks Must Be Crazy", Rick and Morty go inside Rick's car battery, which has stopped producing power because the civilization inside of it has evolved to be able to produce their own version of the microverse battery.

In trying to persuade them to go back to producing power for him, Rick smashes the miniverse box. What would the society that had evolved inside this box experience when their universe was destroyed?

[Assistant] Depends on how their universe is held together. Might be instantaneous nonexistence as the thing that holds their miniverse together fails. Or might be a slow and gradual collapse of their universe taking months or years or even longer as the miniverse's time dilation makes their destruction extremely slow from their perspective. Like watching your universe disappear into a gaping maw of nothing ever approaching you but impossible to stop.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a car measure the outside temperature at speed, without it skewing for windchill or engine/surface heat?

[Assistant]
Windchill is the effect of a warmer body losing heat to the colder air moving over it.
If you see "feels like XX temperature" that is also a similar reading of Windchill. The wind chill temperatures are included because it's important for warm things, like the humans reading it planning what jacket to take with them or knowing how long they can be outside without their extremities freezing. Wind will not make a *dry* thermometer any colder than ambient temperature.

Thermometers have no internal heat source to be warmer than the ambient air, and as such have no issues with wind chill. They just equalize to the temperate of the air.


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

[User] ELI5: If it is highly risky to give birth after 40, why do women continue to have periods into their 40s or 50s?

[Assistant]
In it's simplest form evolution works on a basis of "how likely is this mix of DNA to produce offspring to carry on to the next generation".

Evolution doesn't really care if you live long or not, only that you pass on your DNA as much as possible. Generally speaking someone who lives longer will have more chances to do that, even if the risk of death increases. So it wouldn't build in a process to stop the cycle early, because that drops your chance of passing on DNA to 0.


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

[User] [Bionicle] So... What's up with these masks? Are they born with them, if so why can they be removed?

[Assistant] Yes, Matoran are created with their kanohi masks. If the mask is removed, they could fall into a coma or even die. However, the Great Kanohi had to be earned, and would usually only work for their owner. If a Toa removed their mask, they would be severely weakened.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Darth Vader just killed my Admiral and promoted me in his place. Will there be an announcement to the crew? Does Vader fill out the paperwork, or do I need to go to HR? When do I get my new rank rectangles (ranktangles)? He seemed pretty busy and I didn't want to bug him with logistics.

[Assistant] What you have is effectively a field promotion, doubtlessly witnessed by at least one other person to verify authenticity. Field promotions are necessitated by a sudden vacuum in a critical leadership position, such as the loss of an admiral. However, while field promotions are binding, they are not necessarily permanent. Once you are back under the auspices of the full command structure you will submit a detailed report to the Admiral's CO, or to the Admiralty if there is no direct CO. You will include who gave the field promotion, the circumstances behind it, and name witnesses. This will come along with the other reports expected of an Admiral. It will be up to the chain of command to decide if it is a permanent promotion.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the military still use bolt/pump action weaponry?

I don't know a whole lot about firearms, but wouldn't it be beneficial to use something that is semi-automatic rather than bolt/pump operated?

[Assistant]
They use the right tool for the right situation. Regular infantry would use a semi-auto rifle, such as an m4, m16, m249.

Snipers might use a bolt-action because it doesn't have moving parts when being fired. That helps improve accuracy. Occasionally there are situations where they might use a pump action shotgun as well.


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

[User] [Star Trek]does The Omega Directive allow a captain to commit war crimes if they decide it's necessary to contain the molecule?

[Assistant]
In short? Yes.

Now, that's not carte blanche to suddenly go wild. If you do more harm than the Omega particle would have potentially done, Starfleet is still going to come down on you after the fact. "But the Directive!" isn't going to save you if you personally wiped out a few sectors trying to prevent something from wiping out a few sectors.

BUT, a single populated world? Horrifyingly, you might be okay. Because if there was any *other* populated worlds within a few sectors, losing *only* one to properly secure the Omega particle is a good deal. Of course, there should be ways of securing it without needing to go to such overwhelming ends, but in the rare circumstance where it can't be done any other way? Yeah, Starfleet will have your back.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Hypnosis work? What is it capable of?

How is it that people can describe something or someone in great detail when hypnotized which they wouldn't have been able to remember otherwise?
What goes on in the brain during Hypnosis?

[Assistant] It really depends on your definition of "works." Real hypnotists just put you in a very calm relaxed state. It's easier to communicate and think when you're calm. But you probably won't remember things youve forgotten or repressed.


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

[User]
[DC] If The Flash got his powers while working as a Garbage Man... and decided not to become a Super Hero, but to stay and do his normal job... How would Waste Management for the city be changed by his abilities?

It is 5AM. Barry Allen is riding on the back of garbage truck. It stops in front of a coffee shop across the way from STAR Labs. He walks out, takes a sip of  Joe and gets thrown back by a shockwave. He is terribly injured, but alive, and falls in to a coma.

Several months later he awakens and is traumatized by what happened to him. He battles PTSD over the following year and while doing so starts to notice he has powers. He confides in a few people who urge him to become a hero, but Barry does not want to be one. He wants to go back to work and do his job.

How does he incorporate all of his powers in to waste management for the entire city. How, what and where is what i want to hear. Silly idea but is what happens at a [5] when you switch programs on a afternoon from The Flash to Captain Planet (and the Planeteers).

Thoughts?

[Assistant]
He could revolutionize the recycling program participation rates.

AMAs that have been posted talk about the occasional cool and valuable things that are found in the trash.  I'd imagine he'd be able to dumpster dive like no one's business.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] I recently got my hand cut off during a lightsaber fight, should I get my hand regrown or a robot hand?

I know those cloners on Kamino can grow an entire person, can't they regrow a hand for me?

[Assistant] Apparently there is no limb regeneration in the SW universe.  We have literally never seen it done.  Darth Vader had prosthesis even with access to the full range of Imperial medicine.  Luke Skywalker has a prosthetic hand with full access to the medical resources of the New Republic.  If the Kaminoans can do it they don't share that technology with anyone, ever.


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

[User]
ELI5: When people sing in a tonal language (like Chinese), how do they keep the tones in their voice?

I would think it might be hard to sing in a tonal language because in trying to match the song's pitch, it would then be difficult to keep the tones of the language as well, wouldn't it? (Sorry, that's kind of strangely worded but its the only way I can think of to explain it.)

[Assistant]
The short answer is, they don't. You can't really tell the tones when listening to a song. The meaning is usually pretty clear from context.

The tones are basically lost when whispering Chinese too. It's still understandable.


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

[User]
ELI5 : Regarding the current event surrounding the missing Malaysian airplane, if family members of its passengers claim that they can still call their missing relative's phone without getting redirected to voice mail, why doesn't the authority try to track down these phone signals?

Are there technical limitations being involved here that I'm not aware of? Assuming the plane fell into a body of water somewhere, I'm sure you just can't triangulate onto it like in urban settings (where tons of cell phone towers dotting a relatively small area), but shouldn't they be able to at least pick up a faint noise and widen their search in that general direction?

[Assistant]
Phones don't really work that way.  When you dial a phone number it's sent to the telco.  The telco could choose to send you a ring tone while it's attempting to locate the phone.  Unable to find the phone it can just send you to voicemail which is located at the telco not on the phone.

Just because you hear ringing isn't a promise that the other phone is actually ringing or reachable.

Alternatively the telco can just sit there and play ringback tone forever because thats how it's configured.  None of which is a promise that it can reach the phone.


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

[User] If fever is used by the body to kill bacteria or viruses, does this not also damage the useful bacteria in the gut?

[Assistant]
The temperature reached during a fever is not high enough to outright kill pathogens (or friendly bacteria) inside the body, so that's not the reason why this mechanism exists.

Science is still debating and conducting studies on the kind of effect that fever has during an infection. There is some evidence suggesting that several cells of the immune system (leucocytes and t-cells) move faster and multiply at a higher rate at higher body temperatures.


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

[User]
Why do we care what the millionth decimal of pi is?

When do we have to calculate something that precisely?

[Assistant] Who says we're doing it to calculate things? Math isn't that shallow. We do it to push our creativity and ingenuity. Some of the ideas involved are the greatest accomplishments of mankind, and we do it because it's there. Things don't need to be practical to be interesting. In fact, most things that are interesting are not practical! Try and find the intrinsic interest in science, math, history, literature, philosophy and art and you may find yourself in a world much larger than you see now.


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

[User] ELI5: Does my phone check every second to see if the current time matches the time of a previously set alarm so it can trigger that alarm? How are these scheduled events generally triggered?

[Assistant]
Your phone is literally just a computer. Computers have a piece of software called a scheduler. Schedulers are a fundamental part of the operating system and do way more than simply check for your alarms. They coordinate all of the other software that wants a piece of the main processor's time.

So, the scheduler has a list of all of the things that need to happen. If you are browsing a web page while also listening to music then the scheduler allots time on the CPU for each of those tasks.

It will also check to see if there are things that need to happen in the future. If a piece of software is set to wait for 1 second before checking on something then it will tell the scheduler that it needs CPU time in 1 second. Similarly, your phone's alarm will be set into the future and the scheduler will notice when the current time matches the alarm time.

Since the scheduler is always running and always making sure that things happen on time, an alarm is one of the easier things for it to do.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is cooking live lobster or crab not considered animal cruelty?

I've seen this at quite a few restaurants, stores, and on television. Why are cooks allowed to cook them alive without repercussions?

[Assistant]
If boiling a lobster alive was animal cruelty, then poisoning cockroaches would also be animal cruelty.

Why do people care about lobsters, but not other arthropods with practically identical nervous systems? Because lobsters are big, and people who don't know anything about biology think bigger = more complex.


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

[User] [Altered Carbon] does any individual life have meaning since you can always place your stack into a new sleeve whenever?

[Assistant]
The individual body loses meaning *if a replacement is a trivial expense*; if you're super rich or part of a well connected outfit, you can basically treat a body as an expensive but replaceable tool. If you lack those means, a badly damaged body is a problem on the same level as a totaled car or a burnt down house, potentially life-altering (or ruining).

An individual *life* still has meaning, if not more so than normal. People still have a distinct, individual existence, and that existence can be terminated. A well placed gunshot in the neck will permanently end an otherwise potentially immortal existence (admittedly more effort is needed if a backup is involved), and that person is just as dead as if their normal, non-stacked body had been slain. Destroying a stack means you're robbing a person of not just an 80-100 year lifespan, but an eternity, and given that you can basically non-permanently immobilize a target by shooting them *literally anywhere else* it has an extra element of cold-blooded horror.


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

[User] [Open-World RPG] I asked this guy to help me, it's kind of an emergency. But instead of realizing his destiny, this guy is just running around doing every side-quest and odd job on the entire continent... What do I do?

[Assistant] I wouldn't worry about it. No matter how long he takes to do all those side quests, the emergency you actually asked him to help you with is going to remain in its current state until he gets around to it.


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

[User]
[Marvel]Steve Rogers strength

So how much better is Steve Rogers in comparison to a human being at their peak?What makes him superhuman in comparison to others?

[Assistant] His body is such that if for some reason the superhero equivalent of steroids was given a pass and he were allowed to compete in the Olympics, he could take gold or maybe silver in every category.  The real worlds top athletes train for years or decades for a single event, whereas Cap could do them all and then some post-serum.


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

[User]
[Ant-Man/Civil War]If Scott had asked Hope to come to the airport fight would she? And if she did would he have been caught?

In Ant-Man & the Wasp, Scott asks Hope if she would have came with him to help Captain America if hed asked. She just responds that if she had, he wouldnt have been caught.

What would her response have been if he asked her? Came with him? Said no? Tried to stop him?  And if she did go is it true he wouldnt have been caught?

[Assistant]
Yes, she would have come.  Not only was this an important personal event for Scott, the Sokovia Accords had potential consequences for Hank's research and governmental rights over it.

No, he wouldn't have been caught if she'd come along.  The only reason he *was* caught was because he was fatigued after growing and fighting.  He couldn't shrink and escape.  If Hope had been there she would've shrunk him and carried him away.


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

[User] Why doesn't glue dry in the bottle?

[Assistant] Most contain a solvent that is supposed to evaporate away as the glue dries and hardens.  A good bottle that can be closed properly will keep the evaporation during storage to a minimum.  Certain epoxy glues, on the other hand, works by undergoing a chemical polymerization reaction when two different materials are mixed together.  As long as the two ingredients involved are kept separate and prevented from reacting, they don't become sticky/hard.


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

[User]
ELI5: I was watching something about how V-1 rockets worked and they casually mentioned that the whole thing is ran by a Gyroscope. How exactly does a Gyroscope control a flying bomb?

He talked about it the same way that you would a computer. Like the Gyroscope had access and intentional control of the flight control surfaces. Weird, Gyroscopes can't think...

[Assistant] You're right, gyroscopes don't think, they just resist changes to their orientation. So, if you spin one up on the ground and then go flying, you now have a way to tell your relative orientation to the ground. All you have to do is compare the vertical axis of the gyroscope to a vertical reference in your aircraft. With some clever electrical engineering (well within the capability of 1940s Germany) we can make some circuits that can do this comparison and make control inputs to correct for them. Add a few more devices so that it can follow a planned route, and you can have the first cruise missile.


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

[User]
[ASOIAF/General fantasy]How is it possible, barring magic, to have seasons of random length?

In ASOIAF, and some other fantasy series, seasons seem to follow the normal order but have varying and unpredictable lengths. Is that astronomically and meteorologicaly possible without involving magic?

[Assistant]
Well, if we're taking summer and winter as the main seasons, and spring and fall just being transition periods, you could get that with a planet that had no axial tilt, but did have a star with variable output.
No tilt means no traditional seasons, but the variable output of the star would give you warm and cool periods that weren't regularized by orbit, and instead be based on the varying internal physics of the star.


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

[User]
Overlap between buddhist philosophy and contemporary philosophy of mind/consciousness?

It seems to me like there may be some interesting parallels between certain developments in contemporary philosophy of mind/consciousness and buddhist philosophy. For example, the notion of the construction of the self is (as far as I understand, I am very much a layman in all eastern traditions of philosophy) a central idea in buddhism and also extensively discussed in work of e.g. Thomas Metzinger (and I am sure many other contemporary thinkers). Perhaps another example would be the dissolution of the object-subject distinction, non-dual thinking and the exploration of the human mind through introspection, which (again, as far as I understand) is central both in buddhist thought and phenomenological approaches, which in turn are influental in contemporary philosophy of consciousness and embodied cognition approaches.

Is anyone aware of any ressources on this topic or has any insights they would like to share, perhaps on other interesting similarities between buddhist and contemporary western philosophy of mind? Any answer is highly appreciated. Have a good day.

[Assistant] Currently reading Evan Thompson's *Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy*, which deals with the relationship between these topics. It's an interesting book, but is written in a more "popular" style and not necessarily for specialists or individuals with a lot of prior knowledge/expertise in any of those areas.


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

[User] ELI5: Why a pancreas transplant does not cure Diabetes?

[Assistant]
In the case of type 1 diabetes, you have the ongoing autoimmunity to deal with.  The reason someone with T1D has a damaged pancreas to begin with is their immune system wiped it out.  If you put a new pancreas in, the immune system will just wipe it out as well.  (This would be something like trying to build a new house on top of the flames that burned up your old house.)

We can use anti-rejection drugs like they do for other transplant patients, but generally living with T1D is preferred to living with transplant drugs.

In the case of type 2 diabetes, the problem (generally) is insulin resistance, so a pancreatic  transplant wouldn't help much.  The issue is that the cells don't respond well to insulin, not that there isn't insulin being made.


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

[User] [Mathematics]Can anyone explain the Riemann Hypothesis in the simplest way possible?

[Assistant]
At what points does the function y= x^2 - 9 equal zero? The answer is x=+3 and x=-3. What about y=x^2 + 9? There is no real answer, but the imaginary numbers 3i and -3i solve this, where i^2 =-1.

The Riemann zeta function is a much more complicated function, where Zeta(x)=1/1^x + 1/2^x + 1/3^x etc. Zeta(2) is pi^2 /6, for example. Generally though, x can be a complex number (real and imaginary parts) and its output Zeta(x) can also be complex. There is a different form of it (an analytic continuation), if the real part of x is less than one.

Anyway, for negative even integers -2, -4, etc, Zeta(x) is zero. There are also complex numbers for which Zeta is zero, for example Zeta(0.5+i*14.134...) is zero.

The Riemann hypothesis says that besides the negative even integers, every value for which Zeta(x) is zero has a real part of 1/2.


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

[User]
what's the expected number of meeting hours with an assistant professor mentor

I (early undergrad) was matched with an assistant professor in a mentorship program (we aren't at the same school). She runs a lab group of 15-20 people. This looks like a large group to me lol, so I suppose that she is quite busy. I hope to learn some technical/hard skills/knowledge during this mentorship program.

I am wondering what would be a suitable meeting schedule with a mentor like her? How often will we meet? How long should our meeting times last?

I don't want to come off rude by proposing a meeting schedule that's too much commitment for her, but I also don't want to propose an under-average meeting schedule as this doesn't allow me to fully take advantage of the program. Thus, I am wondering what would be considered as a suitable meeting schedule for such situations?

Any explanations would be appreciated!

[Assistant]
Mentorship programs arent usually the place to learn technical/hard skills. Those would be things you get from courses or working in a research lab.

Maybe your mentorship program is set up differently, but Id strongly recommend making sure youre on the same page as to what this program is for.


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

[User] [The Ring] Could you escape the curse by watching the tape and immediately moving to an Amish community with no available screens?

[Assistant]
Likely not.  Samara/Sadako has emerged from reflective surfaces like mirrors and glass before, so having no electronic screens nearby is no guarantee of safety.

Basically, Samara/Sadako is a supernatural entity that does not need to follow any rules.  No screens nearby?  She'll find another surface to emerge from.  You're blind?  She'll cure your blindness and then kill you.  You're genuinely sympathetic towards her plight?  She doesn't care, she'll kill you anyway.


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

[User]
ELI5: What "Real Hacking" Is

Everytime I see a post about supposed hacking scandals across the web, it's inevitably met with responses like "those guys weren't hackers, they just did xyz, anyone could do that"

What exactly does more sophisticated hacking entail that these people are not doing? What kinds of things are difficult to achieve and require a high amount of skill vs. just abusing simple already known exploits?

Any insight very much appreciated!

[Assistant]
Exploiting a computer system requires you to first identify a vulnerability. To be able to find a vulnerability in a program that you don't have the source for (you don't get part written for humans, just the part written for the computer) requires a person to know about all different kinds of vulnerabilities and be able to spot them by testing or by examining the program using special tools like debuggers and decompilers.

Once you have found a vulnerability, you have to figure out what you can do with it. Maybe there's a way to make the program crash. Maybe you can get access to parts of the computer that are supposed to be protected. It takes a great deal of patience, knowledge, and skill to do this.

Sometimes a vulnerability becomes very well known and information (or, sometimes even whole software applications!) on how to exploit it becomes public. Using that public information, a person with much less knowledge and skill could exploit the vulnerable software just like if they'd figured it all out for themselves.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40k] Why aren't there more Chaos aligned factions? Surely some factions or races other than the Space Marines have fallen to the powers of the Warp.

[Assistant]
Most other major races can't or don't often fall to chaos.

Eldar-terrified of slanesh and place their souls into soul stones to keep them safe.

Dark eldar-not technically chaos aligned but sort of close. Torture others to "top off" their soul while Slanesh constantly drinks it.

Orks- Gork and Mork are the only gods they need (though these two might be minor chaos gods its not really clear) also they would need to stop fighting long enough to listen to the gods or their representatives.

Tau- their souls are too small to be worth the effort for the chaos gods.

Necrons- Ctan beat the chaos gods too it. Also Necrons HATE all things warp related.

Tyranids- debatable if they have souls but if they do they don't have the individuality to swear themselves to the gods.

That said there are probably rare examples of some of these races and minor xenos races in chaos however due to the human centric nature of the lore they are rarely if ever mentioned.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Would an empire under Emperor Vader last longer than Palpatines?

We all know that Vader had a not so secret ambition of overthrowing his master Palpatine/Sidious to rule the galaxy all on his own. But in the past Vader has always been proven to almost always act on his emotions. In comparison Sidious was a master politician and manipulator who knew to play the long game and to properly keep people on a leash. How long would a galactic empire under Vader last?

[Assistant]
Despite his good intentions, Anakin was not one to understand the subtleties of *ruling*.

Anakin: "I don't think the system works."

Padme: "How would you have it work?"

Anakin: "We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem. Agree what's in the best interests of all the people... and then do it."

Padme: "That's exactly what we do. The trouble is that people don't always agree."

Anakin: "Well they should be made to."

When something stands in the way of his goals, he removes it with extreme prejudice, as we see when he uses the Force to choke his officers. That tactic simply won't work on a macro scale when trying to run a government. He'll inspire no loyalty from the Moffs and the Empire would be split in half from infighting as nothing gets done because of a stagnant bureaucracy of his own making.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where do those monster waves in the middle of the ocean come from?

Tsunamis get that big since the beach makes that the water has no space when going high up.
But those monster waves just exist on the oceans with hundreds of meters ocean dephts??

[Assistant]
Research into this is ongoing. We know what can cause them sometimes, but we don't know what causes them all the time. They seem to happen most reliably in places where a strong current moves in the opposite direction of the waves, but we don't even know if that's what always causes them.

Fortunately we found out that they happen way more frequently than we thought. So we should get more answers in the near future. For now though, there's no really solid answer.


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

[User] ELI5:How come Asian countries that were relived from European colonial rule have been somewhat better off than Africa ones?

[Assistant]
It's a geographic curse.

Many African countries are landlocked and close to the tropics, both of which when combined together are a death sentence for prosperity.

If you're close to the tropics, not only do you have to deal with natural disasters and devastating tropical disease, but there is something that is *far* more sinister going on there: the climate kills the incentive to save. Because a tropical climate has no real seasons, there is no winter to worry about like there is in temperate climates. This means that you're basically living from day to day all the time and you don't have the incentive to plan ahead and save for the future. You're not building any new capital that could be used to grow the economy. In temperate climates where you have winter to worry about, you have to save resources up so you can get through the cold, darker months. You have to plan ahead, and when you do, you can essentially do what you want in the winter months. Since you saved up a surplus of resources, it allows you to do other things... read books, tinker with things, etc.

I stress this because saving is how you build an economy. Savings create capital, which is the backbone for growth.

Then there's being landlocked, which causes trade to be greatly stifled due to not having a connection with the sea. Being landlocked is usually a severe geographic curse, though there are exceptions such as with Switzerland. If you're landlocked it means you are heavily reliant on your neighbors being friends toward you since they are your main trade partners. If those neighbors are hostile you are in big trouble.

If you look at Singapore for example (who got its independence from the UK), it is right next to the Strait of Malacca, which is probably the most important body of water in the world. This gives Singapore access to a huge amount of wealth because it is able to take advantage of all the trade going on that it can piggyback off of. Singapore has almost no natural resources to speak of due to its size, but taking advantage of trade has made it a rich and developed country.


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

[User]
[A nightmare on Elm Street] Does Freddy Krueger have any control over skilled lucid dreamers?

If Freddy Krueger were to go into the dream's of a very skilled lucid dreamer would Freddy have any control or would he just get his ass kicked?

[Assistant]
This is the plot of the third film, *The Dream Warriors*. Freddy is initially taken by surprise, but his control over the dream world is nigh absolute, and he makes short work of the lucid dreamers.

The only combat tactic that has been shown effective against Freddy is pulling him into the waking world and killing him there, and even that is only a short term solution; to really do away with him, you need to *forget* about him, and lose all fear of him.


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

[User] [Marvel/DC] If a hero or villain has a secret identity that they do not want revealed, can anyone lay claim to the hero's/villain's likeness rights?

[Assistant]
A hero could let a nonprofit organization register the trademark to his brand, and let them legally enforce any copyright infringements.

E.g. S.H.I.E.L.D. / Nick Fury might own the brand of many of the Marvel heroes.


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

[User] Why do Uranus's rings and moons orbit 90 degrees to the sun too?

[Assistant] Let's not forget that the whole planet is tipped (something like 97-98 degrees) and Uranus' poles point towards the sun. The rings and satellites still orbit the equatorial region of the planet (which is the relatively normal). It's believed that some "near miss" with another large object early in the formation of the solar system that caused Uranus to "tip over".


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

[User]
ELI5: How microwaves work, such that my leftover gravy boils on my plate while my lump of cold mashed potatoes stays cold?

Eating leftovers, obviously.

[Assistant] Microwaves are at the right frequency to cause water molecules to vibrate, increasing the temperature of the food. Gravy contains more water than mashed potatoes, which are relatively dry, so gravy heats up much faster.


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

[User]
[MCU] How physically strong is Peter Quill

Quill seems like a regular human at first, nothing special as he goes around fighting aliens, but I've noticed a few things. Peter seems to be on the same level of physical abilities as Gamora, having fought once or twice with no overwhelming advantage on each side. Then I remeber Gamora once picked up a 10 ton ship mounted minigun, and was able to fire it while easily controlling recoil.

Drax is supposed to be much stronger than Gamora, but again they have never showed him being overwhelmingly stronger than Quill.

Quill also manhandled spiderman when they first met, he engaged in hand to hand combat and got Spidey in a headlock with a gun to his head. This is the same spidey who unlocked spidey sense. Spiderman seemed genuinely nervous about the situation.

Then he manages to punch Thanos so hard he shifts his whole body a bit, (Which the hulk could barely do) and snaps Thanos out of a sleep that was caused by a being who could put a celestial too sleep.

Add in the fact the Quill's body is most certainly not regular human, as he can easily survive in the vacuum of space with no protection, just a oxygen supply.

So basically how strong is Quill due to his half celestial genes? Could he beat Captain America in an arm wrestling match? Is he stronger than a normal Asgardian?

I'm curious because the Asguardians movie is coming out, and it will depict an intense rivalry between thor and starlord apparently, which seems odd because of the apparent massive difference of power levels. Or maybe Quill is just super strong and because I've only seen him fight aliens I don't have a good sense of his power?

[Assistant] Seems difficult to really say because baseline humans in the MCU are alot more robust than the real world.  I'd agree that Quill seems a step up from even this tho, especially in his general robustness.


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

[User]
Why does spaying a dog require removal of the uterus?

Couldn't it be done more simply by clipping the fallopian tubes or removing the ovaries? Is there some reason the uterus needs to be removed?

[Assistant]
1. Clipping the fallopian tubes will prevent pregnancy, but not heat
2. If they're already in there, removing the uterus along with the ovaries isn't a much bigger deal, and it removes the chance of any future health issues with the uterus.


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

[User]
Do objects physically change the wavelength of light or just absorb certain wavelengths and reflect others?

Also, how is light physically absorbed? What happens to it? Does it just hit the electrons and cause them to vibrate more?

[Assistant]
When light hits an object, certain wavelengths are absorbed. In the process, the material's molecules move into a higher energy state (electrons go to higher energy orbitals).

The molecules stay in those higher energy states for a variable amount of time (which depends on the material) and then "relax" down to their original state. In doing so, the energy initially added by the light either gets converted to heat, in the former of increased molecular motion, or, more rarely, is given off by emission of a new photon, which we call fluorescence or phosphorescence.

Substances are coloured because their molecular structures lead them to absorb (and convert to heat) certain wavelengths of light and not others.

There are cases where substances "scatter off" light at a different wavelength, but this effect (called the Raman effect) is incredibly weak and not detectable without specialized equipment.


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

[User]
[HP] Could a Dementor suck a soul fragment out of a Horcrux, thereby destroying the Horcrux? Why or why not?

By way of the Dementor's Kiss.

[Assistant]
No.

As Hermione said, a horcrux is the opposite of a human being.  For a human, the body and the soul are distinct entities, and it is possible to separate them.  You can also damage the body while leaving the soul intact, or damage the soul while leaving the body untouched.

For a horcrux, the opposite is true.  The soul fragment and the physical object are bound together, completely inseparably.  The only way to damage the soul fragment inside is to damage the physical object, but the soul fragment also makes the physical object nearly indestructible.  Therefore, the only way to destroy a horcrux is to damage the physical object through magical means, until it is beyond physical or magical repair.  Only a tiny handful of things are capable of such destructiveness.

So to answer your question, a Dementor could suck on a horcrux all day long if it wanted, but it wouldn't accomplish anything except look rather silly, and, depending on the shape of the horcrux, possibly slightly perverted.


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

[User] ELI5:What causes the reaction our faces have when we eat sour things like lemons?

[Assistant]
Because it's an automatic 'disgust' response. Expressions are very helpful when eating, as it enables others around you to see what you're eating, and then avoid it if you look disgusted/revolted/etc.

Edit: It's an evolutionary trait - if you study other primates in the wild, they do the same thing.


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

[User]
My professor earned his PhD at a much more rigorous school than his current employer. He seems surprised about my class's lack of skills.

Hi, last year I took a machine learning class in my comp sci master's program.  The prof was a younger, fairly recent hire who earned his doctorate at a quite prestigious engineering school.  He is knowledgeable and a good prof, but I couldn't help but notice how deflated he got with our class's abilities.  He has talked many time about complex projects that he had to do as a grad student and then just assigns something much simpler to us.  In most classes, he asks what he thinks are basic questions about stats or linear algebra and is shocked when no one answers them.  When he is helping students with programming assignments, I can see how exasperated he sometimes gets and shocked at the basic problems students are having.  It honestly got depressing - because he clearly knows what level of rigor is needed to properly teach this class.  It also seems like he has to dumb down the material.  It makes me think I'm not getting an accurate picture what you need to know to understand ML.  I got an A and it wasn't very hard, but it also wasn't satisfying as I don't think I really proved anything to myself.

Is this something that occurs often in grad school?  In undergrad, I imagine it occurs less because curricula for classic subjects like (like Calc or Intro Physics) is fairly standardized.  However, in grad school with subjects in fast evolving fields, I imagine the prof has a wide latitude and the quality of education you get will vary widely by institution.

[Assistant]
This is very common. PhDs dont often get their first job at an institution as prestigious as the one where they did their degree.

In fact, because the number of grad programs in a  given field is so much lower than the number of schools where they can be hired to teach, Id venture to guess that most professors spend their whole careers teaching at schools one or more tiers below their alma mater.

On top of that, people who get PhDs tend to have been excellent students in undergrad as well, so their grasp of what average students can accomplish isnt so great to begin with.

A good teacher will adapt to this over time and through experience get a better handle on what can be expected. But it can rough on the students for the first few years. And sometimes they just become bitter, condescending assholes, ie bad teachers.


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

[User] How can gravity be both a curvature in space time and a boson-carried force?

[Assistant] It's a different formulation. If you start with the quantum model of a massless spin-2 particle, the classical limit will give you the exact same equations as Einstein's geometric model. You can find some older general relativity textbooks which take this approach by Feynman and Weinberg; Weinberg actually calls the geometric formulation a coincidence. However, the quantum model breaks down at high energies, so even though gravity looks like massless spin-2 particles (which become identical to GR with small quantum corrections) at low energies, we're still looking for a correct description which holds everywhere.


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

[User]
[DC] What exactly is Brainiac and what are his powers? What makes him such a big threat?

Is he on par a threat as Darkseid for example?

[Assistant]
Brainiac's origin has changed quite a few times over the years.  He was originally a single member of the Coluan alien race, then an alien supercomputer, then a Kryptonian supercomputer in the Superman animated series.  Regardless, his modern incarnation is obsessed with his own improvement and the study, categorization, and destruction of all other species.  He's very Borg-like in that respect.  His powers are technological, intentionally nebulous, and often chosen by writers to facilitate the theme and storyline of the comics, which usually center on dehumanizing mechanization.

As a threat Brainiac is considered extinction-level.  Unopposed, he will wipe out all life on Earth.  He's been a threat to a weakened Darkseid in the past, but their goals rarely intersect.


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

[User]
Is it possible that dark matter is as diverse as visible matter?

Certainly visible matter is quite varied, allowing it to form great structures (planets, stars) and great complexity (such a life on Earth). Is it possible that this sort of variety also exists non-visibly via dark matter?

I suspect this is not the case since (as I understand it) dark matter is not suppose to interact with the electromagnetic force, and EM plays an obvious role in the visible variety that we're familiar with. Then again, with so little being known about dark matter (we only have dark matter *candidates*) maybe it's impossible to even speculate an answer. Or maybe I have some fundamental misunderstanding about how dark matter and visible matter interact, and it doesn't make sense to dichotomize the universe as "visible" and "dark."

Either way, I'd appreciate hearing from someone familiar with the topic. Thanks in advance!

[Assistant] Dark matter doesn't interact with each other any more than with regular matter, or else it wouldn't explain all the observations, so there is no sort of dark chemistry going on. Regular chemistry is entirely based on EM interactions. There a few theories that postulate the existence of more than one type of dark matter, like two or more WIMPs, but that's probably not what you mean.


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

[User] ELI5 - Why do you taste the saline in your mouth when it's put through an IV?

[Assistant]
You know how new tupperware can have that plasticky smell? The IV fluid from prefilled syringes can take on this plasticky smell from the fresh plastic of the syringes.

Smell is basically little bits of material gassing off and floating into the air where you can smell them. So what happens when something smelly gets into your blood? It gasses off into your lungs, and then your lungs have smelly air in them! When you breathe out, you can smell and kind of taste this.

That's how plastic smell can go from the saline syringe material into your mouth during an IV.


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

[User]
[WH40k] Would a STC be a big deal for the other races to find?

The consencuss is that  finding a STC would bring the imperium to the top of the power ladder. But if any of the other races found it, would they use it or just destroy it to keep the imperium from getting it. I bet it would be useless for the necrons and nids, but for the other races? Would they want to use it? Could they even use it?

[Assistant]
The Tau is the only rational species out there to use it. They find it, look at it, tinker with it and then find the 'On' Button. After some reverse engineering they got even bigger and flashier toys.

The Orcs would find one, crump it and then use it to build a trukk.

The Eldar would see a giant chess piece to use for some manipulation of the Imperium.

The Dark Eldar would see a giant mousetrap contraption in the work. Sure, come over here to this planet, there is a STC waiting for you, not a trap at all...

And if Dark Mechanicus/Chaos get it, the Imperium is fucked.


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

[User]
I applied (and was admitted) to a MSc in Canada saying I'd be on a study visa but I may actually go for the Permanent Residency , is that any important?

I'm from Mexico, and I was just admitted to a msc program. I said I'd apply for a study permit but ... well, I've been married to a Canadian man for almost two years, we never really tried to make me a resident because we were living in Mexico. But talking to people, we were recommended to go for the PR instead of me going for a study permit, but I already stated that as my migration status at the university. Does that matter in any way ? I mean, I don't want faculty members to think I'm fooling around with information to my favor and maybe, I don't know, some of the admission criteria were related to my international status because of scholarship and stuff. Maybe I'm just overthinking, but who knows. Any opinions ?

[Assistant]
They really don't care how you get there, so long as you do. PR does take about a year to process though - will you have time?

You can always apply for PR during your Masters, and save yourself all this wondering.


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

[User] ELI5: The allegorical meaning of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey"

[Assistant]
The monolith is an evolution stone.  Think of it like giving a thunderstone to Pikachu.

Every time humanity manages to encounter it, we have levelled up to the point where we are ready to evolve.  The first evolution was to use tools, leaving savagery behind.  The next time was to become space dwellers, leaving the planet behind.  The third and final time was to step outside ourselves, leaving behind our physical form.

Therefore, the allegory in the movie is (ironically) that the constant, unchanging black monolith represents change.  Change is inevitable.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why are different sections of the Ocean labeled as "Seas". For example, the Bearing Sea, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, ect.

I understand the Mediterranean Sea and Black Seas as they are separate bodies of water.   Most of the rest just don't make sense.

[Assistant]
Naming conventions for almost everything in nature is arbitrary, and the names of those seas in particular may be due to limited perspective. These bodies of water would have been named long before the technology needed to map them accurately would have been invented, and the names just stuck.

Take, for example, the Bering Sea in the northern Pacific. Outside of the islands that dot its southern edge, there is no clear divide between it and the Pacific that can be discerned from the coastlines. With satellite imagery we could easily find one, such as through tectonic mapping, but in the end the Bering Sea was give its name largely arbitrarily.


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

[User]
What causes dark circles under eyes?

Ive always been really curious what the actual physiology of dark circles is but every way Ive ever tried to look it up just tells me that dark circles are caused by lack of sleep.

[Assistant] Cortisol. When you become excessively tired your body releases cortisol to try to amplify sugar in the blood. Two side effects happen, blood volume increases and some vessels dilate (others constrict). The vessels under the eyes engorge which results in the bluish tint increasing (like when you see veins under the skin) and the areas adjacent to the eyes swell causing bags above and under the eyes which make shadows. The end result is the tissue appears darker.


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

[User] Is it physically possible to have a satellite 1 light-hour from earth take a snapshot in order to ascertain the cause of events like the disappearance of Flight MH370?

[Assistant]
Unclear from your question whether you've already thought of this wrinkle, but... how would you tell them where and when to record?  You can't send them a signal, because the signal travels at the speed of light, so then it'll be too late.  This is why information can never travel faster than light (even if some things, like wavefunction collapse, do seem to be instantaneous).

You'd need an array of satellites recording everywhere with perfect detail... which is essentially just a rebigulation of the existing spysat network.  The recorders being a light-hour away can't help you any more than that.


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

[User]
[LOTR] How could Boromir use the ring against Sauron?

At the council of Elrond, Boromir suggests they use the ring against Sauron. How exactly did he think the ring could help them? Does the ring enhance your abilities? Did he think this because the ring helped Isildur during his reign, or was he under the rings influence already?

[Assistant]
Boromir was already a great captain and leader, capable of rallying and commanding men. He was charismatic, loved by his people, and a great fighter in his own right. The ring would have enhanced these qualities while simultaneously corrupting his heart by increasing his nascent lust for power, and strengthening his ability to command. He would have become an incredibly powerful warlord, driving his men to great victories, but expending the strength of Gondor in so doing. it was noted in the histories that Boromir is said to have asked his father "How many hundreds of years needs it to make a steward a king, if the king returns not?" He was obviously power-hungry, even though this was tempered by his training and lineage.

Assuming he could have prevailed against Sauron (which is doubtful -- his hotheadedness would likely have proved his undoing in a protracted war with Mordor. Boromir was very like to Ernur, in his temper and mood; and it was Ernur who caused the ending of the direct line of Nmenorean kingship through his headstrong pride) he would have established a new Nmenorean realm and might have begun to envision himself as one of the old Nmenorean kings; possibly even taking the regnal name Rmendacil III, in honor of his  forerunners (although obviously not his ancestors) and his victories, but he would have needed to look for enemies, and would likely have descended into paranoia and tyranny, suspecting everyone around him. As he aged, and refused to share his power with anyone, plots would have developed in truth, and upon his death, whether by natural causes, war, or through assassination, Gondor would have splintered into rival factions led by warlords, whose squabbling would eventually lead to the breakup and end of Gondor as a power; and unless Sauron had been truly destroyed (and how would this have been achieved?), he would then return to wreak revenge upon his enemies, and the short-lived glory of the new Nmenor  would end.

Additionally, if he had dared to use the palantr, as his father did, he would not have had the strength of mind to resist Sauron -- look at how quickly the ring worked on him, leading to the breaking of the Fellowship. Even Denethor, as strong-minded as any man, was misled and corrupted by the visions of Sauron, even though he was not power-hungry or grasping. Boromir might have attained victory in arms over Mordor, but the victory would have ultimately led to the last downfall of Gondor.


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

[User] ELI5: What does .docx do that .doc could not?

[Assistant]
docx is a cleaner and more modern format.  Its compressed, too, so it  ends up being a smaller file.

docx files are actually zip files.  If you change the file extension from .docx to .zip, you can unzip the file and see what is inside.  There are folders in there and xml files which contain the different types of data that can go in there.  Note:  Copy the file first before you unzip it so you dont break your original file.


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

[User]
How Big can a planet be?

Is there a limit to how large a planet can be? After a certain size, does it collapse under its own gravity and become something else, like a sun?

[Assistant]
There is a *mass* upper limit to a planet at about 13 Jupiter masses.  Above this limit are objects called Brown Dwarfs, which are capable of weak or intermittent nuclear reactions via fusion of deuterium (a heavy isotope of hydrogen), but they are too weak to be classified as stars.

However, this mass limit is not the same thing as a *size* limit.  Two gas giants with the same mass can vary considerably in size because one is heated more by its star than another, causing its atmosphere to expand and puff up.  They can also be less dense if they are very young and have not yet fully collapsed.  Also, higher masses of a gas giant can actually cause the planet to shrink due to increased gravity, at least to a certain point.

While the theoretical mass limit is 13 Jupiter masses, the largest size of a planet yet detected is **HD 100546 b** with about 7 Jupiter radii and an undetermined mass.


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

[User]
How, exactly, do we fall asleep?

What is the process going on in our brain? How do we get to that "off" switch?

[Assistant] We don't really fall asleep so much as we fade asleep, and scientifically speaking, it's hard to pinpoint exactly where wakefulness ends and sleep begins. The process of sleep starts before you're in bed, even. As you get towards the end of the day or your usual sleep time, your body temperature starts to drop, hormone levels change to get your body ready for sleep, you start to feel a bit drowsy. When you get into bed, your brain starts to take in less and less external information and your brain activity slows, shifting from active and awake beta and gamma waves to slower alpha wave to even slower theta waves. Heart rate and breathing rate slows but your muscles are still somewhat active. This is considered the first stage of sleep, NREM 1. What's interesting is that if you woke someone up in NREM 1 sleep, they may not recognize that they were asleep. In the next stage, NREM 2, you would see theta brain waves with sleep spindles and K-complexes. Your muscle activity drop and you are nearing the point where you are unaware of the outside world. This is the point where someone would be considered fully asleep.


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

[User]
How does Google know my location even when I am using a laptop or a device with no GPS?

I have been wondering everytime I open my browser with location services enabled, it knows my location with a high accuracy. How does it manage that?

I know my IP address plays a part but, I am sure you cannot just know exactly where I am using my IP address.Thanks in advance ya'll.

EDIT: Thanks a lot to everyone who replied. Much appreciated.

[Assistant]
IP addresses can be used for a rudimentary location fix, but they're typically rather inaccurate (limited to the general region at best).

Much better location data can be obtained by analyzing which WiFi networks your device is able to see. Google has a database of WiFi networks and their physical location (send forth a Streetview car with a GPS and WiFi monitor and store the results). So by comparing the networks you can see to this database, it's possible to get a reasonable estimate of your location.


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

[User] Why don't the palms of our hands and the soles of our feet tan or burn?

[Assistant] Well there is an extra layer of skin on the palms and the soles. Its called The Stratum Lucidem. Its privies thickness to the skin. In the lower basal layer of the skin you have your melanocytes which vary in amounts depending on race, the more melanocytes the darker the skin. The melanocytes have a harder time migrating through that thick keratin layer. There is still some color but its just lighter. You can still burn the skin on the palms and soles with UV light but they dont get as dark cus of extra layer of skin.


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

[User]
[Assassin's Creed] How far back can the animus actually "send" a user?

I'm not all that great at the AC lore, but I know some things like how you need DNA to actually access the memories of the person. You can't just type in "George Washington" and relive his life. You either need to be related to him in some way or have someone's DNA who is.

But how far can the Animus take a person? Like Origins takes place between 49-44 BC and Odyssey between 431-422. Odyessey they use a spear with fingerprints and some residue DNA (I think that's how they access the memories).

So do you have almost unliminted time or do you only have so far based on the quality of DNA you have? Or does it all depend on the type of Animus you have?

If you have a skeleton that is really old, could you go super far back and maybe see the memories of a human from the Isu time frame?

[Assistant]
As far back as they have DNA. We literally see Adam and Eve (who in AC canon aren't literally the origin of the species as they are Biblically) in a recorded video in AC2, there's no reason to believe that they can't see as far back as the origin of the human slave species - assuming they had intact DNA strands.

The Animus that Layla uses in Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla is a slightly different model, which was able to make use of DNA from outside sources like the bodies of Bayek and Eivor, and the DNA remnants plus journal that were with the fragment of the spear that Kassandra the Eagle Bearer used. Layla's Animus is basically able to guess and fill in the blanks of some of the fragmented DNA it reads.


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

[User]
[Dark Knight Trilogy] When Bruce asked Ra's to give him more time to save Gotham if Ra's had obliged and allowed Bruce the opportunity to save Gotham, what would've been his reaction to the Joker?

Would he have helped Bruce out, or just have gone right back to his original plan?

[Assistant] Ras would see Joker as every symptom of the citys disease rolled into one proof that Gotham must be destroyed, especially since Batman turned out to be the target of Jokers fixation and the one who cleared out the mob for worse criminals to fill the vacuum.  Ras *might* reconsider if resuming his plan takes long enough for the ferry test to happen.


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

[User]
[DC] How was Jason Todds body intact enough to have something to put in the Lazarus Pit?

He was brutally beaten and then blown up in an explosion that made Batman fly backwards. How wasnt he torn apart and atomized if he was at the point of impact?

[Assistant]
We saw there was enough body left, there's a famous panel of Bruce cradling the body.

Having a house fall on you would likely kill you, and the most you could hope for was to be in one piece so a decent mortician could at least get it in "open casket" territory, but it wouldn't vaporize you.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens to urine and fecal matter after we flush the toilet?

How is it treated and, in particular, where does the solid waste end up?

[Assistant]
That's a question with a ton of detail.

There are two types of sludge treatment; primary and secondary. Most of these processes require a press of some sort or a drying bed to assist in removing water content. After that, the sludge is most often used as a soil treatment, just like manure, after another facility processes it.

As far as water, there are multiple types of treatment, plants and results. The basic rundown is that the water goes through a device called a clarifier. This separate the liquid, floatables and setables. Floatables are anything that floats to the surface and setables are essentially the sludge. The water then goes through a series of processes to remove bacteria. Some of those are natural trickling, some are chemical, and some are a combined force.

The water can end up being crystal clear and reused as clean water, mostly clear and used as reclaimed water, or still very dirty and sent to a disposal site where the earth is the last stage to making clean water again.

And i could go on for hours...


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that dry-firing (pulling the trigger without any ammunition) bad for airsoft/real guns?

[Assistant] Not sure for airsoft guns, but for some real firearms, there's a piece of metal called a firing pin that will hit a peice of steel, and doing this too much can cause damage. This is only for certain types of guns though, many do not have serious issues with dry firing.


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

[User]
If the universe would be changed into its mirror image, would anything work differently?

This is assuming the laws of physics stay the same.

The answer can be about physics, chemistry or anything else.

[Assistant]
The fancy name for this is "Parity (P) symmetry."

The weak force, which governs neutrinos and beta decay and things like that, violates p-symmetry, so if you flipped the universe things would be different.

This fits into the bigger scheme of CP-symmetry (charge and parity..switch particles with antiparticles as well as flipping them in a mirror) which is violated in some circumstances, and CPT (flip time as well), which is thought not to be violated.


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

[User] ELI5:The coldest place in the Universe is the Boomerang Nebula which has a temperature of 1 K or 272.15 C; does that mean that everything in that nebula is either liquid or solid since the boiling point of Helium is -268.9C?

[Assistant]
there would be so little matter that everything would still be gaseous  one of the reasons everything is so cold is because it's so un-dense (light? spacey? idk).

-268.9C is the boiling point **at standard pressure**. This means that something more pressured (like a steam cooker) would have higher boiling and melting points (in fact, helium doesn't even freeze at all under standard pressure), and something less pressured (like, um, space) will have lower boiling and melting points. This is because if there is pressure, there is something holding the atoms down, and it takes less energy for the molecules to fight through the "crowd" of atoms.

Oh, and fun side note, this is why many recipes call for different amounts of water and stuff when you live on mountains.


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

[User] ELI5: Why don't politicians get sick more often considering they have to shake thousands of strangers' hands every election cycle?

[Assistant]
You would be amazed how effective washing your hands before you eat anything or touch your face can be.

To this, washing is more effective than hand sanitizer because many bugs you don't want to catch are transmitted by spores. Washing removes all the germs by the simple action of soap, you don't need special antibacterial soap on top of that. Why worry about killing what is not on your hands anymore with a toxin that the bugs get resistant to?


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Cawl gives every chapter 1000 suits of new Terminator armor of every variety, and also 1000 new Dreadnought chassis. How does the average Space Marine life change?

If you're asking how he got 1000 suits of Terminator armor, then let's say Gully also had another secret project that required Vulkan's help.

[Assistant]
Aside from having a lot of spare armor around, not much.

Terminator armor requires specialized training, and offers its increased protections at the cost of decreased mobility. Its used mainly in situations where such a trade-off would be desired  clearing out space hulks is the most common example. The combat roles of Tactical, Assault, and Scout Marines, for instance, would remain largely unchanged and necessary.

Dreadnoughts are meant to house severely disabled but still living Marines. Without a sudden increase in such candidates, theyll mainly just gather dust.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes a ribbon curl when I slide it over the sharp edge of a scissor?

[Assistant] When you bend the ribbon over a sharp edge, it stretches the outside of the ribbon - permanently making the outside a little bit longer. Dragging the ribbon along the sharp edge is like bending it a little bit at every point. This makes the outside of the ribbon slightly longer than the inside, forcing it to curl. Because it's stretched evenly along its length, rather than at one point, you get a smooth curl rather than a sharp bend.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] What would happen if I dumped a gigafuck ton of Bleach on Nurgle and his followers?

Like a trillion, billion  googleplexian bottles of Bleach on Papa Nurgle. Would he and his followers turn clean? Would the smell of ALL that bleach kill him?

[Assistant]
It would be like mixing a million tons of bleach with all the ammonia in the world.

And it wouldn't do a thing to hurt Nurgle or his followers. Hell, if anything they'd enjoy their toxic gas sauna day.


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

[User]
[X-23 comics] Possible Logan spoilers?

This isn't really much of a spoiler, but I've been reading the X-23 comics after seeing the movie, and when they give her the adamantium, Dr. Rice removes each of her claws entirely, sharpens them, bonds them with adamantium, and then puts them back.

How the hell does he reattach them? And shouldn't her claws just grow back after he removes them?

[Assistant] Most people with healing factors have some time to reattach severed things before they start to grow back.  And bone seems to grow back slowest.  A swift procedure would likely be within the reattachment time frame.


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

[User]
[40k] What's stopping anyone from attacking/destroying Terra to kill the Emperor?

What's stopping any race from launching an assault to kill the emperor on Terra?  I realize it's probably insanely well defended, but with so many forces widespread, surely some race could launch a direct assault, or use some sort of weapon to destroy the palace/planet he resides in?

[Assistant] It's *literally* the best protected planet in the galaxy. There is an army of Custodes who would most likely flip shit if you got near, and the Lords of Terra will *not* risk their livelihood. This isn't invading the White House. This is invading a Vatican stuffed to the gills with super soldiers and ridiculous defense grids, populated by Super-Jesus President.


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

[User] [Rimworld]Why are there so many eclipses and how do they last more than 20 hours?

[Assistant] We do not know the orbital bodies surrounding the particular Rimworld we end up on. Some could have a lot of moons, or be a moon to a massive gas giant themselves. If a gas giant your planet orbits pushed itself in the way during your trip around the sun, you would get long, planetwide total eclipses. Or a variety of stellar objects gets in the way that have been eliminated in our solar system.


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

[User] ELI5: How can DNA store 700 terabytes of data in a single gram?

[Assistant] Think of it close to a computer, except instead of 1s and 0s, it's A, T, C, and G. Each base pair weighs something on the order of 6x10^-22 grams, and a terabyte is only 8x10^12 bits, which leaves several orders of magnitude left over for whatever factors they use to convert base pairs to bits.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is fire?

I think I know fire is gases, but physically what in the heck is fire? You can't physically grab it, but you can certainly feel it. What in the heck is it?

[Assistant] Fire is the rapid oxidation of the molecules in the fuel source (i.e. logs in a fireplace).  It is an exothermic reaction which is where the heat comes from.  The energy generated from the oxidation of the atoms excites the electrons in the combustible material.  When the excited electrons fall back down to their ground state, they release photons which is the source of the light that you see (i.e. flames).


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

[User]
[DC][Wonder Woman] So can Wonder Woman survive a point blank gunshot to the head?

Is Wonder Woman just as vulnerable to stabbing/piercing/slicing as a normal human to where she couldn't survive a shot in the skull? Or is that just the easiest way to hurt her.

Follow up: If she's hardier against bullets do they bunch up on her like dirt and just cause bleeding, or do they frequently break bones or cause signifigant injury? Even if she heals in a few minutes?

Feel free to talk about other DC Amazons too.

[Assistant]
Sadly there is no clear answer to this.

Depending on the writer she is at least immune to small arms fire (including assault rifles), other writers make her only very robust and again others show her getting wounded from simple gun bullets as if she was a normal person.

The depiction of her invulnerability varies so massively, the only answer anyone can give is "depends on the circumstances".


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

[User] ELI5: why does faster highway driving use less gas per mile than driving slower in the city?

[Assistant] It takes more gasoline upfront to accelerate, especially from a stopped position, than it does to maintain speed on a highway, especially since you've got some sort of momentum help carry your car. Also, idling at a stop = burning gas without covering any territory. So you're reducing your average miles per gallon towards *zero* very frequently when driving in a city because of all the stopping and going and idling. On a highway, you're just... going. Smooth sailing, so you're covering more territory per gallon burned.


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

[User] How does the excess salt from salting roads affect the environment? Things such as bodies of water or soil quality?

[Assistant]
Seattle and Portland have actually found that this is a huge problem. Salmon return to the same area every year to make babies, and they guide themselves by the gradient of salt to fresh water as they move upstream. When there is too much salt from the roads, they get lost and spawn in the wrong place so their babies die too, leading to population decline, which is obviously terrible for the salmon industry.

AFAIK they use some non salt alternatives that dont work as well to protect the salmon.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do some mushrooms grow in a "Fairy Ring"? What causes the ring shape?

I see fairy rings in fields all the time but why a circle?

[Assistant] Because they're all from a single fungal organism. The spore landed at the center of the circle and then grew underground outwards in all directions. So when the fungus sprouts mushrooms above ground, they're all equidistant from the center point and form a circle.


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

[User]
[Groundhog Day] Why does Phil's piano teacher say "That's my student!" after his performance? Hasn't she only taught him for less than a day at most?

Its in my understanding that since only Phil retains his memories as the day changes, that to the piano teacher, every day would be Phil's first lesson. With every day, Phil begins his first practice more and more skilled at piano, to the point where e begins his "first lesson" already a master. If this is true, and she believes that she's only has him as a student for a day, how can she be so proud of teaching him?

[Assistant]
She taught him that day, he is her student.  He came to her for a lesson, she taught him, and now he's up there playing.
Even if Phil told her it was his first lesson, she probably does suspect that's not the case.  Still, she's not wrong, and no harm in taking a little credit there.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are the bottom of plastic bottles a funny shape and why can't it just have a flat bottom (eg. Mountain Dew, Pepsi ect)?

My best guess would be to do with balance? But not sure how it helps?

[Assistant]
I am old enough to remember when plastic soda bottles did have flat bottoms -- it was a separate piece, like a cap. The part containing the liquid was round, like the bottom of a test tube, and that sat inside a glued-on black plastic piece.  Without that piece, the bottle would not be able to stand up.
Then someone figured out how to make the little feet-shaped things and bottles became just one piece of plastic, easier to manufacture as others have mentioned, and avoiding the bulging-bottom situation.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] is Dumbledore more powerful than the Elder Wand?

So in the books its stated that Dumbledore defeated Grindewald. And its at least heavily implied that Dumbledore took the elder wand from Grindewald directly.

Even if Rita Skeeter is correct (which I doubt) Grindewald still surrendered to Dumbledore.

I just realized at this moment maybe Grindewald wasnt the true master of the Elder Wand. And I suppose it would have been possible for Dumbledore to find out who it was and defeat that person.

[Assistant]
It's reputation is overblown, as it's history shows.

As Dumbledore says.

>What must strike any intelligent witch or wizard on studying the so-called history of the Elder Wand is that every man who claims to have owned it has insisted that it is unbeatable, when the known facts of its passage through many owners hands demonstrate that has it not only been beaten hundreds of times, but that it also attracts trouble as Grumble the Grubby Goat attracted flies.

>All that is certain is that a wand called the Eldrun Wand by its owner, Barnabas Deverill, appeared in the early eighteenth century, and that Deverill used it to carve himself out a reputation as a fearsome warlock, until his reign of terror was ended by the equally notorious Loxias, who took the wand, rechristened it the Deathstick, and used it to lay waste to anyone who displeased him.

It massively increases your power, but Dumbledore was more skilled, and power doesn't mean everything. It has been beaten many times in the past, and can be beaten again.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How does a blaster beam kill a storm trooper?

I've observed that when a blaster beam hits machines or robots, it actually creates holes on the impact point or destroys the target entirely. If the blaster beam hits an organic target, same thing - it leaves a hole on the impact point.

However, every time a blaster beam hits a storm trooper, it only leaves a dirty smudge at most. No hole on the impact point. Yet, the storm trooper dies from 1 single shot. What's happening here?

[Assistant]
Why do you think they're dead?

Stormtrooper armor *can* actually survive a blaster bolt, but it doesn't just make the energy dissipate magically. It transforms it into a wider kinetic shock, usually tossing the trooper to the ground, and commonly knocking them unconscious. Some may still die due to the strong impact, of course.

Yeah, it's a shame that they're still out of the battle either way, but at least they're not all dead every time you send wave after wave of them into battle.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the food pipe located so close to the windpipe, as food entering the wind pipe can be lethal?

The gullet opening (food tube) is very close to the trachea (breathing tube). This positioning is a little risky, because if not for a small lid called epiglottis, the food may enter end up in the wrong place, i.e. the wind pipe. And this can be lethal.

So, does the wind pipe being so close to the food pipe help in any way?

[Assistant]
>The gullet opening (food tube) is very close to the trachea (breathing tube). This positioning is a little risky, because if not for a small lid called epiglottis, the food may enter end up in the wrong place, i.e. the wind pipe. And this can be lethal.
>
>So, does the wind pipe being so close to the food pipe help in any way?

The ability to speak, that is too enunciate precisely enough to actually form words, depends upon the direction of vocalizations over the tongue and out of the mouth through the lips.

Other species besides *homo sapiens* have tracheas that intersect with the esophagus farther from the mouth. This helps protect them from choking on food, but it also means that their vocalizations are limited to mainly a series of barks, yips, and growls; scarcely the stuff of intellectual discourse.

TL;DR- Because the risk of choking is worth the ability to speak.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] "They're tracking us!" "Not this ship, sister!" Two questions

First, if Leia knew she was being tracked, why lead them directly to Rebel HQ? Couldn't she at least have misdirected by landing on another planet and taking another ship to Yavin?

Second, why was Han so certain they weren't being tracked? What's special about the Millennium Falcon that he wouldn't expect a homing beacon to work?

[Assistant]
They had no real choice. Either they get chased directly to the Rebel base and successfully deliver the Death Star plans and hope to either destroy the Death Star or flee before the Empire gets to Yavin, or they get caught while trying to outrun the Imperial fleet while at the same time not being able to deliver their information to the Rebels.

Han's just especially proud of his ship. He knows his ship, and he'd know if it was being tracked, or so he thinks.


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

[User] When I breathe in dust, how does it eventually leave my body?

[Assistant] It gets caught in the thin layer of mucus lining the inside surfaces of your lungs. The lungs are also lined with tiny hairs called cilia that beat in a coordinated fashion to slowly push the mucus up and out of your lungs as new, fresh mucus is produced to take its place. The old, dirty mucus reaches the top of your airway where you may cough it out, but healthy people usually swallow it continually. It is then cleared through your digestive system, which (unlike the lungs) is quite robust to dirt and bacteria and such.


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

[User]
How does electricity know what the shortest path is to its destination?

Not sure if it belongs to this tag, or another one but this one started bugging me as soon as I thought of it.

I assume it works by distributing a small amount of charge in all directions and then moves to the point where the electricity has not bounced back yet, but then again, that's just my assumption and is most likely completely wrong.

[Assistant] So lets scrap the classic image most people have of electricity where you have an electron source pushing out electrons towards a positive pole. Instead, lets think of this like gravity and water. Your negative source is at the top of a hill, and the positive sink is at the bottom. If you dump a bunch of water on top of the hill, the water doesnt just flow straight down the hill to the bottom, it flows in all directions, but most of it goes straight down to the hole as gravity **pulls** the water down. In reality the positive pole sends out a field, similar to a magnet, that pulls on the electrons in the source, pulling them towards the positive terminal. As the electrons are pulled, there are infinitely many paths they can take, but each path has its own resistance. Also, because these paths are different but leave and arrive at the same place, they are called parallel and follow an important law of circuits. Namely that the amount of current (electrons) flowing through an individual branch of a parallel circuit is inversely proportional to the resistance of that branch. So the electricity actually is moving through all the paths, because the field generated by the positive source pulls along all the paths, but the amount going through the higher resistance paths is so small we essentially ignore it because of the law mentioned above.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] who built the ziggurat structures on Yavin 4 that the rebels use?

Are they of Jedi or Sith origin? Maybe a grand tomb for the ewoks?

[Assistant] The temples were built by a species called the Massassi. They were slaves to the Sith (the race, not specifically the force users, but there were force users among the Sith race). The temple, the "Great Temple" was used during one of the larger heresies in the Jedi Order.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is tinned tuna so cheap compared to tuna steak when they are both from the same fish?

Edit: Thank you for all the interesting responses! I didn't realise how little I knew about tuna. This is a fishy rabbit hole I'll be falling down for a while...

[Assistant] Typically a big tuna called albacore tuna is used for canned tuna, it's quality is low but holds up well to being fully cooked, while the higher quality fish like bluefin or yellowfin is used for steaks because people won't fully fully cook it and leave it rear to enjoy the texture, and flavor.