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

[User] [Marvel] Would you be able to hammer in nails made of vibranium or would the vibranium soak up all the kinetic energy?

[Assistant] when you hit the nail it will go in but it will feel like you were hitting your hammer into another hammer being swung with the same force. The thing is if vibranium actually behaved the way they say it does then any piece of it would explode from its own entropic energy. But vibranium doesn't behave the way they say it does, it just does whatever the user wants, so the real answer was inside you the whole time.


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

[User]
ELI5:How does voice analytic software work?

And does inflections and or accents effect the probability of matching?

[Assistant]
Most speech to text software works based on machine learning algorithms that use statistics.

The gist of it is that you can "teach" computer software to become good at pattern matching. By analyzing the wave pattern of the sound you make when you say words, and by telling the computer what the word is for each pattern, you can train the computer software to match a sound pattern to a word.

So if you have a large amount of voice clips, and someone has transcribed all those clips, you have created something called "training data", which you can feed into the software to teach it how to match those patterns.

Accents will effect the probability of matching if the software wasn't trained with recordings of accents.  But that's easily fixable by adding accented data to the training data.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do snails move so slow?

[Assistant]
Because they have no need to move faster. Their method of moving is efficient but slow - and as in loads of things, it's a trade-off that works for them.

Were they to move faster they'd need to produce slime at a much higher rate - and the slime is really clever stuff. It's very low friction at low speeds - you need to give it time to shear. Move quickly and you'll use a lot more energy.


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

[User]
[Disturbed]What is the Sickness? Why should I get down with it?

And why is he asking about my mother?

[Assistant] In their context, "get down" means fight against. The Sickness is what society views as the younger generation. The "mother culture" is trying to beat the child struggling for independence and individuality into submission.


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

[User]
[Futurama]Why are most people referred by their last names?

Fry and Leela use their last names even in their most intimate moments. Is this part of 31^st century culture? If so, why aren't Amy and Bender called Wong and Rodriguez?

[Assistant]
it's not 31^st century culture, trust me.

Fry's case is actually unique: He prefers his last name because Phillip is less comfortable to say. Phillip sounds clumsy and formal.

Leela's 'last name' isn't actually her surname, Turanga is. This is evidenced by her parents: Turanga Morris and Turanga Munda.

Professor Farnsworth and Doctor Zoidberg don't go by Hubert or John, but that's because of their titles.

Cubert, Kif, and Hermes, for example, also don't go by their last names (Farnsworth, Kroker, and Conrad respectively).


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

[User]
ELI5: if I were to drive directly towards a radio tower, would the music speed up?

I wasn't sure which subreddit to ask this in but I was curious while driving home today.

[Assistant] Yes, but imperceptibly. The tempo would get multiplied by roughly a factor of 1 minus your speed divided by the speed of light - and since you're moving *way* slower than light is, this factor is very very very close to 1.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does 16 degree Celsius ocean water feel a hell of a lot colder than 16 degree Celsius air?

Just wondering.  Today the air temp was the same as the water temp, but jeeezus, the water felt a lot colder.  I know there's something about water taking your body temperature away a lot faster than air, but I can't explain why.

[Assistant]
Well, Timmy (that's what the "t" in taitabo stands for, right?), imagine that there are two hills that you want to ride your tricycle on. Now, you know that on a hill that gets higher a lot faster, your tricycle will speed up more and more as you ride down it! So there are two hills: one hill is reeeeaaaalllllllllllly steep; that means that your tricycle will go reeeeaaaalllllly fast when you ride down it! The other hill isn't very steep at all; your tricycle will go really slowly, the perfect ride for a 3-year old, but that's not you, Timmy, you're an awesome 5-year old ready to ride fast! If you ride the steep hill, you'll go really fast! If you ride the not-so-steep hill, you'll go really slow!

Now imagine that riding down the steep hill is like jumping into cold water. Instead of moving really fast, you're going to get cold really fast! The steepness is like something adults like to call "thermal conductance" and "convection" and other fancy sounding words!

And riding on the not-so-steep hill? That's like stepping outside! Sure, you'll get cold eventually, but not as fast as the steep hill!


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

[User]
ELI5: How do countries determine the value of foreign currency?

I am aware it has to do with the Foreign Exchange Market(?) but what factors within it determine the value of a country's currency?

[Assistant]
Think of it like this: other than in the currency market, the only thing a Mexican peso is good for, is you can give it to a Mexican and they'll sell you something, or do something for you.

So the value of a peso is based on, "do they make stuff in Mexico that you might want", or "do Mexicans know how to do stuff that you might want done".

When a country has industries that make good products, or has a workforce that's productive and educated, you should value their currency more.  If their industries suck (don't make much, or make things you don't consider useful) and their workers suck (uneducated, unhealthy, unreliable), then their currency doesn't deserve much value either.  Or to think of it another way, if lots of people want things that Mexicans make/do, there will be a lot of demand for pesos, because you can give those to Mexicans and get awesome stuff.  So the value of the peso will rise.

The currency markets are a bunch of people each making their own reads on those factors, and trying to predict a little bit into the future how those factors are going to change.  And when those people trade with each other, we end up with a kind of weighted average of all their opinions as the value for each currency.


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

[User] [WH40K]If the First War for Armageddon was hushed up due to [REDACTED], why isn't the Second War for Armageddon called the First instead?

[Assistant] You don't just hush up a war. People know there was a war with [REDACTED] on Armageddon, but they also know that they will be killed if they mention it. The Inquisition is too busy wrangling up heretics to worry about the nomenclature of the wars for Armageddon, so they let those who call it the Second war be... for now.


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

[User]
Why does running water freeze at lower temps?

Is there a temperature at which water will freeze no matter how fast it's moving?

[Assistant] Flowing water has enough internal energy to resist crystallization.  The water molecules are flying past each other, and so they are gaining energy from the jostling against the riverbed, each other, or their container.  This gives them enough energy to remain above freezing temperatures.


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

[User]
[TWD] I'm Rick Grimes and I'm about to spelunk into some old dirty buildings for supplies.

I know there's walkers in there but they must have be stuck since they aren't coming to the door, I still need to go in there but I don't have a gas mask or anything.

Why am I not worried about diseases from decaying corpses that may have been trapped here since the beginning or airborne mold from untended dark buildings?

[Assistant]
You *are* worried about diseases, but those risks are theoretical, while starvation is a cold hard fact.   Your hunger compels you to take risks you wouldn't normally find acceptable.

You're also already aware from hard experience that you could die at any moment, so your risk profile has already been greatly adjusted.


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

[User] When people 'die in their sleep' are they actually asleep during the process, or would that process wake most people up?

[Assistant] Obviously, it's not possible to say with certainty what people who die in their sleep experience as they die, but usually these types of deaths are the result of sudden cardiac arrhythmia. Even in people who are totally conscious, the sudden onset of a rhythm disturbance this serious would cause loss of consciousness in only a couple of seconds, since it quickly causes a drop in blood pressure, which means you stop adequately perfusing your brain.


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

[User]
How was assembly code written and inputted in early CPUs?

Hi guys

I can't seem to find the answer to this, how did programmers in the early days write and store assembly code.

Did they have keyboards yet? How were the text files saved? I don't really get how you can type assembly code and save it (and then load it) when there's no software for the CPU yet.

[Assistant] the very earliest ones had toggle switches, i think. there was no assembler and you directly input machine code. later they had paper card readers which loaded the program into memory. tape was typically used for longer term storage. disk drives have been around for a long time too. there was also core memory which was a non-volatile ram. i forget what came before core. they also had drum memory which i was sort of analogous to a disk drive iirc.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some sounds, such as fingernails on a chalkboard, or aluminium cans tearing, cause physical discomfort to some people?

[Assistant]
There are two theories.

The sound resembles the cry of alarm of the primates long way down the evolutionary lane;

The sound frequency resonates within the human ear canal, causing it to vibrate violently.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come there are some automated body functions that we can "override" and others that we can't?

For example, we can will ourselves breathe/blink faster, or choose to hold our breath. But at the same time, we can't will a faster or slower heart rate or digestion when it might be advantageous to do so. What is  the difference in the muscles involved or brain regions associated with  these automated functions?

[Assistant]
For stuff like breath and blinking, those are controlled by muscles that receive signals from our brain to contract and relax. This is why we can override those actions.

For heart rate, it is controlled by pacemaker cells that are independent of the brain. Another example is when the doctor taps on your knee and your leg kicks, you cant stop it. The signal never actually reaches your brain, just to your spinal chord and back.

Edit: clarification

Edit: you can indirectly control your heart rate by influencing it with other factors (movement and breathing). But you cannot only change your bpm through sheer willpower.


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

[User] For as long as I can remember, the British Pound has always been more valuable than the US Dollar. Why is this?

[Assistant]
In 1914 US dollar was pegged to $15~ for 1 ounce of gold but 1 troy ounce of gold was pegged to 4 in 1915.

So even when on gold standard the pound was worth roughly 4x the USD purely because it'd buy more gold per unit, but since there's been about 50 years of inflation since the gold standard was abandoned that's where it's fallen to about 1.4:1 pounds to USD.


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

[User]
ELI5: Shouldn't black holes eventually swallow EVERYTHING?

ELI5: I never understood why black holes don't "snowball" in to galaxy swallowing super-giants, especially given the amount of time they are around. I figure the more it swallows, the bigger it gets, the bigger it gets the more things are attracted to it, creating a universe sized cataclysmic tear in the fabric of space-time. Tell my why that doesn't happen.

[Assistant]
Black holes aren't cosmic vacuum cleaners that just suck and suck and suck. Things orbit around them just like our moon orbits the Earth, and the Earth orbits the sun. The difference is a black hole is so big that once you get too close you can't escape its pull no matter how fast you go, you fall into it. Galaxies are really big and mostly everything in one is much too far away to just fall into the black hole.

In short, space is really big and mostly everything is really far away, even for things as big as black holes.


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

[User] ELI5: How do bodies know to "stop growing"? What tells the body to only grow your bones, organs etc to a certain size?

[Assistant]
When the fetus grows, it turns on programs of genes, including triggers to stop. These programs can in turn trigger other programs until all the necessary programs have been executed. Some of these programs are kept open into our infancy, adolescence or even adulthood. This system of genetic control is fairly well characterized in Drosophila flys, c. Elegans flatworms and plants like arabidopsis, but much less understood in humans. What we do know is that the group of genes known as homeobox (Hox) play a critical role in triggering gene programs related to body architecture and therefore also height.

Interestingly, twin studies show a heritability of body size in the order of 60-70%, but attempts at pinpointing this to specific genes (in genome-wide association studies, GWAS) have largely failed. It is just, very, very complex.


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

[User] If the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate, where does the energy come from to perpetuate this speed?

[Assistant]
This isn't a speed. Objects moving through space have a speed, but space itself does not have a speed.

It's also worth noting that, on cosmic scales, energy does not have to be conserved. By Noether's theorem, energy conservation is applicable when the physical laws of a system are time-invariant, but the universe changes over time.


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

[User]
[Guardians of the Galaxy] Why hadn't Peter already returned to Earth before the events of GotG?

When we first saw Peter, he was effectively a free agent with his own ship so why hadn't he already returned to Earth? He *was* originally taken against his will and still had some family left back home. With the alien tech he had access to he could have become a king on Earth, and I'm sure the idea of a laid-back lifestyle surrounded by the best women and luxury even a planet like Earth could offer him wouldn't have been something to sneeze at.

[Assistant]
Why would he? His last memory of the place is extremely painful, to the point where he was already running away and couldn't look back out of grief. Plus, the planet itself is a backwater, underdeveloped, inconvenient-to-reach place with none of the conveniences of the bigger galactic community. What's the point of having unlimited earth money if it's useless on literally every other planet?

It's possible he went back for short trips, to buy batteries or other small toys and items. But otherwise he's really not in a place or has any need to go back.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the mouse disappear off the bottom and right of a monitor but not on the top or the left side?

[Assistant]
Because the part of the Cursor that is relevant is the "point" of the "arrow". The rest of the image serves no technical purpose, it's just there to help you to associate it with the concept of pointing at something.   So because of the shape of the Cursor, and with the intent of being able to click on anything on the screen, the image would have to

A. Vanish into the bottom and right edges of a screen  or
B. Flip around to stay in view.

Obviously we went with A, because B is just confusing and dumb.


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

[User]
How exactly does light hitting a material create heat?

Ok, so I have a pretty good grasp of the modes of heating (in this case radiation) and the general physics of light being absorbed and exciting electrons. However, I started thinking about a single photon and single atom. My understanding is that as the light comes into contact with a material, if the material absorbs at that wavelength, the photon will give its energy to the electrons (or else be reflected or transmitted). So clearly we get the black shirts are hot, white is cool, glass is clear etc.

But this heat causes an increase in temperature, which is a measure of the kinetic energy. So the molecules are now moving faster. Again go back to a single photon hitting a single molecule. If the model is light as a wave that excites the electrons, how would an excited electron make the molecule as a whole move faster? But if the model is the photon as a particle with some momentum colliding with the molecule, this doesn't account for the absorption of different electronic structures.

Can anyone make better sense or tell me where my understanding if flawed.

[Assistant]
Don't overthink the quantum mechanics of it.  When photons bombard a material, they collide and thus impart momentum - and so kinetic energy - to the material.

There is of course more detail, but the QM complications do not override the physics of collisions.  Chucking marbles into bowling balls will move the bowling balls too.

The precise answer depends on whether we have a gas, or perhaps a crystal...etc.  But the basic idea is:

If an electron is excited by an incoming photon, it will absorb it.  But it will also eject one later.  And hence recoil.  The recoil imparts kinetic energy.  The entire process - absorption, and subsequent emission (or decay, or whatever - there are plenty of options) leave a net kinetic energy change in the target material.

It is still a collision at its core, and in particle physics, collisions are treated rather simply in this manner... with of course, relativistic corrections for the expressions for momentum and energy, etc.


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

[User]
ELI5: In old sitcoms, even working class people owned homes, though perhaps modest ones (i.e. Archie Bunker's house in Queens). How was this possible?

 Edit: I would also note that Fred Sandford owned a home, as did the family on Roseanne, and a few others.

[Assistant] It used to be that even the most modest wages matched up with the average cost of living (not always of course, but definitely more often).  In the 40s and 50s, a person could support a family, buy a house, and have a car by working one job.  However, wages have not kept up with inflation.  Because of the rising cost of living, it is much harder to support a family and own a home on one job.


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

[User]
[WH40k]How to escape the tyranny of the Imperium

*ENCODED TRANSMISSION, RELAYED VIA VOID SPACE

If anyone's out there, I need your help. My world is hell. The people are worked to death and fed little. They have no rights of their own and they struggle daily to get by. I have managed to rise above the lowest of the low and manage to secure a small place in the planetary government, but I'm powerless to prevent the scouring of the people here.

The tithe ships wreck our world whenever they come, and they're due a month from now. In my position I can do little to prevent the devastation they will bring. They say they take our food and our children in the name of the Emperor but no merciful God would allow such injustice. It is time to escape the clutches of this cruel empire, but I can't do it without help.

How can I save this world?

[Assistant]
The only thing your world needs saving from is your heresy, you degenerate apostate.  The tithe ships you speak of, the armies of men taken to support the Imperium, each drop of blood, is a necessary sacrifice to save mankind from the Archenemy, the Xenos, and forces of rebellion like you, that threaten to destroy the Imperium.

Rebellions happen, of course.  Look at the Severan Dominate; Duke Severus plotted and connived a domain away from the embrace of the Emperor, by over time diverting tithes, fomenting civil wars, and other events to force secession.  But the Imperium will not rest  until those worlds are brought back into the fold, or annihilated. Each rebel is an unacceptable affront to Him-on-Earth, and must be purged without mercy.  Escape from the Imperium comes in two forms: death, or betrayal, followed by death.  The later is your fate.  The Inquisition is coming for you, apostate.  May you repent, and be granted a swift and merciful death rather than the torment you deserve, by the grace of the Emperor.


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

[User] ELI5: why are gas station pumps so adamant about removing credit cards so quickly?

[Assistant] The part that reads the card is narrow and stationary. It can only read the whole code when the card is moving past it. If the card is moving slowly, it can't tell the difference between the card's magnetism and the ambient magnetism.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are planes able to land at such high speed without losing control and keep going in a straight line?

Whenever I'm experiencing a landing I can't help but think of how easy it would be to steer off the runway by jerking the steering wheel just a bit or any other thing like wind or just a bad landing angle. I'm associating it with a car driving at that speed and how easy is it to lose control.

[Assistant]
Above really low speeds, the direction of a plane on a runway isn't controlled by the wheels, its controlled by the control surfaces(rudder, elevator, and ailerons)

For your car, the friction of the tires to prevent side to side movement is greater than the force from the air pushing you into the most streamlined direction, this is mostly because your car is going relatively slow

For a plane, the force from the air is significantly higher than the force from the tires because the plane has a much higher speed and wayyyy more surface area if you turn it sideways to the wind than going straight on.  Your car might present 2-3x more, a plane will present 10x or more

If you have a plane going down the runway at landing speed and just crank the front wheels hard to the right, then they'll just start skidding on the runway like you just locked up the brakes.  The tail is going to keep the plane lined up relative to the wind until the speed really drops.

This is the plane on a treadmill thing.  The tires on a plane aren't a major source of force and are freespinning for the most part.  Planes really only care about their orientation relative to airflow and airspeed.


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

[User]
Lund University vs. Uppsala University

Which one is better for phd in psychology? I checked many sources and ranking lists and saw it changes according to different sources.

[Assistant]
I'd go to Uppsalas Universitet and live in Stockholm. Just train it every day from T-Centralen. In Lund, you could live in Malm, which wouldn't be as nice.

However, you **could** live in Kbenhavn if you went to Lund, which is much nicer than Stockholm and it's a direct train connection. Over the resund everyday, it would be like watching in Broen/Bron.

Copenhagen is a super nice and I've also like the Danes more than the Swedes.


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

[User] Can something escape the particle horizon? If not, would that essentially make the observable universe a black hole of sorts?

[Assistant]
Once a region of spacetime has entered our particle horizon, it's there to stay. It cannot go back behind it. (However, objects that enter the particle horizon later are increasingly redshifted.)

This is not like a black hole because the particle horizon is different for each point of space. There are objects that will never enter our particle horizon, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Similarly, an object can be and are in multiple particle horizons at once. In particular, because our universe is expanding more or less exponentially, it turns out that the radius of the particle horizon around any point will asymptote to some finite limit. This means that is possible for an object to be causally influenced both by events in some region *S* and by events in some region *R*, but *R* and *S* themselves cannot causally influence each other.

A black hole event horizon, on the other hand, is much more absolute. *All* observers agree on which points of spacetime consist of the event horizon. Events behind the horizon are not in the causal past of any event outside the horizon. The only real similarity between the two types of horizons is just some general notion of causal disconnection.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Would Mjolnir let me wield it if it were absolutely imperative to the survival of Asgard?

Suppose Thor and Odin have both fallen by the siege of Surtr or the Frost Giants or what have you. There is only me, a warrior who managed to make it to Asgar some long time ago.

If in this last-stand scenario would Mjolnir let me lift it or would it rather let Asgard die than break the "Whoever is worthy" enchantment?

[Assistant]
How unworthy are you?

Given that you're trying to save Asgard against overwhelming odds, it seems likely that you're in the grey area where Mjolnir is willing to bend its rules rather than being someone utterly unacceptable.

But Mjolnir does have certain minimum standards, so if you're a villain who loves to torture children to death you're not going to be able to wield it even in those circumstances.


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

[User]
[spirited away] Why did Haku protect Chihiro?

Is there a reason in Japanese mythology that the river god would arbitrarily be protective of a little girl? Wouldnt Chihiro be in debt to kohakunushi? because he saved her life once already?

[Assistant] I suspect it was because he recognizes shes a child whos been thrust into a very bad spot. Consequently, hes giving her the tools to survive, but not exactly coddling her (note that he suggests to the other hotel staff that they can eat her if she stinks after three days). So really hes dancing a line here.


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

[User]
Did someone experience something like this?

This happened to me 3 times this week . I keep waking up at 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM . Idk why and how . The thing that wierded me out is that its always the exact same time , not a minute later . Is there any scientific or psychological meaning or explanation for this . I honestly don't even know where can I ask this.

[Assistant]
Working with patients with sleep disorders: Our brain is incredibly good at remembering a specific time and specifically waking up for it. Right now your brain probably gets a small dopamine kick every time it wakes you up at 03:00 and 06:00 AM. You see the time and think "wow, it did it again" which reinforces the mechanism every time it happens.

The easiest way to stop your brain from being obsessed with those two timestamps is to stop looking at watches at night. Have a clock next to the bed? Turn it around. A watch in line of sight? Take it down. Smartphone to the other side of the room so you don't feel tempted to check.

There is no actual benefit in checking the time at night. Most people will see what time it is, start calculating how much sleep they will get now, get stressed, and sleep worse for it afterwards.


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

[User]
How people would get food in a post apocalyptic world?

Hello AskScienceFiction! I've just discovered this subreddit and I'm quite thrilled of the opportunities. Especially to make our tabletop RPG settings more realistic.

The first question I would like to ask you all is about post apocalyptic worlds like from Fallout or Mad Max. I'm currently playing a hardholder in Apocalypse World and there's one thing I can't figure out : how does people manage to get food?

Do you think there's some warlord who have dozens of slaves to grow crops? Does remaining can food from our time is enough to sustain all these people? Does people need less food?

What do you think?

[Assistant]
This depends, how long ago was the fall?

Less that 10 years - scavenging and living off the land.  Even with all of the death from the bombs dropping and the fallout, and the subsequent raids and skirmishes, there are lots and lots of people.  Every plant and animal will be eaten, grocery stores will be picked clean. Many will starve, ecosystems will collapse.

10-50 years - (assuming nuclear winter) most of the readily available food will be gone, stores will have become death traps for the desperate, the few that had bomb shelters have run out if food.  There is still some scavenging, and what is considered "edible" has drastically changed.   Bullets are more precious than life. The only non human mammal left on earth is the dog.

At this point there is somewhere between 10-30% of peak human population alive, fully half of them are now cannibals, and a quarter of the living are kept as cattle.

Growing crops at this point is near impossible, there is scarcity in sunlight and warmth, seeds from crops have long since been devoured, trees have been stripped if bark and rot where they stand, green is now a very rare color.  Lichen, moss, mold and fungus are now the staples of humanity.  Occasionally a cache of pre-fall food is found, but soon none will be seen again.

There are rumors though, stories that along the equator things are better, things are warmer, that there is green, and fresh food.  Or island nations that never felt the fall. There are rumors along the equator that things must be better in the US, they have all the money after all.

50-100s of years - less than 10% peak human population exists.  At the start of this era even insects have been eaten into near extinction, there is almost no life left on earth.

Mankind travels in small packs, malnourished and falling quickly.  Cannibalism is now universal, but no longer predatory, when one member falls the rest will eat them.  There is no organized farming or harvesting, there simply is nothing to grow.

Afterwards- life begins to return, insects and plants at first, the few humans left find foraging easier, the good times have returned.  Maybe one day far in the future dogs and fish and birds will return, but for now leaves and beetles are a gift.

((Sorry this isn't great for a rpg, no mutants or feral animals after 50 years, but food would be the cause for war and torment in a nuclear winter scenario))


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

[User] [alien/promethius] Had humans encountered other aliens in the past?

[Assistant]
There are many things that would strongly indicate yes.

In the novelization of Alien, Ash says "No known creature is a natural invisible." One of the Company brass talks about "a creature not seen once in over 300 surveyed worlds." LV-426 is "a rock. No indigenous life." The Nostromo crew has quarantine procedures. And of course "It don't matter when it's Arcturan, baby!" and "Another bug hunt."

You could *kinda* explain all this in other ways. Maybe Arcturans are humans who are into some kind of androgynous subculture/fetish. Maybe the planet has no indigenous life because *no* planet except Earth has indigenous life, and so on.

But by far the most natural, unforced meaning of these lines is that we have encountered many other alien species in the past. If not, a lot of tortured alternate explanations are needed.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do companies push to install their mobile app when you visit their website? What sort of information they get from their app vs a web visit?

[Assistant]
In a lot of cases, it's not as much about collecting information on you as it is getting you to use their electronic presence more.

Having a mobile app is really convenient, and you're more likely to have it within reach and to use it than the alternative of opening up a web phone browser and trying to hit their internet site.

Since you're more likely to use that convenient, in-reach app, that means you're more likely to have more interactions with the business that is providing that app.

That translates directly to more brand recognition and more sales, and even more visits to their physical store (if they have one) instead of the competition's. All of these - heck, even just any ONE of these - are great for businesses.


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

[User]
[40k] Most subtle way to take over a planet?

So everyone hears the story's about chaos cults infiltrating and corrupting entire planetary governments to bring them into service of the dark gods. Or of gene-stealers prepping worlds for consumption by the great devour-our. But It would be cool to see how the Imperium would go about bringing a newly discovered world into compliance through rather subtle, assuming that the Imperiums usual blunt instruments are unavailable but less numerous but more specialized, subtle forces are at their disposal, which ones would they be and how would they be used?

[Assistant]
'Subtlety' isn't *really* an option for the Imperium. When they find a planet, they want it to cooperate with them for thousands of years. The people, or at the very least the government, needs to be aware of and cooperate with the Imperium across many generations. Unlike Chaos, they cannot and would not want to force them into obedience through brainwashing. Unlike the Tyranids, they don't have a simple goal with a set deadline.

That being said, there's no reason for the Imperium to use 'blunt instruments'. The tithe demanded from each planet is usually reasonable - after all, it's expected that they will be able to sustain the practise over many millennia. In return, the Imperium has a lot of exotic goods, technology, or knowledge to offer most worlds, and the planetary government is almost always left largely intact.

So, in summary - subtlety runs counter to the goals of the Imperium, but simple diplomacy is their most common and effective tool.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does freshly squeezed juice from an orange taste different from the store bought "100% freshly squeezed" bottled orange juice?

[Assistant]
Because "100% freshly squeezed" orange juice is a lie.

In reality, "not from concentrate" orange juice is stored in large tanks for as long as a year before it is shipped to stores. It is stored without oxygen so that it doesn't go bad. However, this also causes the orange juice to lose its flavor.

So, to make it taste like oranges again, companies hire flavor and fragrance companies to provide them with flavor packs which they then add back into the orange juice before shipping it to the store.

You won't find this listed in the ingredients because, technically, the flavors are made from orange essence and orange oils. However, they are heavily processed and it's a stretch to consider them natural. However, the phrase "100% natural" or "all natural" is not regulated in America the way that "organic" is, and it is all but meaningless.

None of this is to suggest that "fresh squeezed" orange juice is any better or worse for you than orange juice from concentrate or actual fresh squeezed orange juice. But that's why it doesn't taste the same.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why stunt people don't use air bags in car stunts?

I just watched a couple of car stunts they don't seem to use any. What is the reason?

[Assistant] The collision sensors for airbags are to sensitive and they would deploy when the car lands a jump or gets a bump.  They cost a fortune to replace when they DO go off, and if the stunt man is properly restrained they don't add any value in the event of a crash.  In addition, airbags hurt quite a lot when they are deployed.  Less than going through the wind shield, but more than you might think.


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

[User]
[DC] What exactly are Ravens powers and how does she rank along DC magic users?

What is Azeroth Merion Zynthos? I know azeroth is her home or whatever but I don't know the rest. How do her powers work? Who's more powerful than her as far as magic users go?

[Assistant]
Being the daughter of a demon grants you an awful lot of raw power, however, accessing the full potential of that power requires losing a certain amount of control, which Raven consciously avoids.

Fundamentally, Raven is an Empath. While sh can do trivial things like levitate objects and teleport, her primary skills involve accessing and manipulating people's emotions. It's kind of like telepathy, but instead of being about thoughts, it's about emotions. And as far as Empaths go, she's probably #1. Top 3 at the very least.


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

[User]
[Hellraiser] Why would anyone open Lemarchand's box?

Assuming they know what it does as the character's seem to do, why would anyone want to open the Lament Configuration on purpose?

[Assistant]
Well, in the first movie, the box was opened by a hedonist desperately seeking the ultimate sexual indulgence. In the 4th movie there are several justifications, though the final centres around an attempt to destroy it...

Overall, however, the presence of the box exerts a sort of hypnotic influence on anyone holding it. It seems to tap into the human curiosity, pressuring the part of your mind that wants to 'know'. How does it work? What's in the box? What happens if i press this?

It's really a rather sinister influence, tapping into human nature like that...


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

[User]
[Evolution, 2001 movie]In the movie The General is depicted to be a hot-headed idiot who almost destroys the world, did he actually save all life on planet Earth by accident? Does everyone die afterwards anyway?

For those who have not seen the movie, it concerns a small town where a meteoroid strikes within which is alien life that can evolve, reproduce and mutate extremely quickly. The alien life initially crashed into a cave complex and was semi contained there until some of it started getting out through a cave system and attacking the locals. What initially crashed were microbes, it later evolved into a variety of larger and more complex life including, right before the end, something that look like intelligent primates.

A military commander decides to deal with the situation by packing part of the cave complex full of napalm and igniting it. A local scientist says that this is a bad idea because heat energy causes the alien life to grow very rapidl. At the climax of the movie the napalm is set off and all of the alien life, or so it might appear, melts into a soup and then congeals into one giant single-celled organism which is then killed with a bomb made out of shampoo. The alien life is vulnerable to a chemical in shampoo.  Before the shampoo bomb blew it up, the cell was starting to divide and had it succeeded, the world would certainly have been destroyed. When the movie ends the general is shown to be a fool and the day is saved. I have two questions then.

1. Does everyone die off-screen a couple of weeks later anyway? If this stuff can evolve very rapidly and some of it had already escaped why is there any reason to imagine that all of it was absorbed into that giant single-celled creature?  From what we can see the cave complex had been destroyed but they had already made it into local community and that's not look like it was damaged at all.

2. If all of it was absorbed, then didn't the general actually save the world? I don't see any other way that all of the alien life, down to the very last cell, could have otherwise have been found and destroyed. It is only because he caused such rapid growth that he combined it into one bigger and easier to hit target. Didn't he actually save the world?

And if you have never saw it, this cinematic masterpiece is currently on Netflix.  This is the sort of very serious movie which deserves very serious consideration.

[Assistant]
The giant monster being killed was just a proof-of-concept test of a biological weapon to use against the aliens.  As a bonus, it's a biological weapon that has already been extensively tested on humans and proven to be harmless.  While there will undoubtedly be some cleanup to do in the surrounding area, we now have a weapon that we can use to carpet bomb any affected region, quickly wiping out the alien threat.

The General's recklessness made things a little bit easier and provided the sense of urgency that forced agent Mulder to come up with a solution, but the military could have just as easily done it's own research, come up with the bioweapon idea, filled up the cave with pressurized shampoo bottles instead of napalm, and destroyed the infestation without the giant blob monster stage.


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

[User]
[X men] Could Mystique morph into C-3PO?

I'm only really aware of Mystique through the films, and she doesn't seem to be able to morph into many shapes, eg animals and that, but would she be able to morph into a humanoid robot? In the first X Men film she does turn into a small Statue of Liberty, so she doesn't exclusively change into other humans.

[Assistant] She can at very least change her outward appearance to look like him. She has been shown many times to be able to make inorganic accessories with her shifter abilities, such as clothing and sunglasses. A metallic coating is likely well within her capabilities. As far as internally...probably not. She tends to have to remain (mostly) humanoid, so her core likely would remain flesh and blood.


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

[User]
Is it possible to sneeze during sleep?

Do you just wake up and sneeze and then right after fall back to sleep, or do you sneeze while sleeping or is it simply not doable?

[Assistant]
Yes it's possible,  and you have likely done it and simply don't remember. We frequently enact behaviours during sleep which are not encoded into memory,  thus we cannot recall them at a later date. You may have had a nonsensical conversation with a partner in the night at some point and they don't remember it; this is another example.

I would suggest you are less likely to sneeze during sleep because you are still and so won't encounter as many irritants. But it's definitely possible.


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

[User] Why were people rebelling against the Empire in Star Wars? What made the Empire so bad?

[Assistant]
They're a totalitarian regime that violently snuffs out anyone they see as a threat.

Want proof? Ask Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Oh wait, you can't! Because the Empire had them burned alive to death. That's right, burned alive *to death*


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

[User] [Edge of Tomorrow] Why do the aliens keep resetting time? They've already altered time enough to achieve an overwhelming victory. They are also aware of Cage's presence and attempts to kill the Queen Omega alien.

[Assistant] It's implied to be not entirely voluntary; the aliens reset time when one of the Alphas dies much in the same way a human recoils when they touch something hot. While humans have to accept whatever hand fate deals them at the end of the day, the aliens are forced to keep replaying the scenario until they at least get the relevant Alpha out alive.


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

[User]
ELI5: why does John Wayne refer to people as "pilgrims" in his films?

Is he referencing the Pilgrims of the 1600s or are there specific Wild West ones?

[Assistant]
Not the kind we think about this week, with the turkeys and the buckles on their hats. Pilgrim just means a person on pilgrimage -- a religious voyage of fulfillment and redemption. More generally, it means a wandering traveler from a distant place, or just a foreigner.

Wayne (and other characters in Westerns) uses the word "Pilgrim" to refer to easterners recently arrived in the Old West, especially when they're soft, timid, and moralizing -- values associated with religion, rather than the bitter realities of violent frontier life.


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

[User]
When I tell recruiters that I study computer graphics, they think I am an artist or a designer.

I'm posting here to get some advice about talking to recruiters for tech companies. I'm a PhD student in computer science, and my research area is computer graphics. It seems that whenever I talk to recruiters (at career fairs or in the internship interview process), they quickly jump to the incorrect conclusion that I am primarily an artist or designer, not a technical person. I actually do love art as a hobby, but when I talk to these recruiters, I am always interested in technical positions.

Typically, I will introduce myself like I did to this thread: "I'm a PhD student in computer science, and my research area is computer graphics." As soon as these recruiters hear the word "graphics," they respond with, "so, you're a designer?"

Then, I try to explain that I am not a designer, but I do make images appear on the screen. My actual work is about writing the code and developing the algorithms.

However, at this point, the recruiters seem completely tuned out to everything I am saying, because 10 seconds ago, they jumped to the conclusion that I was a designer. And they are not looking to hire designers, so why pay attention to me at all?

Then sometimes they will be like..."Why don't you talk to Bob? Hey Bob, talk to this girl, she's a designer." Then I will have to start over again explaining to Bob that I am not actually a designer.

Or sometimes they will say, "We are really looking for a strong coder (...not you) for this position." Then if I try to point out that I am a strong coder, they won't take me seriously.

I am concerned that this problem will affect my chances of landing a computer science job after I graduate. I am trying to figure out why this is happening to me, and what I can do to change it. What do?

[Assistant] I try to use the word "rendering" instead of "graphics" where possible to avoid this issue. They'll either know what you're talking about or will be impressed by you knowing something technical that they don't and forward you on to the engineers.


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

[User] How do we know that our solar system is in the arm of a spiral galaxy, far from the galaxy's center or is this actually just well supported hypothesis?

[Assistant]
A very simple illustration of how we know that we are not in the center of things is that the night sky in the northern hemisphere summer has a lot more "light pollution" than the night sky of the northern hemisphere winter. As we go about our yearly orbit, we get a 360 view of the heavens at night. In the summer, we see a dense Milky Way, but the constellations don't stand out because of the light of a few hundred billion stars creating light pollution behind them.

But winter nights are crisp and clear, with the constellations standing out boldly against the deep black background of intergalactic space, and the outer arm of the Milky Way stands out, but isn't as dense or spectacular. This all leads us to think that there's a whole lot more stars in one direction than the other.

And that's just with what we can see with our little eyeballs. Like the other comment says, we have a gigantic range of electromagnetic emissions that we can build instruments to detect.


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

[User]
[MCU] Are the 9 Realms all in the same dimension?

Could each realm be traveled to via spaceship without the use of the Bifrost? (albeit very slowly)

Are the 9 Realms, just 9 different planets, all in the same universe/galaxy?

Does this mean planets like Xandar aren't in any of the 9 realms?

[Assistant] The 9 realms are 9 planets connected by a wormhole network called Yggdrasil. They were naturally connected through the convergence (Thor the Dark World) which made it easier for the Asgardians to build Yggdrasil and then take over/oversee them. Odin and the Asgardians are the 'space police' of the 9 realms, like the Nova Corps is for the others. Perhaps that's why Thanos was so reluctant to gather the stones prior to Odin's death ; he was afraid of him.


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

[User] ELI5: How does your body proportionately distribute fat/mass across your body? How does it evenly for the most part distribute to all parts of the body?

[Assistant]
Well for one thing it's not even and a lot of this has to due with hormone levels.

Estrogen will generally signal for more fat storage in the legs, hence women having thicker legs and posteriors.

Testosterone will favor the arms and upper body.

Cortisol will favor the stomach. See people with Cushing's for extreme example.

Insulin the sides of the stomach. (love handles).


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

[User]
[Harry Potter]Would a garden-variety dark wizard even benefit from a horcrux?

I'm a "middle-class" dark wizard. Not a scary monster in the shadows, but I certainly don't have some fascist conspiracy doing my bidding either. I'm just a guy who uses dark magic to get ahead when I can -- I love the feeling of power it gives me -- but I live a relatively normal day-to-day life. I wanted to live forever, so I studied the right books and murdered someone and made a horcrux, and I hid it well.

But now look at what happened to Voldemort. He had a half-dozen horcruxes; he gets killed *one* time, and he comes back a decade later as a face on the back of some guy's head! Yes it's amazing that he's alive at all, but this form of immortality is almost more trouble than dying! He has to drink unicorn blood, and his followers have to infiltrate Hogwarts, subvert the tri-wizard tourney, and cast an elaborate spell that involves cutting off your own arm. Come on -- I know a guy who knows a guy, but no one is going to cut off their arm for me 10 years in the future!

And again, I realize that in one way it would be an amazing demonstration of power if someone AK'd me and I came back. That would be great. But... look at it from my point of view. I "live" only by becoming some kind of gross, weak creature. It might take me 10 years to get back into a real body; I'm no Voldemort, and it was hard even for him, so I may very well *never* return to human form. Even if I do, my wand, house, savings, etc. are all long gone, and I look like an Uruk-Hai. Nothing about this feels like a "look how powerful I am" situation!

If you're not Dark Lord material, if you don't have fanatical supporters, is there even any point in making a horcrux? Is there something I can do to come back as myself instead of an urban legend?

[Assistant]
Yep, you pretty much got the gist of why Horcruxes aren't worth it even if you aren't bothered about murdering someone. The important thing to consider is that Horcruxification binds the soul to the mortal plane, but it doesn't do much for the body, and solutions to that problem are difficult, inelegant, and literally ugly.

Since you seem like a respectable sort with surely no ulterior motives, I'll drop you a name you might be interested in researching; Have you ever heard of Nicolas Flamel?


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

[User] ELI5: How do such small doses of things like cocaine and heroin kill you? How do these small powders have such a big effect on your body?

[Assistant]
It just doesn't always take a lot of something to have an effect in your body. Cocaine and heroin have different effects on the body, but in general, they target receptors in your brain that then set off cascading reactions all over your body.

Lots of medications have an effect at a much lower dose than the same weight cocaine and heroin. For example, a standard dose of the benzodiazapine clonazapam is 0.25mg. It's just formed into larger pills to make it easier to use.

The thing is, unadulterated cocaine and heroin *aren't* super deadly in small amounts...provided you are more or less healthy and not using other substances. It's when you start mixing substances (like, cocaine and alcohol is bad news for your liver and also increases the risk of heart attack) or using while you have a health condition (it should be fairly obvious why using something like cocaine when you have a heart condition is dangerous). Body weight, how frequently you use, how you use (like snorting versus injecting)...there are lots of different variables.

When you get into the truly hard-hitters like fentanyl, carfentanil, and other analogues, that's when things get beyond potent.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is KiloByte not 1000 bytes?

a Kilobit == 1000 bits

however, a kilobyte == 1024 bytes

I know that 8bits == 1 byte, but i dont see how that affects that a kilobyte is 1024 bytes.

[Assistant]
There's a bit of marketing that mucked things up so KB is both 1000 bytes and 1024 bytes depending on what you're looking at

*Technicially* a Kilobyte(KB) is always 1000 Bytes and 1024 Bytes is a Kibibyte(KiB), but that's confusing.  People don't want to be flip flopping prefixes so marketing for most things just rounds to the nearest 10s place and calls a KB and a KiB close enough.

Windows when reporting sizes reports in KiB/MiB/GiB(2^10/20/30) despite saying KB/MB/GB(10^3/6/9) so when you install a 1000 GB hard drive and it shows up as ~960GB, that's what happened.


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

[User] [Marvel] Wolverine was once trapped under an iceberg and survived by eating strips of his own arm via his healing factor. How is this possible? Shouldn't all the resources in his arm be necessary to regen the next arm?

[Assistant]
Even if you don't fully subscribe to the "meat dimension" theory of regeneration, it is clear from Wolverine's more implausible feats (regenerating himself fully from a charred skeleton or a batch of cells) that his healing factor has to be deriving its energy from far more than just his caloric intake.

Given this, he could very well be his own food source using whatever this "other" source of energy and matter is.


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

[User] [MCU] How does the proven existence of aliens and superpowered beings on Earth shape the culture's Science Fiction movies, film and TV shows?

[Assistant]
In a world with superpowered beings, fiction takes a different turn. Comics and movies about detectives and pirates and fictionalized stories about historical cultures like the Romans or the Vikings are far more common and popular. Instead of superpowered people saving the day, the stories are more about exceptional "regular" people beating the odds or outwitting their opponents.

In science fiction stories of exotic alien worlds still exist, but the aliens tend to be more "alien" so to speak. Instead of humanoid aliens they tend to be more akin to Eldritch Horrors that invade. Steampunk may also be a more popular genre as well.


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

[User]
[Halo] [AMA] I am a serving Sergeant on board UNSC Infinity. Veteran of the Human-Covenant war.

My name is Sergeant Leonard G Washbrook. I am currently serving aboard the UNSC Infinity. We have recently left Requiem and it made me think, I'm not going to be around forever and I'd like to share some of my experiences from the Human-Covenant war and from requiem.

[Assistant] Rumors have circulated recently of the Spartan II program being implemented to combat the insurrection, not the covenant, and that it's soldiers were themselves abducted as children from the very colonies they would be fighting. What is your opinion of these atrocities committed by the UNSC?


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

[User]
[Marvel] Why does Galactus need to feed while his Heralds don't need to?

I have been pondering this. Galactus infuses a Herald with the Power Cosmic, he needs to constantly feed but his Heralds can be fine for billions of years and are super powerful. Still below Galactus but still top tier.

[Assistant]
Simple. Why do elephants eat more than rabbits. They are bigger.

The Heralds are sustained by the Power Cosmic, a powerful energy force in the universe. It also grants them great, but not unlimited, power. Galactus requires much greater sustanance, simply because he is a "larger" cosmic force, not in size but in power. He is one of the figurative cornerstones of the universe, and if he were to die or cease to exist, the universe normally would shortly end thereafter. While the Heralds can be sustained and empowered by absorbing background cosmic energy, Galactus requires the equivalent of one life sustaining planet per month to maintain his life energies. He requires a lot more energy to sustain him.


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

[User]
Alpha particles can be stopped by a sheet of paper. What happens after they hit the sheet? Do they bounce off? Do they go away?

What about other particles that are ejected during decay? What ultimately happens to those?

[Assistant]
Basically, the alpha particle bumps into the atoms of the sheet of paper until it loses all of its kinetic energy.  Alpha particles carry a +2 charge, so they interact via the electromagnetic force with other atoms.  It is similar, in principle, to a bullet.  When a bullet hits a material, it imparts kinetic energy to the material until it runs out of energy.  Similarly, an alpha particle imparts kinetic energy to the electrons and nuclei that make up the atoms of the sheet of paper.

These can be "soft" collisions - where the alpha particle slightly disturbs the electrons of a far-away atom.  Soft collisions transfer a few eV, and can ionize atoms (knock electrons away from their atom).  About half of an alpha particle's energy is dissipated this way (so there are roughly  10^5 of these collisions).

If an alpha particle passes very close to an atom, it can have a "knock-on" collision.  This is where it transfers a large amount of energy to a single electron.  That electron then shoots off (a so-called "delta ray") and ionizes other atoms in a manner similar to the original alpha particle.

Once the alpha particle loses its kinetic energy, it will grab two nearby electrons and form a helium atom.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does it hurt to chew tin foil?

This has been biting me since I first was a stupid child who decided it was a good idea to bite down on a big ball a tin foil only to have what felt like Zeus' thunder and wrath run through my enamel. I assume it has something to do with the aluminum oxide coating. Why does it react to your teeth when chewed?

[Assistant]
When you have fillings, the saliva connects the two dissimilar metals, creating a minute current, that hurts so badly because it touches those sensitive nerves.

Similar to the 9-volt to your tongue thing.


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

[User] ELI5 At what point does a language become a dialect? How is it decided?

[Assistant]
There is no objective, agreed upon definition among linguists about what is a language and what is a dialect.

Among non-experts, the distinction is hopelessly tainted by politics.

For example, the Chinese government claims that many languages are just dialects of Chinese. However, some of these "dialects" are as different from each other as Spanish and French. The situation is similar with Arabic.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the situation in the Balkans: linguists generally agree that there is a single language known as Serbo-Croatian that is spoken in several countries. However, Serbs will insist that they speak "Serbian", Croats that they speak "Croatian", Bosniaks that they speak "Bosnian", and Montenegrins that they speak "Montenegrin". A similar situation is seen in India and Pakistan with Hindi and Urdu.


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

[User]
ELI5: What makes bolt action rifles more suitable than semi autos/full autos to fire more powerful ammo?

Why bolties more common for shooting large calibers?

[Assistant]
It is simpler to make a bolt action system with high strength, ruggedness, reliability and accuracy compared to other system and the weight will be lower and they are cheaper to produce.

The disadvantage is rate of fire. But for many application like hunting, target shooting and precision shooting that is not a a huge disadvantage compare to the advantages.

Large powerful calibrates are primary used at long range where accuracy it one of the most important factor.

For man portable military systems weight is important both for the weapon and for the ammunition.

So you either have sniper rifles that can be move quite easy that are light and often bolt action to increase accuracy and reduce weight and ammunition use.

Or you have heavy machinguns that are hard to transport and use a lot of ammunition so you like to use them on vehicles where you even have heavier cannon system both smaller full automatic and larger that you load manually or some semi automatic.


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

[User]
CMV: You are a bad person if you are right wing

Edit: thank you to everyone who engaged in this conversation with me respectfully. I have since changed my mind and honestly feel a sense of relief with myself. Being conditioned by the media to have extreme views held a heavyweight on my heart. I feel less hateful and more open now.

I live in Canada where there is currently an election and the liberal and Conservative party are pretty much neck and neck. I go to a left leaning school, my parents and friends are left wing and admittedly, through social media I have been conditioned to think you are an evil person if you are anything but left wing.

I have friends who voted for the Conservative party and if you are from the states, the conservatives are more like your democrats. There are some people who are pro life but its not likely something like SB8 would happen here. Our conservatives are just as left wing as democrats, maybe just slightly less.

And yet even though I know this, I cant help but think everyone who is right wing is a racist, sexist, homophobic person. I would go as far as saying that even if the Conservative party had goals I wanted, I still would not vote for them because they are not as progressive as the liberal party.

Up until quarantine I was largely apolitical. I didnt ever think about politics but ever since I got onto Politics TikTok I think in a very us vs them mentality. I really want this view to be changed because I dont want to lose relationships over this. No one I know is blatantly racist, homophobic or pro life or anything. But I just cant help but think of them as not as morally correct as me.

[Assistant] If you genuinely want your view changed on this I'd recommend Jonathan Haidt's ted talk 'The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives'. He is a moral psychologist and explains how left and right wing people usually have quite different frames for understanding morality, which leads to their different politics.


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

[User]
Do Organelles Just Float Around in the Cytoplasm of Cells?

I know the Mitochondria in Plant and Animal cells floats around in the Cytoplasm, but do other organelles do, like the Nucleus, Vacuoles, ER, etc? I would guess so, but isn't cytoplasm jelly like? How exactly do the manage to move around?

[Assistant]
Actually, organelles, including mitochondria, don't simply float around the cell randomly... Cells have a highly structured cytoskeleton, which provides spatial and mechanical functions. Microtubules, for example, one of the three cytoskeleton constituents, determine the positions of membrane-enclosed organelles and direct intracellular transport, along with accessory proteins, which include motor proteins (such as kinesin and dynein).

Source: Alberts, Bruce; et al. (2014). Molecular Biology of the Cell (6th ed.). New York: Garland Science. ISBN 978-0815344322.


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

[User] Is there a reason hard drive space is often measured in 2^x gigabytes (eg iPhones come in 16, 32 or 64Gb)?

[Assistant]
Ok, as a start, let me correct you first: Memory CHIPS are usually built in sizes of powers of 2 (which includes SSD drives which use Flash chips). Regular mechanical/magnetic HDDs are build to sizes of power of 10 (e.g. 500GB, 750GB, 1000GB, etc.) and manufacturers even use power of 10 units (1 KB = 1000B) on boxes.

The reason why different kind of memory chips (which includes DRAM memory, Flash chips, etc.) are made in 2^x capacities is the fact that it greatly simplifies circuit board design for engineers using those chips due to the way how addressing works. 2^x capacity chips are easier to combine and thus use of those chips makes devices much cheaper and easier to manufacture.

That's because the address of a first byte in a 2^x chip will be all binary zeroes and address of the last byte will always be all binary ones and the rest of the space will be fully covered with all addresses that can possibly be written in binary. Because of that, a circuit board doesn't need complex logic to split data between different chips.

**EDIT** (answered the actual question ;)):

Now if you build an SSD/iPhone/etc. memory from identical chips, which are all power-of-2 (e.g. 8x4GB chips for 32GB), you'll get total capacity that is power of 2 as well. Building a non-power-of-2 total capacity would require mixing chips of different capacities to achieve a nice number (e.g. using 7x4GB + 1x2GB chip to build a 30GB storage). This is undesireable, because buying a large amount of a single component is immensly cheaper than using several when manufacturing.

=== Detailed explanation ===

Basically, to tell the chip which piece of data you want from it, you need to tell it a BINARY address of the byte you want. Memory chip will have a pin on it for each bit of binary number - so a memory chip with capacity of 16B would have 4 pins for address. The address of first byte would be 0000 and the address of the last byte there would be 1111. If you want to get byte 4 (with address of 0100) from the chip, you have to set pins 1, 2 and 4 to zero (no voltage) and set power (e.g. 3.3 V) on pin 3. (*For nitpickers - chips that have those flipped, proper numbering of pins, etc. has been left out for simpler explanation*).

So how does this helps us build simpler devices? If we have two chips of 16B capacity and we want to build a computer/phone with 32B of storage, that means we will have addresses from 00000 - 11111 for that storage. Since we have 2^4 chips, we decided that the first chip will cover addresses from **0**0000 - **0**1111 and second will cover **1**0000 - **1**1111. That means that we just wire up the bottom 4 lines on the circuit board to both chips and use the first bit line to decide which chips powers on. Magically, everything will get stored in proper place, there are no "invalid" addresses we can create, etc.

If we wouldn't have chips with capactiy of 2^x, we would have to delegate (for example) 00000-01101 to first chip and 01110-11111 to second chip, which would make the circuit board very complex to design.


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

[User]
Professor I am interested in working with has only ever worked with Chinese students and researchers. Is this a red flag?

There is a professor who is doing research in an area that I am very interested in but when looking at all his research I became a bit concerned. He has only worked with Chinese students and various Chinese researchers from industry and other universities. Looking through all his work, it doesn't seem that he has ever worked with a non Chinese person. Also, every summer he invites 5 students from various Chinese universities to work with him fully funded. As a non-Chinese student I feel like I may just be wasting my time contacting him.

[Assistant] You may be overthinking this: if you're interested in his work, contact him and let him ignore you or turn you down.  Currently the Chinese government funds a bunch of students, which makes them a lot cheaper for PI's. If you do get an interview, though, talk to his current lab and see if it's one you'd like to join.


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

[User]
Why is the large hadron collider so... large?

The LHC is huge (17 miles in circumference, actually).. What is it about the process that makes this necessary?

[Assistant]
Magnetic fields are used to bend the path of the protons. The protons are going so fast that even with the most powerful magnetic fields we are able to produce, we can only bend their path so much. This is what dictates the size of the circular accelerator. If we were to make a proton accelerator with higher energy than the LHC, we would either need to make it larger, or invent more powerful magnets.

EDIT: As anyanyany points out, there is a separate issue that is due to the fact that charged particles radiate away their energy too quickly if they are accelerated in too tight a circle. This is less an issue with protons (the particles in the LHC), because they are heavy, and so radiate less (the radiation is proportional to the particle's velocity, and for a given energy electrons must go much faster than protons). For protons, the biggest problem is actually bending their path with magnets. For electrons, the biggest problem is the radiation loss.


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

[User]
[Superman [Comics]] - Let's talk about strength vs. transferable power.

So I was watching the news the other day, our boy in blue was fighting some weird alien monster thing on the street. Both of them were standing on the street, and while Supes was semi-off balance he threw a punch that blasted the monster a couple of blocks down the street.

It was pretty obvious he hit with some serious juice, the monster had enough mass to flip some cars over and take out lamp posts before it stopped. That was where I started wondering... he's only supposed to weigh about as much as a guy his size right?

How does he transfer all the power of that punch without falling over, or going skidding back on the ground? It's not like he was braced against anything and y'know, every action has an equal and opposite and all that. Now I think about it.. I've seen Wonder Woman pull the same stunt - what's up with that??

[Assistant] The guy can fly. That means controlling his inertia, momentum, velocity, and acceleration independent of any interaction with the surrounding environment. He braced himself against the same force that lets him fly at Mach 500 or whatever it is he does.


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

[User] ELI5: If a dark-skinned population moved to an area currently populated by fair-skinned people (eg Scandinavia) and didn't interbreed, would they eventually become white-skinned? If so, how long would it take? And would the same be true for a fair-skinned people moving to, say, central Africa?

[Assistant]
TL;DR - Probably not, because modern food, clothing, and shelter cancel out most of the survival benefits for light/dark skin in different regions.

The first part (black people becoming white) would probably not happen under modern conditions.  The major evolutionary advantage of being white is that it allows you to more easily use UV light to metabolize vitamin D, which is important if you live in a region with limited sun exposure.  This would have been an important issue for early humans, but doesn't really matter now that we can get plenty of vitamin D from food and supplements.  Ultimately, there would be no survival or reproductive advantage for people with lighter skin.

For white people moving to tropical regions, there might be slightly stronger selection towards darker skin.  Dark skin helps to protect against melanoma in areas with lots of sun, which is obviously a good thing.  However, evolution only happens if a new trait provides a reproductive advantage.  Humans can begin reproducing at age 14-16 (biologically speaking), and there is a very low incidence of melanoma among people that young.  What this means is that basically everybody will be able to reproduce successfully before developing melanoma, so there is only a marginal benefit for darker skin.  If you take into account the fact that modern people live mostly indoors, wear clothing that covers much of their skin, and can use sunblock, the evolutionary advantage for dark skin could very well disappear.

It's hard to come up with numbers for a hypothetical question like this, but the kind of evolutionary changes you're thinking about would take hundreds of generations, if they happened at all.


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

[User]
[ELI5] Why the Democratic party demanding Romney's tax documents is different than the Republican demanding Obama's birth certificate.

If I remember right, the Rep party demanded the birth certificate before the election and continued into his term. It seems like the same type of deal is happening now, but in reverse, with Romeny's tax documents.

It seems like the same type of hype, legitimate or not, to create doubt in Romney. Seems like they should just continue to point out his craziness than resort to hyping something like this. (Not saying he's not a scumbag, please don't cast me into downvote hell)

[Assistant] The difference is Obama provided it multiple times and in several formats, they just continued to deny its validity. Even now there are still those who insist that his certificate was photoshopped, the mentions of his birth in Hawaiian newspapers planted there, and all sorts of other things faked in some grand conspiracy.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes a stick shift different than an automatic other than manually shifting the gears? Is there anything better/worse about it?

[Assistant]
The main difference is that a manual transmission has a direct physical link all the way from engine to drive wheels. So all of the force and rotation(besides gearing changes) from the engine makes it to the wheels.
In automatic transmissions in place of the clutch is a torque converter, which disconnects the engine and transmission physically, instead using a fluid filled chamber and a fan on both sides. The fan from the engine pushes the fluid, which then spins the fan to the transmission.
This loses some of the power from the engine from the fluid shearing and being resistant to changes in momentum. However it allows the transmission to change gears without impacting the engine (which the clutch does in a manual by disconnecting when you push the pedal.)


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

[User] ELI5: If McDonald's and other fast food has so many calories in it, why doesn't it do as good a job of making us feel full compared to foods with similar calorie levels?

[Assistant] It's not the calories that make you feel full.  Your body has no idea how many calories are in something until it's fully broken down.  It's the volume that makes you feel full, and McDonald's is really calorie dense.


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

[User] Why does superconductivity only happen when its cold?

[Assistant]
So superconductivity exists when two electrons pair and become a Cooper pair which happens to be a Boson. Bosons can occupy the same state at the same time, aka they can "pass through each other" rather than bouncing off of each other.

Cooper pairs form due to a fairly long range phononic interaction (think physical vibration or sound wave). These phononic interactions actually happen all the time in most materials HOWEVER temperature vibrations break these pairs, so no Cooper Pairs can stick together for that long. When you cool a superconductor enough this allows them to stay together indefinitely.

This is at least the theory for type 1 superconductors, type 2 probably get more complicated than this.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Why did the 11th Doctor think he would die on Trenzalore when he knew there was at least one more incarnation of himself?

So when all doctors were saving Gallifrey, surely the 11th doctor must have have noticed that there 13 versions of himself there. He might have not known that was his next one but you would think he would assume "Oh hey, I guess this isn't my last regeneration" But how come on Trenzalore he just assumed this was the end. I know time can be rewritten, but he acted like he never knew.

[Assistant] The timelines were out of sync. Even if 11 had happened to notice 12 was there he would have forgotten about it. Just as 10 is told he'll forget his interactions with 11, 11 will forget he ever saw 12.


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

[User]
Can (some) non-human animals have moral duties?

Hello community,

The whole animal rights discussion has got me thinking: If non-human animals can have rights (for example, based on their cognitive and emotional abilities) does this also imply they can have duties? Maybe even duties towards us if we consider that their rights consist of our duties towards them?

Could somebody give me some initial ideas and directions to explore? If so, that would be great.

Thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
Nonhuman animals, like human animals with cognitive impairments, typically would qualify as moral *patients*. In this sense, animals would get certain rights (such as the right to not be killed in cases where it is not necessary to do so), but would not have a moral responsibility to not kill others.

It gets into a gray area when you get into primates, as there is some evidence that some of them have the level of cognition necessary to understand simple moral principles, but for the most part animals would not have moral duties. This would not disqualify them from having right though, unless we were working exclusively under a social-contract type of morality.


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

[User] [Alien franchise] What kind of power cell/reactor does the David series of androids have? How long can they remain functional if they don't have a method handy to recharge their batteries?

[Assistant]
From the Xenopedia entry on Synthetics

> Power for the android is supplied by a 25 kW hydrogen fuel cell with a life of approximately 400 days between refuelling. This power cell is located within the android's chest, and access is via a hidden socket located just underneath the rib-cage. Charging time can vary, though it usually takes at least 72 hours to fully charge the standard power cells fitted into modern day androids.

Assuming David had access to some basic science tools he could in theory extract some H2 and charge himself up with Hydrogen.

Possibly using Shaws / Engineers hazard suits? The Engineers must have been advanced enough to have science-y shit laying around and David knew enough about the Engineers to pilot one of their space ships.


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

[User]
For every watt of electricity you use inside an air-conditioned building, how many watts of electricity does your air conditioning consume to remove the heat?

Technically "for every joule..." would probably be better, but watt makes more sense. What factors are there to consider?

[Assistant]
It varies depending on a lot of things.  A little background first:

Air conditioners are rated based on 'coefficient of performance,' which is the ratio of energy moved to energy consumed.  For example, an air conditioner operating in certain conditions might expel 4 watts of heat and consume 1 watt of electricity in doing so.  This air conditioner is *moving* 3 watts and *using* 1 watt, so its COP is 3/1 = 3 (in those conditions).  This is a typical COP, but they range from 0 to 6.

The hotter it is outside, the harder time the air conditioner will have moving the heat out of the building - the COP will go down.  It will take more energy to move 1 joule from 72F to 105F than it will to move it from 72F to 75F.

At the same time, the colder it is inside, the harder time the air conditioner will have moving the heat out of the building.  It will take more energy to move 1 joule from 20F to 80F than it will to move it from 70F to 80F.

This brings us to the main factor in air conditioner performance: temperature difference between inside and outside.  Moving heat when the two temperatures are nearly the same is *easy*.  Moving heat when the temperature difference is large is *hard*.


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

[User]
Does the height and low centre of gravity of dwarves make them more suited to large two handed weapons?

Also, it's there any logical reason why they mostly seem to prefer axes?

[Assistant]
I feel that it's less of a tactical decision and more of a cultural one. Dwarves are generally known as hard working craftsmen, born of the earth, etc.  Swords and spears are purely weapons, where axes, hammers etc, are weapons *and tools*, and can be wielded in the same way when fighting and working.

 It seems to me that there is a particular dwarvish practicality fighting with the tools you work with, and designing weapons that are similar to their tools.


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

[User]
How is it possible for all points on a rotating disc to be moving at the same speed?

This is something that just hit me while I was thinking about planetary rotation. In theory, the length of a day should be different depending on your latitude, since the actual distance covered by any line of latitude changes depending on how close or far you are from the equator. However, everyone everywhere has a 24 hour day, even though the actual distance they're traveling as the earth rotates varies everywhere from 0 at the poles, to the circumference of the Earth at the equator.

I've heard about this paradox every since I was little, but I've never really gotten an answer to it. If every point on earth's surface is rotating around Earth's axis at the same speed, then how can everyone have the same length of day if the actual distance they're covering is different? Does this mean that any planet rotating at the same speed as earth would have a roughly 24-hour day, completely regardless of its actual size? If latitude x has the same length of day as Earth's equator, then that should mean a planet with an equatorial circumference of x should also have a 24 hour day as long as its rotating at the same speed.

How is this possible?

[Assistant]
Earth and other rocky planets are solid bodies. This means the whole thing rotates at a fixed angular velocity, that is, at the same number of *degrees per minute*. No matter where you are on Earth, you are moving at about 1 degree every 4 minutes.

However your *linear speed* (relative to the centre of the Earth) in mph or m/s or whatever does vary a lot based on where you are. If you're on the north pole or south pole, you aren't actually moving (relative to the centre of the Earth), you're just standing still and spinning on the spot. At the equator, you are moving at 460 m/s. At a latitude of 45, you're somewhere in the middle, moving at 330 m/s.

This works because as you go further from the equator, you have less distance to cover in your daily circle, so for the same rate of degrees per minute, you go slower in m/s.

If everything rotating at the same rate of m/s, that actually means the Earth would be twisting and breaking. If England or Japan or whatever was moving at 460 m/s, the same as the equator's linear speed, then they would complete their rotation in less time than Ecuador or Kenya. That only works if the Earth is twisting or breaking, and not if it's a solid rigid object.

Note that for stars and gas planets, they *don't* rotate at the same rate of degrees per minute across all latitudes. This is called "differential rotation". Because it's all just gas or plasma, it *can* just twist around without breaking anything. This also happens in galaxies. Galaxies actually have "flat rotation curves" across a large fraction of their radius. These means that the stars are all moving at the same linear speed (about 200 km/s for the Milky Way), but because the stars are all at different radii, they are moving at a different rate of degrees per million years, and the stars in the middle take less time to orbit than the stars further out. Again, that's fine, because a galaxy isn't a single solid object, and it can't really "break".


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

[User]
[LOTR] Regarding 'promotion' from grey to white wizard..

Why was Sarumon not 'demoted' from white wizard after pledging alligiance to the Dark Lord Sauron? If defeating the Balrog was significant enough to give Gandalf the push to white, you'd think ultimate evil would have some kind of affect on job status.

[Assistant]
Colors aren't a strict rank system. Gandalf, upon his return, was given white robes to symbolize his coming into the leadership of the Wise - to replace the previous occupant of the position, Saruman.

By the time the Wise were made aware of Saruman's betrayal, he had abandoned calling himself 'the White' in favor of 'of Many Colors.'

Also, Gandalf was taken out of the circles of the world by God, enhanced, returned and eventually termed 'the White' because the plan against Sauron required it. It was not simply due to the balrog.


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

[User]
Why does raw meat left out spoil relatively quickly, whereas hunters can kill the animal, transport a warm carcass a good ways, and render it in unrefrigerated conditions without it going bad?

I know nothing about hunting so I'd be interested to know!

EDIT: thank you so much to those who responded, especially the hunters! If I hadn't spent all my money on beer tonight I'd buy Reddit Gold for you all! (Ok not really but it's the thought that counts, eh?)

[Assistant] Food processing speeds up spoilage. When the animal is intact, the meat is relatively sterile. The skin prevents any bacteria from getting to the meet and the animals normal enteric flora is contained in the GI tract so the meet remains sterile until one of these barriers is broken. When the animal is butchered much more of the meat is exposed to the environment and often the meat is exposed to bacteria from the animals GI tract. Now that the meat has bacteria on it spoilage is inevitable refrigeration slows the process but eventually the bacteria will grow to a significant population and spoil the meat.


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

[User]
[Dr Strange] When the sling rings are introduced, it is said they allow travel throughout multiverses. So....Strange can just go to any timeline he wishes?

 So when they introduce the Sling Ring, the Ancient One says that it allows them to open portals and travel to multiverses, right?

And in Marvel, a multiverse is basically an alternate universe with their own set of Marvel heroes. So, can Dr. Strange go visit the X-Men or Fantastic 4? Can he go into the "future" of a timeline to check if Thanos wins?

In the movie it looked like it only focused on getting from point A to point B on earth/mirror dimension. So I was a bit confused why he wouldn't use it to its full potential.

[Assistant] Multiverses nest. Just like you can have multiple continents on one planet, multiple planets in one solar system, multiple solar systems in one galaxy etc. you can have multiple universes within, for lack of a better term, a universe. They really should name those things better, but while the sling ring could take you to the mirror dimension or the astral dimension or many, many others, all of those are still within Earth-199999. Not that it would be impossible for him to reach Earth-616. But it would take more than a sling ring.


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

[User]
[Batman] What kind of alibi does Bruce tend to use to explain why he has to take off to take care of Batman business?

There has to be quite a few times where Bruce has to leave in the middle of a charity event or party after seeing the Bat Signal what stops a guest from putting two and two together and realizing who's under the mask? Does he have a go to "Well I was here doing this." or does he come up with something more on the spot?

[Assistant]
He finds an attractive woman, charms her, they go to a private spot together, then he bribes her to imply, but not outright state, that they slept together.

He tells her that he has an embarrassing hobby- Batman spotting. He camps out on a rooftop with a pair of binoculars and a notebook and watches the caped crusader beat people up.

It all helps build the rich idiot persona Bruce presents to the public. If people start looking into it, or if the woman spills the beans, they find out Bruce has a silly hobby and assume that's as far as the deception goes. They feel very clever for working it out, they chuckle to themselves, "ooh, he thinks he's too good for regular bird-watching", and then they put it out of their minds.

(I just made that up. Plausible though, right?)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does damage to eyes not become apparent immediately and takes time ranging from a night's sleep to years to show up?

Read a few posts in an AMA request where people say it took years to see the damage in the eyes from viewing a earlier eclipse without appropriate protection.

[Assistant] It's like a sunburn. At first, it's just all red and painful (but your retina has no pain receptors, so it doesn't hurt). The next day, your skin is literally falling off your body. In that time, the damaged cells were figuring out that irreparable damage had occurred and that they might be cancerous. When they do, they enter mass suicide mode.


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

[User]
[Interview with the Vampire] Why does Louis de Pont du Lac still kill humans?

Throughout the novel, Louis is constantly tortured by the murder urges of his vampiric nature, often recounting his struggle throughout his interview. He has long debates about this with other vampires and is disgusted by those that indulge in this.
Initially, Louis even feeds on rats and Lestat mocks him for this.

Why then does Louis continue to murder humans if killing animals is a viable alternative? Is Louis a walking hypocrite for giving in to his bloodlust?

[Assistant]
Louis gives into the reality that he is a vampire and requires human blood to survive and live a life worth living (pun intended) pretty early in his journey. What Louis gets hung up on is the lack of compassion his fellow vampires have for their victims, and not just a lack of compassion, pretty much every vampire Louis meets *revels* in killing humans.

Its like asking how a meat eater can both be pro-carnivore and anti-animal abuse; yes, we dont really need meat to survive and its not the most moral choice ever considering our abilities, but its a more enjoyable and convenient lifestyle so long as we know the animals dont suffer unduly. Louis is a meat eater - Lestat, Claudia, and Armand are animal abusers.


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

[User] Eli5: Why does involuntary breathing stop and become voluntary when were reminded its happening?

[Assistant]
Your subconscious (brain stem) controls breathing normally. When you think about breathing, your voluntary part (Cortex) takes control of it because it thinks you're about to do something related to your breath. Maybe you need to take deep breaths, maybe you need to hold it, but thinking about it means you want to do something. So it takes control, now you can stop it or keep going.

After some time of you doing nothing, the subconscious takes back control since the voluntary part is just doing rhythmic breathing. So it goes back to auto mode.


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

[User] Eli5: why when you have diarrhea your body excretes liquids when you have to go, wouldn't it be better to just preserve the liquids than excrete it?

[Assistant]
The liquidy stuff that comes out when you have diarrhea is what the contents of your digestive tract look like after your stomach, liver, and small intestine add their digestive juices to the mix. Normally your large intestine at the end of the tract reabsorb all liquid which is what makes your poop a soft solid.

When you have diarrhea, your digestive tract goes into purge mode and expels its contents without waiting for reabsorption. It's a reaction to toxins or infection, so it's generally better to sacrifice the fluid and potential nutrition in order to eliminate a greater threat.


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

[User] [SUPERMAN] When Kal was first launched to earth, wouldn't he be completely vulnerable to most of earth's diseases?

[Assistant] Most diseases are species specific or limited to one or two species.  As an alien, he's likely not vulnerable to any Earth based virus.  Plus while the sun didn't give him full powers until he was a teenager or grown in most continuities, it still may have done enough to protect him from diseases.


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

[User]
Why is The Republic revered when it doesnt really fit with Western views?

Genuine question coming from someone who has read several of Platos dialogues and am about halfway through The Republic. His views on the perfect society include things like censorship and a class system.

I like Plato, but Im wondering why The Republic is considered fundamental in political science and Western thought, yet the ideas seem completely different.

Edit: Thank you to everyone for the comments. I just expected a brief explanation, but got way more! I'll try to respond to several of you.

[Assistant] The fact that a philosophical treatise includes or endorses ideas we wouldn't feel comfortable espousing today does not mean that the text itself can't be illuminating in various respectsin fact, I'd argue that precisely because it seems antagonistic to modern values, it can help us shed light on them and understand them more clearly. Philosophical texts are not books of answers, but rather books of questioning.


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

[User] If there were a modern human that knew no languages, would that person be able to have organized thoughts? Or would their thoughts just be confined to the 5 senses?

[Assistant]
A person who knows no languages would have to have been incredibly socially deprived for their entire childhood, and would thus be incredibly different from any other human. Its a bit hard to ask about just the loss of language, without the loss of all sorts of other developmental factors.

But if youre considering a philosophical thought experiment, theres perhaps still a question here. Its not clear that the senses (of which there are more than five - gravity and proprioception are among the ones that dont usually get listed) are able to provide organization for thought independent of language or whatever else goes into it. If its language, the senses wouldnt obviously help. If its something other than language that organizes thought, then theres no reason to think it would be limited to the senses.

Senses also seem to give us information not just about how things are, but also about how they could or might be (we see some things as edible or openable, not just as eaten and open).