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

[User]
[Skyrim] How do the Thalmor at the Embassy not recognise me straight away?

I've been targeted by the Thalmor for ages. Apparently I gave them a black eye after killing some of them or messing with their plans. Dunno what it was specifically, I tend to cause all sorts of mischief across Skyrim.

Had this Thalmor execution squad spot me over the wild plains of Eastmarch hold, immediately rushing in to attack. After defeating them, they had written orders to take me (by name) out.

Flash-forward a bit. Helping The Blades figure out who's behind the dragon threat, so I decided to infiltrate the Thalmor Embassy. Figured when my co-conspirators arranged my invitation that they'd give me a convincing cover story and new identity or something. At least they gave me suitable clothing to wear. But then I roll up at the door, greeted by Elenwen of all people. Turns out both my invitation and the guest list have my real name instead of an alias, and Elenwen wasn't even given a convincing background as to why this mysterious person (who should have been recognised as the same target of execution squads) was worthy of invitation alongside Jarls and notable business people.

Thankfully my contact on the inside distracted Elenwen (making up for the lack of foresight on their part, should have given me a decent alias), but I still reckon I should have been clocked as the Dragonborn they knew by name and description. Thought Elenwen might have known who I was and was just pretending for the sake of civility at the party. But later at peace negotiations at High Hrothgar, she says "And so we meet again, but this time I know who and what you are", suggesting she really didn't know who I was at the Embassy.

**TL;DR:** How are the Thalmor so incompetent that they give my name and description to execution squads roaming the nation looking for me, but also have no-one at the Embassy including the First Ambassador realise who I am especially after seeing my name (and presumably description) on the guest list and in person with the invitation?

[Assistant]
It seems like you have the story backwards, friend. Obviously the embassy encounter came first, before the Thalmor death squads. Time can be funny like that, sometimes it seems like we spend a few minutes at the forge or enchanting table, when in reality days have gone by. Obviously you, the Dragon born and savior of our world, went straight to the embassy as soon as possible. Imagine if you were told about a Dragon-god that was planning to end the world, and you stood around in a field chasing butterflies. That would be silly. Is this a game to you?

Alternative answer, the Thalmor are effectively face blind to all "not-Thalmor" races, because they're racist, and racists are idiots.


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

[User] Is the heat energy that we get from the sun just from Photons?

[Assistant] Yes. Since there is (almost) nothing between the sun and the earth to transfer the heat through conduction or convection, the only way for thermal energy to be transferred is through radiation, which consists of photons.


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

[User] ELI5:How do some websites keep you from navagating back?

[Assistant]
Usually, this is done by sending people to a page, which immediately redirects to another page.  So, if you click back on the second page, it just sends you back to the first page which immediately redirects you again.

Usually, if you click back fast enough, you can get past it and eventually make it back to where you were.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can you only see the at edges of your peripheral vision in the dark?

[Assistant]
The center of your vision is filled with color sensitive cone cells.  They're great at telling colors and giving a crisp image, but need a lot of light to work.

The far periphery of your vision is mostly light sensitive rod cells.  They can work even in extremely low light conditions, but can't differentiate colors.

In a very dark room, the cones in the middle are useless but the rods at the edges can still resolve some detail.  You may also notice that your vision is also oddly greyscale in the dark, because the rods are doing most of the work.


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

[User]
[Witcher] What are all the different Witcher schools like?

Does the cat school focus on using speed instead of strength and vise versa for the bear school? Is there a best school? Does each school specify in a certain weapon? etc.

[Assistant]
- All Witchers have the same basic mutations and training, resulting in increased strength, speed, resistance to disease, sterility, knowledge of alchemy, and an aptitude for signs.  Regardless of what they focus on, any Witcher will be stronger, faster, and more skilled than all but the most capable unmutated humans.

- Different schools do appear to have different talents.  The Griffon school is known for being generally better with signs.  The Cat school is known for using light armor, quick strikes, and favoring speed over strength.  All known members of the Viper school use short swords, rather than long swords.  dual-wielding and poison use is more common for them than it is for the other schools.

- That said, Witchers are very individualistic, and it would be a mistake to prepare *solely* for the expected fighting style of a Witcher based on the school they belong to.  You might prepare fortifications against a Bear-school witcher only to find they're still dexterous enough to climb the sheer cliffs at your back and take you by surprise.  You might ward yourself against the signs of a Griffon School Wtcher only to blown apart by alchemical bombs your protections against magic are worthless against.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do things hurt more when you are cold?

[Assistant]
The receptors that sense pain are the same ones that sense cold. Which is why when you are in pain, a cold compress usually soothes it. The pain/cold receptors, instead of saying "pain, pain, pain, pain," have to transmit both signals "pain, cold, pain, cold" cutting down on the pain signals sent.

Ironically, if you are cold and something painful happens, the receptors switch to pain, but in the process of switching from cold to pain signals, transmit some of the cold signals as pain signals, thus transmitting more pain than there actually is.


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

[User]
[physics] The hadron collider is 27kms in size. My question is how much does upping the scale of size help with research? If we made a collider that wrapped around the planet would it be significantly more powerful than the Hadron?

Basically I'm wondering the extent to which the size of the collider helps with understanding physics questions.

[Assistant]
I work(ed) on the CMS experiment. You can think of the LHC as a giant microscope. The smaller the scale you want to study, the larger the energies are that are required to probe it. In order to obtain those energies, you need to make particles travel at increasingly relativistic speeds. To keep the particles in the LHC travelling inside the ring, you need to curve their path with magnetic fields. The velocity that a charged relativistic particle will travel at is *v=rqB/m*, so the energy is *E~pc=mvc=rqBc* where  is the Lorentz factor, v is velocity, m is rest mass, q is charge, and B is magnetic field. Even the superconducting magnets used in the LHC can only produce a field of about 13T, so once you can no longer increase B, you can increase r.

Given the current record for LHC magnetic field strength, this gives you a theoretical maximum energy per nucleon of about 16.7TeV. A collider that wrapped around the planet using the same magnetic field strength would be able to produce energies of 24829TeV. However, these increasing energies give declining returns, as we think we have a "mostly complete" model of particle physics, and the energies required to probe more fundamental physics, such as string theory, are (arguably) thought to be many orders of magnitude larger than this.


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

[User] [Zach Snyder's Justice League] Spoilers - Why does Zod's ship have a bunch of Kryptonian suits with Superman's "S" symbol on the chest?

[Assistant]
It's not Zod's ship.  It's an ancient vessel from back when the Kryptonians wanted to colonize the galaxy.  The original crew on this ship didn't survive and the ship was left to rot until Kal-El showed up.

The ship also served as Supe's Fortress of Solitude in the first movie.


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

[User]
[Culture] What do people do for fun in the Culture?

What do people do for fun in the Culture?

I've read that people can enter virtual heavens/virtual realities.

If I wanted to rule my own planet would I have to go inside a virtual heaven to do so?

[Assistant]
Anything and everything they want*

Want to climb some dangerous mountain or play some high risk sports in some asteroid gambling your life for it? Want to play politics and shake nations under your command? Want to drug yourself senseless? In the mood for some orgy with some really kinky individuals? Into aliens, monsters, furries or robot sex? The Culture has something just for you!

As long as it doesn't hurt the freedom of other individuals or minds The Culture allows to explore many different pleasures both real and virtual. You can also ask to become a Mind but its not common as it incurs more responsibility and the citizens don't feel the need to deal with that baggage, better to leave the minds to tend to their desires.

*Disclaimer: Within that mind's scope and rules. Though some minds are more gray and allow for more things, also if you don't like it you can just move to another mind more suiting to your desires.


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

[User]
Why can't we create any material (with any properties), substance, or chemical reaction we want?

I'm bad at explaining my thoughts, please ask if you need elaboration. :(

[Assistant]
In short, because chemistry is *HARD*.  Even for chemists.

Because your question is so broad it's hard to be specific, but we are limited by the availability of the correct atoms and molecules, and the limits of chemical bonds.  For example, we can't make a plastic that can handle 1000 C, because at that temperature, carbon-carbon bond are completely broken (or Si-O if you must).  We have materials that will handle those temperatures, but they are ceramics, and aren't hardly "plastic."

We live in a real world in which choice must be made, and choices always have trade-offs.


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

[User]
[Superhero powers] What would be a good defensive/support powerset that isn't a waste?

I write for therapeutic therapy, so I'm not that good, but I have a group of heroes with powers and I don't want to give all of them strong offensive powers.  Out of a group of 5, two have a strong offensive set, one is defense/offense, one is support.  The last one can't be offensive but I don't want it to be weak or make it seem she is sidelined.  Defense/offensive is fine, if it's clearly stacked on the defense side though, or a support/offense powerset.

[Assistant] intangiblity is great for a defense/utility power, and can be easily suited to almost any group, and it has some easy power limiters too if you want(can go through living things, cant use it to fly, blocked by X material, just to list some examples)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do gnats swarm in seemingly random spots in mid air?

I see little gnats in small swarms just flying around in just random spots in the air. Not necessarily over trash or standing water, just in a ball of gnats in the air. What's the reason?

[Assistant] When they are swarming they are mating. You are basically watching an orgy. When they are done they will go lay their eggs (often on decaying plant matter) and then typically die. Some species are attracted to street lights and the like others are not.


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

[User]
[Warhammer40K] Why wasn't the Emperor more forthcoming about the Warp and Chaos?

I'm reading the Horus Heresy series of books. I'm up to the second book (False Gods) and so far all of the Imperium characters; the Iterators, Remembrancers, Astartes, even Horus a Primarch and the Warmaster himself, seem unaware of the existence of Chaos and the true nature of the Warp/Immaterium and are shocked when exposed to Chaos which they had previously thought to be nothing more than primitive superstition akin to "sorcery."

The Emperor has based the Imperium on the notions of secularism and using science to understand the material universe, but the Emperor himself is clearly aware of what lies within the Warp as it is heavily implied that he bargained/stole some power of the Warp in order to create the Primarchs in the first place.

It occurred to me that much of the difficulties surrounding people falling victim to the temptations of Chaos (especially Horus) could have been avoided in the first place if the Emperor had just been honest with everyone from the start about the nature of Chaos and how our minds can and *do* affect the material and immaterial worlds around us.

Something along the lines of "Yes, we will banish religion and superstition and bring the light of the truth of the Imperium throughout the galaxy, but also btw there is an actual, scientifically provable entity called 'Chaos' which will try and fuck your mind up so be careful and mindful out there, okay?"

[Assistant]
The Immaterium is a psychic dimension, and it's linked to the souls of everything with significant warp presence via information in the mind.

It's essentially a memetic virus. The more you know, the more access it (and the "gods" that currently rule it) has to you. The more access it has to you, the more it wants to increase that access (or reproduce, to continue the virus metaphor). This may come about in dreams, visions, compulsions, or even idle curiosity similar to the concept of gateway drugs (i.e. "this minor working wasn't so bad, why not try something grander?").

This, generally, eventually leads to daemonic posession, lots of blood sacrifice, formations of portals to the immaterium, and a fucktillion daemons coming through to do nasty daemony shit.

The Emperor, in his wisdom, weighed the options between telling everyone (and thus making EVERYONE susceptible, including the young, the old, and the stupid, all categories we view with suspicion when they try to do potentially dangerous mundane things) and telling no one (thus putting the problem off for another day and endangering that minority that actively encounters daemons).

He chose a middle ground. Tell people heavily, heavily, heavily censored semi-truths. Don't worship daemons, daemons are scary. Don't trust xenos, they might be scary. If its not human, DAKKA the shit out of it just in case it's scary.

Best option chosen? As we found out, not in the slightest. But hindsight has the benefits of time, distance, and access to way more information then foresight does.

Honestly, your option would likely work if one were in abyssal space (that space between galaxies) or in another galaxy which either had no immaterium or an immaterium that wasn't driven to madness and insanity by the War in Heaven, but that unfortunately doesn't really seem to be an option at this time.


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

[User] [Lord of the Rings] When Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli thought they were about to run into Saruman, they worried about him putting a spell on them if allowed to speak. What, SPECIFICALLY, were they worried about?

[Assistant] Saruman's speech in specific has the ability to be extremely persuasive. His spell is that of charm, influencing them to drop their guard or even join him. When the group had taken Orthanc and Saruman was locked in the tower, he and Gandalf spoke. The men of Rohan were almost immediately charmed by him and would have turned away if Gandalf was not present and commanded even greater power than Saruman.


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

[User]
How do we know that space is expanding and it's not only the matter that's being spread across after Big Bang ?

Sorry for simple examples but I think it's going to be clearer.

What we think takes place:

* Space is expanding since the big bang, so we're like ants walking on the balloon that's constantly being pumped.

Why isn't that the case:

* The ballon is finite and stationary, it does not expand. What happened was, on some spot on that balloon matter exploded throwing space debris across it's surface. So in this case space is not expanding, it's the matter that's just being propelled from initial bang.

Both ideas seem to fit to our observations (universe getting colder, galaxies running away from us). But second does not require the space itself to expand. Why can't it be a fixed size ?

[Assistant] But if the second idea were true, we would expect the observed expansion to be anisotropic.  We indeed observe that the expansion seems to be isotropic, and furthermore, the galaxies seem to be moving faster the farther away they are from us.


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

[User]
[General Sci-Fi] A silicon based life form found its way in a small town, can the high-school science teacher understand its nature?

I hope this doesn't break the rules, otherwise, please feel free to mark it down.

Anyway, I'm the master in a role playing campaign set in modern times, the players just found some traces of a silicon based organism, they don't know it yet and (being highschoolers in the game) they want to show it to their science teacher.

Can the teacher reveal the nature, and if yes how?

Is it possible within the means of a small town school budget to at least have a glimpse of its nature?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
Of course! The science teacher in question has a shady past, being posted at a military facility with a number instead of a name. She's seen this sort of thing before.

The test you're looking for is referred to as *Qualitative Chemical Analysis.* Basically, discerning the chemical composition of an unknown sample. This can be as simple as setting the sample on fire (which a high school science teacher can do) or as complex as looking at the sample under a scanning electron microscope. (Which would be a bit outside a high school's budget)

Depending on how competent/ nerdy / well informed the teacher in question is, it is perfectly believable for them to identify the sample in question as silicon and extra terrestrial in origin.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] So what does an STC look like?

Is it some giant factory, or something like a construction guide?

[Assistant]
No one knows. We know it's a combined assembler system and database, but the exact form they took is unknown. There have been some discoveries which indicate that they didn't have a set form, but were really a collection of various automated manufacturing systems for different purposes (IE a Rhino Assembler was different than a Men of Iron assembler).

There is some speculation that the Ark Mechanicus ships are the 'Base' form of the STC system. Massive ship-sized factories.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What exactly is the extent of Jedi precognition in battle?

How far into the future can they see? Do they consciously know exactly what attack is coming or is it more spontaneous instinct?

[Assistant]
jedi precognition in a battle allows them to sense an attack that is about to hut them. Fire around a jedi 99 times but only aim at him once and the jedis force survival instinct will pick it out. No different to you closing your eyes when something flies in front of them or a trained boxer reflexively blocking a punch.

However, the instinct only goes so far, and enough blaster fire will overwhelm it. A force sensitive like a sith or rival jedi can also use the force to be faster than their opponents senses, making lightsabre duels true battles of the mind as well as the body.

Sith also can use the force to mask their attacks and make it harder to predict them, like when Darth maul fought qui gon and defeated him by hitting him with the handle of his lightsabre to catch him off guard before killing him.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do liquids like beet juice stain so effectively?

[Assistant]
The bonds of the compound that give beet juice (and other things that stain) their deep color are oriented in a way that make them very strong. These compounds (called chromophores) absorb visible light so you see them as colored.

It is quite difficult to break these bonds using just soap or water. However, something like bleach (an oxidizing or reducing agent) can break or reorient these bonds so that the chromophore loses its ability to absorb light, and becomes invisible to you.


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

[User] [General] Let's say the universe big bang, big crunches, then repeats, endlessly. Zillions of years from now, when humanity will soon become extinct, would there be any way for our species to leave a record and pass on their knowledge to the inhabitants of the next iteration of the universe?

[Assistant] Unless we can figure out a way to get the cosmic background radiation to spell out something, probably not, but assuming big crunches don't sync up between dimensions, we can just leave a message in a dimension that is static or doesn't crunch at the same rate.


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

[User]
Arguments on being sober

Which philosopher have good arguments against loosing yourself in pleasure ( why being sober is better, for example). I'm looking for a book where self-control is talked about, I think the Greeks and buddhism had some good insights on this.

[Assistant] Book III of Artistotle's *Nicomachean Ethics* is on moral virtue, and vice, as a conscious choice. So, for example, someone might try to excuse their behavior while intoxicated, on the basis that, in that state, they are no longer in possession of their rational faculties, they would still be morally culpable for the voluntary decision to become intoxicated in the first place. The book also covers temperance as an example of moral virtue at the end of that book.


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

[User] [40K] Who/what are the fallen angels?

[Assistant]
They're renegade Space Marines from the Dark Angels legion (this was before the chapter system). The important distinction is they aren't Chaos Space Marines, only broke off the Dark Angels and became renegades.

Long story short. Dark Angel Primarch Lion El'Jonson's second-in-command and adoptive father Luther was corrupted by Chaos during the Horus Heresy. He convinced a sizable number of the legion to betray El'Jonson which ultimately ended with Luther's capture, El'Jonson falling into a coma, and the destruction of legion's homeward of Caliban.

Both Luthor and Johnson are alive, granted the former is probably insane and the latter is still in a coma. The traitors that survived are refereed to as The Fallen, or fallen angels to outsiders. The chapter goes through a great deal of trouble to hide the event and aftermath out of shame. Quietly they're on a hell-bent crusade to hunt down and kill every Fallen who hasn't already died.


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

[User]
ELI5: What makes hangovers get worse with age?

Even after only a couple of years.  At 18-20 I could drink a ton and wake up like nothing happened. Now at 24, I wake up and I don't feel like I am going to make it.

[Assistant]
Alcohol is broken down in basically a two-step process: Alcohol (Ethanol) is converted to a molecule called Acetaldehyde, and then to more stable products (like acetic acid, acetyl-coA, water, CO2).

Acetaldehyde is highly unstable and can cause a lot of damage and inflammation to your body. As we age, our livers grow worse at breaking down acetaldehyde, and this is thought to play a part in why hangovers get worse as we get older.

There's still a lot of debate as to what actually causes hangovers, however, so this is only a partial answer.


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

[User] [The Purge] If all crime is legal, can another nation commit a terrorist attack against the US on Purge night without any repercussions?

[Assistant]
*All* crime isn't legal. It's stated that "government officials 'ranking 10 or higher' must remain unharmed and the usage of weaponry above 'Class 4' is forbidden."

From here we can infer that if you light off a nuke or assassinate the president you're going to be executed, which is what happens if you don't follow the rules of The Purge. And if they're not going to let their own citizens to it, they're certainly not going to let a foreign nation do it either.


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

[User]
What is modernism, postmodernism and post-postmodernism?

And how do these movements relate to the previous movements (like those before modernism). I feel like this is a very broad question (as modernism in art might not be modernism in something else). But I genuinely want to know if someone's codified all of the stuff, like what were the common elements.

[Assistant]
In philosophy it's common to think of "modernist" philosophers as those who begin to break with 19th century thought and belief so, essentially, it's post-Enlightenment thought. An example, then, of a modernist philosopher might be Nietzsche, though confusingly he is also claimed by postmodernism depending on who you read. This suggests that modernism can be seen as a sensibility rather than a time period which is an additional complication of classification. By contrast, in literature and the arts, Modernism is a post-Victorian movement involving, primarily, the explosion of form. Confusingly, none of the above would have considered themselves modernists it's a retrospective label. One prominent aspect of modernism is structuralism which is important because it's one of the key things critiqued by the PoMos.

Postmodernism is generally thought to begin after the Second World War, and was first identified in the writings of figures like Lyotard, Jameson and Baudrillard. By this point in history, philosophy and the arts had atomised so much that there are countless strands of thought and talking of them cohesively is a difficult task. However, postmodernist thought and art is characterised by a few things: incredulity towards meta narratives, a foregrounding of the polysemous nature of language and signification, and an explosion of the traditional binary of high and low culture.

If modernism is reacting to Victorian ideas and values, then postmodernism reacts to modernist ideas and values. Post-pomo does the same again, critiquing postmodernism for its various excesses etc.

Hope this helps.

edit: cleaned up numerous confusing phrasings.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] If the Agents exist by taking over a body of someone within the Matrix would killing the entire population within the Matrix also eliminate the Agents?

I'm currently watching The Matrix and this question arose during the scene when they are fighting on the helipad. The Agents exist in a physical form by taking over an already existing body within the matrix (when they "die" the body reverts back to it's original self and that original self is what's really dead). If Neo and the others killed the entire population of the matrix would that, in turn, no longer allow the Agents to exist?

Obviously that's not really an option for them but I was just curious. Thanks!

[Assistant]
It's not really implied that the Agents *need* to borrow an existing body; it's just a quick way to get around -- and to scout, since they can see what anyone plugged into the Matrix can see. That's what happens in the subway scene, when the Agents find Neo through the eyes of the homeless man and Smith takes over that man to stop Neo from leaving.

That said, killing the entire population of the Matrix *would* stop the Agents from existing...because you'd kill the machines' power source. They'd run on backup power for at least a few months, presumably, but they're in trouble in the long run now that solar energy's gone.


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

[User]
[Mass Effect] How precisely can biotics control the mass effect fields they generate?

For example, could a biotic whose arms had been amputated use biotics to interact with the environment in place of their hands?

[Assistant]
Likely not.  The level of biotic control we've seen so far already takes massive amounts of willpower and concentration, and can cause headaches and brain damage if used injudiciously.  Using biotic fields is also physically draining.  For example, biotic soldiers are given a much larger daily calorie ration than normal field soldiers (something like a 50% increase).  Thus, it's likely that the current level of control over biotics is the limit of what is possible.

Furthermore, the asari have been using biotics much longer than humans have, and they also have much longer lifespans to refine their biotic prowess.  When even asari matriarchs don't ever demonstrate such fine control, then it's likely no one else would be able to pull it off either.

So, all in all, while we can't definitively say it's impossible for someone to use biotics in such a precise way, current evidence suggests we've reached the physical limit of how finely tuned our biotic control can be.


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

[User] [Star Trek/Warhammer 40k] The Tau come to the Federation's galaxy. Do they assimilate, or join any factions?

[Assistant]
They send a diplomat telling great things if they join the Tau for the greater good.

Naturally, 95% of everyone they meet say "na, but thanks for asking" or "We already with the Federation" (assuming they start in the Alpha Quadrant).

Then said 95% find drop ships all over their plants and some incredibly impressive weapons shooting at them. Then the Federation relies they don't actually have that many warships.

I think they start with minor races who only possess 1 or a few planets and don't go after someone big like the Klingon or Romulans right away, they need some strongholds and cannon fodder for the Greater Good first.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Did the heir of Slytherin have any way of ACTUALLY TARGETING muggleborns with the Basilisk?

I presume the answer is "yes" otherwise Lucius Malfoy just gambled pretty heavily with his son's life by allowing the chamber to be opened again...

I mean the Basilisk seems to be fairly animalistic - from what Harry seems to hear we just get hunger and bloodlust from the snake - no obvious semblance of intelligence. It seems like more or less pure luck that no purebloods were hit by paralysis-o-vision.

[Assistant]
He was a parseltongue. The Basilisk was inclined to listen because it could determine wether or not the heir was true - Harry Potter had exactly zero control over it, whereas a word from the Heir had it leaping to obey. He could easily designate targets.

But yeah, it was likely a gamble combined with a degree of faith approaching the religious in the glorious pure blood future.


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

[User] ELI5: By what mechanism does the body force you to take another breath after you've held it for a long time?

[Assistant]
O2 levels in the blood fall. CO2 levels rise. Acidity of blood rises. Hypothalamus in the brain can detect this change, notifying the brain the O2 levels are getting dangerously low. Instincts kick in, and forces the diaphragm to take in another breath.

Correct me If im wrong please (I might be)


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

[User] [Harry Potter] How much did Dumbledore interfere with Harry's education at Hogwarts? Couldn't he have spared Harry from all the trials he went through?

[Assistant]
He could have made life a thousand times easier for harry. That wasnt his goal though, his goal was to guide a broken kid into becoming a great person.

So look at it as tough love, it sucked but for Harry to be the person he needed to be he needed those insane challenges.


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

[User]
If Venus is hotter than Mercury why havent we explored Mercury more?

If my research is correct it looks like weve only sent two probes to come close to Mercury and no landings. But weve landed on Venus. Whats stopping us from going to Mercury?

[Assistant]
Mercury is harder to get to and harder to land on.

Slowing down isn't "free" in space. It takes as much energy to slow down as it does to speed up. The Earth is already orbiting the Sun at 30 km/s, so if you want to fall inwards to explore the inner solar system, you have to get rid of most of that speed. To escape the solar system you need to be going at 42 km/s, so you only need an extra 12 km/s. But to drop all the way down to the Sun, you'd need to drop basically the full 30 km/s. So moving inwards can be more expensive than moving outwards - and the further inwards you go, the more energy you need. Getting to Venus means you need to shed about 10 km/s of speed. Getting to Mercury means you need to drop by about 14 km/s. So it takes less thrust to get to Pluto than to get to Mercury (even if getting to Mercury is faster!)

This also means that braking to land on a planet isn't free either. Venus's thick atmosphere is actually useful here - because aerobraking actually is almost "free". You may need a heat shield, but that's usually much less weight and cost than using rockets. And after braking in the upper atmosphere, you can just use parachutes to float down to the surface. Even the thin atmosphere of Mars is useful here - parachutes might not be enough for a heavy rover to land safely, but you can at least get rid of a lot of your momentum with aerobraking and parachutes, and only use a little rocket-powered lander at the end. But on Mercury, there's no free lunch. You have to pack enough rockets to completely stop your motion relative to the planet, and then land yourself safely, and it all has to be fully computer-controlled because the time delay is too long for remote control. Note that all of the solar system bodies we have landed on have either had atmospheres, or are asteroids or comets with almost no gravity (so it's more of a rendezvous than a landing), with the sole exception of the Moon, which is bar far the closest large object to Earth.

So even though a lander might survive for longer on Mercury than on Venus, it generally takes more energy to get to the inner solar system than the outer solar system, and it takes more energy (and more precision!) to land on a planet or moon with no atmosphere than on one where you can aerobrake and use a parachute. This adds up to make Mercury one of the most difficult places to land in the solar system.


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

[User]
[Marvel/DC] Earth has had access to advanced technology for decades. So why isn't the consumer tech more advanced?

Most of the consumer tech we see (cars, phones, TVs, etc) is still on par with modern tech in the real world. Why hasn't more of the advanced tech made its way into the private sector?

[Assistant]
people like Lex Luthor know they should alwasy leave the public wanting more/

people like Reed Richards are so terrified of actual progress they don't invent anything that could put someone out of work

people like the Leader aren't interested in giving tech to anyone who's not directly loyal to him

People like MODOK can hike up prices because buyers like HYDRA can't really buy from anyone else

any other questions?


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

[User]
How do the scientists studying Kepler data for signs of planet transits determine they're not seeing sun (star) spots?

With the announcement of a bunch of new planets discovered in the kepler data, multiple articles have included a statement indicating the biggest problem they have is distinguishing planet transits from an eclipsing binary star. In looking around for some information on Betelgeuse recently found a paper describing how scientists have imaged really big "sun spots" on Betelgeuse. Since stars rotate, such spots would traverse across the surface of the planet. Spots on the sun also appear, disappear, and reappear over multiple rotations. Timing of such appearances  could approximate the periodicity of a planetary transits. How is this possibility eliminated from Kepler analyses?

[Assistant]
Kepler scientist here - a starspot can sometimes trigger the very first step of planet detection by the computer, for the reasons you listed that it is a semi-periodic drop in brightness. However, there are many steps in verifying a planet, and it will easily get thrown out in even the first step. A starspot on a star that rotates every 30 days would show a 15-day dip and then nothing for 15 days. A planet at a 30 day period would show a dip of just a few hours. So, they are easily distinguishable by eye.

tl;dr the measured transit durations are way different.


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

[User]
If you mix drops of blood from two people, could you tell with just the naked eye if their blood types match?

So I guess my real question is, could you see the blood agglutinate (clump) without a microscope?

[Assistant] Yes you can. The blood will clot at a macroscopic level (aka visible to the naked eye). For example if you mix type A and type O blood, the anti-A antibodies in blood sample 'O' will react with A antigen from sample 'A' and the mixture will clot. Obviously this will only happen if the two blood types don't match. Before transfusing we do a ABO and Rh blood typing using hemagglutinin tests (add patient blood to a card with antigen or antibody on it). We also do a crossmatch, which is when we directly mix the patients blood with the donor blood to make sure they actually match.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why does our body try to cool itself down when we have fever, even though the body heated itself up on purpose

As I understand fever is a response of our body to a sickness. Our body heats up to make the disease in our body weaker, but when we get hot we start sweating which makes us cool down.
Why do we have these 2 completely opposite reactions in our body?

[Assistant] Your body has a internal thermostat, called the hypothalamus. This thermostat can be adjusted. Sweating occurs when your body temperature is above thermostat level to cool your body down. When you have a fever your thermostat is set higher than normal. This is why you can feel cold even though you have a fever, because even though your body temperature is higher than normal it is still below thermostat level. When your fever breaks and the thermostat goes back to normal level, you will start sweating as the body temperature is now above thermostat level.


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

[User] How can a feather keep it's color for so long, when other parts of many biological things tend to fade after they are no longer alive or part of said thing?

[Assistant] Many feathers' colors come from their structure, rather than the more common route of molecules like melanin.  These molecules break down, like when chlorophyll disappears from leaves in autumn.  The microscopic ridges that structurally select for reflected light of a certain range of wavelengths may be more resilient.  Apparently Lexus spent 15 years developing a paint that uses the same method, called Structural Blue, that shouldn't fade in the sun.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does it seem like every FM radio station goes on commercial at the same time?

[Assistant] Monopolies.  Clearchannel (or iHeart, or whatever it's called now) owns thousands of stations and dominates the audience share in almost every major market.  In some cities, literally every station on the air is owned by Clearchannel.  They benefit by synching commercial times so that you can't just change the station to get away from the commercial.


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

[User]
[The Purge] How are rules enforced?

 As you know, all class 4 weapons are illegal. This includes biochemical weaponry, explosives, etc. But since the police and army are holed up inside bases during the Purge, what's stopping purgers from using explosives and RPGs? How does the government enforce this rule?

Also, the Purge offically ends at 7 AM. But will people automatically just stop? What if someone shoots another dude at 7:01? The authorities probably aren't even mobilized by then.

Just thought if something else: Since all emergency services are shut off for 12 hours, what happens if a fire breaks out? Whether it starts off as an accident in a kitchen or if arsonists target buildings. Who will prevent the fire from engulfing entire neighborhoods or the city?

[Assistant]
> what's stopping purgers from using explosives and RPGs? How does the government enforce this rule?

works exactly like now. If you use this kind of stuff, you get in trouble the next day when someone finds out.  Sure, if you used cleverly and killed all the witnesses you might get away with it, but that would be true on a non-purge day, too.

> But will people automatically just stop? What if someone shoots another dude at 7:01?

People won't automatically stop, but knowing that you could get in trouble after that time is probably a pretty good self deterrent. Just because the cops aren't there to save the victim's life at 7:01 doesn't mean they won't arrest you at 10:01.

> Who will prevent the fire from engulfing entire neighborhoods or the city?

Nobody. That's the risk.

Although, presumably people will have their own private options to deal with this if the fire gets large enough.


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

[User]
CMV: I think that the pronouns he/him, she/her, and they/them are enough.

Before I start, I just want to say that I know/support people that come out as LGBTQ+, and I understand people who come out as trans, and assume a different gender, and what they are going through. However, when people start using different pronouns, such as zie, sie, or ey, it always got me thinking. When I learned about them, pronouns were always meant for simplicity, or to take the place of a name. It is purposefully a broad and general word, and its meaning up to its context. Therefore, he/him, she/her, and they/them seem adequate enough for me, which I feel in my opinion is a bigoted point of view. Aren't pronouns meant for simplicity? Please change my view.

Edit: when I said pronouns, I mean gender pronouns, rather then pronouns as a whole.

[Assistant] I predict in a few years, using "one" would catch on in popularity (largely because it already has a formal and historical use, and it will make the "one simply does not walk into mordor" meme funnier), so that's at least one more pronoun.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do animals intrinsically know to protect their eyes or cranium?

[Assistant] Presumably, animals that don't instinctively protect their faces are more likely to die (or be blinded, which is basically a death sentence in nature) before they're able to reproduce and pass their genes on.


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

[User]
ELI5: Room Temperature Superconductors

I was reading Michio Kaku's physics of the future book, where he mentions room temperature super conductors... I'm confused on how this would work because I thought superconductors only happen at around 0k.

[Assistant]
A room temperature superconductor is sort of a holy grail of physics/engineering/science/etc.

If one were to be discovered, it would be a huge deal, because it would allow us to work with electricity much more efficiently and easily in many situations.

So far, nobody's found one, but the search is on-going. It would be a huge deal if one was discovered. Scientists have found superconductors that work at temperatures significantly higher than absolute zero, but still much colder than room temperature.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter]What happens if I eat unicorn meat?

I didn't kill the unicorn, and it was served to me as a steak. Had no idea of what it was until after.

[Assistant] Unicorn meat is safe. The only magical property there is the blood. If you sear the meat that's all gone. Even medium well, that red juice is all protein really. If you ate it raw and had some of the blood. Your life should be shit almost instantly.


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

[User]
How were archeological and paleontological artifacts dated before the "radio-carbon revolution"?

What methods did scientists use to estimate the age of artifacts before the advent of radio-carbon dating methods? I've read that radio-carbon dating led to a "revolution" in archeology, paleontology, and anthropology (probably geology as well, right?), but I'm totally ignorant about what methods were used before carbon dating, and if any of those methods are still in use today. Thank you!

[Assistant]
A lot of dating came from and still comes from stratification methods.

Essentially, the deeper something is, the older it is. As you dig down you can usually see layers of dirt. Each layer corresponds to a different time frame, thicker layers usually mean longer periods of time. Edit: Though this isn't always true. A landslide could deposit a lot of dirt in a short time.

For example, when the asteroid that hit earth leading to the deaths of dinosaurs occurred it sent up a lot of dust/dirt into the atmosphere. Over the course of a few decades, that dust fell back down, coating the entire earth with a thin layer of black dust (laced with asteroid elements!).

With archaeology it's about the same thing. Maybe in the top layer the scientist finds a roman coin that has a date on it. So they know that particular layer of dirt is at least X years old. The next layer they find a pot that references an emperor a that was born 700 years before the coin's date. Now they know the pot is older than the coin (because it was deeper), but younger than the emperor that was referenced.

The next layer they may find a bronze tool. They know that the bronze tool is older than the pot because it's deeper. If the coin is 500 years old, the pot is at least 500 years old, but no more than 700 years old, the tool then is probably older than 700 years.

Done enough times over a wide enough area the researchers can get a pretty good idea of relative ages of things. Eventually, with enough data points, they would be able to say, "The coin is exactly 500 years old because it has a date, the pots were made until the death of the emperor they depict, so it's between 700 and 670 years old, and the bronze tools have been found at settlements that date back to 800 years ago, so the tool is between 700 to 800 years old."

They still do this often for geology and archaeology too.


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

[User]
What's the point of imaginary numbers?

I understand on a basic level how they work, but why bother having them in the first place?

[Assistant]
First, I'd like to make a point about the rather bothersome terminology: Imaginary or complex numbers are no less "real" or more abstract than any other naming system.

One way to think of how we develop number systems is based on solving equations. Counting numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, ...) are great and fundamental, but you could never solve an equation such as

x + 5 = 0

using just counting numbers. That's why we have to add negatives (..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ...) to get the integers.

But with the integers, we still can't solve simple linear equations such as 2x - 1 = 0. This is why we have to add in fractions, getting the rational numbers - now it's possible to solve any linear equation.

But what about more advanced things, such as quadratics? You can prove that there's no solution to

x^(2) - 2 = 0

using just rational numbers - that is, the square root of 2 is not rational. This is why we need something bigger; somewhere that we can solve this equation is in the real number system. This contains everything that we'd normally refer to as a "number" without qualifications - things such as 0, 1, pi, sqrt(2), -5, and so on.

But we still can't solve everything - x^(2) + 1 = 0 has no solutions in the real numbers, since the left side is always at least 1. This is why we attach a symbol called i such that i^(2) = -1, and define complex numbers to be numbers of the form

a + bi

with a, b real numbers. Then we can make up definitions for multiplication, addition, division, etc. that are consistent with their usual usages for real numbers. The nice thing is that now the set of complex numbers has a property called "algebraically closed." This means that *any* polynomial with complex coefficients has a root which is a complex number; that is, we can solve for zero given any polynomial.

Some other nice properties that people have mentioned are Euler's identity, which says

e^(ix) = cos(x) + i sin(x)

This allows us to simplify some computations, as well as get some intuition on what multiplication means in the complex plane. More importantly, this gives us some powerful techniques regarding solving differential equations and representing physical systems in terms of such equations.

There are also problems that become easier when stated in terms of complex numbers, instead of real numbers. Computing real integrals can become easy when using an appropriate contour integral in the complex plane - this is a result of the fact that the differentiability of complex functions implies some *very* strong properties (much stronger than the corresponding facts for real differentiable functions).

Hopefully this makes a reasonable amount of sense and gives you some idea of why these are useful.


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

[User] ELI5: How do spiders not get stuck in their own webs?

[Assistant] They are very much at risk of getting stuck in their own webs.  They, however, take note of where they place the sticky strings (as some of the strings are not sticky) and only walk on the non sticky ones.  Only the web builder knows the path of unsticking walkage.


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

[User]
Is there a philosophical justification for suicide?

I know there are many philosophers who renounce suicide, such as Kant who argues that we have a perfect duty towards ourselves. But are there any philosophies where suicide can be justified in any way?

[Assistant] Utilitarianism means suicide can be okay in some cases, the same for euthanasia. Utilitarianism is about maximizing happiness, so there isn't a concept of "innate humanity dignity" that ought not to be violated or anything like that.


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

[User] Can we repair damaged brain parts/tissues? Other organs have proved to be successful but how about the ever-complicated brain?

[Assistant]
Other organs are simple.  The heart is just a pump.  Kidneys are just filters.  The liver's a chemical factory (and the most regenerative internal organ in human beings).  Lungs and kidneys are basically bags.  They're not all that physically complicated and we manufacture things like them every day so we intimately understand how to make them and how they work.  The brain is spatially and temporally complex. Temporally because of how it develops.  Most of the connections and architecture are put in place in the first two years of development.  After that the organ undergoes a massive reorganization whereby it losses a lot of neuronal connections.  This can be thought of as an adaptive optimization phase (the organ builds lots of connections, evaluates which ones are most optimal and prunes the rest for efficiency).  A bolt on addition to the mature human brain wouldn't be able to take advantage of this phase.  Mature human brains have some limited plasticity, but it would probably be difficult to overcome this.  Second, the spatial complexity. The brain has more neuronal connections than there are grains of sand on earth.  It's not like we could wire in a replacement because of the scale of the problem (there are too many connections and they are too small for us to mechanically make). Those connections aren't just necessary for function, they're actually how the brain encodes data.  So if you force the connections, you may alter the person or their memory.  So the best case scenario is that you drop in a replacement and hope that useful connections get made.  Finally, the brain is the most protected location in the human body.  It sits behind the blood-brain barrier (think about it as the most exclusive night club in town, with the best bouncers).  That means even getting things into the brain cavity (drugs, cells, etc.) is really difficult.

So basically repairing the brain requires rewiring the most complicated computer we've ever seen, and that we don't fully understand, on a scale we cannot work, blindfolded.


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

[User] Why is +1 not the same as 1+?

[Assistant]
These are ordered things. Moreover, we don't care about the labels in them, so we can rewrite the labels as long as we keep the order preserved. Now,  is 0<1<2<3<4<... So

* 1+ = 1+ (0<1<2<...) = \* <0<1<2<3<... = 0<1<2<3<4<... =

where \* is just "something", and the last equals is just relabeling things. More notably, the order 1+ does *not* have a maximum element. On the other hand,

* +1 = (0<1<2<3<...)+1 = 0<1<2<3<... < \*

Note that \* is larger than everything else, so we can't relabel these to get  because +1 has a maximal element \*. So +1 and 1+ are different.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Obscurials and Harry?

If the Dursleys had succeeded in keeping Harry Potter from Hogwarts and continued treating him as they did,  would he have developed an Obscurus?

[Assistant] No.  Becoming an Obscurial requires the self hatred to be centered around magic.  Harry never knew why the Dursleys were treating him like shit.  It would also require him to hate himself over it and try to suppress his own power.


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

[User] ELI5: What is lacking from modern CGI that allows humans to still distinguish it from real objects on film?

[Assistant]
You only notice it on people because you have tens of millennia of refinement in your brain to spot the subtlest differences in people to find something that isn't quite right and could signify danger.  Subtle things from not moving quite right for the body they have, to slight shine off the face, to hair not falling quite right can throw up a flag in your head that indicates something isn't quite right here.

You don't see 99.99% of digital effects in movies.  Cars, planes, buildings, and really anything artificial can be added in by a computer without you noticing.  Cars in particular are easy because they're always shiny so a slightly too shiny CGI model just looks freshly waxed.  Buildings are also reliable because they're not moving and the lighting never changes.

Basically no one is blowing anything up these days, its too easy and cheap to just add it in post.  You don't notice CGI these days, you think its practical effects which is the biggest compliment you can give it.


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

[User] Can someone explain how an Exit Poll can work when there is so much mail-in and early voting?

[Assistant] There are other polls that give us an estimate of how many early votes have been cast for each candidate. Pollsters add those numbers to the estimated on-the-day vote from exit polls to produce a prediction of the total vote.


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

[User] ELI5: In the movies when someone asks for a secure line, what exactly does that mean, and how do you do it?

[Assistant]
You have a conversation over the phone between two people in different places.  The sound signals between these people is transmitted over the telecommunication network.  It's possible for someone else to be connected to that network and listen to the conversation these two people have.

A secure line is a protection against that.  It is done with encryption: the source phone will encode the sound signal so that it looks like gibberish, and the destination phone has the necessary key to decode the gibberish back into the original signal.  Anyone else intercepting the signal would only have the gibberish, but without the key they can't convert it back to sound.


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

[User] [Monster Hunter Universe] How do normal people manage to get anything done without getting ripped to shreds by one of the many monsters roaming around?

[Assistant]
"Normal humans" of the Monster Hunter world are extremely durable and strong, and even the non-hunters are still able to fish for things like Great White sharks easily (assuming that they are fisherman of course). The entire world is tougher, so of course the people are going to be as well! And the ones who aren't that strong live far away from the monsters, such as in cities and towns.

Secondly, most of the monsters that we see are not human hunters on their own. Most humans live in tightly knit groups, like the village or city. Most monsters try to avoid these areas, they are not able to take on such a large group of "prey" and the territory is totally unfamiliar. There is easier prey out there most of the time. And when one decides that humans ARE on the menu...

That is where the hunters come in. Not only are the monster hunters tasked with capturing monsters for study, but they are also commissioned with defending their base of operations from heavy duty monsters that have gotten a bit too comfortable with their human neighbors. The ones that cause a disruption or damage the human way of life are quickly disposed of. And really, the large monsters are not TOO common. It just seems that way because your job is to seek them out.


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

[User] ELI5 the difference between an illness and a disease.

[Assistant]
An illness is when you feel bad.  You have pain, soreness, dizziness, you might feel tired, etc.  You are not sure why you fell bad, you just do.  Basically, illnesses are feelings, a list of complaints.

A disease is when there is something actually wrong with you physically or mentally, whether you feel it or not.  Things like cancer, diabetes, and depression are diseases.

In many cases, illness is caused by the disease.  For example, diabetes (disease) can make you feel weak and disorientated (illnesses).  Sometimes, a disease might not cause any illnesses.  A person with cancer may not feel a thing for a long time.  Also, sometimes illnesses occur without a disease.  You might have a headache, but there nothing serious that is causing it, just stress.


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

[User] If airfoil-style wings function unidirectionally, how can airplanes fly upside down (and sideways)?

[Assistant]
While some lift can be generated purely by the shape of the airfoil, the primary factor in determining lift is angle of attack.

You simulate AOA when you stick your hand out the window of a car and "fly" it up and down while listening to some tunskies. More angle, more lift.

For what it's worth; the airfoil's primary purpose is to reduce drag. A very basic understanding would be that wing area, airspeed, and angle of attack determine lift, while the airfoil design determines how efficiently that lift is produced.

Different airfoils are designed for different things. For example, an airliner will have an airfoil which is most efficient at low AOA and mach .84-ish, because they spend most of their time flying straight and level at mach .84-ish. An ultralight, on the other hand, might fly best at 20mph and a relatively high AOA. A dogfighter might have a wing which is designed primarily to allow extremely high AOA upside down at the expense of efficiency.

Incidentally, the speed at which the wing is most efficient for straight-and-level flight is one of the important things to know about an aircraft. It's called Vc (V cruise) and/or Vbe (V best endurance), and is listed in the data about an airplane along with others like minimum stall speed and do-not-exceed speed.

EDIT: to your question, a plane with an asymmetric airfoil will fly upside down, but will require more power to do so. Some aerobatic planes have symmetric airfoils and fly the same upside down as they do right side up. However, such planes would not make good long-distance tourers because they will require more power and fuel for a given trip.

EDIT again: also, there are other considerations besides aerodynamics which factor into upside-down (negative G) maneuvers. Things like wing stresses. For example, a wire braced wing might just fold in half if you try to load it significantly upside down.


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

[User]
[The Force Awakens] Do Stormtroopers get the day off after Kylo Ren wrecks their workstation?

When you report in early in the morning and you find out your boss stubbed his toe and lightsabered your computer in half in a fit of infantile rage, do you get the day off or is it one of those things where they're like "We're paying you for 16 hours, we're getting 16 hours of work out of you." and make you fold laundry?

[Assistant] It seems that Stormtroopers in the First Order have multiple duties depending on what slots need to be filled (Finn, for instance, did both Sanitation and combat training missions), so most likely you'd be temporarily reassigned to wherever you were needed.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do like 15 popcorn kernels not pop while the rest do?

Theres gotta be a way

[Assistant]
For a popcorn kernel to pop it needs to A) be undamaged and B) have between 13-14.5 % moisture content.

Statistics being what they are some kernels just don't fall in this range after being processed so you get a few duds.


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

[User] Is wireless electricity possible?

[Assistant]
Possible? yes. We've known that for what, a hundred years?

Practical/efficient? No, because the energy source has to expand in a sphere to transmit the energy, causing most of the transmitted power to be wasted.


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

[User]
[State Farm] What would happen if two or more people with the same State Farm agent did the jingle at the same time?

Alternatively, what if someone did the jingle while their agent was busy with someone else. Would they just teleport away while their busy helping them? If so, that would seem like a serious issue if you need immediate assistance.

[Assistant]
You think State Farm is merely flesh? Do you think State Farm resides in rude matter, confined to forms flailing around the physical universe?

No, State Farm is thought. State Farm is in the threads of the cosmos. State Farm has faces the way you have usernames. What is it to State Farm to show the same face to two people? To three?

It is nothing. State Farm is capable of far greater things. State Farm is constrained only by the cursed Dennis Haysbert.

Curse you, Dennis Haysbert.


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

[User] ELI5: Can egg-laying animals (everything from insects to reptiles, etc.) have miscarriages? If so, what would that even mean, and how did we ever find out about it?

[Assistant] Yes. These are when the egg is fertilized but fails to hatch. You find out about it when you find an egg that has a partially developed embryo in it. That would have been something common when everyone raised chickens.


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

[User]
CMV: Modern hip hop takes less talent to be successful than 10+ years ago

I am trying hard not to be a grumpy old man (still just in my 30s). I want to respect the fact that my parents told me the same stuff when they heard my music blasting out of my bedroom. Their parents with them as well.

Every generation seems to question new music.  But as a hip hop fan of the 90s, I can't understand how the stuff I've heard in recent years is at the same talent level (with some exceptions of course). Things like autotune is a good example that spans all genres. Mumble rap I learned about recently and had to confirm it was a real thing and not a joke...

Edit: word

Edit: if I were to change "talent" to "musical talent" would answers be the same? Seeing a lot of good points where marketing talent is huge. I'm just looking for pure musical talent comparisons.

[Assistant]
Old hip-hop required that you have fucking bars to spit. Yeah? Yeah.

New hip hop honestly doesn't. But it does require that you have marketing skills. It requires you either have beat selection or production skills greater than ever. It requires you hone in on specific listening bases OR the general hip-hop community and pander using flows, rhetoric, or slang that appeals to your target audience. It requires that you have heavy brand appeal, and often a sense of fashion. It often requires that you can sing for a hook or even a full verse, something previously left to R&B features.

There's a lot wrong with modern hip hop, and it's a combination of popularization and the online era. It's less focus on bars for sure. However, there's a TON of talents necessary to do it. They just might be talents that grumpy guys like us don't respect when it comes to hip hop. But the biggest thing is that it's the biggest genre now. More music means more crap, as does more fans. But there's also probably more great rap than ever. But good music isn't what hits the radio and top 40 99% of the time for ANY genre.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are there gusts of wind? Why dont they just disperse and even out? Where do big pressure changes COME from???

Maybe you can ELI7 because Ive taken three college level physics courses but I just dont get this: where do temperature and pressure changes come from that are so powerful we get 50mph+ gusts? Why dont those differences just disperse outward and equalize from wherever theyre generated? How can I be standing on one side of my yard and a gust of wind be displacing the trees 30ft away???

[Assistant]
They do equalize outward from where they are generated. They get generated in areas with stark temperature differences, typically lakes or mountains, or as a result of weather (like rain). Waters high heat capacity means it doesnt change temperature as quickly as land, so air passing over it gets heated (or cooled) depending on solar intensity and time of day (a lake will stay warm at night but the ground wont).

So these systems are created over large bodies of water typically, radiate outward, but given the size of them outward tends to be well across the nearest landmass, while the other radial side goes out to sea and dissipates over a distance. And if not much is there to bump into it then the wavefront doesnt really get stopped by much.


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

[User]
I've heard all about the positives of thorium nuclear energy, but does anyone actually know why we aren't pursuing it?

Theoretically, thorium molten salt reactors could create abundant energy, but does anyone know why the U.S. is not pursuing the technology other than policy and regulatory reasons? What are the technical downfalls?

[Assistant]
Thorium reactor technology was abandoned during the Cold War, as they do not produce material for nuclear weapons production nearly as well as uranium reactors do.

So now we have 50 years of proven uranium based nuclear energy technology, vs. thorium still on the drawing board.  It looks very promising, and *might* be better, but we don't know.

Also, hysteria and lack of science education has made if very difficult to develop *any* new nuclear power technologies.  We can't even expand the use of existing ones.


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

[User] ELI5: why do some movies get completed and then not released for sometimes several years?

[Assistant] Depends. There are *tons* of factors that could make that happen. Unfortunate timing of world events, publisher release schedules change, lawsuits, or any number of other scenarios that could cause the movie to perform poorly if released at the time initially planned.


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

[User]
CMV: A conspiracy theory is not necessarily false.

Many definitions of conspiracy theory include that the conspiracy is false. Most are derided as false, but I believe some of them (at least portions of them) could theoretically be true.

1. **The Broken Clock:** Conspiracy theories are speculative in nature. Often they make logical leaps without evidence. There is nothing to suggest that these leaps are categorically false. One could accidentally come to the conclusion that is true but using incorrect logic, similar to how someone could mess up the math but, by happenstance, get the correct answer.
2. **Division of Conspiracy Theories:** Conspiracy theories are often grandiose, but they dont need to be. We could divide these theories into multiple parts, and each part is in itself a conspiracy theory. While the CIA is engaged in mind control is a conspiracy theory, one of the parts of this theory is MKULTRA, which, before it was revealed as a real experiment, was a conspiracy theory limited to the lunatic fringe. The mistake in the logic is that when one of the smaller units is shown to be true, the theorists use this as evidence that the entire theory is true. Yes, MKULTRA was real, but the results were not close to mind control as described in the more grandiose theories.
3. **The Smallest Conspiracy Theory**: Based on the logic of (2), there must be some smallest unit that we could conceivably call a conspiracy theory. I would say that the smallest possible conspiracy theory is one person covering up a crime or some other truth they dont want the general public to know.
4. **The Insufferable Pedant Corner:** A conspiracy theory is a theory about a conspiracy. Conspiracy is a legal term about the planning of a crime. You could parse the phrase to mean a theory about a plan to commit any sort of crime. Theranos engaged in a conspiracy to defraud investors, and the ones who claimed they were defrauding investors with little to no evidence were engaged in conspiracy theories. When the evidence was revealed, it was no longer a theory, and became a criminal case. Even then, because the law in the US specifies that defendants are innocent until proven guilty, you can make a case that a conspiracy theory isnt true until proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court. But because court cases often end in mistrials or found not guilty by some technicality, there must be some conspiracy theories which happened, but were not ruled as such for one reason or another.

While most conspiracy theories are false, the ones most likely to be true would have a narrow scope and impact compared to the standard explanation. United 93 was shot down is more believable than 9/11 was an inside job because the former requires fewer elements to have been fabricated.

[Assistant]
Could you define how exactly to change your view?

There have been proven conspiracy theories in the past. Therefore, your statement is not so much a *view* as it is a fact. This post is analogous to saying "CMV: A house doesn't have to be built with bricks"


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

[User]
Why does radioactive dating not date things to when they were created inside a star?

How can we tell when a sedimentary layer, fossil, etc was created, when that substance's nuclei have been decaying since it was created via fusion before the Earth came about? Does the substance get reset so to speak, when it is melted? I would intuitively guess not, as heating substances a few thousand degrees celsius wouldn't have an affect on the nuclei.

[Assistant] For carbon dating of biological samples, we use the fact that carbon-14, which is unstable, is continuously formed in the atmosphere due to interactions between cosmic rays and (iirc) nitrogen. Therefore, living things which are cycling carbon through their bodies will have a certain ratio of carbon-14 and carbon-12. Once these things die, they are no longer cycling their carbon, and the carbon-14 gradually decays and changes the ratio. By looking at the ratio of carbons, it is possible to figure out how long ago something stopped cycling its carbon.


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

[User]
[Superman] How exactly does Superman's x-ray vision work?

I hear Superman has x-ray vision (as if he didn't have enough powers am I right?) but how exactly does this work? Is he hitting me with radiation if I get x-rayed by him? Furthermore I even heard that he is able to actually see as if he was in the room while using his "x-ray vision" rather than the "seeing bones" scenario one would expect...

Are there any theories on how he does this? I don't like the idea of him being able to see through my clothes even if he is protecting us...

[Assistant] We humans are already able to build machines that can read all manner of different types of energy and convert them into visual aids, for example thermal imaging, electromagnetic spectrum and so on. If used in the right manner these allow us to look through seemingly solid matter. It seems incredible, but it's just making good use of physics. Superman merely (merely, hah!) has this ability on a biological level, greatly refined.


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

[User]
ELI5: When there is a fly in my room and it is continuously flying around in the same pattern, what is it trying to achieve?

It's annoying but I feel sorry for the little guy. He seems to know no better.

[Assistant]
Flies have, by human standards, virtually no brain. They are better understood as being like a tiny machine rather than a tiny thinker. So they are not "trying to achieve" anything, and are unaware of what they are doing.

Flies respond primarily to smells, and secondly to rather basic images. They seek things that smell like food, and seek to avoid getting swatted or eaten.


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

[User] ELI5: Dimensions: How can there be more than 3 dimensions?

[Assistant] A dimension is simply a variable that is independent of any other variable. In this universe there are only 3 spatial dimensions (I.E. in the x, y, and z directions). However a dimension is not restricted to simply being a spatial one. An example of another one is time, for instance if you wanted to know the temperature at a certain location the answer depends not only on spatial location but time as well. So a universal temperature function would be 4 dimensional, as it is dependent on the x, y, and z location as well as the time the temperature is recorded.


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

[User]
[Terminator]does the T-1000 have a solid CPU?

if "yes" where does it go within his body?

[Assistant]
Not the way you're thinking of it; there isn't a single discrete processor that you could see, hold, or remove to incapacitate it.

The T-1000 is compose of millions of nanomachine, each one with its own independent processing power.

When these nanomachines come together, forming the single entity we regard as the T-1000, they create a kind of swarm intelligence; the tasks that would traditionally be carried out by a CPU instead shared by the combined processing power of the nanomachines as a whole.

This is why a smaller chunk of the T-1000 displays some limited intelligence, like the ability to recognize the T-1000 are re-merge with it, but cannot carry out more complicated tasks, like attacking one of its targets.


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

[User] Why can hormone therapy make a clitoris grow but can't make a penis grow?

[Assistant]
A penis and a clitoris come from the same embryological tissue. Testosterone therapy makes a clitoris grow because it begins signaling the body to change the clitoris into a penis. Of course, that change is far more complex than simply "growing" into a penis, but it still causes hyperplasia of the clitoral tissue.

It won't make a penis grow larger because the body has already signaled the growth of a penis; there is no conversion to occur.

We can see the same change in men transitioning to female; estrogen therapy and testosterone blockers will cause a penis to lessen in size.

I hope that helps.


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

[User]
How do magnets work on a sub-atomic level?

Basically, I know *of* most scientific concepts, but I don't know them. Is it the case that magnetic materials have an inordinate amount of positively or negatively charged particles and thus attract other substances? Does the entire concept depend on the Earth's magnetic field? Why does the Earth have a magnetic field?

[Assistant]
Something that's very confusing about the electromagnetic force is that there are two kinds of charge, but only one appears (as far as has been observed) in a monopole (or "single charge") state.  "Positive" and "negative" are labels for **electric** charge.  The electron has a negative charge (it is a negative monopole), the proton a positive charge (a positive monopole).  These are commonly tossed around in popular media and are comparatively commonly known.

There is also *magnetic* charge, though there are no magnetic monopoles.  These are labeled "north" and "south," and while electrons possess electric monopoles, they also possess an intrinsic magnetic dipole (or "double charge") moment due to their particular quantum mechanical nature.  Because they are electrically charged, electrons produce electric fields, and because they possess a magnetic dipole moment, they also produce magnetic fields.  Since a monopole and a dipole are different, the fields they produce are shaped differently as well.

If you collect a bunch of electrons together, you will increase the amount of negative charge.  The electric fields of all of the electrons add together, and a collection of 100 electrons produces an electric field 100 times as strong as 1 electron.

Dipoles behave differently.  You can think of a magnetic dipole as a "North" monopole very close to (but not overlapping with) a "South" monopole.  This means when you gather a bunch of electrons together the orientation of the dipole moments matters.  If you place two dipoles side-by-side where the North side of one is next to the North side of the other, from far away it will look like a dipole that has twice the strength of either one alone.  BUT, if you put the *South* side of one next to the *North* side of the other, from far away they will seem to cancel out and produce no magnetic field.^*

Without getting too much into the gory details, in most materials the dipole moments of the electrons in the constituent atoms tend to cancel each other out, but in certain metals (e.g. iron, nickel, and cobalt) many instead align to reinforce each other.  Regions of the metal that have their dipole moments aligned are called **domains**, and in most natural deposits of these metals the domains all roughly cancel out.  By applying a strong magnetic field aligned in one direction, though, you can grow the domains that are oriented opposite to the external field and shrink all others.  Do this repeatedly (without getting the material too hot) and you will produce a permanent magnet.  Ultimately, its magnetic (dipole) field is produced by adding up the dipole fields of the aligned electrons.

As a side note, the source of a magnet's magnetic field being electron dipoles explains why you can't just snap off the North side of a magnet and have a big hunk of North magnetic charge.  The dipoles are all aligned, North to South to North to South etc, so wherever you break the magnet in half, you have a new North side on one and South side on the other, giving you two, new, smaller permanent dipole magnets.

^* To be strictly accurate, this arrangement would produce a *quadrupole* field, but that does not really affect the discussion as it decreases in strength much more rapidly than a dipole field.


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

[User] If irrational numbers never terminate, doesn't that imply infinite information? I thought the amount of information in the universe was finite.

[Assistant]
There are infinitely many numbers, uncountable many so. Decimals describe every single number, so there need to be enough decimal expansions to generate them all. To uniquely specify a real number you *need* an infinite sequence of integers or rational numbers, otherwise you only have an approximation. So, yes, you could say that every real number contains an infinite amount of information.

But it's important to know that numbers and math are things we invented and not stuff that actually exist in or because of our universe. They're a clever way to attempt to study the patterns we make up (patterns are psychological, a coping mechanism). This means that the universe is not a slave to anything in math, the universe just "is" and math is just a language used to describe it. We'll never be able to write down a real number exactly, because there are only a finite number of particles, but that doesn't matter because math is not a slave to this universe either.


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

[User]
[Death Note] If Light does nothing during L's broadcast...

If Light had decided to do nothing or maybe wait awhile reacting to L's broadcast with criminal stand in, how much would have changed? I'm thinking maybe he decided to wait a few days to a few weeks before writing down the name. That should have given Light enough time to find out that the broadcast was only being shown a certain times at certain places.

[Assistant]
The broadcast allowed L to pinpoint Kyra's location to the Kanto region of Japan. "Pinpoint" is optimistic, though, because with a population of 45 million, you aren't going to find Kyra just from knowing he's in Kanto. Even the additional piece of information that Kyra must be a high school student is near useless. What's L going to do, check millions of students in Kanto?

The key which allowed L to have a chance of catching Light wasn't the broadcast trick, it was the fact Light changed his killing schedule after hacking his father's computer to find out L knew about him being a student. From that, L deduced Kyra had to be connected to a high ranking police officer, DRAMATICALLY reducing the list of suspects by millions. The important part is that Light *knew* L would realize he changed the schedule on purpose; he wanted L to get close to him so he could find out who L was and kill him.

So the issue here isn't that Light was afraid of L catching him. Having access to his father's intel meant Light would always be a step ahead. If he *wanted to*, L wouldn't have caught him, ever. For instance, if he had waited say two weeks then changed his schedule slightly (say, all killings on Thursdays that were happening at 8 PM now happen at 6 PM), L would just think the student had a slight change of routine; since it wouldn't match Light's routine, he would never be caught, even if L looked into every single Kanto student. So in the beginning of the story, Light getting caught was never an issue. He was under no danger. But he wanted to *defeat* L, not simply *evade* him, which required taking controlled risks to have L approach him.


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

[User]
Eli5: Whats the stuff that falls off the hot metal in metal forging?

Its super satisfying watching metal get shaped into whatever its going to end up being but theres always like thin layers of metal breaking off the second it gets crushed again ? Ive always wondered this hmm.

[Assistant] That's called scale.  Its an oxide, and basically a layer of rust from the heat. It doesn't "look rusty", but it indeed is a layer of iron oxide.   Every time you heat the metal, you loose some metal to oxidation because of the composition. Its mostly iron with some carbon and other things.  Forging temperatures require oxidizing flames (as in forced air) of sorts to make the flames hot enough to make metal malleable, and those oxidizing flames oxidize the metals themselves.


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

[User]
[Quantum Leap] Was it ever explained how the center responsible for tracking Sam Becket's historical changes were immune to those changes?

Sam's buddy Al and the computer systems were able to track timeline changes.  Al, like Sam, remembered the way things were AND how time changed.  How were they immune to the changes so that the new timeline didn't overnight their memories?

[Assistant]
Sam is separate from the timelines he changes starting from the moment he leaps into the Quantum Accelerator. Not including his swiss cheese memory, Sam only remembers things from his starting timeline. Sam's mind rarely ever in the present for the changes to take hold, which is why it doesn't overwrite his memories.

AL, on the other hand, is linked to Sam via Brain waves through the Quantum Accelerator and that's why he's the only one who can see and hear Sam. Sam is sort of an anchor point for Al and the AI ziggy.  The only reason Al knows how things are changed is from the Ziggy telling him.

For example, when Al is fighting with a Congressional committee to fund Project Quantum leap, Sam is trying to rescue a young woman studying to be a lawyer in the 1960s. The moment Sam saves her thus altering history, the head of the  Congressional committee instantly changes into the present-day version of that girl who is now the head of the congressional committee.


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

[User] [Zelda: Majora's Mask] Why does the moon have a face? Has it always had a face? And why is it an angry face?

[Assistant]
There are some hints that the Moon in Termina has always had a face. The people know something is different with the moon (angry face) but never freak out nor question why all of a sudden it has a face. Most of them just seem to wonder why it is slowly getting bigger and has changed expression. The Mayor's chair also depicts the moon with a face on it, meaning that how the moon has always been depicted to them.

The Moon is angry due to Majora's influence. The Moon also cries and those tears are an item that Link can collect during his quest. So the Moon is self aware that it is closing in on Termina but sad that it cannot do anything to prevent it.


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

[User]
How much cheating should be "tolerated?"

I'm a graduate student at a top institution (top 10 in US), and have been painfully honest my entire student life. Somehow I convinced myself that others shared this sentiment, but this last year has shaken me down to reality, especially now that I'm grading as a teaching assistant.

I feel great pain for the honest students; I'm grading a final right now, and I realize that they cannot always compete with a group of five or six taking the final as a group. My proof is "slim," but those of you that grade understand what I'm saying---it's obvious when someone is cheating, especially when rare mistakes occur repeatedly in batches. Not only that; I heard in the background of one student's audio PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING RESEMBLING THE EXAM just before I distributed it. I want to believe that the students are honest, but this is ignorant of the evidence in front of me.

To those with more experience, when and where do you draw the line, and how do you respond? I cannot just ignore a grading rubric, but I cannot see the point of grading this exam and assigning students a totally meaningless grade.

[Assistant]
Ideally, all cheating should be dealt with. But in reality it is only worth pursuing if there is clear, demonstrable, uncontrovertable evidence. Pursuing hunches or suspicions gets nowhere if you can't find that evidence, and if you sink your time into chasing down every suspected infraction you will never get anything else done.

There are huge issues with this year in particular, as the tools simply have not been in place to police the remote assignments we have been forced in to running. However, a well designed assessment can make this kind of cheating much harder, and a well designed mark scheme can give leeway for penalties in terms of referencing, structure,  and originality. You can design-away so much of the problem that all cases either become marginal/irrelevant, or so completely obvious that dealing with it is relatively straight forward.


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

[User]
(Star Trek) Why is Romulan Ale Illegal in Federation Space?

In my time as a Tactical Officer aboard the USS Artemis I have been to my fair share of systems, and every shore leave I would collect a bottle of alcohol as a memento. Now I've had everything from Klingon bloodwine to Saurian brandy to Aldebaran whiskey but I could never obtain a bottle of Romulan ale! I've never fully understood why Romulan ale was illegal, why is it illegal and how would I be able to get a bottle of it?

[Assistant]
Trade embargoes. They're an allegory for the US trade embargo against Cuba that makes importing Cuban cigars, an otherwise perfectly legal product, illegal.

As soon as the Federation and the Empire became allies during the Dominion war the embargo was lifted. For some reason it was put back in place shortly after the war ended.


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

[User]
[Police Procedural TV Shows]When they find a suspect a raid the house with a tactical team, why does the main character lead the way with just a bulletproof vest and a pistol while the rest of the team has body armor and automatic weapons?

Even if the team has their personal gear and just doesnt have any extra body armor or helmets, seems like they would at least have an extra weapon better than a pistol.

[Assistant]
The tactical team are backup in case things go south, or the lead detective (or whatever job they hold) is faced with unexpectedly high levels of opposition. They're also an intimidation tactic - their presence means it's less likely any numbers inside the location will fight back. They can also pick off, or pick up, any runners while the lead officer goes straight for the priority target. Generally speaking they're not going in there to kill all suspects; they want to take people alive, so charging in with an assault rifle is detrimental to their actual intention compared to having something smaller and more controlled.

But the person in charge wants to be in first because (a) they know what they're looking for and don't want some armoured-up SWAT guy accidentally standing on something vital and (b) they have a better chance of assessing the situation quickly because they're not encumbered with full tactical gear.


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

[User]
[Fallout 3] Why would the Lone Wanderer infect Project Purity with the modified FEV?

The only people that wouldn't be killed by it are vault dwellers and the Enclave, and the Lone Wanderer knows they were born in the wasteland and would be killed by it. So why would the Lone Wanderer destroy the Capital Wasteland for the sake of the Enclave?

[Assistant]
Eden brings this up when you ask him about it

> Anyone or anything that has been affected by mutation will be eliminated. You will likely be immune, thanks to your upbringing in the vault. Likewise, the good people of the Enclave will be unaffected as well.

Presumably its not just being in the wasteland when youre born that would cause you to be affected. Its remaining there and being exposed to the radiation long enough for it to mutate you. The Lone Wanderer was born there, but pretty much immediately brought to the vault and shielded from radiation after that. Thats not necessarily a guarantee theyll be immune, or that Eden was being honest, but spending the majority of their life in a vault mightve been enough. As it turns out theyre not immune, but they did have reason to suspect they mightve been.


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

[User] In a game program, do bullets check if they hit an enemy or do enemies check if they are hit by a bullet?

[Assistant]
Generally it's the bullet which checks.

The reason why is that bullets are too small and too fast for most collisions systems and require special handling. Having the enemy perfoms the check means that you have to embed the whole bullet handling logic in every enemy wich add complexity and code duplication.

In the typical case, each frame all the objects positions are updated, then, for every bullet, the engine traces a line from the position of the bullet at the start of the frame to the position at the end of the frame and check if it intersects anything.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do employees of marijuana dispensaries in the US handle their taxes if their income is based off the sale of marijuana?

With the federal restrictions affecting how dispensaries due business (such as not being able to have bank accounts), how do its employees handle their taxes when the income is coming from the sale of marijuana?

edit: thanks for the all the replies, I think I was coming from the idea of what would happen if someone had to be audited or have their taxes looked more closely. Would it affect them at a federal level for working at a dispensarie.

[Assistant]
They report that their employer paid them to operate a retail shop.  The IRS wants to know what you got paid, not what the shop sells.  OK, there are some banking issues, so your boss had to pay you in cash.  From the IRS perspective, also not a problem, they want to know how much you got paid, not how it was paid to you.

Of the many legal snarls surrounding pot, employee income taxes isn't one of them.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Why are mutants considered fundamentally different than other super-people?

Why does it matter how they got their powers? I kind of get that they didn't choose to have their abilities and a lot of others did, but not *all* others chose to have them. Why are they treated as a distinct group?

[Assistant]
Many mutations are dangerous to both the mutant and those around them - most of the mutants we see have had *years* of training and conditioning. The majority of mutants don't have that discipline, and to make things worse mutations tend to appear suddenly and, occasionally, violently.

That shit's scary. It makes people jumpy just being in a group of strangers, since at any moment one of them might start blasting lasers from his eyes or farting lava from her steaming, uh, caldera.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between a muonic atom and an electronic atom?

[Assistant]
Muons are particals that function like electrons, but where electrons ha e almost immeasurably small mass, muons have a bigger mass that is clearly measurable. It's still a stupid small number though and really hard to write.

Anyway, a muonic atom has muons where one or more of it's electrons should be, so it winds up heavier overall.

They're pretty rare though.