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

[User]
ELI5 why can't vitamin supplements replace a balanced diet?

All vitamin pill bottles says they can't replace a balanced diet, yet they contain all the nutrients we need to function.

[Assistant]
Hi,
No they don't contain all the nutrients, far from it.
You need a lot more: lipids, proteins, some specific aminoacids, sugars, minerals, some fibers.
Vitamins are essential but inly a small portion of what a human body needs to function properly :)


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

[User] ELI5: Do I get more pizza with one 18" or two 9" pizzas? Is there a formula I can use to work out the relationship between the areas of different sized circles?

[Assistant]
Pull out two coins and set them side by side.

See how the two together are wider then they are tall?

Imagine a circle around the whole thing that touches the left and right sides.

See how much higher then the coins that circle goes?

The same thing works for any circle, including pizza, see all that missing space between the actual coins and the imaginary circle? that's all the pizza you can't have if you get the two small ones!


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

[User]
What do you consider the 3-5 pillars that make a good programmer, when it comes to code?

Id love to hear your 3-5 pillars which constitute a programmer that writes good code.

Not looking for personality traits...

Thank you for your feedback!!!

[Assistant]
* Optimizes their code for readability (being easily understood by others) above all else.

* Understands the right level of abstraction for a given problem and appropriately modularizes their code.

* Stictly and relentlessly separates concerns within their software.

* Sticks to a single design idea per project rather than mixing architectural paradigms and styles.

* Understands the highest ROI for their work is not always solving the hardest/most pressing problem and sometimes doesn't involve writing code.


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

[User] ELI5: What does a conducter do in an orchestra?

[Assistant]
An orchestra can't be a democracy. He is the man in charge. Apart from the leader of the violins, he is the only person who makes decisions. He controls the expression, the rhythm, the dynamics and the speed of the orchestra. He chooses how to interpret the music, and how he wants the audience to experience it, and he controls the orchestra so that the whole group plays all together it that way, and only in that way.

Or she, of course.

Conductors don't just beat time. They communicate wordlessly with the orchestra with body language, facial expressions and the size and speed of the pattern they're beating with baton or hand. Even the movements of the fingers have meaning.

Of course, this isn't to imply that all the musicians are looking at the conductor at all times. Far from it. But at any given moment one of them probably will be, and orchestral musicians are adept at seeing the conductor at the edge of their vision while concentrating on their manuscripts too. The conductor is their common frame of reference.

The best way to get a feel for what a conductor can do is to listen to a piece you think you're familiar with, but recordings conducted by different people. I'd recommend Beethoven's fifth symphony (dadadaDAAAA... dadadaDAAAA). You'll be surprised by how many differences are immediately apparent. That's a particularly good symphony for this exercise, as it builds the simple opening motif up and up and up through layers of complexity using every musical trick in the book. Listen to how different conductors achieve that goal.


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

[User]
Why don't planes fly lower than 30k Ft to shorten the distance/flight time?

Since increasing the radius from sea level increases distance traveled by the plane, why don't they fly lower, while still safely about any building or anything?

[Assistant]
The Earth's radius is about 3960 miles, so to fly around the Earth at ground level, you would travel 22,620 miles, assuming you never have to climb or turn to avoid a mountain. Flying at 30,000 feet, the distance travelled would be about 22,660 miles - about 0.2% longer, not much of a saving at all! On a 10 hour flight, that equates to saving a minute of flying time.

However, time would actually be lost overall, as flying at lower altitudes slows planes down. At cruising altitudes, there is less air in the way, and so you can fly faster for the same amount of engine power (or equivalently, use less fuel to fly at the same speed).


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

[User]
[FMA Brotherhood] What ever happened to that enormous Drachman attack on Briggs?

 One episode later in the show ended with the Crimson Alchemist assisting a massive Drachman army preparing to assault Briggs, but we never saw or heard anything about that battle. Evidently it was an Amestrian victory, but do we know any of the details?

[Assistant]
The Briggs wall is a massive defence emplacement that no conventional army can hope to assault directly.

The Crimson Alchemist convinced the Drachman commander that the Briggs forces would be weakened from the inside, making an assault possible. This was a lie, and the Drachman army was massacred - exactly as planned, for the Crimson Alchemists goal was nothing more than bloodshed to mark out the Nationwide Transmutation Circle.

The exact details of the assault are unimportant, for it was an overwhelmingly one-sided Briggs victory with very few events of note.


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

[User]
Is there some regression method to predict categorical variables from categorical variables?

I have one variable(salaried or self- employed) and i have another variable called Defaulted(yes or no)- Default means that they did not pay their loan. I was wondering if i can do any regression analysis on this data to see any trend? Do salaried employees default on loan more?

[Assistant]
It's just a contingency table, isn't it? Given "salaried" what's the probability of "defaulting"? Given "self-employed" what's the probability of "defaulting"?

You can use a chi-squared test to see if it is likely to be a chance result and get a sense of whether it's an important factor or not.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What makes Mon Kalimari designs exceptional?

It seems like Mon Kalimari designed ships are prevalent in post republic fleets. Are they just that good at designing ships? Or is it something else?

[Assistant]
I would assume, that given aquatic nature of Mon-Calamary and Quarrens, their structures have pressurized and sealed designes by default - something that's very handy in building starships.

However mon-calamary cruisers actually weren't initially warships - they designed as resort civilian ships, and were converted into carriers after being donated to the Rebel Alliance. It's part of the reason why no two cruisers are identical - at least until much later, when Mon-Calamari shipyards began building MC90, cruisers that were actually intended to be warships - and those were smaller and noticably highly maneuverable for a capital ships. In old canon at least. In new canon New Republic disbanded their fleet like morons.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] "If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine." A bluff? A genuine belief? Am I missing something here?

Obi Wan turned into a force ghost which I guess was pretty cool, but what was this line all about? Was it intended to intimidate Vader? Make him have second thoughts about killing his master? What did Obi Wan mean with this line?

[Assistant]
He did become Powerful...just no one knows it.

How do you think Luke made that one in a million shot? Or Han and the Falcon come swooping in undetected and unsensed by Vader, out of nowhere, exactly when and where he needed to be? Or even that R2 was hit enough to encourage Luke to 'let go' but not enough to do any lasting harm to the droid? How did Vader just happen to get just slightly damaged, and still get far enough away to survive that explosion in an out of control fighter?  Answer: Ben, Ben, Ben and Ben.

Ben released his physical form and his life in an act of sacrifice. By doing so he became more than just a voice of wisdom or encouragement. He could have done that from Yavins moon, standing next to Leia. He could have gone on to teach Luke himself. He gave that up. By abandoning his ego and crude matter of his body, he became One with The Force, and The Force was One with him for a few hours.

When Luke used the Force, Ben was there in The Force. Ben was, for a brief time, the Will of the Force. All the amazing one in a million coincidences were influenced by Ben.

Then that moment was gone, Ben's influence was gone, but it was enough. The battle was won, the boy found the Force, the Princess and the Rebellion lived, and even, impossibly, an old friend - long ago lost to Ben - was still alive. And where there is life, there is hope. Ben gave them all hope, a New Hope, by that sacrifice...and no one knows.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How do the other pantheons deal with the asgardians rangark cycles?

How do Zeus and or ra or other pantheons deal with the fact that every few thousand  years the asgardian pantheon resets and none of the asgardians remembers anything happening before that? How do this effect treaties and deals between pantheons and such? Does the other gods know about it, or do they simply just not care? do they just accept  as something asgardian does? has anyone ever tried to warn the asgardians? Does the universal city of gods just accept that they can set their watch after the new asgardians or do no one dare to think about it, because if the mightiest pantheon can fall, everyone else better just keep their heads down and keep on like nothing so they doesnt also get caught in the cycle?

[Assistant] Everyone has their quirks. The Olympians bang their sisters, the Hindus keep changing their gender every couple months, the Chinese are *really* into bureaucracy, and the Asgardians kill each other every few millenia. It's just whatever.


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

[User]
ELI5: If poor performing companies of the DOW30 are replaced with better performing companies, wouldn't this invalidate the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a long term economic indicator?

The DOW Jones Industrial Average consists of 30 large successful corporations.  Every now and then, one of these is replaced with better performing corporations.  **Of course their performance will look good over time if you replace the poor performers, right?**

[Assistant] They don't necessarily drop poor performers - for instance, AT&T is getting dropped soon for Apple, but AT&T has been doing just fine recently. The replacement is being made because the Dow is supposed to reflect the stock market as a whole, and currently, tech stocks are underrepresented. Similarly, the last change was to remove Kraft, which was about to spin off a portion of its company, making it much smaller than before - it wasn't about it being a poor performer.


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

[User]
What is the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining?

Most of what I have seen is simply the raw power consumption of the processing, but there is also cooling, fabrication and other costs that would also need to be considered.

[Assistant] It's extravagant.   The numbers you see quoted online are typically from the electric utilities so they're pretty accurate.   Still, if you count the costs of production of miners and other hardware, the price of Bitcoin can be seen tired to energy, silicon, and THEN demand.


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

[User]
CMV: Child Protective Services (CPS), while a good concept, is virtually useless in practice

I have had many encounters with CPS (not for me, regarding others) and I am thoroughly and completely unimpressed.  Their job is to protect children yet I have never seen them actually do that.  Working in a hospital and being married to a nurse, I have had much contact with patients of all ages.  The lack of oversight in this area disgusts me.

Here is one example.  I knew many NICU nurses who talked on a regular basis of babies who were not only born early as a result of cocaine or other drug use, but actually went through withdrawals from cocaine.  They were so sensitive that if a nurse dropped a pen, the baby would wake up screaming and it would take hours to get them back down.  On more than one occasion, the nurses caught the parents still snorting WHILE AT THE HOSPITAL.  In all cases, this was documented ad nauseum and nothing was ever done.  There were also many parents who's baby had low birth weight due to marijuana and they would show up to the hospital reeking of pot.

More recently, I have met many home health nurses who have spoke of parents addicted to pain medications who would basically knock themselves out and leave the baby to scream from sitting in their own excrement for hours.  I have heard of rat infested homes, drug abuse, child abuse (actually slapping an infant)...even with documentation, the kids remain with their terrible parents.

With all this in mind, I firmly believe the CPS is a waste of resources.  Of course, this is all from anecdotal experience so maybe others have had better experiences.  All of my experience has been from various parts of Texas, if that matters.

EDIT: Wow! Thanks for all of the responses! I should have been more clear in my view...CPS, AS IT EXISTS NOW, is failing.  Many of you have pointed out the more resources are needed and after thinking I do agree.  I only know what I have seen and experienced and greatly appreciate the input many of you gave.  I will go through and award deltas when I get a break from work.

Edit 2: This has been very educational and I could give deltas to most of you...except for the one jackass. It's hard to see things when you have tunnel vision built from personal experience. Good evening all

Edit 3: If I miss anyone on a delta, apologies.  Many of you posed good arguments but there were A LOT of replies.

Edit 4: Trying to give out deltas but they keep kicking back. I'll get it figured out.

[Assistant] Holy shit, you list off several examples of why CPS is so badly needed, yet because CPS isn't a perfect organization or funded well enough in every jurisdiction to cover as many families as it needs to cover, you say the entire concept is just pointless? No, dude or dudettte, it's the opposite: you just showed why the entire concept is so badly needed. And that it's under funded.


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

[User] I read that general relativity must be taken into account for GPSs. How is that done, and why is it necessary?

[Assistant] GPS requires very accurate timestamps on its signals in order to pinpoint a location. Since the satellites are higher up in Earth's gravitational field, the clocks pass faster than those on Earth. That means there's a slight disagreement in when the signal was sent (about 40 microseconds per day of lag), which adds up to produce a totally useless GPS reading.


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

[User] ELI5: How is it that we can breed a lion with a tiger and not a human with another type of Ape?

[Assistant]
We have 23 pairs of chromosomes, other apes have 24. A viable offspring needs the same number from each parent, it can't have 23 pairs and one extra lonely one.

Other species can create hybrids because they happen to have the same number of pairs, such as lions and tigers.


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

[User] Can black holes be moved? How?

[Assistant] Like any other object, they are subject to gravity and will accelerate towards other massive objects. As far as the physics is concerned you can replace black hole with "big fat object/star" and you'll get the same behavior.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How does society feel about death?

Heroes and villains often die, but very frequently come back from death in various ways. Do heroes and villains have different feelings about the finality of death? Are they less emotional when somebody passes? Do they actively believe that a person can come back from the dead?

[Assistant]
Forget heroes and villains - 50% of the population died and came back during the Infinity Gauntlet. Every person above the age of a small child either died themselves, or personally knows many people who have died and come back.

This seems to have made less of an impact on society than you might expect.


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

[User] Am I using muscles to keep my eyelids open or to keep them closed or both?

[Assistant]
You have 3 sets of eye lid muscles, and when all of them are relaxed your eyelids will find a nice balance of being a bit open (think of how it looks when you're tired).

One set is circular and goes around the whole eye, when it contracts your eyelids close (you can flex it by squeezing your eyes shut). It's the orbicularis occuli.

The second set is inside the upper eye lid and it's the one you use to open your eyes wide. It's the levator palpebrae superioris.

The third set is an odd one - it controls the upper eyelids too, but only when you're surprised. You don't have any direct control over this muscle, it'll fire off when you need to open your eyes very quickly. It's the superior tarsal muscle.


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

[User]
How does one respond to the assertion that because we haven't discovered the Higg's Boson, the entire field of particle physics is 'just a theory.'

The person making this assertion disregarded my explanation that a Theory is the graduating point of an idea in the scientific community... They hold that a 'theory' is 'just an idea' or 'just an opinion.'

They disregard that facts are true regardless of one's opinion...

I expect they are a lost cause... But, I need rational humans to help me feel as though I am not losing my mind.

[Assistant]
A theory is an attempt to explain evidence.  A good theory can make accurate predictions, can be easily falsified if contradicting evidence appears, and is simple.

The evidence in this case is the readings of the particle accelerators that occur after collisions, and our theories are built up around that data.  If they want to disregard the whole field, ask them which part they think is "just an opinion".


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

[User]
How close would you have to get to the sun for it to feel "hot" in outer space?

I know that space is a vacuum and therefore doesn't retain heat and whatnot, but I assume that if you got close enough to the sun it would still have to be pretty hot, no?

[Assistant] Well, a vacuum does not retain heat as you say.  However, it's a perfect medium for transmitting heat.  So, Earth is 93 million miles away from the sun (plus or minus) and you can certainly feel the heat the sun generates.  Astronauts who go on space walks wear suits specially designed to draw away excess heat the arises when the sun appears.  In an nutshell, you don't have to be very close to the sun to feel it's effects.


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

[User] ELI5: Why doesn't a lake or pond simply sink into the earth like a glass of water on your front lawn?

[Assistant]
Because the dirt/clay/sand underneath it is already fully saturated with water. Lakes and ponds are just the visible part of the water table.

Imagine taking your hose and watering your Lawn for 6 hours straight. Your lawn is going to become a marsh. The soil underneath it can only absorb so much water.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do babies, infants, and younger children lack the perceptible/common "body odors" (armpits, feet, ass) of teens and adults?

Is this just a matter of stank-producing surface area, or does puberty suddenly "turn on" the body's persistently smelly parts?

I remember being about 12-13 when my mother first bought and taught me how to apply deodorant/antiperspirant, soak my feet, etc.  I'd obviously crossed some sort of stanky-line-in-the-sand, but why was it there in the first place?

To be clear I'm not talking about odors that "stick to" the body (as you'd have when a baby soils a diaper, a kid vomits, etc), but naturally acrid odors coming from the skin/sweat itself.  Obviously humans of all ages have the *capacity* to stink, given proper circumstances.

[Assistant]
There are 2 different types of sweat glands, eccrine sweat glands and apocrine sweat glands.
Babies are born with eccrine glands, which produce sweat that doesn't smell.
During puberty, humans get apocrine glands in some areas, which produce a different type of sweat that bacteria love to feed on, and that is what makes the smell.


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

[User] [Mass Effect] If an Asari mated with Javik would her offspring have his Dark Matter manipulation powers or any other Prothean abilities?

[Assistant] No. The Asari only mate to randomize the DNA they pass to their offspring. To them, alien DNA is like a cryptography key to create unique combinations. Their children are asari and don't inherit anything from their alien fathers.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What does Avada Kedavra actually do?

Does it sunder the soul from the body? Or does it do something else to cause death?

And also it is said that it can't be blocked, but we do know that it will stop of it hit an object. Would transfigurating an object in front of it will stop it?

[Assistant]
It makes you die. That's it, that's the tweet. It instantly terminates the biological functions of every cell in your body.

Removing the soul isn't immediately lethal-- case in point: the Dementor's Kiss. People who lose their soul become catatonic and eventually die of starvation/dehydration/exhaustion.


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

[User]
Can someone please explain Roth IRA vs. 401K (like i'm five)

I keep hearing different things from different people about this and I couldn't understand which is better/worse for retirement planning.

[Assistant]
You contribute to Roth IRA with post-tax dollars and get to take out your money when you retire tax-free whereas a regular 401k takes pre-tax dollars but you get taxed when you take it out.

Simply, Roth=Pay taxes now Traditional=Pay taxes later

As for what is better for you it depends on your situation and what your current/future tax bracket will be.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Do any Sith (or maybe Jedi) use positive emotions like love and laughter to harness the Force?

[Assistant]
Jedi don't really like to delve into this, but Power of Love is one of very few ways to legitly redeem a person fallen to the Dark Side.

In many instances joy and positive emotions help to dispel the influence of the Dark Side.

However it's uncommon to have force-user to solely focus on these emotions to channel the Force. Jedi don't trust fickle power of emotions, even positive ones, focusing on clear-headedness instead, and for Sith joy interrupts their Power of Hate theme they like so much.


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

[User]
If bit flips are a huge concern as the technology used in consumer electronics gets smaller and smaller, what measures are being used to protect against them?

If there are any measures that can be used.

[Assistant]
You said *consumer* electronics, right?

Theres all sorts of parity and other hardware and software methods of avoiding bit flips...

But frankly nobody cares if your phone reboots randomly once a year. If the bit flip even causes that, and just doesnt crash an app or something.

Theres so many fatal flaws and solid nasty bugs in most consumer stuff, bit flipping isnt even on the priority list beyond the initial hardware design spec.

And the budget to add it in hardware approaches zero.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why is a lot of technology so primitive, even by the modern standards?

I'm not talking about some local planet technology. Even the empire at its height, uses incredibly primitive computers and interfaces everywhere (i.e. the scene of Death Star firing).

[Assistant]
The galaxy is actually pretty stagnant, technology wise. From the events of KOTOR to the demise of the galactic empire, a period covering approximately 4,000 standard years, very few advancements were made.

Historically, the galaxy experiences long periods of peace followed by very short but brutal wars. This is constantly having the effect of ruining stable economies and enterprises, but the wars are over too quick for prolonged military RnD. There are very few wars of attrition in the galaxy, where such conditions would promote significant technological advancement. In peacetime, all that's required is to transport goods at FTL speed, a technology that is already perfected. There's simply no economic pressure to develop the intragalactic iPad.

As far as the interfaces go, I'd imagine big clunky monitors are able to be used by more species than inputs that are designed for human hands. You won't see any keyboards in the SW universe, because the design is built for two hands with four fingers and a thumb.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do voters have to register their party affiliation, and what does that mean?

[Assistant]
IIRC: you only have to register your party affiliation if you want to vote in the primary. If you want to vote in the actual presidential election, you are not required to do this.

The primary itself wants only their own people to vote in the primary, so people from across the political aisle won't be involved in putting forth who they are front-running candidate is going to be. But ultimately, the primary doesn't have any sort of political office to run for, it's just sort of an election to see who should be in an election.


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

[User]
eli5: Does it matter to a computer how long its powered off for? Is one micro-second as good as 5 minutes? If not, why and how long is optimal for it to be powered off for?

That is the question. I almost never turn off the computer, but sometimes flick it off for just a second or two. Is this bad for it? Does it need rest? Thanks!

[Assistant]
Most computers will need around half a second to turn off completely before restarting, to make sure everything is in a clean state. This is mostly due to capacitors (battery-like devices inside the computer that store a bit of power) needing to discharge.

If the system is restarted too fast, the system won't be in a clean state and won't likely be able to start up properly. For computer systems that are restarted using the soft-restart feature (e.g. clicking "restart"), this turns off all the major components within the system that need to be reset before turning them back on again.

Most modern computer systems will delay a restart if a problem is detected, this is why often if you need to forcefully shut down your computer using the power button, it won't turn back on straight away if you immediately press the button again after the system turns off. This is done for the same reason: making sure everything is in a clean state.

What most people don't realise is that literally everything, even the most well-engineered devices, are held together using proverbial sticky tape. In a typical device you have components from at least a dozen different manufacturers and all of them will have different specs: what always works to ensure everything is in a good state before turning the system back on is introducing a delay.

Source: software engineer for embedded systems, and I've come across Nvidia's specs for their Jetson modules on this.

For example, for the Jetson AGX Orin (like a Raspberry Pi but a *lot* beefier), the main power rail needs to go below 100mV before the system is considered to be fully reset. The implementation guide (which tells you how to make a circuit board you can install the module on) gives 20ms as the time taken from when full power is removed and when the main power rail goes below 100mV, but with a 10% margin of error.


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

[User]
ELI5: what's going on with the stock markets?

1. What caused it?

2. Rich people are losing money, but how does that affect low / middle income people?

3. How does it affect other country markets?

4. What real world issues will I see from this?

5. How do we fix it?

[Assistant]
China is an economic bubble and everyone knows it. The question is will burst or will it slowly deflate. A bubble is when the value of something is over inflated. China said they were doing great, look at all those modern flats they were building, it turns out that the flats are too expensive for people to live in.

Stock markets are tied to real companies. A bad stock market is an early indicator of job losses.

A global economy means everything is interconnected. If you're doing business with a Chinese company its bad for you. If you're doing business with a business that does business with a Chinese company its bad for you.

Job losses probably

It's not something that you... fix. It's more like you help it heal. Eventually, things will go back to normal. Some economists recommend that governments buy shares to make the fall softer or create infrastructure projects to employ the unemployed and buy materials from companies.


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

[User] ELI5: What is a banana republic?

[Assistant] A "banana republic" refers to a politically-unstable country whose economy depends on a single, limited resource: in this case, bananas. The term was coined at the turn of the 20th century to describe Honduras and its neighbors while they were being exploited by US economic interests.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] Some guys just got killed in my tavern

So here I was enjoying a rather profitable day with some Kingsmen coming in and getting drunk, eating some home grown chicken. Sure they were rude and made the waitress uncomfortable but we needed the coin.

Suddenly a huge man and smaller man comes in and start making trouble. He ate their chicken and the brutes killed each other over it. So the latter group got away, and now I've got blood everywhere, only half of my set of chairs, several dead bodies clad in very expensive looking armor, and I'm not sure what to do.

Do I send a raven to let someone know to come get them? How would I even deal with the corpses until then? Or do I take care of their funeral ceremonies in town? Can I keep their rad stuff and sell it? It sure could help out.

[Assistant]
Drag them out, bury them as deep as you can and say a prayer to the Stranger. There is no reason to wait it out, if more Kingsmen come, tell them about the big fella with the scars, they'll know what to do, but no point attracting attention to yourself for now.

Armour is cheap men at arms shit, sell it to a scavenger quick and let it be their problem.


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

[User]
eli5 How are people playing Doom on so many different (and usually very old) devices? A notepad, pregnancy test, how tf?

Like how tf does one play Doom on a pregnancy test???????

[Assistant]
> Like how tf does one play Doom on a pregnancy test???????

In this particular case by replacing the CPU inside the device with one capable of running Doom.

Doom was released in 1993 on MS DOS. It requires like 4mb of memory and was built to run on a processor orders of magnitude slower than even the ones that show up in cheap, handheld electronics these days. Getting these devices to run Doom is generally much more about getting access to the device's memory and processor to program it and figuring out how to work around the weirdness of the hardware (e.g., a pregnancy test's tiny screen) than about figuring out how to run Doom efficiently.


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

[User]
[MCU/Infinity War] Why does Thanos acknowledge Stark by name?

I get that he knows who he is because of the soul stone, but why is Stark the only one he calls by name? He only refers to Dr. Strange as "wizard" and Spidey as "insect." So what makes Stark special enough to single out? Furthermore, why does Thanos have respect for Stark at the end of their fight?

[Assistant]
Thanos is a lot of things but he isn't petty. He came face to face with the man who (from his perspective) single handedly destroyed part of his chtari army by literally throwing a nuke at it, killed one of his top lieutenants and highjacked his ship and then came within inches of stealing his Gauntlet *while he was still wearing it* and then yet still manages to survive after getting in a moon planet shattering fight.

From where Thanos is standing, that takes some serious chops and Tony has earned his respect.


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

[User]
AskScience, are there any concrete studies on whether milk is good for us or not?

I've heard both sides saying it's good or bad, but I can't find a definitive answer.

[Assistant]
Milk is fantastically good for people if you are strictly talking about energy content. It was so good that mutant alleles that allow digestion of lactose in late life spread like wildfire in early human populations (Sabeti et al, 2006 and 2007). Utilizing alternative food sources or increasing digestive efficiency has always been positively selected in the history of any organism.

If you take the topic outside of the energy-related domain, then it gets a little more complicated. There are indeed controversies with regards to exposure of animal hormones (which may or may not actually be a problem) and long-term human health risks associated with factory farming of animals (eg. large-scale enrichment of resistant microbes).


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Even using Warp-speed, there are limits to how fast starships can travel, but they have no problems communicating at huge ranges. Why?

So throughout Star Trek ships and stations frequently communicate with places that are weeks or months travel away instantaneously.  Why is there no lag time? There are clearly limits to their range since in Voyager they use miniature short-lived worm holes to send messages from Star Fleet to Voyager when it's beyond the range of their communications, but there seems to be zero issues between say, Sisko on DS9 and his dad on Earth talking despite the huge range.

How does this work? Why do there communications work seemingly instantly up till the point where it just turns off?

[Assistant]
Interstellar communications are done through subspace, which allows the signal to travel faster than light. However the signal can only travel within subspace for so long before it eventually 'bleeds' back out into normal space and is once again reduced to 'only' moving at the speed of light.

To get around this, most interstellar nations have constructed a network of subspace relays in and around their territory. These stations pick up a signal, amplify it, then send it on towards its intended destination. Thanks to extremely advanced computer systems, the entire process takes only tiny fractions of a second and so there is little to no lag noticeable, even over larger distances.


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

[User]
[Back to the Future] How does Doc Brown account for the Earth's orbit when designing his Time Machine?

According to Wikipedia the Earth travels 67,000 mph through space (I'll just ignore the fact that it's also rotating). It takes only seven minutes for the planet to travel the distance of earths diameter. So if this is not taken into account, when Doc Brown sends Einstein forward in time one minute I would think Einstein would end up either above the surface of the planet or buried deep within it by at least a couple 100 miles when he popped out on the other side of that minute.

If you were to travel say, 30 years into the past I'm guessing you would end up in deep space nowhere near earth.

[Assistant]
That's what the Flux Capacitor accounts for.

Think of what the word "flux" means, a state of continuous change.  It's complex math, the orbit of the Earth, its rotation, but still math and therefore calculable.


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

[User]
[EL5] Why do I almost pass out if I stand up and immediately stretch?

This happens to me, and my oldest son.  It's been happening to me since I was in my teens, and I understand it's not that uncommon.  If I just stand, it never happens.  If I just stretch, it doesn't happen.  What is it about standing and stretching that causes tunnel vision, light headedness, and (rarely) loss of conciousness?

I guess I know that it has to do with blood pressure, but why is our body so poor at regulating blood pressure when going from sitting to standing, and why does stretching exacerbate it so much.

[Assistant]
Basically from gravity. Same thing happens if you stand up for a long period of time, your blood will collect in the lower portions of your body. When you sit, your body isn't worried about pumping a lot of blood, as you're essentially at rest. When you suddenly stand and stretch, your body goes into active mode, and with the blood at your extremities, your brain doesn't have as much oxygen as it would like, so for a short time you get effects similar to what would happen during asphyxiation.

It also ties into how physically fit you are, to someone extremely fit such as an athlete, they probably won't notice this as much, as their heart pumps harder than someoone who isn't quite as fit. For someone who is incredibly out of shape or just obese, this can cause them to pass out in extreme cases, as their heart simply cannot pump the amount of oxygen carrying blood needed to the brain, so it involuntarily shuts down to recover.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40K Universe] What exactly is the Warp? What does it look like?

I understand that it's sort of like a pocket dimension-type thing but exactly is *in* it? Do any books describe what it's like to be physically, currently, inside the Warp? Like, let's say I'm on a ship with some Astartes and some psykers for navigation and let's assume I'm able to safely make it in and out without some sort of Warpy bullshit becoming a real problem. While, I'm inside, what would I see if I look out the window? Would it look like Hell? Like a Doom or Biblical-lookin Hell? Just pure black nothingess? New colors that don't exist? What exactly is the warp and what does it look like? Does anybody know?

[Assistant]
It looks like everything and nothing. It's constantly shifting and looking directly at it will drive you mad.

Imperial ships actually have special shutters that cover all outside viewing ports (except for the ones used by the Navigator) when in the warp because simply viewing it can drive you mad. The only people who can safely look at it are the Navigators and their perception of it through their third eye varies a lot with each Navigator seeing it differently.

So in a sense the answer is actually that no one knows what the warp really looks like. Navigators get what is essentially a filtered  view of the warp and anyone else who looks at it goes insane.


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

[User]
I'm supposed to finish my PhD this year in Molecular Neuroscience, but I want to leave academia after. What jobs can I look for?

I have decided to finish my PhD but leave academia after that.The field has become too stressful and it's taken a heavy toll on my mental and physical health. I have decided to seek jobs outside of academic research now but I never thought about this before and I don't know where to start.

Most of my skills lie in molecular biology lab experience. I know how to do minipreps or transcription or PCR mutations and I became experienced in two electrode voltage clamp in the past 3 years. However I don't have any computer programming knowledge, I'm taking an online course in Python programming, but it's difficult to keep up with my work schedule and mental health state.

But I want to seek out realistic options of what jobs I could look and apply for. I would appreciate a nudge in any direction. Thanks a lot!!

[Assistant]
There's load of options out there for you, and it depends what you want to do. There are lots of organisations that like PhDs even if they're not necessary for the job.

Organisations:
* Government Funders
* Research/medical charities
* Foundations
* Civil service
* Universities (adminstration)
* Consultancies
* Think tanks
* Pharma
* Start-ups
* Biotech
*Journals

Jobs:
* Tech transfer
* Policy
* Public engagement
* Government affairs
* Science Comms
* Portfolio management for funders
* Strategy
* Grants management
* Editor
* Administration
* Consultant
* Scientist
* Project manager
* Research management
* Programme management
* Impact and evaluation
* Compliance

Good luck!


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

[User]
I dont understand philosophy at all

Im in an intro to philosophy class and ive never been more confused in my life. I have to write an essay on what philosophy is and cant write more than one paragraph. I spent the last 10 hours reading and watching youtube videos and im still so lost. How am I supposed to write an essay about what is philosophy? Any help aprreciated im so stressed right now and cant seem to figure anything out.

[Assistant]
How is philosophy different from other things?

How is philosophy different from science?

How is philosophy different from thinking?

How is philosophy different from knowledge?

(Questions are important in philosophy.)


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Was Voldemort only a threat to the British wizarding world, or did he pose a greater threat to global wizardry?

Side questions; Has there been other Voldemorts in other cultures?

How big is the British wizard society in comparison with, say, the Brazilian or Japanese, and how important is it in relation to these?

+1: Are there ministries of magic in other cultures, or is the British ministry responsible for the rest of the world?

[Assistant]
Voldemort wasn't an *immediate* threat to other countries. What you have to understand, is that both times Voldemort was stopped, it was just before his following was rolled over into a great power. The first time, he was ready to bring all of his Death Eaters out into the open and form a proper coalition against Britain, with just one loose end to tie up before he felt he could do so safely.

The second time was much the same. If he had come out of his encounter in Godric's Hollow unscathed, or if he had won the Battle of Hogwarts, he would have risen in power extremely quickly, and would have rapidly become a serious threat to the wizarding world as a whole, but luckily this wasn't the case.


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

[User]
[Batman] If the Waynes were Gotham's poorest family, not its richest, but Bruce still became Batman, how would this Batman be different?

EDIT: With all the speculations in the comments this post has sparked, ive become a bit annoyed that DC hasn't made this as an Elseworlds comic yet. I'm not even much of a Batman fan but this all still sounds super interesting.

EDIT 2: Wow. I didn't expect this to be my most popular post, but within 3 days it got more upvotes and comments than any other post I've ever made. Thanks, everyone!

[Assistant]
Read red son, where superman lands in communist Russia. Bruces parents are just regular people who get killed by the gestapo, and Bruce becomes poor Russian batman.

Bonus: he has one of those Russian hats with batears.


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

[User] ELI5: How do people in China put things in alphabetical order?

[Assistant]
Chinese characters are made up of a certain number of strokes.  For example, the Chinese chracter for water is , and it comprises 4 strokes.

In Chinese dictionaries, words will be commonly arranged by the number of strokes they contain.

They can also be arranged according to the primitive elements that form them.   is the chinese character for flower.  You might not remember that is has 7 strokes, but you remember that it has the little 3-stroke element at the top.  This is a common primitive element, and you will find words that use it grouped together in the dictionary.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do people with severe radiation sickness get that period where they suddenly get completely fine before getting worse again?

[Assistant]
The cell life cycle exists in stages. Prior to cell division the cell does a self-check of the DNA to verify it's all where it should be to ensure healthy cell division. If the DNA is damaged and cant be repaired then apoptosis occurs, programmed cell death.

When exposed to high levels of radiation some cells are severely damaged while others are only somewhat damaged. The severely damaged ones die off relatively quickly. Then healing occurs which triggers "healthy" cells to divide to replace the dead cells. Those "healthy" cells go through their checks to ensure successful division. This is when the DNA damage is discovered and the cells kill themselves, resulting in the delayed, more severe cell die off.


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

[User] Do stars fuse elements larger than uranium that are unable to escape?

[Assistant] Elements heavier than uranium probably are formed during supernovae, but it's not so much that they can't escape but rather that they have very short half-lives, so they all decay by the time they end up in a planet or another star.


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

[User] ELI5: How does Twitter censorship work? And how are governments involved?

[Assistant]
Judging by Wikipedia, Twitter has the ability to limit messages based on geographic region. And apparently has a mechanism by which Twitter can be asked to hide messages.

Basically, if Twitter gets a legal order telling Twitter to hide things, they can comply. How the government is involved depends also on whether you consider the judiciary part of government.


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

[User]
[How To Train Your Dragon] What are the evolutionary advantage of retractable teeth?

As far as I know the Night Fury is the only species that retracts its teeth. My first thought was that it might protect the teeth against the fire breath but it doesn't seem to be an issue with other dragons.

[Assistant] The Night Fury projects a far more concussive blast than other species of Dragons, which seems to detonate upon contact with anything. The retractable teeth are almost definitely a safety mechanism, to prevent the blast from exploding inside it's own skull.


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

[User]
So, how tall are imperial titans, really? Like the Imperator (warhammer 40k)

I've never seen one in person, but they're always telling stories about them on the pictviewer and at the scholia.  Now, I've got myself a nice collection of miniatures titans ("Magos Joe's" down the street has a nice selection), but I've seen picts with them marching along and the cities were like ants.  My miniatures are obviously not to scale, because the little minature soldiers they sell would be pretty cramped in what's supposedly the cockpit.

My imperator supposedly holds a whole company of guardsmen in its feet, but they're nowhere near big enough to hold 20.

So, how big are the mighty Emperor's titans really, out there in the stars crushing his enemies?

[Assistant]
The glory of the Titans must be seen to be truly understood. They are absolutely glorious machines of destruction, a fine symbol of the Emperor's fury.

To answer your question, the incredible Emperor class of Titans stand as the tallest and most fear-inducing sights of all. The Imperator class, as you mention, towers above the xeno by standing a staggering 166ft/55.5m! The other classes are much smaller, but no less imposing and certainly no less deadly: the Warhound Scout Titan at 14m, the Reaver Battle Titan at 22.3m, and finally the 33m tall Warlord Battle Titan (though our propaganda has made this one seem to be as tall as 200m, to remind the xeno and the heretic of our strength).

Remember, knowledge is power, guard it well. Do not let what you learn today fall into the mind of the heretic.


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

[User] ELI5: How come sometimes my finger smoothly glides over the surface of my phone screen, but sometimes it drags and leaves a streak even if I just washed?

[Assistant] There are several factors that can affect how much resistance you have while moving your finger across your screen. For one, the harder you are pressing your finger down, the more friction there will be between your finger and the screen. You may do this without realizing this. Secondly, different amounts of sweat and grease may be present either on your fingertips or on the phone screen itself. If your hands are warm/sweaty or if it's warm in the air, you may get a more greasy interface between your fingers and the screen.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Where do the magical plants grow in the wild? Why haven't any muggles discovered them?

All of the plants I learn about in Herbology had to come from somewhere in the wild, right?

[Assistant]
Muggles are stupid. They will go out of their way to think that something magical is mundane. So, most of the strange things that they see go unnoticed.

Truth is, magical plants grow all over the world. You just have to know where to look. In the case of something like a mandrake, you would have to dig it up before you can even tell that it is strange. Don't see many people wandering around uprooting random plants now, do you? With other, less savory plants...well, lets just say the ones that meet those don't usually go home and blab about it. Even if they get away and want to tell someone, we have people who have dedicated their lives to protecting the magical world. You get pretty good at performing memory charms when you do it as often as they do.

Plus, in the case of heavy magical activity, we tend to "rope the area off" so to say. Charm the landscape, and suddenly people just see thorny underbrush. Don't want to go in there of course. Or they just forget and go another way without noticing. Kind of like Diagon Alley. Depends on where they are and how dangerous the thing we are hiding is. Sometimes we even have to uproot them and keep them in our own greenhouses, or just torch them if they get out of hand. Gotta watch it though, some of them don't appreciate being torched!


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

[User]
ELI5: What *Exactly* is Money Laundering?

Libor has me completely confused. I understand money laundering involves illicitly attained funds. But that's it. When people say banks /businesses are involved in money laundering what does that mean? How? What are they doing? And how is a bank supposed to know a legit deposit from one that is "laundering"? And how would they launder money for a country? Do they just say, "Hey, I'm a controversial Middle Eastern Country, and I would like to open an account?" And what good would that do anyway? Sorry for the question overload.
**TL/DR: I know nothing.**

[Assistant]
Bully steals 100$ from a kid but he cant just spend it because his mom will be suspicious of where he got it. So the bully asks his friend to come to his house and offers him 100$ in front of his mom for some lame toy.

Now mom thinks this retarded kid just gave her son 100$ for a worthless toy and is not suspicious of where the money came from anymore.

Bully gives his friend 10$ for the favor and everybody is happy. Well except for the poor sap that had 100 bucks stolen from him.


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

[User]
Does blending fruits and vegetables in a high speed blender destroy a lot nutrients?

So I have gotten into the green smoothie craze and purchased a vitamix blender a couple weeks ago. Unless I'm eating out, nearly all my fruit and vegetable consumption comes from the random fruits and vegetables that are thrown in my blender.  My consumption of fruits and vegetables have increased a lot due to the speed and convenience of just blending everything together.

I'm pretty sure you lose something when your turn whole fruits and vegetables into liquefied mush. Just wonder how much and what you lose in that process.

[Assistant]
As long as you're consuming everything that went into the blender, you're getting all of the nutrients. Physical forces can disrupt cells and denature some proteins (it's how meringues are formed, for example) but they really can't destroy nutrients; the molecules are simply too small.

All bets are off if you're using a juicer, though. The pulp that gets left behind is composed mainly of the very valuable insoluble fiber and a number of nutrients get trapped and left behind as well.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is Colorado seemingly ahead of the curve compared to most other states in the U.S? Who is pushing for all the political change that is occurring there?

[Assistant] Please tell us what changes you are speaking of. Parts of the state are quite conservative and part of the state is very progressive. Changes have happened in both directions in the past - which ones are you asking about.


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

[User]
ELI5: short selling stocks and currencies

I've read a bit about it but I would really value a more simple and I depth explanation. Thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
Say you think your local store is going to have a sale on Star Wars DVDs.
You want to make some money.
You got a friend who can lend you some Star Wars DVDs.
You take those Star Wars DVDs and sell them on eBay.
Now the time comes when you have to return your DVDs, you go down to the store where a sale is going on, you buy back the same DVDs at a discount and you return them to your friend.
You pocket the difference that is the discount.
Alternatively situation: You reach the store and find they're sold out! The only one selling Star Wars DVDs is Neckebard's Super Pricey Nerd DVDs, they charge 20x times what you sold them on eBay for. Though luck, you have to buy it at that price and return it to your friend.

Basically, borrow the stock, sell now, buy back later, return the stock.
Short selling is considered risky because there's limited profit (the company goes bankrupt and the stock is worthless, you keep the entire amount you sold it for), but the risk is unlimited ( the company announces they have a product that cures cancer, world hunger, and the impulse to commit terrorism, they get a controlling share of the world, you sold for $10, the stock is now $90 bajillion, you're effectively bankrupt).


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

[User] ELI5: How do movies hide cameras in scenes shot in front of mirrors?

[Assistant]
Hi!

Visual effects artist here. Often times when cameras are visible in scenes (which happens more often than youd think because big budget movies use multi-camera set ups) we remove them the same way people remove blemishes on the skin when editing photos, except for every frame of that scene.

There is a multitude of ways to achieve this, usually we just recreate what is behind the camera by digitally painting it in, sometimes frame by frame. This is indeed as painful as it sounds. There is a whole department in visual effects houses dedicated to cleaning up scenes before putting CGI in (more often than not we dont use CGI for these jobs to save money, we just paint as you would inside photoshop and track it in so it moves with the camera in the scene). We do everything from painting out wires for stunts, removing cameras from the set, removing people that dont belong in the shot, cleaning up bad green screen to removing markers placed for tracking. This work can take anywhere from 2-4 months for a 3-10 second shot depending on what needs to be removed. This is oftentimes why in lower budget tv shows you see really poorly done VFX.

Just finished work on BladeRunner 2049 & am now working on Deadpool 2! Its really awesome to see people show interest in this kinda stuff. Cheers mate!
Hope that all makes sense!


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

[User]
ELI5: When coffee gets cold in a french press, it still tastes great. When coffee from a coffee machine gets cold, it tastes disgusting. Why is this?

RE-posting in an attempt to make it abide by the rules.

I understand why cold brew coffee tastes different, but since the coffee is hot-brewed in both the press and the machine, why are the two so drastically different when cooled to room temp?

[Assistant]
Hey! Former barista checking in.

It has to do with the oils.

Oils are used to roast the beans. By using a French press you use a brewing method called "full immersion."

Drip coffee is well, drip coffee.

Coffee from a French Press is noticeably slicker than coffee from drip. These oils contains higher levels of coffee flavor and aroma that continue to develop as it brews.

It tastes better in your cup at room temperature because the aromas generated by the oil are sticking around long enough for you to smell them.

When the coffee is hot, the steam carries away those aromas and it's hard to taste anything other than coffee and hot.

As it cools the beans show off their true nature.

With bad coffee it tastes like pennies, stale potatoes, and a mangy cat.

Fresh coffee will still have those oils and reflect the roasting technique, soul chemistry, species, and drying methodology.

Tl:dr - French presses are dope and a bitch to clean. Check out an AeroPress. Just as tasty, 5/6 of the hassle.


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

[User]
[Man of Steel] would superman cape cause multiple sonic booms as he flies?

Even as superman flies at subsonic speeds wouldn't this cause his Cape to flap in the wind at much faster rates and compress the air.

[Assistant] You're all looking at this from a low Mach No (M < 0.3) perspective. "Flapping" is caused by trailing vortices forming behind Superman's head. Once the Mach No get's high enough, these vortices "stretch", reducing the flap because Superman goes faster. Once you break the sound barrier, Superman would have a constant shockwave ahead of him, which actually linearises the flow behind it, such that you won't get any of the trailing vortices forming (a small amount will still happen, but it won't be going faster transverse than Superman is going forward).


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

[User] ELI5: How do things such as earphones and string get so tangled in your pockets from just walking around?

[Assistant] Entropy! The world always tries to make things more random. For example, your body is constantly trying to decompose, but your various metabolic processes and cellular regeneration prevent that. There are no forces that prevent the randomization of your earbuds. In fact, as they bounce around in your pocket during normal walking or movement, more energy is added and randomness is further promoted.


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

[User]
Eli5: what do spiders eat in bathrooms? Do they starve if nothing falls in their web?

I have always wondered why spiders prefer to make webs in bathroom corners and I somehow feel sorry for the little guys - I have never seen a fly or other insects in my bathroom and I can't help thinking my spider-bros will starve. Do they?

[Assistant]
Theyll eventually ditch the web and try again elsewhere if theres slim pickings in that spot.

Youll know if theyve been successful because they dont eat the exoskeletons and so pieces of bug armor begin to collect beneath active webs.

They like humidity because the water helps keep the web material pulled tight.  Its harder to keep a web taught when its very dry.

Some household bugs like silverfish are also attracted to moisture.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] What is so damn scary about Talos IV?

I just started watching The Original Series and I cannot fathom why the Federation is so threatened by this planet that interacting with it is the only remaining death penalty on their books.

For those that don't remember, the aliens there are powerful psychics who can read your mind and create intricate dream worlds to make you experience. And I guess they get something out of it. Entertainment maybe.

Are illusions so dangerous? Are these not the same people who later give their ships fucking holodecks? I can get not sending people there but killing anybody who makes contact?

[Assistant]
The Talosians are very mentally advanced and capable of easily manipulating the minds of humanoids, causing them to see very convincing illusions.

The surface of Talos IV is desolate following their war, and they're too frail to rebuild it themselves. The thinking is, if people were to visit Talos IV, the Talosians are likely to manipulate them into becoming a slave labor force to rebuild their civilization. This is why they wanted Captain Pike in the first place, in order to breed a race of human slaves.

Worse yet, imagine if even one Talosian got onboard a starship like the Enterprise. They could manipulate the crew into taking them to a populated planet, and then manipulate the people there into coming back to Talos IV. Or what if they reached Earth?


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

[User] Why does water feel colder than air of the same temperature?

[Assistant] Your question is actually incorrect. If the temperature of the air and water are the same, and are cooler than your skin, the water will feel colder than the air. If the temperature of the air and the water are the same, and are warmer than your skin, the water will feel warmer than the air. This is because water transfers heat energy 32 times faster than air of the same temperature. It doesn't matter if the energy is going into or coming out of the water or air.


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

[User]
What does it mean for an atomic nucleus to have a shape? Can elemental isotopes have different isomers based on their shape?

I thought that atomic nuclei were defined the same exact way that an electron shell is; that is to say, just as electrons are parts of probability clouds, so are the nucleons. Just as electrons have specific shapes of probability clouds due to the electromagnetic force, nucleons would be bound to each other into a similar probability cloud by the residual strong nuclear force.

However, I only ever see the liquid drop model used, which (presumably erroneously) implies that nucleons are ball-like "molecules" in a "drop" and can jostle around to rearrange themselves in a semi-rigid fashion, which confuses me as to what is the "correct" description of nuclear models, because that would also imply that a whole new can of worms of nucleon arrangement isomers would be opened (such as a Ca-40 nucleus divided into a proton hemisphere and a neutron hemisphere, or a neutron core with a proton shell), which I have not seen mentioned anywhere.

I have seen nuclei described as not necessarily being spherical, but also as prolate, oblate, ellipsoidal, and even banana and pear/mushroom-shaped. What exactly does this mean, and what effect does it have on chemical and nuclear properties and how are they classified in terms of isomerism? Is the liquid drop model correct, or does the strong nuclear force allow for asymmetrical probability clouds? If not, what keeps nucleons ("molecules") in these configurations, i.e. why are the shapes of asymmetrical "drops" stable?

[Assistant]
>I thought that atomic nuclei were defined the same exact way that an electron shell is; that is to say, just as electrons are parts of probability clouds, so are the nucleons. Just as electrons have specific shapes of probability clouds due to the electromagnetic force, nucleons would be bound to each other into a similar probability cloud by the residual strong nuclear force.

Yes, nuclei have a very similar structure, except the interactions between nucleons are very different than the interactions between electrons and a nucleus.

The liquid drip model is *one* way to think about nuclei, and its pretty simplistic. Another way is in terms of the nuclear shell model, which is similar to the atomic shell model that everybody studies in chemistry class.

When we talk about shapes, were talking about moments of the electric charge density of the nucleus. If the nucleus is a perfect sphere (as some are), they are pure electric monopoles, and all other moments are zero.

The next leading-order electric moment which isnt highly suppressed by symmetry is the electric quadrupole moment. Any nucleus with a nonzero quadrupole moment has a shape which deviates from spherical. And most nuclides have nonzero quadrupole moments. These ones are either prolate or oblate, depending on the sign of the quadrupole moment (defined to be the Q*_zz_* element of the quadrupole tensor, where z is the spin axis).

Its also been shown that some nuclides in their ground states have nonzero octupole moments. These nuclides are pear-shaped, and this is a big deal because electric octupole moments break parity and time-reversal symmetries.

Yes, nuclides can have isomers with different shapes than their ground states. There is a phenomenon called shape coexistence where two different shapes are close in energy.

And the basics liquid drop model is really just a model of the binding energies of nuclei, it doesnt predict things like quadrupole moments. So the LDM doesnt really know anything about nuclear shapes.


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

[User] ELI5: What would the astronauts on the ISS do in the event of a cataclysmic event on Earth that wiped out the entire population? Is this a scenario that has been discussed by the various agencies?

[Assistant]
That's little more than a thought exercise, because there isn't much point in making a plan on what three people would do in the event that the 7,000,000,000 people below all die. The scenario is so unlikely that it's not really worth training people on.

But, to continue the thought experiment, it would really depend on the nature of the cataclysm. Because pretty much anything that would wipe out all the people would make it unsafe for them to leave the ISS. So, at some point, they have a choice... stay in the orbital coffin, or take the Soyuz back down to the giant graveyard below, where whatever killed the rest of humanity is probably going to kill them too.

TL;DR - They will die.


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

[User]
Why supermassive black holes have low density?

From a Wikipedia article about the Shwartzchild radius:
> supermassive black holes have low densities. The average density of a supermassive black hole can be less than the density of water

This is very surprising to me, my idea of a black hole reguardless of its mass is that it is a *very* dense thing. Can anyone explain where I'm wrong?

[Assistant]
Here the density is defined as the mass of the black hole divided by the volume contained within the Schwarzschild radius. The radius increases in proportion with the mass, so the volume increases as the cube of the  mass, so the density goes as mass over mass cubed, which is the negative-two power of mass.

However, it's not clear whether this average density is a meaningful physical concept.

White dwarves are even weirder: the heavier they get, the smaller their radius gets.


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

[User]
ELI5: How could George Lucas make so universally hated movies after making one of the most loved ones? Is he a good or bad director?

I've begun hearing all the time that the prequels would've been good if they had good directing (which I agree with), but at the same time I hear so much love for things in the original movies (particularly the first one) with so many revolutionizing ideas, techniques and scenes.

Did he just get old or stop caring about making movies (instead focusing on making money?), or is there some other reason why he managed to both hit a home-run and himself on the head with the bat?

[Assistant]
The running theory is that Lucas is best when he has an ensemble of talented crew around him.

For the original Star Wars movies, American Graffiti, Indiana Jones, et cetera, he was one of many voices that came together to make the film.  For those, he was certainly the main voice, but he wasn't the only one.

By the time the prequels came around, he had enough money and clout to make them all on his own.  He had nothing but "yes men" around him.  No one told him when he had a bad idea, or helped him re-write anything.

One supplemental theory is that most of his early success was attributed as much to his relationship with Marcia Griffin, his former wife, as it is to his own skill and talent.


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

[User]
Before humans learned to shave did primitive men all have long beards?

Along with that is the question about hair and fingernails. If we don't cut them they grow to long unwieldy lengths. How did primitive humans deal with this?

[Assistant]
Interesting question, but we have next to no data to support to discuss in this case. Without hard data, we leave the land of science for the pastures of speculation...

Beards don't fossilise. We have a few petroglyphs showing our ancestors. Beards do not feature promintly in them; is it because they had none or artistic license? Who can say?


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why the hell does a society of wizards who can teleport as a cantrip bother with mail delivery via owl?

Owl Mail is slower than Methuselah running up hill in January while knee deep in molasses.  Why doesn't everyone just wave a wand and send their mail directly to the recipient?  Hell, why use letters at all instead of just whipping up some magic mirror skype chats?

It's almost like the wizarding world is actively trying to have a less efficient society.

[Assistant] Post Owls are ridiculously fast, just think of the times the ministry or Dumbledore send him letters, like it barely took them minutes to responds to events that were happening to Harry. Then if you factor in an owls natural ability to locate a person on name alone regardless of where they are and it makes much sense to use them for deliveries. It also helps that since they dont apparate you can use them to send mail to places protected by enchantments, like Hogwarts.


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

[User] How exactly are memories forgotten, and where do they go?

[Assistant] Short term memory is believed to reside in the hippocampus. If a memory is deemed "relevant", then it is crystallized into long-term memory, which is believed to be stored in the cortex. As far as why certain memories fade...that is an enormous area of research and debate. A lot of fascinating information about how memory works has come from the study of Alzheimer's disease.


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

[User] ELI5: Was stuff like ptsd common thousands of years ago when relatives and family died much earlier, or were they less effected by it because it was normal?

[Assistant]
George Carlin does a bit about how the name of PTSD has changed over the course of the 20th Century.   During World War 1, it was "Shell Shock",  later it was "battle fatigue", then " operational exhaustion ", and finally PTSD.

I guess they did have it in the olden days, but if they talked about it, they called it something else.


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

[User]
[Starship Troopers] What do the bugs eat?

Each bug is a huge apex predator and they apparently reproduce by the millions.

So what do they all eat? There can't possibly be an ecosystem that can sustain so many hungry bugs.

And yet they fight humans in a desert planet. The kind of place that has a very low carrying capacity, shouldn't most bugs just starve to death?

The bugs are too big and powerful to survive on moss or vegetable sources, they have to be carnivores. And even then, they probably spend most of their awake time eating.

[Assistant] According to the prequel comics they feed on themselves. Each species excluding brain and queen bugs fight each other for dominance before breeding and consuming the dead. We do see the god bug eating an arachnid warrior so it's possible they breed en masse and simply fight before starvation weakens them. Making each bug seen on screen only a few days old at most. A more likely answer is that the bugs farm a livestock species like the servant drones that can eat fungus or lichen grown deep in the hives and the larger warrior species eat them as well as their own dead.


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

[User]
How does soap work?

ELI5 How Does Soap Work?

[Assistant]
Soap is made of little pieces that have 2 ends. One end loves water, one end loves oil. Dirt and other nasties are trapped by the oil on your skin. When you rub it on your skin, the half that love the oil stick to the oil on your skin, and when you rinse, the half that loves water sticks to the water, peeling the other half away from your skin, along with the oil(and nasties.)

The bubbles are there to make it feel nice.


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

[User]
Why is slightly rotating things while pulling out easier, than only pulling without rotating?

Sry for MY bad english. And thanks for any reply!

[Assistant] For a variety of frictional and adhesive forces, the strength of the force is reduced once an object is in motion.  Additionally, for a wide enough object, it's generally easier to exert a torque to produce twisting than a linear force for pulling, because torque increases with the radius of rotation, independent of applied force.  The twisting motion makes the object move, reducing the adhesive force, which then makes pulling easier.


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

[User] ELI5: What are the "means of production" in Socialist theory applied to a post-industrial economy such as the UK?

[Assistant]
Means of production is just a society's ability to produce (things of) value. Everything from ideas to resources to individual effort is part of the collective "means of production."

I'd say it's about the same; however globalization is  reducing geographical limits on Means of Production.


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

[User]
[Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey] Why has nobody ever beaten the Grim Reaper?

When Bill & Ted meet the Grim Reaper, they are given a chance to challenge him to a contest for a second chance at life.  When they ask him what happens if they win, he says, "No one has ever won."

But Bill & Ted manage to beat him pretty easily three times in a row.  How is it that nobody in history has managed to beat him when he's so bad at everything?

[Assistant]
Challengers always assumed that because Death is *Death* that he must be the master of everything, because no one has ever defeated Death. They then think that since Death has mastered more sophisticated challenges, he can't possibly be bad at simpler challenges.

That was their fatal error. Only Bill Preston, Esq. and Theodore Logan were wise enough to realize that a being who specialized in complex challenges might fail a simple challenge.

San Dimas Highschool Football Rules!


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

[User] ELI5: I keep seeing posts, I pointed my telescope here for 20 hours to give you this image. Why does it have to be 20 hours of pointing? Whats happening exactly?

[Assistant]
Simple version, there are 2 kinds of light a telescope camera gets: signal, and noise.

Signal is what you want; it is light that came from the object itself. Noise is what you don't want; light from the atmosphere, from interstellar dust, cosmic rays hitting the detector, etc.

What you can see in a picture depends on how these two things compare: this is usually called the "signal-to-noise ratio", or SNR. A high SNR means that you can see a lot of detail, while a low SNR may even mean that you can't see the thing at all. A high SNR is like listening to a flute play in a silent concert hall. A low SNR is like listening to a flute play on the side of a busy highway.

When a chunk of light hits the detector, it doesn't know which it is, which means that it can't really figure out which is which. There is, however, one difference between the two that we can use: Signal increases with time, noise increases as the square root of time.

For example: imagine you have two identical telescopes pointed at the same object. Telescope A spends 1 minute pointed at that object, telescope B spends 4 minutes pointed at that object. Telescope B will have four times as much signal, but only twice as much noise.

This means that as you spend more time pointing at a single target, the SNR increases, which lets you see more and better detail.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are judges allowed to hand down unusual sentences like the woman who had to sit in a garbage dump for eight hours?

Wouldn't unusual sentences like these be seen as demeaning or even harmful to the person charged? Are there not other punishments that are considered the "norm' for such offenses such as fines or community service?

Edit 1: I'm usually supportive of such punishments,I was just curious on how a judge could legally force someone to uphold the alternative punishment.

[Assistant] In most cases the judge does not actually have authority to impose such a sentence, but offers it as an alternative to the maximum jail sentence for the offense. It's up to the defendant to take that offer.


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

[User] In the context of quantum physics, what does 'symmetry' mean?

[Assistant]
It means the same thing it does in classical physics. It means that your physical system looks the same when you perform some operation on it.

For example, on a large scale, the universe looks exactly the same no matter where you're located. That's symmetry under spatial translations.

The universe also looks the same no matter what direction you look in. That's symmetry under spatial rotations.

There are more abstract symmetries as well, like the fact that the physical state of a quantum-mechanical particle doesn't change if you multiply its entire wavefunction by a complex phase.


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

[User]
Could you Skype at Relativistic Velocities?

If I'm on a ship traveling at relativistic velocities and I attempt to Skype with someone back on Earth (assuming Wi-Fi reached that far and the receivers were tuned to account for the red/blueshift), what would it look like to the people on either end?  If they could connect, would either one be able to notice the time dilation?

[Assistant]
As long as the ship is traveling at velocities below the speed of light (c), communication is possible.

But as the velocity increases, all communication signals get shifted towards longer wavelengths. This means that the "bandwidth" of the signal decreases, and you can't pass as much information through it as before. It's like having an internet connection that gets slower and slower.

At the speed of light, communication with the ship flying away from you is obviously impossible, and the bandwidth becomes zero.

Both parties will observe that the time on the other end runs more slowly.This will be independent of whether they are moving towards each other or away from each other, or even past each other.

However, there will also be a Doppler effect on top of it that will slow the stream down when the ship is flying away, and will speed things up when it is flying towards the Earth. You can only calculate time dilation after you make corrections for the Doppler effect.

Also, as the ship gets further and further away, there will be large delays between the time you say something and the time you hear their response. Even trying to talk to someone on the Moon is hard, because you need to wait for two seconds to hear back from them.


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

[User]
[Dark Souls Trilogy] Why So Many Individuals Developed into giants ?

It seems that for some reason  many of the enemies of DS 1-2-3 are much more taller than the average human being, while I know there are proper giants, why the others are so unnaturally tall?

[Assistant]
Most of the bigger enemies are not humans but a different race. Humans, who are the dark race, are much smaller than those who descended from the Lords of the first flame. The only humans are the undead since they're the only ones who can bear the dark soul. The larger enemies such as the black knights, silver knights, bosses, etc are part of the gwyn's race of Lords while humans are part of the furtive pygmy's race of dark.

This is why gwyn and fire Lords want to link the first flame to extend the age of fire, and extend the age of Lords. The age of dark is not the end of the world but rather the beginning of the age of humans.


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

[User]
[WH40k] How much does the average imperial citizen know about imperial history?

I know that everything when it comes to culture in the Imperium can be radically different from world to world. Just wondering what the average citizen from Hive worlds to Agri Worlds and beyond would know about basic imperial history.

[Assistant] I'd guess the average citizen learns mostly about the history of their own world before that of the Imperium. All they need to know for that subject is that their lives improved immeasurably once their world was brought into the fold of the Imperium, that the Emperor is the savior of Mankind, and that remaining loyal to the Imperium is the greatest way to honor Him.


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

[User] ELI5: How come the glass container doesnt dissolve when dissolving thing in acid ?

[Assistant] Acids don't universally attack *everything*.  Most acids won't attack glass.  Except for those that do, like Hydrofluoric acid (HF), Phosphoric acid, and Phosphorus acids.  When you get one of those acids, it comes in a plastic bottle.  A bottle which would melt if exposed to several other acids.


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

[User]
ELI5:bose-einstein condensate

What is it?

How is it made?

What practical applications does it have?

What's it's history?

[Assistant]
A Bose-Einstein condensate is a very special phase of matter which certain elements and compounds are thought to be able to enter.  One which is known to be able to enter it is helium-4, which we call superfluid (slightly different but closely related) when it does so.  The origin comes from statistical and quantum mechanics and can be a little complicated but I'll try to give a breakdown.

**Fermions vs. bosons:** one way to categorise particles is by their spin.  Spin is an intrinsic property of particles (like charge or mass), and goes in units of 1/2.  Fermions are particles which have half-spin mutliples (e.g. 1/2 or 3/2), whilst bosons are particles which have integer spin multiples (e.g. 0 or 1).  Spin belongs to elementary particles like electrons with spin 1/2, or photons with spin 1, but also to composite particles like atoms.  As an example, helium 4 is composed of four protons, four neutrons and four electrons, each with spin 1/2.  But these spins pair up and align against each other (e.g. two electrons pair up, one has spin +1/2 and one has spin -1/2, so the pair has a total spin of zero).  This means that even though helium-4 is made of fermions, it is itself a boson.

**Quantum states:** quantum mechanics tells us that particles live in something called a state.  The state has a defined energy (among other qualities).  The lowest energy state is called the *ground state*.

**Statistical distributions:** fermions and bosons follow two different statistical distributions (Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein respectively).  These tell us how ensembles of these particles behave.  The long and short of it is that fermions can't share the same state, whilst bosons can.

With these things in mind, lets consider an ensemble of bosons (e.g. helium-4).  What happens when it cool it right down towards absolute zero?  Well at some point (for helium-2, about 2.5 kelvin), all the particles drop into the lowest energy state, the ground state, from all the states above.  We now have a state of matter in its lowest possible energy configuration.  That's why Bose-Einstein condensates from.  It's tough to explain without a bit of quantum mechanics.  You make it, as said, by cooling the right kinds of particles down to the transition temperature for it to happen.

In terms of history, Bose-Einstein condensates were predicted in 1924-25, then superfluid helium-4 was experimentally made about 12 years later.  It finds applications as a quantum solvent, letting scientists study particles as though were in a gas; in high-precision gyroscopes, and in cooling devices when things have to be cooled to extremely low temperatures.  Superfluid helium-4 was also used to slow down light, effectively trapping it, in an experiment in 1999.


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

[User] ELI5: How does skin tighten up and not be saggy after losing weight, especially significant weight (30+lbs)?

[Assistant]
The whole body is always in a renewing process. Cells are constantly dying and new ones are being formed. This is also the case with the skin. If you rub firmly after showering, you can recognize dead skin cells as white crumbs.

As the body slowly changes shape, the skin can adapt over time just by building more or less new cells. So the skin becomes smaller or larger without tearing. If the weight loss goes too fast, the skin can no longer adapt in time.

In addition, it will be important that weight loss is associated with certain exercises to achieve firmness, because thin people can have saggy skin aswell.


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

[User]
[MCU] Is She-Hulk talking to the Watcher?

If so, how is she even able to see him. Ultimate Ultron only was able to see him after prolongued exposure with the infinity stones, it doesnt seem like something she could always do since she too seamed somewhat surprised, how did gamma blood do it?

[Assistant]
It's a unique feat of strength. She is so strong that she literally "**breaks** the 4th wall". So she's talking to the audience in the MCU.

In the comics, she talks to the writers and editors as well, and demonstrates actual physical feats of 4th wall breaking like walking between panels or ripping up pages from the inside, so, unlike Deadpool, she's not just crazy and thinks she's in a comic book (and just happens to be right), she is aware and can manipulate her environment via the 4th wall.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why grocery store display items for sale after the cashier area by the exit?

Like once Im done paying for my stuff on my way out I can see something I would buy and go back in to pay for it? Sounds stupid. What Im I missing about this marketing strategy?

[Assistant]
Typically its for heavy stuff that noone in their right mind is gonna try and shoplift. Like... you're never going to try and shove a 10kg bag of water softener salt down your pants like you would a Twix, ya know?

Most of that stuff the cashiers have little barcode cards and you just say "oh and add two bags of rock salt" and you sling it on your cart on the way out the door. Saves you from having to push 20kg of salt around the whole damn store.

And the 10kg bad is like $7 anyways. If some idiot does scarper with a bag they're like "whose dumb enough to steal water softener salt?" laugh, shake their heads and add $7 to the LOSS list for the month. Guarantee they lose 10x more than that from people shoving steaks down their pants.


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

[User]
[My Hero Academia] How do they regulate people with inherently dangerous Quirks?

In a society where 80% of the population is powered, what systems are in place to deal with people with Quirks that are dangerous or have the potential to be seriously misused?

I mean, just having a bunch of hero agencies around can't do much if someone whose quirk is uncontrollable killer sneezes is walking around in allergy season. Even Shinzo's brainwashing power is incredibly dangerous considering how badly The Purple Man misused his similar power in Jessica Jones.

[Assistant]
You may be underestimating how many "heroes" are running around trying to make a name for themselves. Even if a dangerous quirk shows up in an uncontrollable way it would be a short lived crisis. Some hero will jump in to either contain the threat or at least minimize damage while a better suited hero is called to the scene.

As for how to handle it after that, temporary confinement and then release. The entirety of this society revolves around quirks, so finding a tech solution to even the most extreme of quirks is likely to be a short venture.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] In many SW games the color of a lightsaber says something about its wielder. How was this envisioned for the original trilogy (green, blue)? How did this change (yellow, purple) with the games and/or new trilogy? Which parts are considered canon in the expanded universe?

Okay, lots of questions. Basically I'm asking because there seems to be little to no significance in the difference between blue and green sabers in the original trilogy but it becomes an important factor in games like the *Knights of the Old Republic* series (yellow) and *Jedi Knight* series (purple, orange, ...). And let's not forget Windu's purple saber in the new trilogy...

So, what is considered canon in the expanded universe? Does color not signify anything specific (red being obvious) or is there a reason for every Jedi to have its own color as in the excellent KotOR series?

[Assistant]
The Expanded Universe is Canon, but not to the movies. It's considered Legend, meaning it's its own sort of miniverse.

Think of it like the Star Trek franchise. The New Movies are made free of any information given, or lore created in the series or other films, because  of the alternate timelines.

As for Lightsabers. Luke originally wielded a blue blade like Obi-Wan, because it was Anakin's lightsaber, Obi-Wan and Anakin were both Jedi Guardians. He later got a green one because unlike his father and mentor, he was a Jedi Consular, like Qui-Gon Jinn.

In KotOR, when you first become a Jedi, your blade colour shows what class you are, it's cool, but changeable (the blade, not the class).

Blue is for Jedi Guardians, like Anakin, Obi-Wan, etc. These Jedi specialize in combat, and are often generals and military advisers.

Green is for the Jedi Consulars, like Luke, Qui-Gon, etc. These Jedi specialize in diplomacy and force mastery, they are often diplomats.

Yellow is for the Jedi Sentinel, like Bastile Shan and Visas Marr. These Jedi specialize in a variety of skills, often acting as scouts, messengers and spies.

Red signified the Sith, who only had access to synthetic crystals, and then wore that colour with honour.

This distinction fell out of practice in later years when most Jedi used blue or green crystals from Ilum Caves based on personal choice, and then the use of crystals coming from various source worlds became marginal. No longer having Ilum crystals at their disposal, Jedi of the New Jedi Order favoured the use of various crystals and gems, creating lightsaber blades of multiple colours.

In Jedi Knight, the reason that you can have any colour, is because Jaden Korr built his lightsaber before entering the Jedi Academy, meaning that he didn't know what type of Jedi he was, and most likely went for what looked cool, or whatever he could find.

Mace Windu's lightsaber was rare. It was purple because of the Hurikane Crystal he used for it, after demonstrating immense Force Mastery to the Native People of Hurikane, who gifted it to him.


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

[User]
Do we have any other ways of producing electricity?

It seems like there are only 2 main methods we use to produce electricity either turning a mechanical shaft to run a generator or a PV cell. Is there not any other way?

[Assistant]
Yes there are! Batteries turn chemical energy into electrical energy. There is also the nuclear reactors used in spacecraft such as Voyager 1 which use a process called Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator which turn the heat generated by small nuclear events into electricity, this process can be though of similar to a PV cell in a way.

But this is a very good point you make as neither of these options are suitable for large scale power generation in the order of 100's of Megawatts.

As a fun little fact, we could take the total world annual energy consumption as 150,000 TWh/year and lets round that up to 200,000 to account for some growth. This is the equivalent of just approximately just 1kg/s of Matter/Antimatter annihilation energy. Of course this is just so very far out of our reach.


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

[User]
[Batman] Is Bruce Wayne a competent businessman?

If Lucius Fox wasnt there to advise him, would Bruce Wayne have the business chops and negotiating skills to make solid and financially beneficial decisions for Wayne Enterprises and its shareholders?

I almost want to say yes because... you know; hes Bruce Wayne/Batman and whenever a question comes up about him, the default is yes

But I want to take a serious look at this.  Bruce Wayne spent years abroad, learning the art of his Batman craft, but he was never really mentored in the school of business.  To be a successful businessman, takes years of 15+ hour working days. When would Bruce have been able to home this skillset?

Could Bruce write a book on his own business ideologies, and someone like Warren Buffet read it and be impressed?

[Assistant]
He's got three great assets.  First, he's rich enough to walk away from any deal he doesn't like.  Next, he's very good at reading people.  Knowing when someone is being honest or is trying to pull a fast one is important.  Finally, he's a pretty good scientist who can spot emerging technologies.

Most important is that he's surrounded himself with top flight people and given them the room to grow and operate.


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

[User]
[Marvel/Norse Mythology] Does Mjolnir in the Norse Mythology have the same properties as its Marvel 616 counterpart?

Does the legendary hammer of Thor in the Norse Myth comes flying back to its owner at his command or is it just a Marvel comics thing? Can Mjolnir of the Norse Mythology be lifted by anyone/god or only the worthy may lift and use Mjolnir?

[Assistant]
The original Mjolnir will always return to the hand when thrown, but the other points seem to be unique to Marvel.

For example, the original Thor did not fly using it, but had a chariot pulled by goats. Interestingly Mjolnir could kill and resurrect these goats each night - allowing Thor to eat them each time.

The original could flatten mountains too.


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

[User] [DC Comics] Is Batman Suicidal ?

[Assistant]
No. Suicidal people don't generally wear that much kevlar when they step in front of guns.

At his bleakest, Batman sees his own life as an expendable resource to protect other people, but he does take precautions to avoid death and he shows no signs of wanting to die.