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

[User]
ELI5: Why isn't a one second video at 24 fps 24x the file size of a picture?

Example: If one photo is one megabyte, why isn't a one second video at 24 fps, which has 24 photos in one second, 24 megabytes?

I get that it's to do with compression, but how could you compress that without losing too much quality and pixels? Pls explain.

[Assistant] Video compression uses the fact that consecutive frames tend to be similar to each other. Instead of storing each frame separately, the file only stores the differences between the frames (except for some frames known as "key frames" which are stored in full), which takes up much less space.


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

[User]
whats the point of asking demanding rubles for gas

 i understand that due to sanctions they cant use or convert euros but they are valuable elsewhere meanwhile they can print rubles whats the point asking for payment in euros?

[Assistant] If countries are forced to pay in rubles that means they are forced to exchange their currency for rubles. This means that on an international market the demand for rubles rises, and so the ruble becomes more valuable (in theory).


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

[User]
Can sharks smell blood outside of water?

Lets say there is a bird flying about the water, with a cut, could the shark smell that blood?

[Assistant] Blood has to be able to get to the shark's nose. In the water, smell spreads long distances easily, but until enough molicules get to the shark's sensitive nose, it can't smell it. If blood drips into the water, then the shark can smell it from a normal distance.


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

[User] [Mass Effect] So how did scale-itch get on the Normandy?

[Assistant] When many species approach sexual maturity.... experimentation is often common.  Grunt has been exhibiting signs  common among Krogan adolescents.  Hypothesis: Grunt is the most likely carrier unless... Zaeed?


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

[User]
Do programmers have a life at all?

My friend is a software engineer and told me that he has a normal 8 hour work. Is this true?

I study computer science at school but im scared im gonna be that guy who works day and night and has no life. I never was a computer guy to begin with but i am fascinated about this area of work.

EDIT:  I would love to work 7-8h per day and do my own stuff after work, such as sports, friends, travel etc. I am from Finland btw. Thank you all for amazing replies :)

[Assistant]
I think the problem is two fold.

Some people are really just nerds. They work 8h, go home and start tinkering with their own projects for 6h. Those people do have a life, but maybe not in the sense you mean.

Then there are people who simply let themselves be pressured into overtime. In programming, there's never a "done", there's always something to do and there are always deadlines. Some unfortunate souls give in to this pressure and work 60, 80h and then burn out at some point. It's up to you to not let this happen. Set clear boundaries and then you'll have a life.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is China's air pollution so much worse than any other country?

Is it even? It seems like you only hear about China.

[Assistant]
A lot of factories (where the companies don't care about the environment at all) are located inland. The winds come down from the west, across the factories, and carry the pollution into the coastal cities.

But, the answer is, generally, Chinese companies don't really care about the environment.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do glass and ceramic items generally come out of the dishwasher dry while plastic ones are often still dripping wet?

[Assistant] The heat they retain, plastics don't retain the heat as well and so the residual moisture doesn't evaporate as quickly and the heat of the plastic being lower also means that the water vapour condenses on the cooler plastics.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Would Jabba be fun to hang with if you didn't owe him money?

Like is he the kind of chill guy who would let you eat all the frog-things out of his water bowl if you crashed over at his place?

[Assistant] From what we've seen in legends no.  He's always one bad joke away from killing anyone he doesn't need or have use for. Most hutts are duplicitous devious and murderous to everyone except maybe their own children and that's not even a guarantee.  So long as you have something he needs or are valuable to him your safe like his bounty hunters and business partners.  Everyone else falls under his profit loss sheet and once you're worth less than you cost to him you're on borrowed time.  He did like to party and have a good time but its kinda like partying with a guy on loads of coke who owns a tiger sounds fun until you realize there's a tiger that hasn't been fed for awhile.


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

[User]
[Main Marvel Universe] Is Spider-Man liked/respected by the other superheroes?

I never really watched a superhero movie until I watched the Sam Raimi trilogy recently, never even picked up a comic book. So I was wondering, do other heroes like Spider-Man? Or do they see him as a childish nuisance and despise him? Thank you!

[Assistant]
Hes pretty heavily respected most of the time. Captain America, Dr. Strange and other heroes called him the best of us

Time travelers who come down to the present speak of Spider-Man as the greatest hero to ever live. Cable said that one day his legacy would be that he is the greatest hero of them all.

Spider-Man 2099 said that hes the greatest hero ever in his time, but also the last.

Generally the younger Marvel heroes fanboy/fangirl the hell out of Peter. Most of them love Spidey and wanna be like him.

Hes also the center of the Spider-Verse, hes the top guy when it comes to other Spider-People and without him the Spider-Verse collapses.

Other super geniuses respect him and see the enormous potential that Peter has.

Although some writers love to portray him as a disliked buffoon and an incompetent moron (looking at you Slott, Aaron)

Generally hes pretty well liked and respected.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are free trade agreements so critisized?

For instance NAFTA, TTP, TTIP. For all I see they all have a good intention to boost trade between countries with less restrictions. Still, on a weekly basis I hear about the harm they cause. What went wrong and why do they exist?

[Assistant]
One issue is that free trade naturally means more competition. Say you've got a good little business making and selling gizmos in the US. No one in the US does it better and cheaper than you, so you're doing well.

Now a free trade agreement is signed with China, which means they are suddenly allowed to export gizmos to the US and sell them there. Wages are lower there so their gizmos are 40% cheaper than yours. For all the people who buy gizmos, that's wonderful, and if you look at the economy as a whole it might even boost growth (because all the gizmo buyers now have more money let to spend on other things, plus whatever they build using gizmos can now be made cheaper and in greater numbers), but it *also* threatens your job. It may create new jobs, but it *also* costs existing jobs.

For your country as a whole, the free trade deal might be a net benefit, but for some individuals in that country, it means a loss of their job or their family business. If this process runs unchecked for a long period, you end up with large areas of the country where virtually no jobs and no industry exists, where unemployment and poverty is rampant, even while he country *as a whole* becomes wealthier. This has happened in both the US and the UK, for example. The cities are doing great, but in other areas, people have *nothing*, because their old coal or steel mines closed, as free trade agreements meant the same could be imported more cheaply, and while new jobs were created in the big cities, nothing happened in these desolate areas.

Another problem is that these "modern" trade agreements have tended to have some dubious provisions in them allowing huge corporations to sue countries if they introduce laws that make it harder for the corporation to sell their goods. For example, some countries have been sued by big tobacco corporations because they introduced laws to discourage smoking. Others have been sued for blocking mining companies from creating new, environmentally harmful, mines in populated areas. The EU has dropped bans of certain harmful pesticides in anticipation of TTIP, because such a ban would risk a lawsuit if the trade deal was ratified.

The especially problematic thing about these lawsuits is that (1) these corporations often have greater revenues than the GDP of many smaller countries, and the country might simply be unable to afford losing such a lawsuit and be forced to just do what the corporation wants them to.
Additionally, these cases are not taken to actual courts, but are run by special tribunals which are effectively above national law: they judge *solely* based on the text of the trade deal, not on what is actually legal in the country in question.

Such investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) have the potential to be devastating for democracy, as you end up with corporations effectively coercing governments into writing or lifting certain laws.


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

[User] ELI5: when resting or going to sleep, why does it feel like bliss when you switch positions, but then a minute later it is uncomfortable again?

[Assistant]
Its about the structure of your skeleton, and blood circulation.

Your legs and feet are really good at carrying the weight of your torso. And theyre built to handle that weight, and also prevent blood from pooling down there because of gravity.

When you lay down, some part of your body other than your legs is taking the weight of your torso. That means its getting squeezed, maybe put in an awkward position, and you might be constricting the blood flow to that area. (Blood pooling isnt really an issue, because when youre laying down, your heart isnt as far above other body parts as when youre standing.)

But some part of your body is still taking a lot more weight when youre laying down, depending on the position. Eventually, fatigue, or inadequate blood-flow, will set in. So, it also feels amazing when that pressure gets relieved after a while.

This is also why people tend to change positions every 60-90 minutes when theyre sleeping. Its a deep instinct, so you dont accidentally pinch a major blood vessel in your arm for 8 hours, and then wake up with a dead finger or something.


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

[User]
[BATMAN and DC] I accidentally found the Batcave, HELP?

So how do I say this...
I am nobody, my name is David(26) and I work for an insurance company in Gotham.
I really enjoy exploring and diving. As a kid I grew up in Australia and my father was and still is that guy who helps tourists on diving sessions.

Well two months ago I was walking around the outskirts of Gotham, because for years now people have been telling stories of weird things happening there.
I kind of like these creepy places to be honest.
So I was walking around the forest for a few hours but found nothing, Then, when I was walking back I saw a small amount of bubbles in the water, I checked and found these small iron bars shielding some type of a tunel, Just wide enough to get a person through.
Why would there be a tunel out here, It didn't make sense, but what do I know of city design.
I went home disappointed for finding nothing yet the tunnel didn't leave my mind. I called my friend who works as an architect, she said it doesn't make sense to her either.

Then I kind of started going there once a week for a month and found three more tunnels, but smaller.
A week ago I decided to a little bit of illegal activity and dive down to see what is happening,
But it took me 5 days to assembel and find all of my stuff(used to live on the other side of Gotham).
Two days ago was the day(architect friend decided to help), so we drove there and carried the equipment through the forest and in 20 minutes I was ready to dive.
I have been underwater for 23 minutes alerady when I found a bigger tunnel almost at the bottom, it had iron bars but I could fit through. Despite what I was thought about diving alone I went in, I had to know.
I came out in a big cave full of screens, out of fear I stayed in the water and just looked around,
There was a batman looking suit in a glass chamber close to the water.
I quickly went back and told my friend, she didn't belive me at first, we are both very afraid as there were probalby sensors and camers there.
What can we do, pleases help.

[Assistant] Ha, expect a visit from the bat while you sleep tonight, buddy. Even worse, hell probably send a robin just to embarrass you.  He knows you were there, but lucky for you, he probably knows you meant no harm...so youll probably get a stern warning from someone in a cape and a domino mask, but you wont get your head broken. And then youll decide to expose the tunnel you found for a quick buck in a few weeks, and youll show up with the news crew and the gcpd only to find that there isnt a tunnel. There never was a tunnel. Youll pay out of your own pocket to hire a crew to dig into the earth where the tunnel was and you wont find a tunnel. Then youll go insane and youll get sent to Arkham and the bat will visit you in the night himself, and he wont speak to you but hell look into your eyes and youll know that this was his plan all along.


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

[User]
[Terminator/Harry Potter] Could Avada Kedava work on T800? Could T800 be terminated?

Will T800's program disappear due to avada kedava?

Will T800's muscle and skin die and rot due to avada kedava?

[Assistant]
You might - *might* \- have a case for the external living tissue, but all the Killing Curse would do is cause it to necrotize.  That's the thing with AK; the subject appears to be in perfect health apart from, y'know, being dead.

As that's the only thing on a Terminator that's living, the machine underneath is still very much going to snap that wizard's neck like a twig.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do atoms decay?

Say I have 2 atoms of gold, i cannot tell one apart from another, yet one is going to decay while another one will continue to be, so what makes 2 seemingly identical atoms behave differently? what is that something that makes them different? Is there some sort of fatigue at atom level?

[Assistant] It's hard to ELI5 for quantum physics. Atoms and the bits that make them up (protons, neutrons, electrons) and the bits that protons and neutrons are made of (quarks) all have behaviour that is different to what we consider 'normal' stuff.  It is natural for them to randomly change, with a chance of this change happening in a given time. It's just what they do, because they are all trying to get to what is known as their lowest energy state. Other things get in the way, like gravity, other Atoms and bits of radiation hitting them. But over time, everything at a quantum level is trying to change in order to reach lowest energy. So one atom might change now, one might change later, but eventually, everything in the universe will reach the low energy state.


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

[User]
[DC] Can kryptonite be used as a prism? If so, what would happen if Superman got hit with sunlight ran through such a prism.

Asking for a friend.

[Assistant]
Not much I'd imagine... Kryptonite radiates Kryptonian radiation which is what affects supes. The radiation would not latch onto or effect other electromagnetic energy passing through it, such as light.

Same way it does not cause radio waves that pass through it to affect him any differently.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't we taste anything "sweet" right after having something sweet ?

[Assistant] Sensory overload - like after leaving a loud concert, normal-volume noises seem much quieter until your ears re-adjust. Having something super-sweet desensitizes your taste buds to less-sweet things for a short while.


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

[User]
[MCU] Question about Episode 4

So, Dr. Strange needed a lot of power to rewrite an "absolute point", and to get this power he decided to go all Kirby and level up by eating a whole bunch of magical monsters. Note that he needed this power even *with* the Time Stone- you know, the infinity stone with mastery over time itself?

Now, suppose Dr. Strange had not only the Time Stone, but also the Power Stone, and was able to handle it without dying- could he have used the Power Stone to amp up the Time Stone to overwrite the absolute point? I am *not* asking about whether or not he could've used the Infinity Gauntlet+Set to rez Christine- just whether the Power Stone would've allowed him to use the Time Stone outmuscle the rules behind the absolute point. If so, where does that put Strange Supreme's innate magic power (since the Eye of Agamotto/Time Stone is now useless) put him relative to the Power Stone?

EDIT: Or is there insufficient information to answer this question?

EDIT 2: Repasted from another comment of mine so it's not stuck in a comment log, I guess my question was less "Could Dr. Strange have succeeded in ensuring she never died in the first place?" and more "If Dr. Strange had gotten the Time Stone and Power Stone, would he have been able to skip straight to the end of Episode 4 without level grinding/fighting himself, or would he need more juice?" Though the former is an interesting question on it's own.

[Assistant]
I suspect not. It was never really an issue of power levels; That's why Dr. Armani still failed after surrendering his humanity for power.

Even with all the stones, Strange wouldn't be preventing Christine's death, he'd basically just be recreating her.

Imagine this: You have absolute control over water. You decide that the babbling brook behind your house is annoying, and has babbled its last. You delete the brook from existence. The watershed downstream dries up, and the local ecosystem collapses. The Time Stone gives you power over time, but time is still time. It's a fundamental part of the universe, and if you mess with it, things break.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] What are those white streaks you see when moving at warp speeds?

I thought they were just stars going by really fast but the relative speeds and directions and apparent distances imply that they are much smaller objects that are much closer to the ship and each other and, since the ship itself appears elongated at warp, would distant stars not look more horizontally squashed than stretched out?

I'm pretty sure I've seen some of them disappear completely when dropping to impulse.

^^EDIT: ^^I ^^found ^^a ^^typo. ^^I ^^don't ^^care ^^if ^^I'm ^^three ^^weeks ^^late.

[Assistant] Warp drive is a real space FTL solution.  Space is not empty vacuum; there are microscopic particles at varying densities throughout space. This microscopic space dust is a hazard to the ship when moving way faster than relativistic speeds.  Federation starships use a high powered deflector beam to push those particles out of the way.  This high energy beam briefly energizes the particle and it streaks as it goes past the ship.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are we not using nuclear propulsion in commercial ships?

Probably not passenger cruise ships, but I would imagine commercial cargo ships would profit tremendously from nuclear power. So why is it that nobody has even attempted (to the best of my knowledge) to use nuclear propulsion for commercial goals. Is it the fixed cost of installing such an engine? Or is it the government's fear that nuclear material may end up in the wrong hands?

[Assistant]
It's way, way, *WAY*, too expensive.

The power plant alone would probably be more expensive than the entire lifetime cost of an average bulk carrier. Not to mention the insane mess of regulation that is involved with running a nuclear reactor.

Basically, big ships run on bunker fuel, and bunker fuel is ludicrously cheap.


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

[User]
CMV: Businesses should use rolling periods to calculate bonuses/targets/quotas, not arbitrary periods as this creates perverse incentives by employees to game the numbers.

So for example, if you are an employee of a car dealership, you may have a goal to sell, say, 30 cars a month and if you sell more, you get a bonus of, say $500 per car above 30. I believe this kind of things encourages employees and customers to act in ways that are damaging to the business and that these  negative behaviors could be reduced if bonuses/quotas were instead calculated on a trailing rolling basis. So for example, in the above example you would get a daily bonus calculated by the formula: (Average cars sold per day for past 30 days - target cars sold per day)\*$500. Yes, this is slightly more complicated, but in the days of automated tracking the added complexity is negligible.

By going to this system, it would stop the employee from doing things like offering price discounts, etc. in order to game the numbers in an arbitrary accounting period provided the commission they lost from being negotiable on price was less than their volume bonus. It might also cause an employee to try to shift sales in to a later month if they were below the bonus quota (so they would have a better chance of making bonus next month) and risk losing the deal as a result of the delay. Furthermore, if customers knew they no longer could get pricing power by coming in on the last day of the month/year, they would stop trying and stop expecting a discount from doing so.

I have personally seen time and again, companies and individuals making horrible business decisions because they want to close deals or achieve certain goals within an arbitrary accounting period. Employees sloppily finishing a project by an arbitrary deadline, or cutting scope out of a job so they can book/complete it by a certain date. I once literally saw a team in my company find a BS reason to cut $30M of scope out of a job so they could get the contract signed by the end of the bonus period. Every time I see this, I think to myself that this most of this could be fixed by just having incentive structures that was based on trailing averages and not based arbitrary hard deadlines.

While I acknowledge that the reason for using arbitrary accounting periods is also because reporting periods for public companies are also based on arbitrary periods, I feel that this is circular reasoning. If companies moved away from arbitrary accounting periods to using better thought out incentive periods, so might their investors take a longer view at financial results. I would also say that only a tiny fraction of companies are publicly traded.

[Assistant]
The periods used to calculate employee bonuses/commissions are usually aligned with the _corporate_ reporting periods.  If the business reports sales monthly then they have monthly targets they need to hit and salesperson quotas are aligned to help them hit those monthly targets.  A rolling period, as you suggest, doesn't help them hit their period targets (in fact, it might hurt them) so the incentives are not there to change.

In the case of car dealerships, it is about production forecasting.  The car manufacturer needs to know how many cars to make in a given month because they only want to make as many cars as will get sold (inventory holding costs can get expensive).  So, they give the dealerships monthly quotas in order to plan out how many cars need to get made, and bonus the dealerships on hitting the monthly sales goal.  Dealerships, in turn, incentives their salespeople monthly so the dealership hits its overall sales goal and gets the dealership bonus.

For publicly traded firms, you say that we should move away from arbitrary accounting/reporting periods, but that isn't going to happen.  Quarterly reporting is mandated by the SEC for public companies, and Wall Street is _never_ going to shift to longer view of financial results.  Your CMV has the whole process backwards - _investors_ demand quarterly earnings reports, so companies forecast quarterly and set quarterly targets, so salespeople are given quarterly quotas.


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

[User]
What exactly does a physicist mean when using the word Information?

I understand that the answer to this question is probably going to be fairly general, so allow me to provide some of the specific instances in which I have heard the term, in order to provide some context.

Information Theory
Is information destroyed when it moves beyond the event horizon of a black hole?
The quantum teleportation of information

Just to make this clear, I'm not looking for an explanation of those three greater concepts. They are there only to give those of you who are much more knowledgeable than I an easier time knowing what in the world I am actually asking.

Thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
Information is just the ability to distinguish between two states. Consider an electron which has two possible spin states: spin up and spin down. It's possible to measure the spin of the electron. When you do, you will gain 1 bit of information. There are two possible spin orientations but we've reduced it down to 1. Great.

It turns out that information has some physical properties. Special relativity states the information cannot travel faster than light and the second law of thermodynamics states that we lose more information than we gain in every performed experiment.

Recently, it turns out that these concepts are critically important to studying computers (which are physical systems after all) and black holes.

The black hole information paradox is related to quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics, every system evolves (changes) in a reversible way (information preserving). This is called unitarity. However, it seems like the action of a black hole is fundamentally irreversible. However, people disagreed with this and proposed mechanisms for black holes to store and emit information to resolve the paradox.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is there a 4-5 second delay when newscasters on TV talk to each other in different locations but I can speak to somebody on the phone far away with no delay at all?

[Assistant]
This is because they use satellite connections instead of terrestrial connections (which most phone and internet connections use).

The advantage of satellite connections is that they are available all over the world (even in extremely remote areas) and, if you're willing to pay enough, you can get dedicated high-bandwidth connectivity - enough to allow high performance streaming of High Definition video.

If you use a phone or internet based connection, you are severely limited in bandwidth availability and can only make the call in locations where service is offered by your home network (or a partner network which your home network has a roaming agreement with).

The disadvantage of satellite connections, of course, is the latency (delay). Communications can only travel as fast as the speed of light and satellite connections have to cover a lot of distance. Firstly, the TV station sends the audio/video via terrestrial fiber connections to a satellite uplink station on the ground, then the uplink station sends the audio/video to a satellite far above the earth and this gets beamed back down to the location of the reporter which then receives it via a satellite antenna/dish.

After hearing the question, the reporter starts responding and then their audio/video gets sent up to the satellite and down to the ground station where it finally gets sent back to the TV station over fiber connections. This results in a large delay. There may also be additional delays added as the result of things like jitter buffering (used to mitigate problems with packet timing/delivery).


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we get a feeling in our chest/stomach when we have sad/bad thoughts?

The experience itself is hard to explain, almost like a hollow feeling.

[Assistant] This is an evolutionary response to stressful situations. Basically your body pumps out adrenaline while at the same time pulling blood from your inner organs to feed to your muscles. This is part of the fight-or-flight response of your body and prepares it to do either.


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

[User]
[Spider-Man 2] Otto is successful in his experiment. Perpetual sun providing renewable power for the whole world. What happens next? Do you think Otto and Oscorp would have shared it? What would implication of such power be in the Marvel universe?

I mean, that seems like a pretty huge deal, no? Harry himself says it's Nobel Prize worthy, but it feels so much more. What does Oscorp do with this tech? Does does ANYONE do with this kind of tech?

I know we are not told about other heroes within the Raimi universe, but assuming guys like Tony Stark and other characters are also somewhere out there, what does this invention do to the Marvel universe? It would completely change the face of the world. But my question is, do you think this was it, or was there some other motive for Otto and Oscorp to make this?

The reason I ask is because, in the first movie Oscorp is making chemical enhancements for soldiers (goblin formula?), and the glider and whatnot. Clearly not focused on, lets say, humanitarian efforts. Harry takes over and suddenly wants to provide the world with unlimited energy? I smell bullshit.

I'm just curious what would have happened if everything went smoothly and Otto's experiment was a success.

[Assistant]
Otto would want to provide it for everyone in the world. Oscorp wouldn't let him. Oscorp would either power their weapons with it or sell energy to the highest paying place to fund their weapons. Or maybe just sell energy for no particular reason, maybe Harry left behind the weapons manufacturing, he seemed pretty focused on making money and "being rich".

This would piss off Otto greatly. He could still go mad on his own, become Doctor Octopus and steal the technology. This would be an interesting series of events. He and Spider-Man would eventually fight, but would Spider-Man choose to get him arrested or let him steal it for the benefit of mankind? Anyway, this wouldn't happen because Otto wouldn't go mad, because his dear wife Rosie is still with him, keeping him sane. He wins a Nobel prize, giving a snarky and mean speech criticising Oscorp. Him and Rosie move away from the city and maybe the country, still working on new technologies to better mankind, always bitter about Oscorp.

Harry uses some of the many dollars he made to hire an assassination squad and provides them with either new or old Oscorp weapons, with the squad's only goal being to hunt down Spider-Man. They eventually manage to capture Spider-Man, and bring him alive to Harry at his request. Harry unmasks Spider-Man, plays out the same...

If Tony Stark is out there, he pays Oscorp to use the technology and powers some of his suits with it, if Oscorp is no longer making weapons. If they are still making weapons, he comes up with a similar technology and rivals Oscorp, trying to put them out of business. He can invent it because he's fucking Tony Stark, and he wants to put them out of business because he hates greedy weapon manufacturers. There's a pretty compelling Iron Man movie somewhere in there.


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

[User] How are seedless watermelon grown if they are seedless?

[Assistant]
They are the result of breeding diploid watermelons (two sets of chomosomes) with tetraploid watermelons (4 sets).  The resulting seeds when grown are triploid watermelon plants.

Triploid organisms are almost always sterile, because the odd number of sets of chromosomes can't line up properly during meiosis.  Seedless triploid watermelon plants are exposed to regular pollen, and the plants then make fruit but no seeds.  Seeds are the next generation of watermelons, and in this case, the triploid melons can't make seeds.

Most animals can't handle having more than two sets of chromosomes - almost all are diploid.  Plants can sometimes become tertraploid due to errors in reproduction.  Unlike animals, many plants can handle having 4 or even 6 sets of chromosomes.


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

[User] If we were able to capture a blackhole 55 million light years away, how come we haven't been able to capture milkyway's blackhole yet which is just 25000 light years away?

[Assistant]
They have been working on it, and observations have already been taken. But it actually has come out a bit trickier than M87.

Basically, the black hole shadow they're imaging has a diameter proportional to the mass of the black hole. This is unusual in astrophysics - usually the density of a type of object is either constant, or actually *increases* with mass, which means that if something is 8 times the mass, it's got 2x the diameter, or even less.

So, very massive black holes have a very big diameter for their mass. This means that it's quite achievable for a very massive but distant supermassive black hole to actually look similar in size on the sky than a nearby but smaller supermassive black hole. The supermassive black hole in M87 is so big that it actually comes out to be roughly the same apparent size as the Milky Way's black hole. It may be 2000 times further away, but it's also almost 2000x bigger, so it cancels out.

Sgr A\* in our Milky Way does turn out to be a little bit trickier to image though. As we are looking through the plane of the Milky Way, there is more dust and gas in the way to deal with. Also, Sgr A\* is somewhat south in the sky, so it's a little bit trickier to get good long observations from all around the globe (especially from the Northern Hemisphere). M87 is a little north of the celestial equator, and is a bit easier to see from everywhere. It comes down to the technical details in the end.


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

[User] How much of an influence do parents ACTUALLY have on their children's development?

[Assistant] It can be substantial or minimal, depending on the parents.  If parents spend a lot of time with their children in the preschool years and stay engaged once school starts, their influence is tremendous and important.  If parents (or the parent) is spending every waking hour working to support the child and the child spends most days under the care of babysitters or daycare workers, their influence is much less.  If parents just dont give a damned, then their influence is still significant, but for all the wrong reasons.


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

[User]
[General] How do universes with multiple god pantheons and mythologies work (E.g. Percy Jackson, God of War)? How are the conflicts between the mythologies resolved?

For example, the Greek, Egyptian, and Norse gods all have wildly different versions of the creation story, so how can they all be true in the Percy Jackson universe? Or the afterlife. Each of these religions have their own gods of death/underworld, but they all somehow exist concurrently. So which afterlife is the "real" one? Etc.

[Assistant] Speaking for the Percy Jackson universe, they're all true, can't remember if it's the first series of books or the Carter Kane books but they say when you're receiving judgment in the underworld, you see it however you want/expect to see it. So if you're a Christian you'll see St Peter and all that, but if you're an atheist you just won't see anything. So in the Percy Jackson universe they're all true depending on what you believe as an individual.


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

[User] What's the difference in training Maul would have gotten as an assassin instead of a true Sith Lord? Did Vader get any Sith training? (Star Wars)

[Assistant]
Most Sith are given just the basics of Force training, and then encourages to discover their own path. This is how Maul was trained, and it was how Vader trained his apprentice Galen Marek.

Vader himself (and Tyrannus) never got any additional training, since they were quite adept at the Force when they became Sith.


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

[User] [Ghost in the Shell] If the appearance of a cyborg body can be made to look like anything, are there middle-aged and elderly people that get put into 25-year old (looking) bodies to feel young?

[Assistant] Yes. In *Stand Alone Complex*, there was one episode with a villain who was elderly but was using a young-looking cyborg body. In *Arise*, the Major is shown a wedding where the bride and groom are both elderly but using younger bodies (and the bride is pregnant). That's at least two continuities where this is done, and if someone has a fully prosthetic body, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to use a younger-looking one.


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

[User] [The Expanse] If a ring shared an orbit with a planet, what would happen when they collided?

[Assistant]
The rings are all positioned close to the outer edges of their solar systems, away from large concentrations of matter and near the top of the star's gravity well.

Since the rings seem to have existed in those positions for over a billion years (give or take), it seems logical that they have some way to handle potential collisions.

I suspect that if a massive object approached a ring, the ring would use intertialess propulsion (like Eros) to move out of the way and then return to its original position.

The alternative is that there used to be a *lot* more ring gates, and the 1,300 or so that remain are the lucky few that survived in especially empty or stable systems.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] It's implied (if not outright stated) that Gandalf and Sauron have a lot more power than they're actually throwing around in the War for the Ring. What's holding them back, why don't they cut loose?

Gandalf only uses his magic sparsely, and almost never in combat, and Sauron only ever acts through lackeys. They both seem like they've got a greater well of power they could use in magical slugfest, but they don't.

Are they being held back by some rule or limitation, or is it more of "nuclear deterrent" situation?

[Assistant]
In Gandalf's  case, Literal God has forbidden him from doing so. He's here to guide, not to take over.

Sauron, meanwhile, doesn't *have* his power- the majority of it in the ring. That's why he wants the ring back so desperately,  why keeping it out of his hands is so important, and why destroying it utterly ends him as a threat. Once he has it he'll crush everything but, for  now, he's at a fraction of his power.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does everything get much louder when your ears 'pop'?

[Assistant] The difference in pressure on your eardrums interferes with it vibrating freely. Imagine two drums. With one you strike it normally and with the other you push down the face with one hand while striking it with the other.


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

[User]
ELI5 why it is much more difficult to send a satellite to the sun than it is to send it outside the solar system.

A friend told me that with the current engineering we cannot send a satellite to the sun (just reaching it, not survival) because we would have to nullify the velocity of earth with respect to the sun. I'm not sure I understand and not sure if that is true.

[Assistant] Its easy to send something into orbit around the sun. Its hard to send something INTO the sun. This is because anything that is launched from the earth is already orbiting the sun. To send something into the sun it has to be accelerated in the opposite direction we're orbiting which is about 67000 miles per hour. That takes a lot of energy and fuel.


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

[User] ELI5: If I don't shower for 3 days I smell so bad. Why can animals go for forever without washing and not smell when humans get nasty so quick and also require wiping?

[Assistant]
1. Lots of animals do smell.
2. Lots of animals have figured out their own way of bathing.
3. Society has decided that "normal human muskiness" is a bad smell and that lavendar and irish springs is what a human is supposed to smell like.


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

[User] ELI5: In Youtube, why do I see a difference between the 720p setting and the 1440p setting even though I have a 720p monitor?

[Assistant]
Because youtube videos are heavily compressed, so the higher bitrate of the 1440p stream effectively leaves you with a *better* 720p stream once it's resized to 720p.  You'd get pretty much the same benefit if it were actually possible to get a 720p youtube stream with the bitrate of a 1440p stream.

(One note, this depends on the source material being relatively high quality.  The original recording from, say, a cell phone likely isn't to contain enough information to really benefit from a higher bitrate stream)


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What was so exemplary about Qui Gon Jin that he became the first force ghost ever to exist?

Or is it that all other Force Ghosts went unrecorded?

[Assistant] It wasn't that Qui Gon was better than, say, Yoda or Mace Windu, it's that he followed a slightly different system referred to as "The Living Force".  While it's not a main teaching of the Jedi Temple, it is compatible with their belief.  For that reason, Qui Gon was highly respected, but seen as a slightly loose cannon.  At the end of the day, he was acknowledged as a master, but not added to the council of masters.  Becoming a force ghost was a rare technique that most Jedi masters didn't know.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does running cold water at the end of my shower get rid of the steam faster than venting it?

I don't like having a wet muggy bathroom, but when I take a long hot shower, it's usually humid for a couple hours after. It doesn't matter if I turn the ceiling vent on, or if I direct hot air or cold air into the bathroom. It's still pretty damp.

On the other hand, if I switch the water to almost uncomfortably cold while I'm rinsing the last of the soap off, the steam disappears instantly and the bathroom feels a lot fresher.

Why does cold water work better than other methods that feel more intuitive?

[Assistant] The water in the air condenses onto the cold water and is carried down the drain. Its just like the water condensing onto your mirrors, except that water has to evaporate again later, and your mirrors are probably warmer than the coldest setting in your shower.


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

[User]
[Marvel] [Iron Man 2] Is it possible to survive being twisted 180, that the operator of the Hammer Tech Drone may have gone through? What would be the ramifications?

In the 2010 Iron Man 2, that operator of the Hammer Tech Drone went through a complete 180 turn of his torso.

Is it possible to survive that? What would be the injuries and long term effects?

[Assistant] Real world its entirely survivable.  In his situation doubtfully so.  You'd sever your spinal cord which is immediate paralysis and all muscles and organs and bones caught near the twisting section would at best shear in a semi uniform fashion at worst rip and tear in ragged ways.  Your most immediate threat is shock and blood loss.  Assuming you can get the wound cauterized or enough blood into your system to keep your blood pressure up you have decent odds of surviving.  Any organs affected such as liver kidneys and colon will need to be replaced by machine functions as transplants would likely be impossible.  You'd have total amputation of anything near or below the twist point as the damage would be too extensive to repair.  You'd at best live in a wheelchair with a carefully structured diet daily dialysis treatments and probably shit in a bag.  No sex no drinking alcohol no walking ever again and possible excruciating pain from nerve endings not fully destroyed.  In the film the soldier is likely dead as his armor wouldn't be able to stop internal bleeding and it'd take so long to remove his armor to affect emergency first aid or surgery he'd be dead before they got his chest piece off.  If he'd survived the mcu has near magical technology just lying around so he'd get a talking animal sidekick and a half robot half ninja replacement lower body and become a true hero.


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

[User]
[MCU] If Quick Silver broke his leg or was otherwise unable to run, could he crawl or hop really fast?

If so, fast enough to dodge bullets?

[Assistant] I would assume so, because it's not like when he runs only his legs move fast, everything else about him becomes fast too. While taking out one of his legs surely would be a hinderance, it wouldn't totally immobilize the rest of his bodies capability of inhuman speed. So he could still likely dodge bullets, but only from farther distances.


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

[User] How is it possible to measure the diameter of distant stars?

[Assistant]
There are basically 3 different ways:

1) When the moon passes a star, you can measure how long it takes for the star to completely dim. From this you can use it to calculate the diameter.
This only works with a few bigger stars, that are not to far away.

2) Many stars you see are actually 2 stars orbiting each other. When the rotation is aligned, so that we see one pass the other, we can measure this is a dip in the brightness. From this you can calculate both their diameters.

3) You can look at the colour spectrums and brightness of stars. The Temperature of the star determines it's colour and the brightness is the total energy output. If a star is bigger with the same energy output/ brightness as another star it is colder, thus shines red, because the same energy is distributed to more surface. On the opposite, more Energy on less surface is a hotter star, that shines blue.
From the correlation between the colour(spectrum) and the brightness (You definitely have to consider distance there) you can also calculate their diameter.

For all these, you also need to know the distance to the star, that you can calculate with the parallax, the slight differences of their position in the night sky, when the earth moves around the sun.


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

[User] ELI5: If you drive down the road and you roll two back windows down about 30% of the way, it creates a sound that shakes your eardrums. What/how is that happening?

[Assistant]
The British inventor James Dyson would call this phenomenon buffeting and markets fans that avoid this choppy movement of air for lots of money.

If you study the aerodynamics of a vehicle when travelling at speed with the rear windows open, youll learn that air instead of diverting round the cabin of the car, it rushes in (like side air intakes of a sports car) but then has nowhere to go, so it fills the cabin with air very quickly and forces out air at a relatively high pressure, hence why you feel this sensation in your ears.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How do Dementors sense souls?

If they couldn't "see" Sirius Black's soul while he was a dog, how do they know when there's a human soul in front of them for them to slurp?

[Assistant] Dementors feed on the positive emotions experienced by people, and therefore recognize humans as walking food reservoirs. Because animals have much less developed senses of "self," as well as hazier memories and obscurer emotional experiences, Dementors receive little to no benefit from interacting with them, and largely ignore their presence.


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

[User]
Eli5: what exactly is a vitamin?

And eg when I take a vitamin b12 supplement pill, what are its contents and how do they interact with my body at the cellular level?

[Assistant]
The word "vitamin" just means "a specific chemical that your body needs but cannot make itself, so must be acquired through diet".

Vitamins are quite diverse from each other, and all have a variety of properties. Each one does something different - the term "vitamin" doesn't describe their specific use.

Vitamin C, for example - it's chemical name is ascorbic acid or ascorbate. It's a type of sugar-acid, similar to glucose. We need small amounts of ascorbate to assist our natural enzymes to create collagen, a protein used to make bone, skin, connective tissue and other essential structural bits. Without an external supply of ascorbate, your body cannot effectively repair wounds, because it can't create collagen.

This eventually leads to scurvy, which can be fatal - you can look up the effects of scurvy if you're interested.


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

[User]
ELI5 - If radiation is like small particles shooting outward and through objects, how do objects stay radioactive for long amounts of time?

How is it that objects can become radioactive, if they weren't already? And how come radioactivity lingers for so long?

[Assistant]
radioactive particles are released when unstable atoms decay into a more stable form.  this process is random but has a measurable rate, so e.g.  uranium-235 has a half life of 700 million years, so if you have a mass of that material, after 700 million years about half of the atoms will have decayed into thorium-231 (which itself has a half life of around 25 years)

as for why it can steadily put out radiation and last that long, there's a lot of atoms in a chunk of something.

as for becoming radioactive, when neutrons are released by radiation, they can be captured by other atoms, changing the number of neutrons in the nucleus and making it unstable.  unstable atoms decay, and that process releases radiation.

alternatively, and more likely what you're thinking of, in the case of stuff like chernobyl:  the dust and ash contained radioactive material from the reactors, and the dust got caught in  people's clothing, hair, etc. and continued to give off radiation. that was why they had to discard all the clothes and protective equipment from people who were in the area.


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

[User] [Halo] Can there be multiple (opposed) Graveminds at one time? And if so, could Flood from one faction "infect" Flood from another?

[Assistant]
Yes. The "Proto-Gravemind" we saw on Installation 04, inside the Truth and Reconciliation bridge out of Keyes and other biomass existed at the same time as the one on Delta Halo (the "gravemind" gravemind). Although the one on 04 hadn't finished yet, it would have.

Flood are fairly self sufficient, and are programmed to try to create a gravemind once they achieve sufficient biomass.

Most likely, when two flood groups find each other, they would merge, and the two graveminds would conglomerate into one, massive, gravemind. After all, they are but one organism.


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

[User]
CMV: Regardless of circumstance, marijuana use should be punished less severely then assault

In regards to Josh Gordon's suspension for a year for trace amounts of marijuana vs Ray Rice's 2 game suspension after beating up his fianc, I think that you cannot possibly argue that this is fair, or Gordon deserves this. The biggest reason I've seen for arguments against Gordon is that he is a multiple time offender, but seriously, Rice beat up his fianc in an argument. I don't care if Gordon smoked up every hour of every day, this will never be as harmful as assault.

But please, show me the error of my way and change my view.

[Assistant] Does Rice deserve a more harsh punishment than Gordon? Sure, but Gordon's punishment is still fair. Part of the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the NLFPA (the players' union) is a substance abuse policy. The players and the league agree that the use of certain substances are prohibited and that they agree to certain testing procedures and punishments. This agreement includes punishments for multiple offenders, which Gordon is. Gordon broke a rule multiple times that the union which he is a member of agreed to. As such, his representatives agreed to the terms for players to play in the NFL and to the potential punishments for breaking these terms. Gordon broke these terms, and was punished as this agreement calls for. Rice broke a different part of this agreement for the first time, which calls for more general punishment which is more up to the discretion of the commissioner. These are two completely different situations, and trying to compare them is no different than comparing apples and oranges.


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

[User] [superman] Why did the kryptonians who are always shown as almost infinity wise and advanced. with knowledge spanning galaxies worth of cultures and science simply die when their planet was destroyed. Why didn't they have other worlds colonized ideally under a yellow sun?

[Assistant]
In Silver-age continuity Jor-el, Supermans father, was the first one to build a working rocket.  Thats how he and Supermans mother met. She was a hot-shot pilot and he built a second rocket to rescue her after the first one crashed. Kryptons gravity made getting off planet damn near impossible.

The Science Council was slow to embrace this new technology, but allowed limited space exploration and  they even had a colony on one of Kryptons moons. Even this was ended when some idiot used a rocket to blow up the moon with the colony on it, killing millions.

The science Council banned further manned space travel  and made Jor-El swear he wouldnt send some poor sucker into space. Jor-El agreed but continued his rocket experiments with unmanned probes, robots, and animals, which was why Krypto survived the destruction of Krypton.

The reason the Science Council didnt believe him about the core instability is because they thought he was just trying to get more funding for his rocketry. Also, while most Kryptonian scientists were experts in multiple fields, Jor-El only minored in geology.


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

[User] ELI5: How do vector graphics work so that they can be scaled to any size?

[Assistant]
With bitmap images, the computer is told "the pixel at coordinate *x, y* is color *n*." Zooming just means each grid looks bigger and more block-like.

With vector images, the computer is given detailed instructions for the overall image, not just point by point. In effect, the computer is told, "Draw a line of color *n* with length *l* at an angle *a*" (or curves with diameters, etc). It's dealing with step-by-step overall instructions, not just individual coordinates.

When you zoom in on an image like this, it's just following the same instructions, but since the instructions are independent of the individual pixels, it can provide more detail, as well.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40k] Is the concept of PTSD a thing amongst common Imperial Guardsmen?

[Assistant]
In one of the Caiphas Cain books it's mentioned that there's a planet called Sigma Pavonis which has a major medical facility where guardsmen who are no longer useful due to combat fatigue are sent to recuperate, enough people have been sent there that "going siggy" has become a colloquialism.

 It's worth noting that you probably won't be sent there until you're no longer useful even as cannon fodder at your commissar or commanders discretion. Also the same planet is major producer of combat servitors which may or may not be related.


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

[User]
ELI5: Would there be any side effects if human started breathing 100% O2?

So when we inhale, we not only breath in O2, but also nitrogen and Co2 (Oxygen 21%, Nitrogen 79% and Carbon dioxide 0.04%). What would happen if a human being would only breath in 100% Oxygen? Can person survive in such environment?

[Assistant] There is a thing called oxygen poisoning which is the result of too much oxygen in the lungs. However if you lower the pressure you end up with just as much oxygen as in normal atmosphere. This is used in some space capsules and in space suits.


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

[User]
Death penalty, Correction centers and society

It is quite easy to jump to judgement of someone who killed, raped another human being. Lock them up and throw away the key right? Whos with me? Well it is my hope that as a society, we can say wait lets hold on for a second. Doesnt that make us animals, being ruled by emotion rather than rationale.

Sometime ago I watched one of the Netflix series on criminals on death row. One specific trend that can easily been seen is that they all had specific circumstances in their early childhood, whether sexually abused or radically traumatized in one way or another. In other words, we could posit that it is society who made these humans into criminals. Our societies failures create these criminals. Shouldnt it be societies responsibility then to fix them? After all the prisons are so called correctional facilities.

I am in no way saying that guilty parties should be allowed to walk, but shouldnt we as a society rethink our system? Neurological research shows that dysfunction in the brain can lead to such acts of violence in individuals, some scientists go as far as saying that these individuals cannot control themselves in the moment. The fact is that these people can be fixed with treatment, and thus should be allowed to come back into society to provide some sort of benefit. After all it is a human life.

May 1st 2011, Obama came on the television screen in the hospital to announce that Osama Bin Laden was killed, quickly thereafter the news organization turned to showing people cheering, embracing and celebrating this achievement. At the same moment the doctor of a close friend of mine walked into the waiting room to announce that he has passed. In this moment, no form of celebration from my side was possible, rather it was fairly enraging that someone can celebrate the death of another person after all it is a human life, enemy or not.

The death penalty shouldn't ever be used, unless even after incarceration they continue to be a danger both to staff and others. The irony of capital punishment is that it is a legal form of murder, murder by jury (society). But, murder it is nonetheless.

I would like to hear your thought, opinions, rationale? Am I completely wrong on this, is there some truth to my opinion?

[Assistant] You may find Pereboom's "Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life" and *Living Without Free Will* chapter 6, and Smilansky's "Pereboom on Punishment - Funishment, Innocence, Motivation, and Other Difficulties" and "Hard Determinism and Punishment: A Practical Reductio" helpful.


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

[User]
Eli5: Why do animals wag their tails when theyre happy?

Mostly doggos but also other animals!

[Assistant] Social signalling is important for pretty much any animal! Wagging tails just developed that way for dogs for some reason. Just like smiling for humans, at some point the arbitrary action became the signal for happiness, then that got socially (and a little biologically) reinforced for thousands of years until it became a universal sign.


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

[User]
[MCU] What would have been the next steps of Thanos, if Loki had won the batlle of New York against the Avengers?

You know, iron man doesn't save the day; and somehow Loki and his army conquer Earth.

[Assistant]
Loki would deliver the space stone and presumably give back the mind stone.

The remaining time stone would be tracked down in NY, and Thanos would probably hunt down the rest in the same manner as IW.


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

[User] [Interstellar] So.... Are the Americans the only ones who made it to space by the end of the movie? We know that India was functional because of that drone from the beginning, did we just abandon them? How many people were left to die?

[Assistant]
That drone was actually abandoned, that's why it was flying around the world randomly before they brought it down.

We don't know who else made it up but I'd imagine that NASA gave the info to other countries. The people who ran it seemed like the type.


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

[User] ELI5: how does the enamel on our teeth wear away and why can't we grow enamel back on out teeth?

[Assistant]
The enamel in your teeth is made from mainly Calcium and Phosphate, and is complexed together in the form of a mineral called hydroxyapatite.

The mineral is very sturdy, making enamel one of the hardest substances in the body, but it's vulnerable to demineralisation when it's exposed to acids in the mouth, usually made as a byproduct of bacteria breaking down sugar without oxygen.

In the presence of hydrogen ions from the acid that bacteria generate, the calcium and phosphate ions become more mobile, and can be washed off or lost. This is what causes tooth decay or caries.

The reason we can't grow enamel back is that the specialised cells that put the enamel on it in the first place don't exist anymore.

Look at it this way, teeth get their enamel while they're still underground and surrounded by blood and nutrition all around them. Once it's exposed to the outside, there are no blood vessels or supplies for any cells to come and repair it. If there were you'd notice them moving around, and even then, those cells would have a really hard time getting from place to place because of the bacteria, saliva and food that's inbetween.

TL;DR
Enamel is dissolved by acids that bacteria produce from left over food and sugar in the mouth.
It can't be regrown because the specialised cells that put it there in the first place don't exist anymore.


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

[User]
[General] What magic or technology was never really used to its full potential?

What's the most under-utilized phlebotinum in all of fiction?

For me it would be the teleporter in *The Fly* (1986). Right at the start it was already a working teleporter for objects. Power consumption didn't seem an issue either -- he drew power from the city and his funders never complained.

[Assistant]
Basically everything in the Harry Potter universe. Magic can violate basic laws of physics. If these guys got together with muggle scientists humanity could break the Kardashev scale within a few generations.

Instead they hide themselves away and have race wars.


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

[User]
[Comics] When someone like Superman hits a bad guy with a car, is he actually hurting them any worse?

Seems like he'd be nerfing himself.

[Assistant]
Levers are levers even if you swing them with superstrength. And reach is convenient in fights for many reasons.

Basically no, the steel in the car itself won't hurt the baddy worse than Supes' fist, but that steel moves at a significantly longer arm length than the fist.


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

[User] ELI5: How do "levitating" light bulbs work?

[Assistant]
Through magnetic fields.

Magnetism both allows the levitating as well as wireless energy transfer.

The are many ways to design them. Most need a way to prevent the bulb from escaping the magnetic field.


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

[User]
[Masters of the Universe] How is Skeletor able to make /p/, /b/, and /m/ sounds?

He has no lips!

[Assistant]
Skeletor's skull is magically enchanted through dark magic, which he gained through Hordak. As such, he is able to talk as a result of said magic, which makes up for any deficiencies.

You might also note that he would be unable to make any sounds which require a soft palate, such as the "T" noises,  "D," "K," "L," "N," and others.

That same magic also allows him to see, as he has no eyes.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why was the death star used on Scarif when there were few Rebels on the ground and a fleet in space to block reinforcements?

Seems like a waste of resources and loyal soldiers. The garrison would soon find all the rebel scum.

[Assistant]
1. Tarrkin wanted to test the station. He'd been hearing for a long time how destructive this station was, but hadn't seen a really good demonstration of its power.

2. The planet had a data transmitter. The Rebels don't need to survive, they just need to survive long enough to transmit the stolen data away.

3. There really weren't that many imperial resources in the planet, and certainly none that are more valuable than keeping the Death Star plans out of the hands of the rebels.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] How is the holodeck, which appears to be a small room when turned off, able to simulate wide open places, in which people are able to walk long distances?

For example, it has been turned into a wild west town, Mark Twain's San Francisco, and Dickens' London...

[Assistant] The "Floor" is made of forcefields on the holodeck. As the occupant walks around the forcefield slides under them like a treadmill , while projecting what should be around them , around them. Essentially each person in a holodeck, if they leave the simulated vicinity of each other are surrounded by their own personal hologram as they wander, when really they remain only a short distance apart.


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

[User] [Dilbert] What does Dilbert's company actually make/do?

[Assistant] They don't actually make anything.  They try to make software, but nothing ever works so they just ship products that are incompatible with themselves.  This was described in detail in "Fugitive from the cubicle police".


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't energy be made/destroyed? Does that mean we will eventually run out of energy?

[Assistant]
>Why can't energy be made/destroyed?

This is actually a *really* deep question that we're not entirely certain is correct, *but* from every system we have ever interacted with or otherwise studied, we have observed that energy must be conserved in the process. Energy doesn't just spontaneously come into existence (or leave it); if it did, it would cause all sorts of odd things to happen that we would have noticed by now.

Furthermore, if you buy that matter is stuff, and matter and energy are related through relativity (e = mc^2), then it seems relatively straightforward; a set amount of stuff existed in the Big Bang, and that set amount of stuff hasn't increased or decreased in size, number, amount, or whatever since the Big Bang.

>Does that mean we will eventually run out of energy?

Yes and no. Energy isn't destroyed; when you use energy, it doesn't suddenly go away, it's just transformed into a different kind of energy. That energy is dissipated into the Universe and is no longer usable for any process. Eventually, when all energy in the Universe is dissipated in such a way, no process will be possible anywhere. This is the idea of the Heat Death of the Universe.


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

[User] ELI5: What led to the relative death of rent control in North America?

[Assistant] People didn't believe the economists until they saw the effects. Then they saw that price controls really did reduce supply and funnel the remaining units to well-connected tenants who could pay for someone to hook them up with a rent-controlled apartment (i.e., rich people). Price controls mean there is less to go around, so only rich people get the goods. So the policies mostly died.


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

[User]
ELI5: How country borders are determined?

How are country borders decided to begin with and how are they enforced? What events decides/decided how large a country is/was?

[Assistant]
A lot of factors come into play here -

(1) Village/town/city boundaries can constitute the limits of a border. (Think Singapore)

(2) Geographic features and Rivers can often act as agreed upon borders.

(3) Historical military expansion and settlement can redraw borders. Some countries are even sometimes absorbed into larger ones, whilst collapse may cause a large nation to break into many smaller states (Such as Ukraine, Kazakhistan, etc breaking away from the USSR)

(4) Old Principalities or Kingdoms predicate modern nation states in some areas of the world.

(5) Treaties and agreements between states - often imperial powers - dictating where to draw the lines on the map (notice all the straight lines in Africa?). This also touches upon your second point of enforcement. Usually states have a map encompassing regions which they lay claim to and if it's an undisputed claim then it's recognized internationally through treaties and normal diplomatic relations. The problem comes when two countries lay claim to the same area at which point things become messy. (Think Kasmir between Pakistan and India). Countries either sort this out by holding diplomatic talks and hopefully resolve it peacefully, or they can go to war and occupy the disputed territory.


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

[User]
[Assassin's Creed] All of the protagonist Assassins are invited to a cross-timestream house party. Who befriends or annoys who?

I was thinking, the Assassins tend to have differing personalities but generally stick to either stoic and professional or charming and impulsive. I had the impression that at a party Ezio and Arno would be chatting up women and bonding over their similar exploits in Europe, Jacob and Edward would be the keg-chugging duo that instantly become BFFs and start drunken bare knuckle brawls with anyone that looks at them funny.

Altair and Evie and Connor would be standing to the side, judging the actions of their peers and complaining about their lack of restraint, possibly moving to a quieter room to discuss assassin techniques, using the rare opportunity to learn from each other. Desmond would probably be the bartender, sticking to what he knows. Or perhaps trying to chat up Aveline, I can't see him mingling with the other Assassins too much. Then you'd have the Initiate and Abstergo employee that don't really have much of an identity and aren't really liked very much by others. Perhaps it's due to their androgynous appearances, noone can determine their genders (or much else about them for that matter) which might be discerning. They'd probably stay out of sight because the last time they were the center of attention they didn't make many friends.

What do you think? Would Arno and Ezio hang out? Perhaps Altair would be doing a kegstand with Connor while Jacob and Connor discussed politics over a nice bottle of Chardonnay?

[Assistant] Kenway would stumble in, dead drunk, raid the bar, antagonise both Arno and Jacob for being mainlander French and British respectively, make off colour jokes about the size of his mast to Evie and the leap out of the closest window head first and pass out in the gutter outside loudly singing bawdy sea shanties.


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

[User] What would happen if the Earth became tidally locked with the moon? What if the moon were always above, say, Africa?

[Assistant]
If the earth were to be tidally locked with the moon, one of two things would have to happen. The moon orbital period would have to speed up to 24 hours, or the rotation of the earth would slow down to 27 days.

In the first case, the moon would go flying off into space and we wouldn't have a moon anymore. Or it would have to be *much* closer, which would wreak havoc with tides and weather. If somehow it could stay the same distance and have its period decreased to 24 hours, then it would affect the tides by making them more constant. Currently they fluctuate based on the position of the sun and moon and the earth's orientation at the time, but it would shift to just being about the orientation of the planet and where you currently are on it. High tide and low tide would be different in Africa than the US, or Australia. It probably wouldn't be devastating, but it would be very different. There would also be no moon visible in half the world, so night time vision would be more difficult.

In the second case, it would probably be apocalyptic. Imagine 27 days of light, followed by 27 days of darkness. Plant life would die, animal populations would go extinct or migrate because the daytime/nighttime hunters can't effectively hunt for almost a month at a time. Humans would die by the millions due to famine from loss of crops. We might be able to survive as a species by harvesting plants that have short growing period, and managing livestock populations, but it would be bad for a long time.


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

[User]
[General TES, Skyrim] Why Are The Clearly Sentient Giants Treated So Poorly?

They build camps.

They make their own cloths.

They farm.

They have active community's.

Yet, the other races of Tamriel treat them like animals. What's with the giant bigotry?

[Assistant]
Are they treated poorly?

Sure, Giants demonstrate reasonable amounts of intelligence, but they're still incredibly primitive. Primitive to the point of where extensive interaction with them is pretty much impossible. Simply put, Giants in their current state can't really function within the civilised societies of Tamriel. As a result, Nords have a pretty simple policy when it comes to them: leave them alone and be left alone. It doesn't work perfectly, but it's better than exterminating them and removing the threat or attempting the impossible task of assimilating them.

I'd say they're as treated as well as they possibly can be.


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

[User]
[Fallout] Does the average person living in the wasteland know that the world ended?

Do they know about the Great War in 2077 or anything about the old world? I know the Vaults would pass down some of that info, but I mean there are people today who know nothing about what the world was like 200 years ago.

[Assistant]
The average wastelander probably know of the Great War as they live in the results of that war, but likely nothing beyond that nor would they care.  You do have folks who are interested in the past for various reasons:  Abraham Washington in Rivet City for example.  But sometimes these amateur historians tend to get things wrong.  Baseball wasn't a blood sport, Moe.

And there are also ghouls that were alive prior to the War and may pass on pre-war knowledge to anyone who would listen.  It is also possible that salvagers and prospectors would glean information from still working terminals in the buildings that they were looting.

The various factions and organizations (Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, the Institute, the NCR) likely have the most accurate historical records but shape the narrative to fit their own agendas.


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

[User] A probability question that frying my mind and I could use help with. I generate a random number out of 333. My friend also generates a random number out of 333. What is the probability of us generating the same number?

[Assistant]
You generate some number with probability 1.

Then your friend has the probability to generate the same number with probability 1/333.

Total probability is therefore 1  1/333 = 1/333.

(This is, of course, assuming you're generating the numbers using the uniform distribution.)


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

[User]
Tips for Reading Foucault

So, I've just begun reading through Foucault's "The History of Sexuality" (about 50 pages so far). Up till now I have, for the most part, "ignored" some of the stranger meanings carried by his language and word choices, and just tried to focus on getting the "gist" of what I felt he was trying to say in a passage/chapter, however, I am becoming increasingly unsure whether I am reading "properly". I am wondering whether anyone might be able to give me an idea of how seriously I should be taking some of his stranger descriptions throughout the book?

An example of such a passage:

"...all this made the family, even when brought down to its smallest dimensions, a complicated network, saturated with multiple, fragmentary, and mobile sexualities."

Looking at this passage, I can get a sense (I think...) of the point Foucault is trying to make. But how specific are words choices such as "fragmentary" and "mobile" here? Are they merely meant to illicit certain notions within the reader, or do they have a more precise purpose?

[Assistant]
As a general practice, it never hurts to read philosophical texts once to get the gist, or at least an impression. But then it's good to read it again to try focus on details, structure, argumentation. Maybe just bank on reading it twice?

As for peculiar words and phrases--it's good you're noting them. Often asking yourself what about these is unclear or attention-worthy can lead to insightful readings of the texts.

The bottom line is to read more than once and to notice when you're noticing.


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

[User]
ELI5:When a criminal offence becomes legal, what happens to the prisoners who were convicted of it?

Example: What would happen to all those people who were imprisoned for drug possession/sale if/when weed becomes legal?

[Assistant] In most jurisdictions, they would continue to serve out their sentence unless the executive branch decided to explicitly offer pardons. The idea that *changes in law don't take effect backwards in time* (i.e. changes are not retroactive) is generally an important principle of law and is a constitutional requirement in some places. This also means that you can't be charged with a crime if the act wasn't a crime at the time you committed it.


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

[User]
[A Christmas Carol] What disease was Tiny Tim suffering from?

The symptoms were vague, and likely common for many diseases that regularly struck the world of poor King George-era London -- an area shrouded in polluted smog from many buildings, with poor sanitation and street cleaning services.  The most obvious guess, I suppose, would be polio, as evidenced by his lack of muscular growth and need to use a crutch.  However, with proper care in those days before regular vaccination, Tiny Tim did recover after Scrooge was able to pay for treatment.  So, whatever disease it was, it was cured (or placed in remission) through the use of medication, more healthy diet, and at worst a possible operation.  Any suggestions as to what it was?

[Assistant]
Renal Tubular Acidosis or Rickets most likely.

The other more generalised suggestion is that Tiny Tim was crippled and suffering from severe starvation/malnourishment, and his body was in no fit state to fight off infections and sicknesses like the flu or the worsening symptoms of the common cold (of course made worse by the extreme cold and his physical well-being prior to contracting these viruses).


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

[User]
[Vampire the Masquerade]In the Middle ages vampire kind in Europe seriously considered making war on humans due to the rising risk that they posed. Instead they implemented the masquerade. Supposing that they did go to war and try to enslave mankind, was there any reasonable likelihood of success?

instead they made the Camarilla. Would they have stood any chance at all if they try to take over mankind?

[Assistant]
Highly unlikely, hence the implementation of the masquerade to begin with.

Keep in mind that vampires aren't the only supernatural force in the world, and many of the other things going bump in the night are perfectly capable of killing kindred, particularly the higher generations.

Open war would ruffle enough feathers that many kindred would meet their end at the hands of a werewolf pack, or by magical flame. It may also cause a marked increase in the number of humans with True Faith, presenting problems of their own.


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

[User]
[DC] Just how smart is the Joker?

This is a man smart enough to outsmart the Bat yet constantly fail. And while sometimes he is all for killing him, he has also said that he wants to keep him around because he is fun. His decision to screw with Superman created an alternate reality. What is he capable of against other heroes, or even Lex Luthor?

[Assistant]
Well, "smart" isn't necessarily the question. His genius is in his unpredictability. He doesn't outsmart the Bat so much as out-random him. Batman is capable rationale human being when the Joker is anything but. Put it this way, Batman could win at poker against almost anyone by studying their strategies and learning their tells. But play against the Joker, and go all in on a garbage hand and fold with a full house. What's more, he'll deal himself 10 cards and only give you two. If you tell him that's against the rules he won't care and make you play on his terms.

In the end, he only has one goal - create chaos. Fortunately for him, the destination is also the journey.


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

[User]
Why does river sediment create fertile soil?

As a river rushes past rocks, it erodes them, and some salts dissolve. When it slows down, the bits of rock sediment, and I have always read that this creates very fertile soil. However, isn't the sediment mostly sand, as anything that could be useful to plants must be water soluble and therefore wouldn't sediment?

[Assistant]
There's also lots of life in the river: algae, fish, fish poop, dead leaves falling in from trees nearby. All of these decompose into organic compounds (e.g. Humid acid), and those organic compounds also sediment out when the water slows down.

Organic mater makes very fertile soil (it's a similar process to making compost).

Why does OM make such fertile soil? Well, as you said, the nutrients that plants need are water soluble. Let's take phosphorus as an example. OM acts like a chemical sponge. When there is a lot of phosphorus in a sandy soil, the plants suck up some of it, but a lot of it gets dissolved into the rain water and flows downstream.

But, if the soil has a lot of OM, then a lot of the phosphorus temporarily binds to the OM. Remember, it's a 'chemical sponge.' Now those phosphorus atoms won't get washed out with the rain. This keeps them around for longer. Then, plant roots can start using up the phosphorus from these OM molecules.

This property is called 'cation exchange capacity,' and is one of the standard tests that farmers have done on their soil samples to judge it's fertility.

OM isn't plant food, but it keeps plant food around in the soil for longer so the plants can keep growing.

Where does the phosphorus come from? Well it comes from dissolved rocks. When you splash some acid on a rock, it dissolves some of the minerals in the rock. You can dissolve 1kg of rock a lot faster if it has more surface area, since the acid can only make contact with the surface. So the fine sand in riverbeds has a lot of nutrients in store with a lot of surface area available for exposure to acid in the soil.

Soil bacteria also chew up OM and make carbonic acid, which is very good at dissolving minerals out of rock.

So In river sediment soils:

Some of the OM gets eaten by soil bacteria to make carbonic acid.

That carbonic acid dissolves those perfectly sized sand grains to release minerals.

The released minerals are consumed by the plants over a longer period of time, because the remaining OM particles bind to them, 'sponge them up,' temporarily to take them out of solution.

This makes a soil with a relatively constant and steady supply of plant food, i.e. a fertile soil.

Over time, if you are not adding OM, this process will eventually use it up. This isn't a problem in natural settings (e.g. Rainforest) because the plant life above ground eventually dies and falls to the ground to be decomposed. Or it gets eaten by animals and pooped out onto the ground and the manure works to add the necessary OM.

But if you're growing crops and harvesting all of the plant life and shipping it for consumption off the land, then you will use up all of the OM in the soil. Farmers for many years had this problem of 'tiring out' a farm. We now have strategies for retaining OM, although not everyone is using them.

This is also why regularly flooding river valleys were great cradles for civilization. Not only was the soil good fertile soil, but the annual floods brought in new OM, so the early farmers didn't have to learn about soil OM management. They got a fresh supply every spring thanks to Mother Nature.

It's also important to note that rivers are long (duh). This means that a lot of organic material gets collected. Think of all the trees along the whole river dropping their leaves. And then all of that OM gets deposited at one place. So the river collects OM from a wide area and deposits it in a small place. This process gives that small place an unusually high concentration of OM.

Rivers also flow through lots of geography. Maybe they start in the mountains, then travel through the hills and plains and then a valley. This means those sandy particles come from lots of different geological strata. So the sand that's releasing minerals into the soil is more likely to have a good diversity of mineral content. Maybe calcium from the mountainous rocks, phosphorous from the hilly rocks, iron from the plains, etc.

There are other factors too, like soil crumb structure, Ph, and drainage, where plants like to grow in a Goldilocks zone of not-too-much not-too-little. River sediment tends to hit those sweet spots.

Lastly, it is important to note that different plants thrive in different soil types. You won't grow a cactus in river soils. So when we talk about 'fertile soils,' we are slightly biased towards soils that are great for food crops. Because those are the plants we like most.


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

[User] Why do anti-depressants sometimes make teens and young adults suicidal?

[Assistant]
You know how when you're really down, you just want to curl up on a couch and not do anything? Well, clinically depressed people can sometimes be in that state all the time. So they might be suicidal, but they never act on it, because their depression means they don't want to act on *anything*.

Sometimes antidepressants fix the "don't want to do anything" part, but not the suicidal part.


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

[User]
What happens if a mothera child has a non-compatible blood type? What will happen when she is pregnant?

I know about the Rhesus gene and everything but what about the blood types themselves?

[Assistant] Depends; ABO incompatibility is not really an issue, Rh incompatibility is more serious but only if the mother negative and has been previously exposed to Rh(+) antigen (a previous pregnancy, blood transfusions). If the mother has been exposed and mother / baby are incompatible (mother negative, baby positive) it can lead to hemolytic disease of the fetus an autoimmune disease that breaks down the fetus blood cells and can be so severe to cause intrauterine death.


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

[User]
If I'm in a group of ten people taking turns guessing a number from one to ten, when would I be most likely to guess right?

If I guessed first, I would have a 1/10 chance of getting it right. Assuming the number is constant, the next to guess would have a 1/9 chance, but there's also a chance the first person would've already guessed it. I wouldn't put my money on a 1/10 chance, but I wouldn't want to wait to guess last either, because it would definitely have been guessed by then (probably). When would be the opportune time for someone to throw in their random number guess, somewhere in the middle?

[Assistant]
Actually, assuming the numbers are evenly distributed, everybody has a 10% chance of winning!

First person: Obviously, a 1 in 10 chance, i.e., 10%.

Second person: 90% chance the person gets to go; if she does, it's a 1/9 chance of winning, so overall odds of winning: 10%

Third person: 9/10 that second person got to go, and 8/9 that second person did not succeed, and (9/10)(8/9)=8/10, so 80% chance third person gets to go.  His odds of winning are 1/8, and so overall odds he wins are (1/8)(80%)=10%.

This just keeps on going, producing 10% odds for everyone.


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

[User]
ELI5: Are signatures a legal thing?

Could i just go my whole life alternating between different signatures or do i have to stick with one particular one?

[Assistant]
Signature has no inherit legal power in the US. It is not even required for a contract to be valid. However, it is commonly used for evidentiary purposes in a dispute to show you authorized the action.

You may change your signature at any time or use multiple signatures concurrently. The latter is rare, but recommended under certain circumstances. Just remember, a mismatching signature is a strong indication of fraud... for all potential parties, including you.


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

[User]
how is machine learning being used in the social sciences, if at all?

i know pca is a commonly used technique to make sense of high dimensional data, but is there any work using neural networks or other ml techniques?

[Assistant]
It's being used increasingly in economics. As for other social sciences, I've heard a great analogy for the use of ML:
ML techniques will tell you if you should bring an umbrella today, but it won't tell you if your rain dance worked.


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

[User]
ELI5: What in the molecular workings of plastic makes it turn yellow after a long time?

I have noticed in older houses lots of plastic that used to be white turns ye yellow. Why is that?

[Assistant]
1. Most plastics are polymers, aka they're made of extremely long repeating chain molecules linked together.
2. Sunlight has enough energy to break chemical bonds over time, and will eventually break these chains into shorter fragments, and break bonds between different chains too.
3. This one's hard to simplify. The property of "being coloured" comes from how a material's electrons are laid out and how they're able to move around. Basically there's a "sweet spot" of molecule size/length that's good at absorbing visible wavelengths of light. When some colours get absorbed, the object appears coloured since not all colours of light are reflected to your eyes any more.

Putting it together: Over time, the light breaks down the plastic until its polymer chains are short enough that they start absorbing light and appear coloured.

Related to this, for plastics that are initially transparent: the sun breaking down the plastic at a molecular level also causes "disorder" or just general damage throughout the material. What was once a more neatly packed array becomes fragmented and leads to more light being "scattered" rather than reflected or passed through. That's why clear plastics also go opaque as well as discolouring.


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

[User]
[All DC] Why are Kryptonians, and lots of other aliens, so similar to humans?

Some can even breed with us, apparently! What's up with that?

Even alien robots, like the Manhunters and Brainiacs, seem to look a lot like we do. I think pretty much every hero in the Justice League can pass for human. Even the gods - and New Gods, and Kryptonian Gods, and Old Gods - that humanity knows of seem pretty much human; and I don't *think* they can shapeshift, necessarily, right?

What gives? Has something been seeding the universe(s) with near-human life?

[Assistant]
After the universe was created the White Life Entity cocooned itself inside of the Earth, and life originated out from this point carrying with it some sort of base template - just at different rates of germination. The further the planet from Earth, the less 'human' - like the species.

Best in universe answer I've got.


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

[User] Eli5 if electric vehicles are better for the environment than fossil fuel, why isnt there any emphasis on heating homes with electricity rather gas or oil?

[Assistant]
There is, but it's slower and quieter.  You can for sure find people talking about how especially switching to heat pumps will be an important part of limiting climate change. Because they're just moving heat around instead of creating it, heat pumps can (sort of) be more than 100% efficient.  Or at least, you can use 1000 watts of electricity to bring 2500-3000 watts of heat inside.

It's slower and quieter because cars get replaced much more quickly than houses and apartment buildings do, and probably more quickly than residential climate control systems do.  Also, retrofitting heat pumps into homes that weren't designed for forced-air heating/cooling can be expensive.

In 2040, the housing stock in the US is overwhelmingly going to be the same houses and apartments we have right now, and at least a substantial minority of those places are going to be using the same heating/cooling systems they are right now.  But in 2040, the stock of cars driving around will be mostly cars built in about 2030. (unneeded word deleted)


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

[User] [Seinfeld] Why did the judge make such a commotion about four losers not reporting a crime? Sure...it's a big deal but the judge seemed to treat it like the crime of the century.

[Assistant]
The judge wanted to set a standard. Lots of times judges will drop bombshells to make it clear where the law stands on a topic.

The gang just watched and stared while someone was being mugged, that's not something he wants to become normal.


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

[User]
[Dr Who] Plot Question

Please correct me if I'm wrong. This has been bothering me for days now.

Rory Williams, husband of Amelia Pond, also known as "the last centurion" or "the boy who waited" because he guarded the pandorica for 2000 years with Amy inside. He managed this because he is a plastic robot thing with Rorys memories.

Yet... In the episode "asylum of the daleks" we learn that Amy kicked him out for his own good because he wanted babies and she can't have them because of something they did to her at Demons Run. Rory is still plastic.

In "the angels take Manhattan" we see Rory as an old man dying because the angels sent him through time. Rory who lived for over 2000 years BECAUSE HE'S PLASTIC.

Is it me? Have I missed something where he's not plastic anymore?! How can he suddenly get old and potentially have babies when he's a robot plastic man?

[Assistant] Rory isn't a fake plastic Auton at that point. He stopped being an Auton duplicate by the end of Big Bang Two, where the Doctor rebooted the universe, but 'ol Rory still retained all he memories of his plastic clone. He's all flesh and bone by that point.