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

[User]
[The Walking Dead comics] Did Negan genuinely want to die when he was confronted?

After the time jump, Rick decides to give Negan a small house and freedom in exchange that he doesn't interact with either community or try to regain his role as leader of The Saviors (basically, live as a hermit or die), and since Carl mentions him still taking supplies in the epilogue it would seem that agreement was kept even after there was no one left to really care, remember, or enforce it. However Maggie confronts him and tries to kill him after learning Rick let him go, to which he begins crying and begging her to just do it so he can be done with suffering already, but this seems strangely out of character for Negan imo.

I don't really see him as the type to beg for anything, rather if anything I expect him to ask for help and when denied he simply does without. Another detail I remember is that he had just finished making another Lucille when Maggie barged in, but after talking to her he decides to burn Lucille and be done with the past. Did he *really* want Maggie to kill him when confronted or was he trying to get exactly what he got? I know he's very charismatic and manipulative, but he also doesn't strike me as being able to cry on command or beg for his life the way he did in the comic. It's been a few years so I may be misremembering some details and completely forgetting others, but my question is still the same.

[Assistant]
Absolutely. We see that he actually did reform while imprisoned. He only became the monster that he was because he truly believed that he had to go to such lengths to secure humanities' survival. He was completely broken by losing his wife prior to the beginning of the story, and he was willing to do anything to prevent everyone from suffering the same fate. To him, that was establishing an authoritarian regime to feed and control a standing army.

But Rick showed him there was a different way. He got the communties to work together, to actually start rebuilding society. Negan watched from his cell as Rick both allowed independence within the different groups while pushing them beyond anything the Saviors could have accomplished with their protection racket. And just when he thought he had proved his reform, just when he showed his worth by actually helping, just when he was ready to rejoin society as a functioning member, Maggie reminded him just how far he had fallen.

And so he was exiled. He knew they had legitimate reasons to fear him, so he accepted his fate. But he found being alone with his thoughts and what he had done to be unbearable. Which is why he remade Lucille. He started to fall back into his old mentality, that he could take back his humanity by force again. Which scared him. He never wanted to be that person, he certainly didn't want to be him again, but the temptation was there. So when Maggie confronted him, he begged her to release him from this suffering. Yes, he truly wanted to die.


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

[User]
What constant driving force is behind Ohm's Law?

I'm coming from a chemistry standpoint and I'm wondering what constant driving force is behind the Ohm's Law model of EMF, resistance, and current (assume DC here, as from a chemical battery).  I don't like the analogy that, say, a 9V battery "tries" to provide 9V, but if the load between the terminals is small enough, then it "can't provide" 9V.  That personification bugs me.

I know of the power equation (P = V * I), but that doesn't answer my question.  I'm wondering what physical forces are behind that equation.  The model works, but I'm wondering why.  I'm guessing that some kind of chemical reaction "force" (put in quotes because it is not exactly a force, but I don't know a better term) is behind this.

Any ideas?

[Assistant] It's due to the mean-field potential that the electrons are subjected to when traveling along a conductor. All that energy takes away from the total possible energy the electrons could have, if there was no resistance in the wire. The electron's total energy would be the energy difference between both electrodes. It's also interesting to note that conductivity is not the same along all directions, there are optimum paths for the electrons to flow, and that has to do with the unit cell structure (specifically cristalline planes) and the types of atoms the material is made from.


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

[User]
Finance vs Economics

How can we differentiate Finance and Economic.
Or can we ?
Is stock market a topic under finance or economics.

[Assistant]
Finance is one tiny subfield within economics. The stock market is a topic in Finance, which is one subject within this tiny subfield of economics.

Here is the way to think about it: Someone with a Ph.D. in Economics can transition to becoming a finance professor in no time. In fact, we can be Finance professors by taking a little test while in graduate school, thus getting a "Field" specialization in finance (and making sure that some of our research in our dissertation is related to finance in some way to make it credible).  There are also several 8-week summer programs in the US that takes Econ Ph.D.s and re-credentials them as Finance professors. However, it does not work the other way around: Someone with a finance Ph.D. would have a very hard time convincing people that they could be an effective economist-- it *could* be done, but would take a very long track record of publications in econ journals.


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

[User]
How would gravity be affected if the Earth was a cuboid instead of spherical?

Specifically, what would happen if you walked to one of the "edges" and jumped or tried to walk to the other side. Would the oceans just be pulled into space from the tide caused by the moon?

Assume the axis is still 23 degrees and set up along two opposite vertexes, orbit is still the same, and moon still exists.

[Assistant] The "edges" would be perceived like mountain ridges. The oceans would be convex puddles centered on each face of the cube, far enough away from the edges that tidal forces would not threaten to approach them. In fact, each side of the cube would be 10270 km, meaning the edges would be ~7262 km from the center of the Earth while the center of the faces would be only ~5135 km, an altitude differential 100-fold larger than the 19 km difference between the Mariana trench and Mt Everest. This would have a huge impact on the atmosphere and climate, and although the surface area of the Earth would be 24% greater, most of the surface would probably be uninhabitable for humans. If you had a pressurized oxygen suit and were on the edge, you'd be 33% lighter; if you were in the center of a face (assuming no ocean occupied that face), you'd be 54% heavier.


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

[User] Why is it that gamma rays (high energy) and radio waves (low energy) can pass through everyday objects, but visible light (medium energy) can't?

[Assistant]
Materials are mostly empty space.  Though there is a nucleus at the center of each atom, it is extremely extremely small compared to the size of the space between the nuclei and effectively inconsequential to EMR passing through the material.  This "empty" space does however contain electrons.

These electrons are actually smaller than the nucleus.  However quantum physics dictates that the electrons don't actual orbit the nucleus like planets orbit a star, but there is a wave field that gives a probability of where an electron might be.  When EMR passes through the space occupied by an electron's wave field, it may or may not interact with that electron.  Whether or not EMR will interact with the electron it encounters depends on the length of the wavelength and the state of the electron.

Basically radio waves are very long and do not have the energy to interact with the electron configuration found in human bodies very well (they are however blocked out by iron -due to the nature of electron bonds in iron - or large amounts of other solid material like under a concrete bridge - due to the large amount of possible interactions in the large depth of material).  The longer the wavelength the less it interacts so submarines use ELF (extremely long frequency) to communicate underwater.  Gamma rays are very short and also very small.  They can pass through because they are more likely to just pass through the open space.

A good analogy is objects traveling through the rain.  A human (radio wave) can run through the rain and just ignore the water droplets.  A bullet (gamma ray) will miss most water droplets but the ones it hits will be destroyed.  A fly (light wave) will start getting hit by water droplets and be stopped.


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

[User]
ELI5: why are there no 'big' dogs, only cats?

Howdy howdy, I was wondering if there were any reasons (biological, physiological, geographical, etc.) as to why there aren't any tiger/lion equivalents for dogs?

Flip side then too, of why there aren't any wolfpack equivalents for cats?

Lastly if there were any instances for either which have died out, and why?

EDIT: sorry for potentially being misleading, the question wasn't so much as to whether dogs can be large, but more the chicken-and-egg argument for small size and pack hunting vs large size and solitary. Especially given that the distinction in behaviour and size goes all the back to sabretooths and direwolves.

Cheers for all the answers so far though!

[Assistant]
Because they are pack hunters, and therefore don't have an evolutionary benefit from increased size. Feline species usually hunt alone, and therefore have an advantage if they are giant sabletoothed monsters.
You should also keep in mind that chihuahuas and basically every dog 'kind' you see we not evolved that way, we artificially bred them from wolves to be cute and purse-sized.


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

[User] ELI5: How can certain foods change the flavor of a guy's ejaculate?

[Assistant]
The things you consume affect you. They affect they way you feel and the way you look. More relevant to this, they affect the way you smell and the properties of anything you excrete.

Think about how your urine or faecal matter changes with your diet. Semen is no different.


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

[User] ELI5: How are ThePirateBay mirrors decentralised when they all contain the same torrents and comments?

[Assistant]
Basically the same way Google and any other "big" Internet site does it: Replication of new entries in the database. When a new entry is added it takes a few moments (or maybe minutes) for it to get synched over all systems out there.

What makes the "huge" players like Google different is, that they managed to scale up the process by several orders of magnitude.


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

[User]
ELI5; Why do people concentrate on political win-ability rather than how honest the politician is?

Nearly every article i read talks discusses whether a nominee is leading in the polls, or how successful their strategy is.  And to make it worse, whenever i read the comments on news articles that DO talk about something substantial, the public seems to redirect the conversation back to who could win an election and who couldn't.  Why is voting for someone who is likely to win better than voting for someone who actually has good ideas?

[Assistant]
Consensus is a substantial subject, especially in the primaries, because we're such a diverse country.

If a candidate can get broad support, then that means they are in a stronger position than their competitors to *get things done.*

A gay white man won't agree on everything with a black Christian woman. She won't see eye-to-eye with a young Muslim academic, who won't 100% agree with an elderly white man who worked trades all his life, who might disagree with a Mexican immigrant. A banker won't share all the same views as a liberal activist.

In a country as diverse as ours, nobody gets all they want in a national candidate. But if a candidate can advance 80% of their goals, securing support by addressing each group's top priorities, then that is a **strong candidate.**

If someone appeals to you 100%, then odds are this person *only* appeals to people just like you. This make someone a **weak candidate** on the national stage.


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

[User]
[Star Wars]What if Luke had gone with Han in IV?

When the rebel alliance are about to go blow up the death star, Han is leaving with his money, and he invites Luke to go with him. What would have happened if Luke went with him?

[Assistant]
Yavin IV would have been destroyed, along with most of the Rebels that couldn't escape. The Rebellion loses a large portion of its leadership, as well as a lot of their financial and military support thanks to the Death Star scaring away anyone that wants to help them. The Death Star becomes the ultimate power in the galaxy, is renamed the Peace Moon and the Rebellion is essentially crushed.

Luke, Han and Chewie go and have all sorts of fun adventures in the smuggling business, which is now booming due to the Empire's tighter grip on Galactic Trade. Luke and Chewie (and Han to a lesser extent) are racked with guilt for abandoning the Rebellion in their time of need.

In short, it'd make for a good TV show/comic series in the same vein as Star Wars: Infinities.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come other mammals don't get pimples/zits?

Serious question. I get pimples some times on my head so I know they can exist when there is hair. Don't all mammals have pores? ELI5 please.

[Assistant]
It is true that other mammals get "pimples".  They are commonly seen in dogs due to skin infections (pyoderma) and on cats chins where there's a reaction to plastic food/water bowls.

You rarely see them because 1) they have coats of hair hiding them, and 2) if they are bothering the animal, they will scratch and groom it, which pops it to form an "epidermal collarette" or simply a rash where pimple was.

Source: 4th year vet student.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO?

[Assistant]
The World Bank provides funding for development projects (so if a nation wants to provide electricity to a remote, poverty stricken area the World Bank will provide a loan).

The IMF provides central bank like responses to international currency crisis.  So if trade stops because the currency has devalued the IMF will provide expert advice and financial support (usually this support is tied to market reforms that may be costly to the nation).

The WTO provides a means for nations to negotiate international trade deals, and dispute resolution when allegations of violations of said international trade deals arise.  They don't generally provide funds for projects like the other two.

All three tend to increase globalization which isn't a goal of many people, so all three organizations tend to have large groups that dislike their actions.


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

[User]
[A Sound Of Thunder] How Exactly, Does Stepping On A Butterfly In The Cretaceous Change History So A Dictator Wins An Election In The Present Day?

(The original Ray Bradbury Story, not the godawful movie)

In any time travel story, it's important to remember the rule of 'the correcting river of time' where if you go back in time and try to change something, history will try to make it so history is as much like it was before you left. If it applies to one story, or doesn't.

For example, if I time travel back to the cretaceous period and abduct a bug to bring to the present for a science project. It will either do one of two extremes.

1) Nothing, my change to the timeline will have done nothing because the timeline will be inherently resistant to change. The timestream will make it so that no changes I make have an affect on humanity evolving.

2) I will return to a timeline where Humanity never evolved and Lizard people became the dominant species.

So how then, does someone stepping on a butterfly in the cretaceous, not change the evolutionary pattern of human history. But results in a different winner of a presidential election? Two events that have seemingly no connection at all?

[Assistant]
A descendant of that butterfly would develop a genetic mutation that would lead to the caterpillars of its offspring becoming a major pest if a certain plant species. Later on that plant species is developed as a human crop species.

What a particular administration decides to promote that crop as part of their agricultural policy, the presence or absence of that pest could make the difference between the success or failure of that policy, leading to the rural vote swinging toward or away from that party at the next election.

The minor changes in langage also mentions in the story could ne due to an avid young butterfly collector twisting an ankle whilst in persuit of an example, and discovering a love for linguistics instead whilst recovering, and so ending up writing an influential book on spelling reform in previous generations. If he hadn't done that, he might have noted the potentially disastrous effects of the caterpillar on that crop...


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

[User]
[MCU] How do Asgardian superpowers work?

All Asgardians are superhuman by default, but how do the "special" ones work? Is it something they're born with, or do they have to learn magic?

For example, Valkyrie, the Warriors Three, and Lady Sif all seem to be normal Asgardians who are highly skilled warriors. Frigga also seems to be a normal Asgardian who learned her magic from witches. However, Thor, Hela, and Heimdall all have some sort of innate powers that are unique to them. I think this applies to Odin as well, but I'm not sure whether Odin's powers come from him having the title of Allfather, or because they were passed down to him from his fathers.

[Assistant]
Like the comics, it looks like the royalty of Asgard have access to the Odinforce/Thorforce. This would make them much much more powerful than the normal Asgardian.

Also, with the Love and Thunder trailer, we see that the Greek pantheon exists, so the Asgardian royal family might be literal gods.


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

[User]
ELI5:What space exists between galaxies and how does that differ from space inside a galaxy?

Is the space between galaxies the same as the space within a galaxy? How do they differ? And if they are similar, how do we tell where the galaxy "ends"?

[Assistant] Space is the same everywhere. Galaxies are just collections of matter that's all close enough to somewhat hold onto each other via gravity. The galaxy ends  where there's no more big objects like stars and such. There's always atoms and things in space so you can define a boundary in many ways, though.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does a master key work?

I know how regular locks and keys work, but I don't understand how one key could work for multiple locks. Also, pictures/diagrams would be appreciated. I'm a visual learner.

[Assistant] a lock has sets of pins in it, and those are moved by the teeth in a key.  the different heights of the teeth move gaps in the pins so that the lock barrel can be turned.  in a set of locks with a master key, there is a second set of gaps in the pins, for the master key.  this allows it to open any of the locks it is set to.


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

[User]
If gravitational potential energy is defined as PE=mgh, where does the PE go when I lift an object beyond the gravitational field of Earth and the object freely floats into space?

I know that energy is neither created nor destroyed so where does it go when I put energy into lifting a ball to such a height "h" that it is out of Earth's gravitational field?

[Assistant]
mgh is valid only for the galilean flat-earth approximation. it's still perfectly useful for mundane, human-scale velocities and small structures. small here means that, compared to the radius of the earth, the maximum dimension of the object and the range of its movement (h in your notation) has to be much much smaller than earth's radius. human-scale velocities means that we are dealing with tiny fractions of the speed of light.

Only if all of these conditions are true can we make the flat-earth approximation and claim that dynamic energy is  = mg h.
If we go far enough from the earth, its curvature and finite size become too important to be ignored. According to Newtonian gravity, the gravitational field is not constant, but inversely related to the square of the distance. For a planet of mass M, it is G(r) = G0Mr^-2: which means that the gravitational field at the initial position is not the same as that of the final one.

The gallilean approximation works because if we say that r1 = r+h1 and r2=r+h2 and h1,h2 <<r, then G(r1) = G(r2) = g(r) = g = +9,81ms^-2  (with vectors r and therefore G(r) pointing towards the center of the earth of course)

In the case you present, we have to use the newtonian approximation.
In that approximation, the further we go from earth, the smaller the gravitational field. while in theory the earth gravitational field extends infinitely outwards in the radial direction, after a certain point it becomes vanishingly small (because of that r^-2 factor). Which means that after a certain point there is no noticable dynamic energy change by going further and further away from the earth. Consider this. If we are close to the surface of mars, the earth gravitational field is still present, but, mars' gravity is a million times stronger. maybe if we approach the surface of mars a little more, mars' gravity will be 10 million times stronger. now ask yourself this: what is the difference 10.000.001 and 10.000.010?


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

[User]
[TF2] Why won't the mercenaries die?

I've seen many video logs of the same 9 guys killing each other.

[Assistant]
Clones, plain and simple.  TF Industries, a subsidiary of Mann Co, manages the mercenary contracts on both sides of the RED/BLU conflict, including cloning tech.

At the start of each day, the Mercs report to work and are subjected to a short DNA scan.  They then proceed into combat, and the scan is uploaded to cloning equipment in each sides "spawn rooms."  As soon as the merc's life signs cease, or a side decides they need another of a given class, a new merc is generated in the spawn room.  While each merc believes they work for one side or the other, through their clones they work for both sides.

To avoid an existential crisis, each clone is automatically equipped with a variety of weapons, and more importantly, hats to set them apart from the others.  As part of the cloning process, the mercs have become less likely to question their existence when the other party has any minor difference.


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

[User] eli5: I don't understand why hieroglyphics a lost language. Egypt was the biggest civilization of its time and there is no translation other than the Rosetta stone? Why?

[Assistant]
Because people didnt read back then like we do today.

The average person never, ever learned to read. The average person worked in a field, or in a workshop, produced what they needed to, and paid their taxes (which was whatever the tax collector told them to pay).

Reading was reserved for officials, Priests, and Royals.

So, what. Happens when that land gets conquered and those officials, priests, and royals are no longer in charge?

This is what happened in Egypt.

It first started with Alexander the Great who invaded Egypt in the 300s BC, installing a more Greek-Centric Dynasty there. This dynasty ruled Egypt for 300 years, and while they still used hieroglyphics, Ptolemaic Greek also started to get used/be common.

Then in the first century AD the Romans came knocking, and conquered Egypt themselves.

These romans brought Roman life with them, official writings and laws and letters started to be written in Latin, the language of the new rulers, while hieroglyphics continued to slowly die out. Which it eventually did around the 5th Century AD.

What happened was that the big important people using hieroglyphics all died/were replaced, and the following generations didnt learn it as much because there were other, more important languages to learn (Greek/Latin).

This doesnt even include the fact that Latin, having a phonetic alphabet, is arguably just an easier/more convenient language for people to learn, since you dont have to memorize so many different Glyphs.


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

[User] ELI5:What is it about a cold that makes your nose run?

[Assistant] Your body knows that foreign invaders come in through your mouth and nose, and it reacts by creating mucus to catch them.  When you have a cold, your body goes on overdrive to pump out mucus and flush the invader out.


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

[User] If all the $USD in the world was evenly distributed between all American citizens, how much money would each person get?

[Assistant]
do you mean all the cash that is in circulation, like all the US bills and coins that are out there in the world?

If so that would amount to about $3800 per person living in the US (that doesn't count American citizens living abroad, or what percentage of US residents are NOT American citizens).

If you mean the value of US accounts and investments, well that would be much higher.


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

[User]
Do you ever feel like your research is pointless?

Hi everybody. I'm in the middle of writing my Masters dissertation (in International Relations) and I'm feeling pretty hopeless. Do you ever feel like your research is pointless? Or not worth the time you've given it? Are your expected outcomes obvious, or just not that important anymore? Feeling down. Need a pick me up. At the very least, it'd be nice to know I'm not alone.

[Assistant] It is -almost- pointless.  But the fact that its value has some non-zero value is the point of academia.  Millions of papers piling up like a snowbank and then someday a single flake causes an avalanche.  You dont get to control if you are the avalanche maker or just another flake in the snowbank, all you get to control is if you wanna be a part of it or not.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there so many large species that existed in the past such as the megalodon (giant shark) and arthropleura (giant millipede), but not in the present day? Are species tending to become smaller over time?

[Assistant]
Muscle mass requires oxygen.  There was a lot more oxygen at one point.  Scientists don't know for sure if this is directly related, but it's the best theory out there.

So to put it really simple, if there is a ton more oxygen in the air (instead of so much nitrogen, which is what we have), then beasties can breathe much more into their blood and muscle tissue.  So the world develops these really big beasts because it can support them.

The same goes for oxygen levels in the ocean.

As oxygen levels have decreased over millions of years (it's still pretty high when looking at the planet's history), mammal sizes have decreased since survival of the fittest starts to favor creates that don't require so much oxygen supply to the muscles and blood.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What was Vader's official role in the Imperial Military? Supreme Commander? Special Agent? The Emperor's Special Friend?

Basically, why did this dude officially have the legal authority to call up any number of troops or equipment, run any operation he desired, and kill anyone that displease him; obviously he could do this as Sidious's apprentice,  but what was the excuse the Emperor gave to the military?

[Assistant] He is the Emperor's emissary.  This is addressed in the recent comic series, after Vader became active, he found it difficult to execute the emperors commands with no military rank or authority, nobody knew who the hell he was.  At this time he discovered a plot by a group of senior officers to assassinate him.  He brought this to the emperors attention, and the emperor convened the senior officers to introduce Vader.  He was not given a military rank, the emperor simply said "This is Lord Vader, we speak as one voice, an order from him is an order from me."  And Vader, in a display of power, force choked some of the random officers.  So he really is just the emperors special friend.


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

[User]
[Aladdin] What exactly are the limits to Genie's power?

I don't remember much about the 1992 Aladdin, but IIRC in the 2019 version Genie says he can grant any wishes except for more wishes, for someone to love them and probably some other rule I can't remember.

It got me thinking: what if the person's first wish is that the rule of not wishing for more wishes could be broken? Then with the second wish, they wish for infinite wishes and basically win.

Maybe this is impossible, then how about wishing to become the most powerful being that will ever exist in this or any other universe, minus the whole being enslaved thing? Basically a more elaborated wish compared to that of Jafar and even better than having to wish for a genie to do stuff for you because then you can do exactly what you want and not whatever the genie interprets.

If worded correctly, would the person be able to do literally anything like making someone love them, changing properties of the universe at will, creating matter and energy out of nowhere and so on? Or is there any rule that makes it impossible for the genie to grant this wish?

[Assistant]
The genie is an intelligent and sophisticated person, and isn't gonna be fooled by you asking to break his rules. He already has some degree of ability to bend the rules, as shown by him not charging Aladdin for freeing him from the cave, you can't trick him.

That said, gaining infinite wishes is easy. The genie can mind control people. You can just mind control lots of people to wish for exactly what you want. Or wish for a staff of mind control so you can force people to wish for what you want. Or find loyal people willing to wish for what you want.

Once you have infinite wishes from the genie (with a promise after x weeks to give them whatever they want, like freedom, so they don't fuck you over) you can gather other magical artifacts and items and beings who are not bound by such rules, or grant people great powers of sorcery so that they can do as you wish.


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

[User]
Why don't we use vector instead of raster?

1) Is there a difference between bitmap and raster?

2) From what I've read, vector is smaller, and can be blown up to any size without becoming blurry or pixelated. But it's only used for logos and text. Why don't we use vector for literally everything?

[Assistant]
1) bitmap is a slightly ambiguous term. It's either mapping of pixels that represent an image - which is the same as a raster image. Or it's the specific format (.bmp) which is a type of raster image (alongside things like .jpg or .png).

BMP format directly stores the data of each pixel in one big list / grid. Other formats also ultimately produce a list of pixels to be rendered, but are stored compressed in different ways.

2) Vector is smaller for images that are fundamentally shapes, or lines etc. As said elsewhere, vector formats store the mathematical representation of the images.

i.e. instead of "here is a grid of all the pixels", it's "Draw a line from the top left to the bottom right, then a circle in the middle" (obviously encoded in a more specific way).

Vector graphics are smaller and scaleable for images that can be thought of as lines or shapes (logos, text, simple drawings), but for real-world images, like a photo of somebody's face, they don't do so well, because a face with say trees in the background or whatever, can't easily be broken up into lines and shapes, and in order to accurately represent the image this way, you're essentially describing each pixel individually anyway.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] Season 1 spoilers, so in the text is the question.

How is it that that Ned gets stabbed in the leg, probably through the bone and out the other end and he's fine for the rest of the season, a guy gets both of his fingers bitten off by a dog and then laughs about it and he's fine (haven't seen past season 3), but leave it to Drogo to get a little cut on his rock hard pec and he ends up dying all over the place. HOW!? How was he not fine?

[Assistant] Drogo was unlucky and stupid. He ignored pretty much all directions on how to treat his wound, and deserts are not known to be sterile places. Besides, there aren't antibiotics in GoT, but there are bandages and casts. The first two injuries you mentioned are solvable with them. An infection isn't.


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

[User] [Pokemon] What's stopping a pokemon from immediately attacking their trainer after they've been caught?

[Assistant]
Because they don't want to hurt their new trainer of course. Encountered wild Pokemon challenge you often because they want to have a trainer to begin with, as it's a common perception among Pokemon that training will bring you strength, glory, a better life, and friendship. After capture, a Pokemon may experience a ton of differing emotions depending on its personality, but almost never outright violence. They range from humiliation of losing, to reluctance to their new trainer, to happiness because it's what they wanted all along.

If a Pokemon is unhappy enough with its trainer, it is capable of running away and even opening the ball by itself, there's nothing stopping it. Even the most unruly or disrespectful Pokemon(see Ash's Charizard) will often stay simply because being with a trainer is a good life. Only the master ball can trick any Pokemon into capture instantly, good or bad. Poke Balls work better on weakened Pokemon because they enjoyed the battle, rather than that it's harder to fight back, otherwise a fainted Pokemon could be caught. A capture is a willing participant with the exception of the master ball, which is why it's dangerous and expensive.


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

[User]
How Exactly Does Prion Disease Kill?

My friends and I were talking about cannibalism the other day and Kuru came up. I've looked around and haven't found anything that plainly states how exactly the disease kills. Same with Mad Cow. I know prion disease is the prion converting normal proteins into prions but why exactly is that lethal? What does that do?

[Assistant] For kuru, and Creuztfeldt-Jakob disease, the reshaped prion proteins form aggregates in the nervous system. Disrupting whatever native function it had (that we still are not certain of). And damaging the cells, resulting in the spongiform pathology that is characteristic of it.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Do Sith lose any power after turning to the light?

Lets say Luke managed to save Darth Vader and turn him to the light. Vader makes a full recovery from throwing Palps down the reactor hole.

Is Vader still as powerful as he was when he was a Sith or does he lose that power after turning to the light?

[Assistant]
>"Is the Dark Side stronger?"

>"No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive. Not stronger."

-Yoda and Luke

Your question is really a matter of what you mean by "power". A lot of people tend to look at the Force as a tool or weapon. While this is understandable in certain contexts, the true power of the force is the enlightenment one attains by becoming in tune with it. An example of this is the dichotomy between typical light and dark side users. The Jedi Knights were "the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic" for millenia, and while the Jedi certainly developed widespread doctrinal issues towards the end of the Order's life, for the vast majority of their history they lived up to these ideals. There were hundreds of them, deployed across the galaxy as negotiators, peacemakers, and investigators, fighting to protect the common people of the Republic. They used the Force to gain insight into the lives of those around them, and to detect hidden motivations and plots. Contrast this with the Sith. There were many Sith orders, and all of them were characterized by infighting, betrayal, and mistrust. With a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of the Sith are purely combat-focused, and use the Force for offense: killing and assassinating their foes to attain more power over others. Light Side users view this as a perversion of the Force and an abuse of the power granted by it.

So that said, when a Sith like Vader turns back to the light, they voluntarily give up a lot of what made them "powerful" in the eyes of others. If they are not used to fighting without Dark Side force powers, they will probably lose raw combat ability as well. But the trade-off is that they begin to heal themselves and their relationships with the people around them. For the first point, the Dark Side feeds off your negative emotions: fear, anger, hate, envy, and distrust. The Light Side feeds off of inner peace and serenity. It should be obvious which is healthier for your mental state in the long run. And for the second point, Sith don't have friends. They have tools, primarily, maybe temporary allies. Even the relationship of Master and Apprentice between Sith is often seen to be abusive and manipulative, and tainted by the knowledge that one will some day kill the other. In contrast, Jedi do have friends, and often can't achieve their full potential without them. Luke doesn't blow up the Death Star without Han and Chewie taking the TIE fighters off his tail. Revan doesn't redeem himself and save the Republic without Bastila and the crew of the Ebon Hawk. And as contentious as this scene is, even Obi Wan doesn't find Kamino and Jango Fett without Dexter Jettster and his crazy 50s diner. A Sith might have the edge over a Jedi one-on-one (Although this is absolutely not a guarantee), but a Jedi backed up by their friends and allies wins every time. Is that more powerful than being able to shoot lightning from your hands or choke someone with your mind? You decide.

**Edited to add:** This is actually what makes Sidious's plan so genius. He doesn't go after the Jedi one by one, or blow up the Temple in one huge attack. He doesn't start his own Sith Empire to fight them, like so many of his predecessors. Instead, he takes away what makes them Jedi. They become peacekeepers forced to fight a war, their mastery over their emotions tested daily by constant death, destruction, and combat. They lose the support of the common people, and the support of the Senate, and when the end comes, even their relationship with the clones under their command is undermined and taken away. It is a total defeat, only reversed when Luke's self-sacrifice and love for his friends inspires Anakin to finally take up his mantle as the Chosen One and destroy the Sith to save his son's life.


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

[User]
How many human bodies would it take to make an average sized black hole?

Just as the title says, how many average sized male humans would it take to make an average black hole.

[Assistant]
An intermediate-mass black hole is ~ 10^3 Solar mass
1 Solar mass  ~ 2 x 10^30 kg
Average body mass ~ 70 kg.

So an intermediate-mass black hole = (1000 x (2 x 10^30 kg))/70 kg = 2.8 x 10^31 people.

Lets put this in perspective.  The total number of people who have ever lived is estimated to be 1.076 x 10^11.  That means that 2.6 x 10^24 times as many people who have ever lived to form an average size black whole.


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

[User] Why does the flame of a cigarette lighter aid visibility in a dark room, but the flame of a blowtorch has no effect?

[Assistant]
Burning things like matches or a lighter isn't very efficient, it produces soot (carbon) which glows when heated.

A blowtorch is much more efficient. There's more heat in a blowtorch flame so it burns away the soot and thus has less material in the flame to glow and produce light.

The glowing of material through heat is called incandescence, which is why we call old light bulbs incandescent bulbs because they would produce light through the heating of an element, incandescence.

Some types of flame are going to produce more incandescent material than others, this effect will vary with temperature, fuel mixture and the atmosphere.
We maximize the effect in light bulbs by filling them with inert gases (like, argon, neon, helium and krypton) to prevent the filament from catching fire.
This way we get all the incandescent glow from heating the filament (like tungsten in this case) without it all burning away.


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

[User] Why is it matter in the Sun's core can undergo fusion at 15 million degrees but our fusion reactors need to be 100+ million degrees?

[Assistant]
Fusion reactions are a slow/low probability process. In the sun, the time it would take for a nominated atom to undergo fusion would be significant, but this is offset by the sheer number of atoms present.

In a lab based fusion system, the number of atoms in the pool is a lot smaller, so this is offset by increasing the pressure/temperature and increasing the chance of a nominated atom colliding with another and undergoing fusion.


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

[User]
[The Little Mermaid] "Walking around on those - what's that word again? Oh, feet!" If feet are such a foreign concept to Ariel, what does that seagull call the things at the bottom of his legs?

Legamadoodles?

EDIT: "Whaduya call em?", not "What's that word again?" Whoops, I floundered on the title.

[Assistant]
He calls them feet. Sebastian also calls his feet feet. In fact, all of the intelligent creatures that have feet in the ocean call them feet.

But do you go around discussing what body parts are called with your friends? Probably not. And probably less so if those friends were a different species than you. Ariel probably learned the word feet from her friends, but because she doesn't have them herself, she doesn't often have occasion to use the word and would forget the word.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Just what qualifies as a "life sign"?

On a planet with plenty of plant life, animals making quite a lot of noise, Data reports "No life signs." Just what is he looking for? "Signs of intelligent life" seems to be different and distinct.

[Assistant]
Animal life still uses an electric current inside it. That's how your muscles move and heart beats. It is measurable, and most likely at a frequency specific enough to differentiate it as life.

It's like an EKG, but way more sensitive and powerful.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we eat some grains, like rice or corn, by themselves, but we almost always grind wheat into flour?

I know that there is rice flour and corn flour as well, but I have never seen anyone eat wheat grains by themselves.

[Assistant]
Wheat has been specifically bred over time for grinding. It's generally not used as human food without processing -- not that you can't, we just don't.

Wheat flour is also fairly typical of Old World culture -- rice flour dominates in the East, while natives in the New World were using corn flour as they didn't have wheat.


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

[User] [Spider-man] Who are Peter Parker's parents? What is the deal with them?

[Assistant]
Richard and Mary Parker (ne Fitzpatrick) were C.I.A. spies who met and fell in love on the job. While on missions they often left their infant son, Peter, in the care of Richard's brother and sister-in-law Ben and May.

Their final mission involved them going undercover and pretending to be traitors to the US in order to infiltrate a criminal organization in Algeria run by Albert Malik, who was posing as the Red Skull. Unfortunately he found out about them and ordered their assassination which was carried out by a sabotaged aircraft.

They were declared dead after the recovery of two burned bodies at thr crash site. Their names went uncleared so Ben and May raised Peter alone and never told him about his parent's past.

Eventually, as Spider-Man, Peter learned the story, tracked down the assassin and cleared his parent's names.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40k] Won't the Tyranids eventually win?

[Assistant] They Tyranids can only win if their battles are more energy efficient for them than they are for the enemy. If they are unable to reclaim the biomass after victory, then they suffer a net loss and cannot continue to propagate. If you view the tendrils of the hive fleet invasions, you can visibly see the worlds they strictly avoid are Necron Tombworlds, since they are never able to acquire biomass from battles with the necrons due to their 'phase out'.


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

[User]
[Lord Of The Rings] Did Saruman make it rain (with a spell) at the Battle of Helms Deep in LOTR: The Two Towers?

I am watching the movie LOTR: The two towers atm, and saw something rather remarkable.
Right before the battle starts, it suddenly starts to rain, my guess is that that was used to make it less easy for the archers to kill the orks and etc... And after a while, when the orks (and etc.)  had reached the castle wall, it stopped raining. I think so the orks wouldn't slip off the ladders or something and the rain wouldn't have a negative effect on the archers because they had to switch from bow and arrow to their swords for close combat.

So the rain did not really have any negative effect on Saruman's army, but it did have that effect on the humans/elves...
So my question is.. was this one of Saruman's doings? Or just because it made the scene more dramatically..?

(Idk if this theory has already been confirmed or not btw)

[Assistant] No. In the books, Saruman didnt have the power to control the weather like he did on the mountain side in Fellowship. But was more a master genius in crafting and had a powerful voice to manipulate and influence. The storm occurs in the book battle as well and is mainly added to add dread and imply the coming storm of Sarumans army.


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

[User] [Batman] Does Batman find any genuine fulfillment or enjoyment in the hours he spends as Bruce Wayne, or does he see it as just another task that his lifestyle requires? Which life/identity is more 'recreational' for him, from his perspective?

[Assistant]
He genuinely likes being Bruce Wayne when he can continue the kind of work his family did and use his wealth and influence to push philanthropic and humanitarian agendas.

In the somewhere between Bruce Wayne and Batman space is also where he's gets to be a father to the Bat-kids which he also enjoys doing.


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

[User]
How much more efficient would solar cells need to be, before we could power a car with solar, utilizing only the surface area of the car itself?

Now, I imagine you would need to take I to account lots of other details such as all the other components in the system. However, to keep this question somewhat straightforward, lets mainly look at the specific limitation of the solar cells.

[Assistant]
The power of solar radiation depends on where you are on the planet and the time of day, but 1 kW per m^2 is a decent enough estimate.

A typical car might have about 6-10 m^2 of surface area on the top (depending on the size of the car as well as the amount of surface area lost to windows and such). Lets say 8. That provides a continuous power of 8 kW at an impossible 100% efficiency.

8 kW is approximately 10 horse power. And that's very much below the typical power of even low power compact cars (which certainly don't hit the 8 m^2 usable surface area used in this approximation). Even the increased efficiency of an electric engine over an ICE won't make up for this.

So the sun simply doesn't provide enough power to continuously power a car without some kind of battery system.


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

[User] ELI5: the difference between a turbocharger and a supercharger.

[Assistant]
A turbocharger has two halves -- one half is connected to the exhaust system, and one half to the intake system.  Air passes through both halves during operation, but never from one side to the other directly.  So when your engine burns the air/fuel mixture, it produces an exhaust gas.  This is hooked up to one half of the turbo charger.  As the exhaust gas passes through the turbo, it spins a turbine (fan) and then exits out the back of your car.

That fan that's spun by the exhaust gas leaving the engine has a counter part fan on the intake side, linked with a shaft.  In other words, when the exhaust side fan spins, it also spins the intake side fan.  The intake side does the opposite -- it pulls in outside air and then forces it into the motor.  With more air, you can put in more fuel, and get more power.

A supercharger skips the exhaust side of the turbo.  Instead, the compression mechanism is spun by a belt connected to the crankshaft (the shaft that essentially spins the wheels).  So as the engine revs up, it spins the belt, which in turn, spins the supercharger connected to it.  This draws in air then forces it in to the motor.

Differences:

A turbo has lag.  It takes time to spin up and get the airflow going.  In other words, you step on the gas and have to wait for the turbo to spool up to get the power.  Now there are different technologies that help alleviate lag, but it's kind of the defining aspect of a turbocharged car.  On the other hand, it's more efficient -- since it uses the natural byproduct of combustion (the exhaust gasses), it doesn't really use any extra power.  Last, turbos generally have the capability of putting out higher levels of boost -- but this is also determined by the size of the turbo.

A supercharger has no lag.  You push the gas, you're immediately getting the benefit.   However, superchargers aren't as efficient -- they have a slight parasitic (power draining) effect because it uses some of the power being produced by the motor to spin the turbines.  In big power applications they tend to not be able to produce as much boost, but it's usually a moot point.


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

[User] If you filed a box to 100% capacity with water, that had only one opening that made a water right seal with your feet, could you stand on the water without submerging?

[Assistant]
Functionally, this would be exactly like standing on a water balloon.

The critical piece is that by having things watertight around your feet, water has nowhere to go and water is pretty resistant to compression.


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

[User] ELI5; If the pressure deep under water is so extreme that it would kill most animals, why are a lot of the creatures we find around the deepest parts so soft? (Squids, blob fish, some jellyfish, etc)

[Assistant] They may be soft, but they're also filled with the same substance *making* the pressure; water. Thus, the pressure essentially "passes through" them and doesn't affect them at all. It would be absolutely unreasonable for an animal to try and "resist" the pressure, because it is such a vast force that they'd be completely crushed. But as long as they don't try to keep a lower pressure inside of them (e.g. a bubble of air), there's nothing for the pressure to compress.


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

[User] [Firefly] [Spoiler?] In one episode they went to a dump and rebuilt a small medical shuttle. Couldn't they have made money by rebuilding small crafts in the same way and selling them?

[Assistant]
well....
1. there's Limited supply of salvageable junkers, and when you don't steal them from the junkyard, they cost money.
2. The longterm reliability of that craft may be questionable. It only had to work FOR THE RUN after all.
3. Running a salvage-and-rebuild service like that requires licensing, facilities, employees, taxes, and most of all, Startup cash. The bribes alone to get that sort of business started would eat most of the hospital job's cash.
4. Mal, Zoe, Jayne, and the Tams all have records that make living on an alliance planet dangerous.
5. They'd probably have to sell Serenity, or buy her a docking berth, which means more licenses, fees, etc.
aaaaand
6. They'd be ground-bound, and that just wouldn't be the same. Most of the crew'd get twitchy in short order. After all, you can't take the sky from them.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a food ingredient, such as cream or fruit, stay edible in a recipe after being used/cooked, yet when left alone that ingredient is spoiled faster than the recipe itself?

[Assistant] When you cook it, the preparation -- usually the application of heat -- kills most of the bacteria that are currently on it. That means the bacteria need time to regroup and increase their numbers back to the level where they can make the food spoil, which takes time.


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

[User] [Zombies] Can a zombie ever be full? If not what would happen to a zombie that had a pile of dead people?

[Assistant] Zombies aren't actually hungry, they eat because it's a primal impulse that remains as their body shuts down and wastes away. If a zombie was surrounded by corpses, it would gorge itself until its gut burst, and then continue eating as long as its mouth worked.


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

[User] ELI5: How does Argon gas protect old manuscripts from degradation?

[Assistant] Argon is a noble gas. It is extremely non reactive. The atmosphere can seem non reactive, but oxygen and other gases will react with various materials in a destructive way especially over long periods of time. So we displace the atmosphere with argon which won't react with anything and that protects important documents in long term storage.


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

[User]
[MCU/Eternals(spoilers)] So, the ending of Eternals....

What kind of ecological disaster does a giant stone head poking out of the Indian Ocean cause? I don't think this was touched on at all in the film but something that massive has to displace a lot of seawater. Wouldn't that basically rewrite coastlines all over the world? That's not even taking the resulting tsunamis into account.  It is not a very happy ending for a lot of people.

[Assistant] The resulting tsunamis are going to be a big deal, but Tiamat was already in the Earth. They didn't add volume to the system; every cubic meter of them now in the ocean is a cubic meter of rock that's fallen deeper into Earth's mantle/core and offset the displacement.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can't currencies with high denominations (like the peso or won) just divide their currency by 10, 100 or 1000?

Seems like such a hassle for them with all the extra zeros.

[Assistant]
They have actually.  The current Mexican Peso is actually the "New Peso".  That why the currency code for it is MXN, rather than MXP.

It was created in 1993 and was made the same value as 1000 of the previous pesos.

The word for this is redenomination.


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

[User] ELI5: How exactly does Citizen's Arrest work?

[Assistant]
Back in the day in England, sheriffs wanted to encourage people to help them catch lawbreakers so they allowed normal citizens to catch crime suspects.  This tradition exists now in the US in common law, but the specifics of it vary wildly from state to state.

Generally, to make a citizen's arrest the crime must be a felony and you must have witnessed it.  Some states allow you to arrest for misdemeanors or breaches of the peace or if you have probable cause to believe the crime occurred but did not witness the actual commission of the crime.

The most important point about citizens' arrests is that you do not get any legal protection from being sued.  Police officers get tons of legal protection--they really have to mess up bad to expose the State to liability, and ever worse to expose themselves to personal liability--but you will face strict liability for anything you mess up.

Finally, there are special rules for shopkeepers who believe that you have shoplifted something from their stores that allow them to detain you until the cops arrive.  That is separate from the citizens arrest powers we're talking about here.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are we not able to open car doors if completely submerged underwater?

I see this in movies a lot and don't really understand why this mechanism would be implemented in cars.

[Assistant]
The weight of the water is what prevents you from opening the door, it's the equivalent of having several big fat guys leaning on your door from the outside.

Once your car is filled with water the pressure is the same on both sides of the door and you can open it without issue.

Mythbusters has a whole episode about this.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is jealousy, biologically?

Lately I've been suspicious of my boyfriend cheating on me.
I have no appetite, weak legs, can't focus, and a general "not good" feel.

What happens to your body when you're jealous? I'm intrigued!

[Assistant]
Jealousy is a mate-guarding behaviour.
Our ancestors who got jealous more often took action to eliminate the threat/distraction.
The action might involve a huge piece of rock to the head.
Our inheritance of this trait speaks for its success.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can't I form a tight fist with my hands straight after waking up?

For some reason, no one can create a tight fist just after waking up. Is it something to do with muscles being too relaxed?

[Assistant] It has to do with muscle relaxation and neurotransmitters during the sleep cycle. In certain stages of sleep, your brain tells all the **skeletal** muscles in your body to relax, and become "un-tense". (Skeletal muscles are the ones you control). Depending on which stage you might wake up in, you could have difficulty clenching your fists (or balancing yourself if you stand up as soon as you wake).


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

[User]
How can I conceptualize the way my cat thinks?

I find myself thinking a lot about my cats psychological well-being. Its obvious to me that he doesnt think the way I do, and I understand intellectually that his is a lower or less capable intelligence than mine. But I dont really understand what that difference means for his subjective experiences. I cant put myself in his head.

My goal in making this post is not to change his behavior or anything specific to cats, so general thoughts or resources how higher intelligences can conceptualize (or ethically reason about) subjective experiences of lower intelligences are welcome.

[Assistant]
Gregory Bateson uses the example of cats in particular to illustrate his theory that animal communication is largely communication about relations, rather than specific things:

"When your cat is trying to tell you to give her food, how does she do it? She has no word for food or for milk. What she does is to make movements and sounds that are characteristically those that a kitten makes to a mother cat. If we were to translate the cats message into words, it would not be correct to say that she is crying Milk! Rather, she is saying something like Ma-ma! Or, perhaps still more correctly, we should say that she is asserting Dependency! Dependency! The cat talks in terms of patterns and contingencies of relationship, and from this talk it is up to you to take a *deductive* step, guessing that it is milk that the cat wants. It is the necessity for this deductive step which marks the difference between preverbal mammalian communication and *both* the communication of bees and the languages of men.

What was extraordinarythe great new thingin the evolution of human language was not the discovery of abstraction or generalization, but the discovery of how to be specific about something other than relationship." (from "Problems in Cetacean and Other Mammalian Communication", in *Steps to an Ecology of Mind*).

I always thought this was a pretty cool way of thinking about animal communication.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are stem cells and for what can they be used

Hi, i was just wondering what are stem cells and why are they so important...

First post :D

Sorry for my english.

[Assistant]
Stem cells are undifferentiated cells.
What that means is that they haven't yet decided what they are, so we can tell them to be whatever we want them to be. If we want to look at lung cells we tell the cells to become lung cells. If we want to look at kidney cells, we can tell them to become that.

They can be used in a lot of applications, but what's being investigated most heavily is curing things that the body can't heal itself.
Neurological disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's have no natural repair function, but stem cells can be told to turn into new neurons.
Another example is that they can be told to turn into insulin producing cells to cure diabetes.

So they have a really great potential for curing diseases that have no other treatments.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do fibre optic cables bend?

I've seen fibre-optic cables being bent and I know they're made of glass but I've found no explanation to how it can bend such tight radii without breaking. (I know it loses some of its fibre optic properties but still doesn't explain why it breaks)

[Assistant]
Same reason a piece of paper can flop around but a tree trunk can't.  The thinner you draw a material, the less stress you concentrate on a bend radius.

For a thick material to bend, the outside must expand while the inside compresses.  Thicker cross sections require more intense expansion/compression to achieve the same radius.

In optical fiber, the glass has been drawn to just a few hundred micrometers or less, dramatically reducing that stress.

The bulk of the cable is polymer jacketing material to protect the glass.


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

[User] ELI5: How does cable work? I know streaming shows and movies downloads bytes but does cable use bytes? Are cable recorded shows just files to be played back?

[Assistant]
In the old days, cable contained analog signals.  There are still some of those systems around.

Cable now sends digital packets to the box.  The box  is simply a decoder.  The digital packets contain bytes of digital information.

Yes, the recorded shows are simply files.  The files are broken down into packets.  The packets are then sent to the box.

Live TV also sends packets to the box.


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

[User] [ASOIAF] How did Elia Martell react when Rhaegar kidnapped Lyanna?

[Assistant]
She was probably distressed as afterwards she had to leave her home in Dragonstone alongside her children and become a hostage in King's Landing to ensure the loyalty of Dorne.

Though she can't have been pleased that her husband forced the realm into war for the hand of another woman.


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

[User]
[DC] In response to Gotham's growing, yet perpetual level of high crime the government enacts a "final solution" that calls for a bomb to be dropped on it. How does Batman and the DC world respond to this?

Scenario 1- Alfred, the Batfamily and anyone Bruce Wayne/Batman cares for are not in the city.

Scenario 2- Alfred, the Batfamily and anyone Bruce Wayne/Batman cares for **are** in the city.

[Assistant]
Scenario 1 - Batman's nuclear missile alerts go off. He pages Superman, who stops the bomb. He comprehensively hacks into government databases to find out who okayed using a nuclear weapon to kill American citizens on American soil and exposes that data. Those responsible are saved from being lynched by rioting mobs of indignant American citizens by the Justice League, and escorted to the UN to be tried for crimes against humanity.

Scenario 2 - See above.


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

[User] ELI5 why homemade cleaning solutions that use baking soda AND vinegar work, dont they just neutralize each other?

[Assistant] They don't work. When cleaning use one or the other, never both. Those make good cleaning agents specifically because they are reactive. When you mix them all you are doing is reducing their reactivity and therefore the effectiveness.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How could General Grievous lose when he can attack with four lightsabers? It would seem that being able to defend AND attack against ObiWan would make defending impossible.

I don't care how good you are with one lightsaber, fighting against an attacker with four arms that can hold you at bay with two and attack you with two, would be nearly impossible.

[Assistant]
This is how Jedi historian Matthew Stover describes the encounter between Kenobi and Grievous.

>The electrodrivers powering Grievous's mechanical arms let each of the four attack thrice in a single second; integrated by combat algorithms in the bio-droid's electronic network of peripheral processors, each of the twelve strikes per second came from a different angle with different speed and intensity, an unpredictably broken rhythm of slashes, chops, and stabs of which every single one could take Obi-Wan's life. Not one touched him.

>After all, he had often walked unscathed through hornet-swarms of blasterfire, defended only by the Force's direction of his blade; countering twelve blows per second was only difficult, not impossible. His blade wove an intricate web of angles and curves, never truly fast but always just fast enough, each motion of his lightsaber subtly interfering with three or four or eight of the general's strikes, the rest sizzling past him, his precise, minimal shifts of weight and stance slipping them by centimeters.

>Grievous, snarling fury, ramped up the intensity and velocity of his attackssixteen per second, eighteenuntil finally, at twenty strikes per second, he overloaded Obi-Wan's defense. So Obi-Wan used his defense to attack. A subtle shift in the angle of a single parry brought Obi-Wan's blade in contact not with the blade of the oncoming lightsaber, but with the handgrip. slice

So, basically, Obi-Wan's defenses are just that good.


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

[User]
[General Supernatural Fiction] I am a modern-day human who has sold their soul to the Devil in exchange for a material gain. Problem is, the Devil didnt give me exactly what I wanted. What, if any, legal avenues can I pursue in getting the Devil to follow through on his end of the bargain?

So, yeah, I know that this is the kind of thing there are cautionary tales about. Faustian twists and whatnot. But I figured if I just agreed to something specific and tangible, thered be no way that bastard could twist my words and use them against me. So I was really careful with my wording, and I -thought- the contract was ironclad.
But then, surprise surprise, instead of getting what I wanted, I got fucking cursed.

I am interested in taking the Devil to court, as I feel like this has to constitute a violation of the contract, but Im not sure how to go about doing that.

Like, does the Devil have sovereign immunity, since hes the Prince of Hell? Is this a lawsuit that I can bring before the US courts? Are there laws against bad faith interpretations of our agreement? And what legal arguments can I make to pursue a judge to rule in my favor? And, if I do win, what sort of compensation can I expect? Im willing to settle out of court, but if I make another deal, how can I safeguard against the Devil pulling this shit again?

I am dead-set in pursuing this, so i wont consider dont bother suing him, you cant win.. as a viable answer.

[Assistant] I hear that if you go to the right cliff in New England, you can make contact with the ghost of Daniel Webster. He's helped people out of jams with the Devil before, and he's the best shot you've got.


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

[User] How is the amount of semen expelled during ejaculation determined by our bodies?

[Assistant] It's a combination of availability (i.e. what's in the tank), and the duration and intensity of the orgasm itself. It's not really a "determined" thing and there is no semenal "gatekeeper" or anything like that.


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

[User] ELI5: How do American schools get away with searching students without a parents consent/search warrant?

[Assistant] Schools in america (and lots of other countries where common law is used, so its really not all that strange or particularly american) act in the eyes of the law "in loco parentis" which is just a latin term meaning they take on some of the responsibilities of a parent.


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

[User] [star wars] I've just been transferred to the 501st aka vaders fist......How much danger am of being force choked?

[Assistant]
First off, Vader are more forgiving than people think. He usually just kills subordinates who fail him either grossly or repeatedly.
With that in mind, the danger is lower than other units who happen upon Vader, I'd say. You have been headhunter to the 501st for a reason. You are the best of the best, and something that might calm you, you will be deployed where Vader needs someone he knows he can depend on, if he isn't leading you into battle.

Sounds much better than being part of the guys Vader have been sendt to relieve, no?


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

[User]
ELI5 What is defragging my hard drive, and how will it help my computer?

This is probably a stupid question, but I know nothing about computers.

[Assistant]
Here's the thing with hard drives - they're optimized to write / read as much stuff, as fast as possible.  Imagine a guy trying to stack boxes, and they just keep throwin' more boxes at him, all the while someone else is asking him about this box or that box, where'd it go, all that.  He just needs to keep up with the in/out flow: *how* he's storing things is secondary.

Now, when the guy gets is a shipment of 4 boxes that should be grouped together, he's gonna do his best to put them in the same place.  But in the course of all the in and out, maybe those things get split up.  Or maybe they add another 4 boxes to the first 4, and there's no room to put them all together, so they get all spread out.

That's fragmentation.  If a file (group o' boxes) gets all spread out, then it might be tougher for the hard drive to read it all off at the same time, together.  So defragging is (to go back to our analogy) that guy coming back into the warehouse one night when no one's bugging him to take the time to organize everything the way it should be: put all the stuff together that should be together, get all his space in order, all that.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Why is the Emperor so powerful?

I get that he's the strongest being in the galaxy, but why did the melding of a few hundred/thousand proto-psykers create such an incomprehensibly powerful being? It'll take every single Eldar soul to create Ynnead who might beat Slaanesh, so how did so few human souls create the Emperor?

[Assistant]
The Shamans of old were more Eldar than Human, in terms of how they functioned. They were immensely powerful psykers who, most importantly, maintained an entire sense of self after each death, and could freely reincarnated into new bodies. They possessed generations of experience and knowledge, and were far, far more powerful than the average Psyker in the Imperium, who generally live once and are functionally weaker. I've seen and been involved in several discussions which conclude they were probably Delta grade psykers at least, many probably being Beta.

Normallly, this kind of power could create greater Warp Entities, on par with Greater Daemons (who are immensely diminished when manifesting physically. Their natural power in the Warp is many orders of magnitude higher) but for the Emperor it was bound entirely into a physical body. He is, at LEAST, the absolute expression of a Greater Daemons power, combined with nearly 40,000 years (at the time of the Heresy) of knowledge, research and experience.

And that's not counting the very real possibility that he can draw power from his followers the same way Chaos Gods and Greater Daemons can. If he can, well... Humans are one of the most populous species in the Galaxy, and the majority revere him in some manner.


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

[User]
[Buffy] If a vampire is in an abandoned property and someone buys it, will they be immediately flung out of the house as they dont have an invite?

Imagine there is an industrial building with a lot of space. A vampire would find such a place appealing, however, these are also good for real estate. If at the point at which this place becomes residential they will have no invite and cant be there. So would they be magically thrown out?

[Assistant] I would imagine its like when you are playing a video game and the cut scene lets you into a room, but once you walk out of the room, you find the door has locked behind you and you cannot get back in.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do mobile phones need to be moved specifically in an infinity shaped pattern for the in-built compass to be calibrated?

[Assistant]
The compass detects magnetism, but it drifts. There is always changing local magnetism, like magnets in a phone case, or just innacuracies in the magnetometer that build up.

But the phone has many other sensors - most important is acceleration sensors that detect movement and gravity, and gyroscopes that detect direction. The phone can detect errors in the magnetometer (compass) by comparing them.

As you move your phone around, it can detect, using those gyros and accelerometers, how it is moving in space. As any innacuracy in the phone's magnet sensor will stay the same as you move it, it can detect what magnetism remains static and what changes. It can subtract the stationary magnetics and be left the changing ones - and the magnetism that changes as you move the phone around is going to be the Earth's.

In addition, as the phone moves right around, it knows that the magnetic fields should also, turning right around in lockstep with the rotation it is measuring from the gyro. If the phone is close to a big piece of steel, that will show up as an attraction of both the north and south poles, out of step with the rotation. The software can detect and correct for this, too.

Moving the phone in that figure-8^* pattern is used to get it started. Once you are using the compass and moving around, the phone keeps correcting.

>^(This was figure-98 in the original post, which was a typo. This note is added so as to not orphan the joke thread below.)


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

[User] [Marvel] What are some of the most darkest alternate universes in Marvel Comics?

[Assistant]
*Ruins* probably takes the top spot. It's the one where, instead of giving people superpowers, all those radiation accidents and so forth just gave them cancer.

At least some of the Avengers were heroes, but they're killed by the National Guard for being counter-culture at the start of the story. Nick Fury later states that Captain America introduced him to cannibalism, just before he shoots teenaged prostitute Jean Grey, and then himself.

Charles Xavier is president. He seldom leaves the White House. Nobody questions his authority. Most of the other mutants are confined to a prison, where Quicksilver has had all four of his limbs amputated and Cyclops has had his eyes gouged out. Xavier occasionally visits to rant at them. In one panel, Nightcrawler is shown chewing on his own tail.

Magneto's powers are uncontrollable. When his home-made limiter is broken by the police, he's killed in a hailstorm of metal.

Bruce Banner's accident turned him into a gigantic mass of tumours. It took him years to die. Rick Jones uses heroin to repress the memories.

The Kree sent an invasion fleet, but on the outskirts of the solar system they encountered the Silver Surfer's corpse. He had ripped himself open, desperate to feel something. The radiation from his corpse disrupted their shields, and their fleet was destroyed by nuclear missiles sent from Earth. The survivors, led by Captain Mar-Vell, live in a concentration camp on a nuclear test site. They're all dying of cancer.

Jonny Blaze is a motorcycle stunt performer. His biggest trick involves poring gasoline on his own head, and setting it on fire. When the narrator - the photojournalist Phil Sheldon - witnesses his act, it goes wrong; his motorcycle rolls into the desert with him still in the saddle, his head a burning skull.

Wolverine is dying of a bone disease, his skin sloughing off while he drinks himself insensible.

Sheldon tries to chronicle all this, trying to work out where the universe went wrong, but before he can get his photos and his notes back to the office he collapses and dies of the spider-plague - a hideous disease carried by Peter Parker, whose spider bite did nothing but make him patient zero for a pandemic.

It was written by Warren Ellis, who clearly was not having a good day.


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

[User]
Why do Asians have dry ear 'powder' and Westerners have wet ear 'wax'?

Edit: Not ALL Asians have dry ear wax and not ALL Westerners have wet. And Thanks for all the input from the pro's.

[Assistant] There may be an answer to this question, but in evolutionary genetics, you should always keep in mind that there is not necessarily a *reason* for differences between populations. If a mutation occurs that does not reduce fitness, then the mutation may persist even if it does not increase fitness. So it is possible that a mutation occurred that caused the dry earwax randomly in an Asian person, and the dry type worked about as well as the waxy type. So over many many many years that mutation came to persist across the continent. So it may not be that dry ear wax helps you survive better in Asia or something like that, just that the random mutation happened to occur in Asia.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What is the reason for there to be very few users of purple and yellow lightsabers or lightsabers of other colors?

Is there any explanation in both Canon and/or Legends? In Canon we only have Mace Windu with a purple lightsaber, and Rey Skywalker and the Temple Guards with yellow lightsabers (and Cal Kestis if you choose him to have one in Fallen Order). In Legends Darth Revan and the Dark Woman both had purple sabers, but I think that was it, and Bastila Shan had yellow lightsabers.

As for other colors, Ahsoka Tano is the only one we know with white lightsabers, and Cal Kestis can also have white and orange lightsabers in Fallen Order. Why are these different colors other than blue, green and red so rare if there's countless of crystals of all colors? In Canon I think at least it could be suggested that it's harder for a purple, yellow, orange and white crystal choose its wearer, but in Legends, where colors were merely chosen by its user, it's even weirder that we rarely saw other colors.

[Assistant]
Lightsaber colors are essentially meaningless in Legends (crystals are naturally found already colored). There's only one scene in Knights of the Old Republic that attempted to give them some semblance if meaning, but it's a holdover from the pencil&paper RPG that the game uses for its ruleset - and the colors can be switched out immediately to any other you have in inventory.

In canon, lightsaber colors only have some vague, not really understood link to mindset, with the exclusion of red and white - the former being a dark sider "bleeding" a crystal (forcing it into submission) and the latter being a bled crystal that's been healed by a light-side Force user.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why the first bite of something very sour gives your taste buds a hard kick but the rest of the bites are not so bad?

I don't know if it is just me, but every time I eat something sour, the first bite tastes unbearably sour but the ones after that are not so bad!

[Assistant] Most nerves have mechanisms to downplay their effect. It's called "hyperpolarizing" and is used to reduce the amount of signals sent based on a stimulus. This takes place both at the site where the stimulus takes place (your tastes buds) and the site that ultimately receives the signal (your brain). You are literally tasting less sour. If there was a sudden change, for example you got to a sweet layer, your brain would notice again because the change would involve nerves that aren't being repressed. Also, after removing the initial stimulus the nerves will eventually reset to normal, which is why things can taste sour again after you stop eating the initial sour food.


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

[User]
[ST:TNG] If Data has bio-functions, how can he be so easily disassembled? And how can he have an apparently indefinite shelf life?

Bio-functions are usually messy when their host-systems are disassembled and perishable when not actively participating in their native host.

[Assistant]
Data doesn't really have any organic parts, if that's what you're thinking about. He's not a cyborg; he doesn't need to breathe, drink water, or ingest nutrients - aside from the occasional semiorganics-in-silicon-liquid-suspension to lubricate his insides. His skin again *looks* organic, but isn't. He is metal and plastic through and through. Any functions that resemble human ones are simulated.

Even if the "semiorganics" he ingests for lubrication were to decompose, there's no reason to think this would be a critical problem for him. His brother Lore was able to survive for several years drifting in the vacuum of space, for example.


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

[User] ELI5: What's P < 0.05 mean and why does it make everybody feel so confident?

[Assistant]
In statistics, you're usually doing something called *hypothesis testing*, which relies on something called a *null hypothesis*. For example, after flipping a coin a few times and getting heads each time, you might wonder if the coin is loaded. Your null hypothesis is the *opposite* of what you're trying to prove - if you're interested in showing whether the coin is loaded, your null hypothesis is "the coin is fair".

After you develop this hypothesis, you flip the coin 10 times, and get 7 heads. You want to know whether this gives you any evidence against the null hypothesis (and thus, *for* your original supposition that the coin is loaded). Obviously, not every 10 flips of a fair coin will come up with 5 heads, so the fact that you got more heads than tails doesn't necessarily tell you the coin is loaded.

A *p-value* - which is what the 'p' in your question is referring to - is the chance of getting the results you got *if the null hypothesis had been true*. In this example, it's the chance of getting 7 heads out of 10 flips if the coin were fair. It turns out it's a little less than 12%, which isn't *that* unlikely, so you don't have very good evidence to say the coin is loaded. On the other hand, the chance of flipping *nine* heads out of ten on a fair coin is less than 1%, so if you'd observed that instead, you'd have very good evidence to disprove your null hypothesis (i.e., evidence against the coin being fair).

Lower p-values, which correspond to lower chances of getting your given result if your null hypothesis (remember, this is the opposite of what you're trying to prove) had been true, provide stronger evidence. In academic writing, a p-value of less than 0.05 (that is, less than a 5% chance) is an arbitrary cutoff that is usually seen as the most generous threshold of evidence. Lower p-values, like those less than 1%, less than 0.1%, or even lower than that, provide progressively stronger evidence.


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

[User]
[DCEU] If Superman was called to court to account for harm and be questioned, why hasn't Batman?

I mean Superman did pretty much level parts of a city, but in Batman's entire career (which by BvS had been going on for quite a fee years), I'm sure he would have been involved in plenty of destructive activity.
If the basis of taking Superman to court was that he's powerful, dangerous, and takes the law into his hands - I see no reason Batman shouldn't face the same, since he shares all those qualities.
Do Gotham and Metropolis just see things differently?
Also come to think of it he is tight with the police department with Gordon... but still.
There might some lore or extended material that covers this but idk, and apologies if it's been asked before.

[Assistant]
They called Superman to court, but he only showed up because thats who Superman is. He wanted to be respectful to the very real problems that his actions caused, and so he came in order to discuss the situation. Also, Supes was being called by the federal government, while Bats would at best maybe get to state level for his actions-god in human form vs badass but human vigilante and all that.

Batman gives zero fucks about what people think of him, and believes that the consequences of his actions can be handled by himself. Which is fairly valid in this case-its much easier to feel guilty about the harm you cause to innocent people caught up in your city destroying battle than it is to feel guilty about beating the shit out of and branding murderers, rapists, and human traffickers.


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

[User]
[Dishonored series] You are Corvo on the ship heading to the south during the trip that proves unsuccessful. Assuming you cannot return to the isles sooner, can you influence events leading to the city receiving help? Can you disarm the conspiracy before it happens?

Do note that you don't have the Mark of the Outsider but you do know everything that will or can happen already.

[Assistant] Really there's only one thing you could do to change the events. That'd be to somehow buy out daud and the whalers to kill the conspirators before he goes after the empress. Everything else will cause a coup no matter what without enough evidence to undermine the various traitors publicly. Paying off daud to kill them first keeps jessamine in power without risking a schism in the upper echelons of society.


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

[User]
I've heard people describe how they became sick when they ate meat after a long time being a vegetarian. Does one's digestive system actually change from eating a vegetarian diet, and can then eating meat actually make one ill? Or is it more of a psychosomatic response to eating meat?

I'm curious as I would assume that the body wouldn't reject a kind of food that it had adapted to consuming simply because it wasn't "used to" it anymore.

[Assistant]
This occurs due to our bodies changing bacterial flora. our digestuve tract is filled with bacteria which are help to digest and breakdown food. When we change it diets for a long enough time the bacteria composition in our guts also changes. Thus when they would go back to eating meat it would cause digestive discomfort due to the lack of bacteria to assist in digesting meat.
However, there is also a good chance that some of the discomfort might be psychological.


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

[User] What is my belly button connected to inside my body?

[Assistant] The belly button's connected to the- falciform ligament/round ligament; the falciform ligament/round ligament is connected to the- liver; the liver's connected to the- all sorts of things (inferior vena cava, gallbladder, portal vein, hepatic artery, etc).


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

[User] [Star Wars] Vader succeeds I killing Palpatine and usurps him as Emperor before the events of Ep 4. How does this change the galaxy?

[Assistant] Vader's lack of foresight and emotional control leads to the moff Council rejecting his legitimacy and ordering he steps down or gets put down.  After he refuses local imperial garrisons are ordered to attack vader while the navy bombs him from orbit.  And if you know EU material you'd know papa palpatine had a back up plan for everything including secret orders for storm troopers to kill vader assassins to protect him 24/7 and an army of droids that would destroy much of the empire in the event of his death.


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

[User]
ELI5: Whem pouring liquid from one container to another (bowl, cup), why is it that sometimes it pours gloriously without any spills but sometimes the liquid decides to fucking run down the side of the container im pouring from and make a mess all around the surface?

Might not have articulated it best, but I'm sure everyone has experienced this enough to know what I'm trying to describe.

[Assistant]
Surface tension.  Water wants to stick to hard surfaces.  This is what causes a meniscus in a test tube, for example.  That "u" shape at the top of the water.  The attraction between the surface and the water molecules is stronger than the attraction of the water molecules to each other.

So, when pouring, the force of the gravity on the water needs to overcome this surface tension to pull the water away from the container.  When the angle between glass wall and vertical direction is small, the component of gravity perpendicular to container wall is small and surface tension is stronger, causing the water to stick to the container and run down the outside.


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

[User] ELI5 When you exhale, why is your breath cool when you purse your lips but warn when you open your mouth.

[Assistant]
The two explanations currently in this thread are wrong.

The reason your breath feels cooler when you purse your lips is because you're not really feeling your breath, you're feeling the ambient temperature in the room.

According to the venturi effect, when a fluid (air in this case) passes through a constriction, it's velocity increases and it's pressure decreases. Because the pressure of your breath decreases when you purse your lips, ambient air rushes in to equalize the pressure. Because the air you're blowing is now made partially of room temperature air, the average temperature decreases.

 As an experiment, you can try blowing on hand somewhere where the ambient temperature is above your body temperature, and you'll feel that the temperature actually rises.


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

[User]
[ATLA] Would the Avatar and benders in general be obsolete once guns come into the picture?

Seems to me like a waste of time to train for ten years only to get hit with a bullets from a mile away.

[Assistant]
Bullets can't penetrate water, it's too dense. Water benders put up a foot thick sheet of water and they're basically bullet proof. In addition they're healing abilities would make them amazing combat medics.

Earth benders can create cover from literally anything, they could advance while holding a giant boulder to block bullets and drop it for cover, or create a fortified pillbox anywhere on the battlefield. They works instantly be utilized as a construction battalion who's also shock troops.

Fire benders, while definitely at a disadvantage for bullets, are also mobile flame throwers, perfect for clearing out fortified constructions with the added benefit of not blowing up if they had tanks that could be hit. They could also theoretically be the artillery of any combined forces, something they've shown skills at even in the most current show.

Air benders could be given a pistol and be the most effective fighter plane interdiction units possible, they could land on a cockpit and shoot the pilot. They're basically a combination paratrooper/jet pack troop, easily able to infiltrate deep into enemy lines and extricate themselves with ease.

Yeah, if you give your benders a rifle and no training and throw them in with the rest of the conscripts they'd probably do horribly. But that's just for lack of imagination of the best way to utilize your troops, stick one earth and water bender in each squad and they'd pay for themselves with the ability to provide cover and heal on the fly.


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

[User]
[Fallout] Why are there accents?

Being 200 plus years after the destruction of society(and to a lesser extent, culture) via nuclear war, how would survivors living in the post-apocalyptic wasteland maintain their ethnically and culturally specific accents? Arturo, the Russian brothers, Dr. Amari, and others sound to be non-native speakers of the Commonwealth's English. Where do their accents originate if the world, on cultural, linguistic, and societal levels, is gone?

[Assistant]
I would actually think that the destruction of society would encourage accents, rather than eliminate them. People wouldn't be able to travel around as much, and there wouldn't be the anti-accent effects of mass media. So you'd tend to have smaller, more insular communities. That's where accents and dialects tend to develop more quickly, as the small community picks up their own slang and pronunciations without correction or input from the outside. Of course, these wouldn't be accents that we recognize, but you'd be able to tell where someone was from if you're well-traveled.

As to the accents we see in the games, they're probably not from the local area. Moriarty from FO3 is supposed to actually be from Ireland, and Tenpenny is supposed to be British. Raul is Mexican, and pre-War, so he's always had that accent (no idea why he hasn't lost it over 200+ years, but whatever).

I don't recall the backstory of the Dobrov brothers, but it's possible they're from a neighborhood or borough that spoke in Russian, and that neighborhood basically walled itself off and continued speaking their existing language after the bombs fell. There are regions like that all over the northeast, especially in large cities like New York and Boston. Little Russia, Chinatown, etc could all very well survive as isolated communities that speak their own language.


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

[User] [The Strain] How did all of Europe's vampire myths get silver and sunlight basically right, but completely leave out the giant tentacle-stingers from their mouths that vamps use to feed?

[Assistant]
If you're witnessing the garlic and sunlight act as a deterrent to vampires, you're probably going to tell everyone you know.

If you're in a position to see the tentacle-stingers, it's already too late.