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

[User] ELI5:How does the stock market work?

[Assistant]
Imagine that you own a company that makes shoes. You're selling a lot of shoes, and you're doing pretty well for yourself. But, you just don't have a big enough factory for all the shoes you need to be making to keep up with demand. You need to buy/build a bigger factory! But, that is going to cost a LOT of money. More than you have right now. So, you would like to raise some money, right? Well, this is how you do it. You offer shares/stock of ownership in your company. People give you money in return for a small slice of ownership in your company. That means they get a very small vote in how things are run, and possibly a small amount of the profit that you make every so often. But, it's worth it for you, because you are getting a lot of money from that person right this instant, so it's a fair tradeoff as far as you are concerned. Now, people know that your company is doing very well, so LOTS of people want to buy a stake of ownership in your company. Those new stockholders are giving you TONS of money, in return for a fairly small share of your company. You've raised enough money for that new factory! You're going to produce so many shoes now! Things look super bright for your future! That means that even MORE people want to buy a stake in your company, but here's the problem...You aren't offering any more stakes in your company. You've made your money, and you're not selling shares anymore. So, what happens? Those newcomers ask the people who already have shares of your company if they would like to sell them. So now you have people with shares trying to make a profit by selling their shares to people who don't have shares, but would like to buy some. The better that your company is doing, the more people want to buy shares, which means that the people who already have shares can sell them for a LOT of money, and make a good profit. The prices of the shares are skyrocketing!. But if your company is doing badly, not as many people want those stocks anymore, and the shareholders need to price their shares at a lower price to get anyone to buy them.

That's how the price of stock goes up and down. It depends on how the demand of how many people want to buy stock. If demand is high, price goes up, if demand is low, price goes down.

Basically.


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

[User]
[The Witcher] Who makes gwent cards? What is stopping counterfeits?

So much value is placed on rare gwent cards. It seems to me like there would be a lot of counterfeits hanging around.

[Assistant] How many printing presses have you seen around? There's one, and it's owned by the guy that makes the cards. It may not be the best use of the only moveable typeface in the world, but if you invent something, you can use it however you like.


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

[User] ELI5: How did people in the past begin to accurately measure the height of mountains, such as everest?

[Assistant]
One way is by making a cup of tea.

Water boils at 100C only at sea level. The temperature at which water boils varies based on air pressure. For every 1000 metres, the boiling point drops by about 5 degrees. Thus, with a kettle and a thermometer you can estimate altitude.


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

[User]
[Bladerunner] Why would you make a mentally unstable artificial being that can only be detected with complicated subjective tests?

I understand why you would make a replicant that *looked* identical to humans, but what possible reason would you have for not including an easy detection method once you found out a percentage of them are prone to going on murderous rampages? Why would you decided that the correct solution is this sketchy empathy test, vs just genetically altering them in some way, like releasing a particular compound into the blood? Or maybe an ultra bit of anatomy, like a double jointed toe?

I'm just saying if replicants going off the reservation has been going on so long that people have been making entire careers out of chasing them down, so long that an entire test suite has been developed, why aren't you just putting in a detection method as part of their design?

[Assistant]
If you could make an artificial being with all of the creativity and mental flexibility of a regular human being, who is also strong and faster and more focused... but without the lifespan to make them dangerous in terms of society collapsing... they would be the perfect underclass of servants and soldiers.

The problem with replicants isn't that they're difficult to detect when compared directly with the normal population. The problem with replicants is that they've started to show aberrant behavior that is contrary to their programming.

They are developing their own ghosts.


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

[User]
eli5 Why do militaries use depleted uranium in armor and ammunition

I have heard about depleted uranium shells and armor before but i wanna know why of all things you would use uranium as a metal compared to more conventional metal types.

[Assistant]
It has properties that make it ideal for military usage, both defensively and offensively. It's also cheap and readily available.

**Density**- DU is very dense, which means it can absorb a lot of energy, like from the impact of an incoming projectile when used in armor plating. Conversely, as a projectile it can *carry* a lot of energy- meaning it can be highly destructive for its size when placed into the core of a conventional bullet or projectile.

**Anti-Tank Weapons**- A big challenge on the battlefield is neutralizing enemy armor, such as tanks. Not only do you need a projectile that will penetrate its thick armor, but you also need to disable it- such as by killing the crew inside.
A DU projectile can do both of those things because it has two very appealing properties- it fractures on impact into razor sharp pieces and it readily ignites into ferocious flames when it does.
So with DU you have a high energy projectile that punches through armor plating, breaks into a swarm of deadly sharp spikes, and then incinerates the crew inside in a molten fireball. That makes it exceptionally appealing considering those rounds can be fired from a man-portable weapon.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter]Why are the death eaters so scared of Voldemort?

Surely they're evil enough to not have to worry, but even Bellatrix cowers a bit.

[Assistant]
The thing with Voldemort is that he is the epitome of evil. Imagine someone who has proven he is evil time and time again. He was willing to kill a newborn because that newborn might *might* threaten his rule that he is shaping through sheer terror of his actions. Voldemort has shown he is willing to kill on a whim.

And we haven't seen all of his actions, but we know that Tom Riddle has been tormenting people all of his life. As seen in his treatment of his peers at his school, leading to the location of the locket we see in Half Blood Prince. At school, Tom embraces the Dark Arts happily, opening the lair of a basilisk and killing people he saw as inferior. When he was raising to rule, he recruited giants and werewolves. We see giants are not all like Hagrid, and even a giant like Grawp is destructive without trying. Werewolves were never known for their kindness, besides the notable exceptions of Bill and Remus and maybe a few others.

So why are the Death Eaters like Bellatrix scared? Voldemort has shown that he is, as far as they know, immortal. Has shown that anyone he has no use for can be killed at a whim. And you are one among many other people, all trying to prove their worth. We see he uses Nagini to remind people that she can eat a person in one bite, ensuring you never forget.

So this wizard straight out of legend, that even the greatest wizard the world has seen (Dumbledore) could not manage to defeat, just came back to life and has a grudge against this child that is constantly making him more and more angry. You are this angry god's servant. You have to be afraid of him. He is lashing out at the Malfoy's, who are giving him their house, their son, their everything. He is still angry at them. What have you done for him?


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

[User] [Power Rangers] With all the monsters that have grown and attacked Angel Grove; What is the estimated number of deaths of citizens who were in the buildings that were destroyed during the monster vs Megazord battle?

[Assistant] Zero. Angel grove was struck by a severe economic recession not long prior to the series. Each and every fight takes place in the "abandoned warehouse district". In fact, one could say the super villain infestation was a boon, thanks to insurance money as well as keeping construction companies in business.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we look for life on 'goldilocks' planets?

I think the proper term is circumstellar habitable zone. If there is other life out there, why are we assuming that it'll have the same basic needs as our animals? The universe is seemingly infinite, and there's endless possibilities of what's out there, so why do we only consider planets that are the 'perfect' distance away from their star?

[Assistant]
It's a bit like looking for a doctor in a hospital. Any person could be a doctor; people wearing "normal" clothes could be a doctor coming on/off their shift. But if you're looking for a doctor, you're going to run towards the person who's dressed in a white or blue coat (maybe with a stethoscope on their neck) because that's what you **know** doctors look like.

Likewise, any planet could harbor life. But we **know** that life can exist under the "Goldilocks" conditions, so we know that if we're looking there, we at least have a chance of finding it. We don't have the resources to look everywhere all the time, so we  have to prioritize where we have the best chances.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a choke on a carburetor work, and why is it necessary?

[Assistant] A carburetor is a calibrated device that delivers a set amount of fuel per unit of air passing through it. Cold engines need a richer mix (more fuel per unit of air) to start up. The choke closes to block some of the air from entering the engine to richen the mix and allow the engine to start.


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

[User] Why does lime juice severely burn the skin when exposed to sunlight?

[Assistant]
A range of plants which include the citrus family contain active compounds called furocoumarins in their juice. When this compound reacts with uv-a light on skin surface, energy is released through a chemical reaction and this energy gets absorbed mostly by the skin and as a result severe burns, blisters and hyperpigmentation occurs.
This reaction is also known as margarita dermatitis, because lots of cocktails contain some degree of lime or lime juice.


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

[User]
[Aladdin] If Aladdin was outed as not being a prince, doesn't that mean that his wish was never Granted?

Genie was able to do all this cool stuff for Jafar by giving him incredible amounts of power, but Genie couldn't create a ball of dirt and some sheets of paper qualifying it as a country? Was this payback for the cave escape loophole?

[Assistant]
Theres a theory going around where the entire film was a setup to make the Aladdin prince.

Aladdins true wish wasnt to become a prince, thats an easy wish for the genie to make, just create an actual kingdom where hes the prince.

Aladdin wanted to be a prince to allow him and Jasmine to be together, the genie knew this. So his entire plan was to eventually allow him and Jasmine to get together and grant Aladdins wish of becoming a prince at the same time.

And he succeeded, at the end of the movie him and Jasmine are together, eventually turning him into a prince.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If there are only two Sith at any given time, and the apprentice kills the master (presumably) before he was taught everything the master knows, wouldn't the Sith get dumber and dumber over time?

Think of Sith alchemy, for example. Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious practiced it. Darth Vader didn't - and if the Rule of Two continued on, Darth Vader's apprentice probably wouldn't even know what Sith alchemy was.

[Assistant] Yeah, but think about how wildly unlikely that is. An apprentice, with less knowledge of the Force, would find defeating a true Sith Lord very difficult, if not impossible. The only way you defeat a master is to become the master, and that comes with years and years of learning and tutelage as an apprentice.


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

[User] [MCU] What would happen if Absorbing Man touched all 5 infinity gems at the same time?

[Assistant] He would likely explode with tremendous force.  There is an upper-limit on the amount of power he can absorb and beyond that, his body is still (ostensibly) human(oid), so there are physical realities to dealing with that much power. Now if he had, say, absorbed Superman's strength first, then tried to grab the gems?  At least a chance of survival there.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is smiling a show of friendliness in humans when showing teeth a sign of aggression in most animals?

[Assistant] In primates showing teeth held together like you do in a smile is a sign of submission, not aggression. In humans smiling likely evolved from this as a sign of peace/not intending harm, especially when combined with laughter.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does Sweden's government resist international efforts to crack down on piracy?

[Assistant]
John grew up with parents that gave him exact bed times and nap times.

Zooey grew up with parents that encouraged her to sleep whenever she wanted and make her own schedule.

John believes that if he beats the class and wins a snack he shouldn't need to share it. He earned it.

Zooey believes the opposite. She comes from an environment where people are encouraged to share.

John grows up and makes laws about piracy based on his culture and how he was raised.

Zooey grows up and makes laws about piracy based on her culture and how she was raised.

Zooey is Sweden, a very progressive and liberal country even by European standards.


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

[User]
[MCU] If Zemo failed, would he have taken it well?

Instead of a massive fight, Iron Man and Captain America hug it out and Bucky is forgiven.

Zemo is captured by Black Panther and brought to prison.

The Accords are either scrapped or altered to make both sides happy (and Ross is fired from his position for unrelated reasons).

Zemo watches the news from his cell as Bucky is cleared for the UN bombing and the Avengers go on a press tour, still together, happy and respected by millions.

Zemo is also mentioned on the news, described as a terrorist who murdered his family before going on the run.

In this scenario, what does Zemo do? Does he make another nefarious plan, or does he just give up?

[Assistant]
He, at last, weeps openly for the first time since his family's death.  The prison psychologist says he's making progress.

Two years later he's come to terms with the depths of his despair.  He becomes a model prisoner and even teaches classes for the undereducated population.

The Stark Foundation takes up his case as a bereaved victim of the Sokovia tragedy.  His sentence is ultimately reduced and he's quietly released years early.

As he walks to the waiting cab, he turns and stares at the outside of the prison walls that have housed him, reflecting on the journey that has led him here.  Suddenly he doesn't feel well.  He looks down in horror to see his hands disperse into wisps of ash.  And then he is no more.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly is happening in your body to make your body ache all over when you have the flu?

[Assistant]
Inflammation!

To keep it simple, when youre sick your body will flood itself with white blood cells. That along with increased blood flow and the typical fever result in aches and pain in your joints and muscles.

Youre essentially inflamed all over.


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

[User]
How can a bird stick it's neck out if muscles can only pull?

I have seen my bird extend it's neck to almost twice it's normal length. How does it work?

[Assistant]
This is a very good question.

It's essentially the same way you hold your head up.  There are muscles running up the vertebral column on all sides.  The neck is articulated by adjusting the tensions on opposing sides.  Birds typically carry their heads with their necks in an S curve.  This curve is straightened out to extend the head.


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

[User]
What is the most Distant Star that We can See with the naked eye?

Are most of the stars we see in the Milky Way galaxy?

[Assistant]
Any star you can see with your naked eye is in the Milky Way. A person with good eyesight can see stars down to about mag 6.5 under great seeing conditions. The furthest object from earth that can be seen with the naked eye is the Andromeda Galaxy which is 2.5 million light years away.

As for a specific star, well that's really tricky because there are factors like observing point and even the fact that the farther away a star is the harder it is to pinpoint its distance. One really far away star that can be seen with your naked eye is Deneb.


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

[User]
[Black Panther] Will T'Challa be the last Black Panther of Earth-199999?

After being given the heart-shaped herb, Killmonger had the rest burnt. Nakia, of course, grabbed one for M'Baku, but ended up giving it to T'Challa. So... is that the end of the Black Panthers?

[Assistant] If I've learned anything about comic books, the answer is no. They could go to another timeline and steal one, they could synthesize it with some help from friends, they could retcon some more in. It looks like there aren't any at the moment. But we won't know for sure until it comes up again.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is space black? Aren't the stars emitting light?

I don't understand the NASA explanation.

[Assistant]
This is called Olber's Paradox.

In essence, if we posit that the universe is infinitely large and contains an infinite number of stars (and they are largely randomly distributed), then every line of sight an observer can see should eventually end at a star.
So if the universe is infinitely old, every point in the sky should be as bright as the surface of a star.

Since it clearly isn't - we have to discard one or more of our assumptions.
(They are the universe is infinitely large, contains an infinite number of stars and is infinitely old)

This is evidence for the big bang - we discard the idea that the universe is infinitely old, so although every line of sight does end in a star, the light from those stars has not had time to arrive yet. (As the speed of light is slow compared to the size of the universe).


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

[User] ELI5: why do body parts ache (head, muscles, back...) when we're sick?

[Assistant]
When were sick our immune system is battling against the virus by signaling the white blood cells in our body to attach to and kill the virus. This causes inflammation and aches for two reasons.

For one, our white blood cells are too busy fighting the virus instead of helping to repair our muscles which get slightly damaged from daily activies. And two, when white blood cells fight the virus they release proteins called proinflammatory proteins. These proteins cause inflammation and pain in our body.


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

[User] [He-Man] Why don't most of the Males wear shirts?

[Assistant] Surface area to volume determines how well something can radiate away heat. Skinny people lose heat faster because they have relatively high surface area for their volume. However, volume increases at a cubic rate, and surface area increases at a square rate. The men of Eternia have very high chest volume and not enough surface area. Wearing shirts could be enough to cause them to overheat.


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

[User]
testing sex differences: interaction vs splitting the sample by sex

Hi all,

I'm having a dilemma with the choice of statistical tests for my PhD, and wondered if you could give your opinion.

I'm studying the dosage effect of a particular gene on social behaviour in mice and I'd like to know whether there is an effect in both (or either) males and females, as this gene has an effect on endocrine function in males but not females. I've run whole group analysis (2-way ANOVA (genotype x sex)) and after that have split the sample into males and female and run separate one-way ANOVAS, looking just at the effect of genotype.

I do not see a significant two-way interaction or a significant main effect of sex in the whole group analysis. However, after running separate tests on the sexes, I see an effect in males, but not in females.

I understand that the correct way of testing would usually be to do an interaction analysis, and only split by group if the interaction term is significant. In this case there is no significant interaction term. Therefore if I choose this option, I have no effect in the whole group and no interaction effect. However, if I choose such an approach, I "miss out" on the effect that we see in males.

I'm advocating to treat males and females as two separate populations given that there is already evidence to suggest that this particular gene effects males and females separately. Consequently, I would just run separate ANOVAs on the sexes, and would not compare males vs females when interpreting the results.

However my supervisor feels that the best way to address this would be to run 3 separate one-way ANOVAs firstly on the whole sample, and then on males and females separately, but altering the accepted alpha level to .016 to account for the multiple corrections. However i'm not sure if this would be conventionally statistically acceptable, and i'm worried about being pulled up on this in my viva.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts about either of the statistical options I'm considering, and more than happy to clarify anything that doesn't make sense!

[Assistant]
If the interaction term isn't significant then it means that the slopes aren't significantly different, at least with one of your IVs anyway.

You can still report the post hoc comparisons as exploratory analyses but you should definitely still report this factorial ANOVA.


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

[User]
[Left 4 Dead] Where do Boomers get their bile from?

Does the Green Flu infect someone, make them want to eat a lot and then turn them into Boomers? Or does it do it after they've become a zombie?

[Assistant]
Remember that L4D zombies are technically still alive.

What you suggest might be somewhere in-between - maybe boomers are the only kind of infected that actually eat the people they kill, plus anything else that isn't nailed down.


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

[User]
[MCU]When up against Thanos et al, why don't the sorcerers of Earth use portals as weapons?

For instance, we saw how Cull Obsidian could neatly have his hand chopped off by one, and Thanos was obviously too physically strong for any of the Earth-based superheroes to beat in a fist-fight, so why didn't Strange and his pals just open up a portal around his waist and then just close it off?

I appreciate that not wanting to kill is normally a factor that would be part of why portals wouldn't be used in this manner, but with Thanos and his minions/army, surely the gloves were off and anything goes?

Is there any actual reason why this can't be done?

[Assistant] The directors have said that Thanos's skin is too tough for his arm to be chopped off by a portal. Of course the more logical answer would be that Thanos has the Space and Reality Stones every time he fights Strange, so he could have used either of those to avoid the portals cutting his arm off, but the directors decided to say that Thanos could just withstand the force of space collapsing down on his arm.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it called an emergency brake if most people only use it for parking?

[Assistant] In the UK it's called a handbrake.  Although in some cars it isn't hand operated. With an auto transmission most have a transmission lock when in park so the car is unlikely to move. The foot operate brake pedal is usually hydraulic. The parking or "emergency" brake is cable operated. If the hydraulic brake servo fails, i.e because the engine has stalled, you can use the hand operated brake to stop the vehicle.


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

[User] [Sherlock Holmes] Why does Watson say he's never heard of Moriarty in the Final Problem when he clearly knew enough about him to discuss his criminal activities with Sherlock in the Valley of Fear?

[Assistant] The adventure of the Final Problem was disclosed to the public first. Watson fictionalized a little-- either the discussion took place much earlier than the rest of the story or it was straight-up fabricated by Watson as a way to establish Moriarty to readers unaware of his crimes.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Mace Windu is the one sent after General Grievous, and so Obi Wan is the one Anakin tells that Palpatine is Darth Sidious. How do things change?

[Assistant] If Windu and Kenobi switch roles, Palpatine does not yet reveal himself as the Sith Lord.  Palpatine knew that Kenobi was both the best chance of keeping Skywalker in the light and the most likely to defeat Grievous (the final obstacle to the war).  Palpatine wouldnt try to finalize his corruption of Skywalker while Kenobi was on Coruscant and still had time to talk him down.


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

[User]
[Spoiler] [Ant-Man Movie] In the bathroom the new owner of the company shoots the guy with a shrink ray killing him. Why didn't he just try to sell or even that gun as a weapon?

I somehow forgot to type use* after the word even.

[Assistant] That shrink ray consumed his reverse-engineered I-Can't-Believe-They're-Not-Pym-Particles Substitute each time it was fired. If you just want to kill someone, a little bit of copper-jacketed lead is a HELL of a lot cheaper.


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

[User]
ELI5:What causes the phenomenon of wind?

I didn't want to get too specific to limit answers, but I am wondering what is the physical cause of the atmospheric phenomenon of wind? A breeze, a gust, hurricane force winds, all should be similar if not the same correct? What causes them to occur?
Edit: Grammar.

[Assistant]
Sorry for whoever thought they were cool for down voting your simple, straightforward, shameless question.

Anyway, as you may know, warm air rises because it is less dense. So when a pocket of air gets heated up, it rises higher up in the sky.

But as you also may know, nature doesn't like a vacuum (empty space), so something needs to fill in the empty space that the warm air left. What can fill it? A rush of cooler, denser air. That rush to fill in the gap is wind.

----------------------------------------

EDIT: Wow, this blew up.

GET IT?!

Sorry.

-------------------------------------------

EDIT 2: Thanks for the gold!


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

[User]
[The Thing] Is the thing evil or misunderstood?

I've read through some past forums debating the sentience of the Thing and I think the final conclusion to that question is yes. Whether it was sentient from the outset or gained sentience from the creatures it imitated, it had sentience none the less.

This makes me think, does that mean the Thing was evil? I re-watched The Thing yesterday and I have to say I actually felt pretty sorry for it :( it's constantly being torched, tries to escape, and even begins building a small ship from helicopter parts. This suggests maybe he just wants out. Maybe it crash landed and initially killed for need, but then was met with violence, so began killing out of defence.

What do you think?

[Assistant]
Completely *alien* is probably the best description.  It doesn't understand our need for maintaining independent consciousnesses in separate bodies any more than we can understand its desire for unity.  Or whatever the hell it desires, if it "desires" anything.

It just is what it is.  A lifeform radically different from ourselves.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does unisex mean "both sexes" while most every other word with the prefix "uni-" means one?

[Assistant] Because the *uni-* prefix can either mean 'one', or 'shared'  a group that becomes one. Consider the word 'university', which comes from the Latin *universitas*; there is precedent for that prefix indicating a consolidated group rather than one pure entity.


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

[User]
ELI5: why are new programming languages always being created?

It seems like there are new languages "out" every year or two - what do the new ones do that old ones couldn't?

[Assistant]
Programming languages are changing in two dimensions over time: abstraction and specialization.

Computers, when you get right down to it, can't actually do much: just basic logic and arithmetic. Back in the day, "programming" was writing down a series of these basic instructions that would do something useful, like calculate a logarithm. But what's truly useful about that program is that anybody can copy and use it. Instead of writing your own instructions to calculate a logarithm, you just use the instructions someone else already came up with. Now nobody writes the code to calculate a logarithm themselves (outside of programming exercises). Modern computer languages just let you type something like "log(x)," and they do the rest of the work. Over time, we built up a bigger catalog of useful stuff computers can do and also had new ideas about how to best organize and implement all of it, so those ideas are periodically incorporated into new languages (or major updates to old ones). Also, using someone's off-the-shelf code is sometimes inefficient relative to writing something from scratch that is optimized to your particular application, but as computers get more powerful, there are fewer and fewer use cases where this is a concern. All of this means that modern programming languages are thus much more abstract (and also generally easier to use) than old languages like C or BASIC.

The other dimension is specialization. Someone working with data and statistics is likely to use tools like SQL, R, and SAS. Someone working on a website is likely to use tools like HTML and PHP. These languages/software come with built-in tools that make them easier to use for certain tasks. You maybe *could* build a webpage with R or a database with HTML, but it would be incredibly difficult. Other languages, like Python and Ruby, are much more general, and with the right add-ons can approximate many specialized tools, but finding and learning those add-ons is often not worth it (relative to just using a specialized language) for someone whose job only involves one specialty.


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

[User] Why do our eyes move together? Why cant we move them independently?

[Assistant]
You may find this cool - it can creep people out too

Try crossing your eyes and without readjusting your sight by focusing straight ahead first, immediately try to look to either your left or your right (don't turn your head, just use your eyes)

Essentially one of your eyes is already looking that direction, so it will continue to look while you other moves from one side to the other. Once you get a little practice you can stop that eye mid-way and look in two directions at once. You won't be able to really see anything, or comprehend what you're seeing anyways, but you've just moved your eyes independently of each other.. kind of.

TL;DR - Simple trick to look in two different directions at once.


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

[User] [General] Why do people with telekinetic powers and other psychic abilities hold out their hand when they do stuff? Don't they only need their mind?

[Assistant] For the same reason ordinary people hold their hands in certain positions while meditating. The hand helps the brain focus by connecting a mental action to a physical movement. In practice a psychic wouldn't have to do this but it's helpful for learning and is a good focus.


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

[User]
Is computer science actually a science according to Karl Popper?

I have a very basic understanding of Popper's philosophy regarding science, let alone from other thinkers. My question is weather computer science can be considered a science or metaphysics according to Popper's ideas.

For starters cs is very mathematical in its nature, in that it uses strictly mathematical procedures to study its objects and constructs (ex: Turing machines). In that sense cs is part of maths which is part of metaphysics. But if cs is metaphysics then how can its conclusions be so elegantly used in real world applications of its theory?

For example, in software testing we can either do a "Popperian" testing and simply test as many problematic inputs as possible and then determine that until this point of testing, the software is not-incorrect (1) (since we can never be sure it is correct), **or** we can use formal verification methods and state that under a particular representation of the algorithm, it is mathematically proven (ie: without any doubt) that the algorithm **is** correct.

I guess that the answer strictly according to Popper is no, since Popper is about empirical knowledge, but are there any other thinkers that would consider cs a science?

(1) Also, isn't this double negation "not in-correct" equivalent to "correct"?

[Assistant]
> (1) Also, isn't this double negation "not in-correct" equivalent to "correct"?

For Popper, no - hypotheses can be well-corroborated if they survive many empirical tests, but he does explicitely not use the word 'correct' or 'true'.


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

[User]
My eyes can focus on an object that is roughly as small as 1/20,000th my body length. Can a small insect's eyes do the same? Could an insect see bacteria?

I wasn't sure how to categorize this. But I now realize that this is truly a physics question. Not biological. Or so it appears...

[Assistant]
As others have pointed out this question is a bit difficult to answer because of the huge variability in bacteria and insect eyes.  I'll answer a simpler question:  If we scaled down a human eye would it be able to see smaller objects?

The answer is no because of diffraction.  Under ideal conditions the human eye is fairly close the being diffraction-limited.  If we made the eye 10 times smaller it could focus on objects 10 times as close but the diffraction-limited angular resolution would be approximately 10 times worse.  There would be no net gain in how small of an object it could resolve.  Another way of looking at it is that the numerical aperture of the eye does not change as you scale it so there is no change in diffraction-limited resolving power.


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

[User]
[Justice League 2017] What is it about the rocket Cyborg fires at Steppenwolf, that compels Steppenwolf to declare Earth's inhabitants as "primitive beings"?

I mean, I get that he's all-powerful and stuff. I guess my question is more about the DC universe, particularly: is there something about the construction of the rocket that Steppenwolf would find to be primitive? Does he recognize it as such, or is he merely commenting on the fact that he's able to catch it with no problem? Or something else?

Asking for a friend.

[Assistant]
It's an explosive device propelled by a basic chemical reaction, contained within a simple metal casing, and with a chemically explosive payload.  For someone like Steppenwolf, who deals with technology on the level of Mother Boxes and boom tubes, a simple rocket is child's play.  Plus, it's not even a particularly powerful rocket by Steppenwolf's standards, because he could catch it mid-flight and hold it with one hand, and he was completely unaffected by the detonation.

For an analogy, picture a monkey throwing its feces at you.  That's approximately how threatened Steppenwolf was by Batman's rocket, and also approximately equivalent to how much disdain Steppenwolf felt at this lower life form daring to think it could hurt him with such crudeness.


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

[User]
[Assassin's Creed] Why are the precursor race obsessed with parkour courses? And what makes assassins (and templars) so good at them?

In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, at the end of the game (SPOILERS) you go to a church and (surprise surprise!) there's a hidden parkour course there, built specifically so you can get to a hidden vault, the secret temple of the precursor race, which contains another parkour course which you run on to activate the apple container.

Who built the modern course?  Why is there a link between assassins and parkour?  Why do the precursors make this oddly specific link?  And finally, why are assassins so good at parkour?  I don't think I've ever seen one properly slip, only jump off towers at weird angles.  And their grip strength is amazing!  Is it a supernatural ability, like eagle vision?

[Assistant]
The Precursors a resemble humans at the peak of physical perfection. This is likely due to their particular brand of superscience having the ability to maintain their bodies at the limit of their biological potential. We can presume that at some point in the past, they had the opportunity to embrace a more (for lack of a better word) transhumanist philosophy, but their culture either valued biological life over cybernetic life, or they feared what they might become, or both.

We can therefore infer that culturally they fully embraced this ethos, and it probably became a pretty common touchstone to take joy in exercising that biological perfection, and what better way to do so than improvisational free-running? It's something that the massively parallel-processing humanoid brain is easily capable of that appears to be very difficult to match with robotics, judging by 21st-century attempts at the problem.

Consider: We can make robots that can gracefully navigate a flat plane or regular stairs. Our robots that are capable of handling irregular terrain are ugly, clumsy, and slow. Even once we crack that problem, it will probably take a long time to rid ourselves culturally of the prejudice that robots are clumsy. It's not far-fetched to think that the Precursors use the act of freerunning as a cultural synecdoche for everything they embraced as a culture when they rejected the path of transhumanism. Weirder traditions have been formed.


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

[User]
[Hitman] Why doesn't agent 47 try to talk himself out of situations?

If he picks up a wrench and a guard sees him the guard confronts him asking what is he doing. agent 47 stands there in silence until the guard decides to put a gun on him to arrest or shoot him. I feel like he could easily resolve this issue by just saying he had a nut lose on his bike and was going to tighten it or something.

[Assistant]
Hes the perfect killing machine, not the perfect talking machine.

The thought probably did genuinely not occur to him. When faced with conflict his first instinct is more likely to hide, run, or kill.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do you know that producers who say "Half of our income of our product goes to charity" actually do so?

I mean do they have to build credibility over time or is there some kind of contract they can sign?

For organisations I think there are contracts who "force" them to spend the money right but is there something a solo producer can do to build credibility by signing something so people can be assured that the money they spend isn't wasted?

(I'm asking because I'm planning to do so but have no clue on how rip)

[Assistant]
What they actually mostly say is that half of their profits go to charity. So they just have to manage profits. Say by increasing salaries and bonuses. Or investing in advertising.

I applaud companies that have a noble mission and contribute back to society, just know it can be manipulated while being done.


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

[User]
Would it be possible for two people to grow together if they both were to cut off a hand/finger and then hold the wounds together?

Assuming blood types and so on are identical.

[Assistant] Ignoring practical issues like being able to brace the wounds together for the weeks it'd take to heal, you would have to go beyond just matching blood type--the two people would need matching HLA haplotypes or else each person's immune system would try to reject the other person's tissues. (There may be ways around this, for example if each person were put on immunosuppressants.) Perhaps it could happen with identical twins, whose HLAs would be perfect matches.


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

[User]
[Marvel Comics] Could Bobby Drake use his powers to counteract the effects of global warming?

I'm thinking that if the guy took a vacation up to the melting ice caps while the rest of the X-Men were fighting Magneto or whoever, he could fix in months what we caused over decades.

[Assistant]
I think global warming is more green house gases destroying the atmosphere than everything just getting hotter.

on the other hand, he could definitely stop the ice caps from melting. The guy has frozen the whole planet before.


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

[User] ELI5: What will happen when we run out of petroleum?

[Assistant]
There's no lack of ways to generate energy.  However most of them cost more than pumping petrochemicals out of the ground and burning them.

When supply of petrochemicals becomes constrained, there will be huge spikes in the price of those commodities.  Those price spikes will change the economic calculus, making other technologies cheaper to use than burning fossil fuels.  Industry and commerce will switch to those alternative sources.

The challenge is to make those changeovers without massive widespread global chaos and disruption.  It takes years to build power plants and dams and solar power farms and nuclear reactors.  As we approach the time when fossil fuels will become uneconomical the places that prepared in advance and built infrastructure to transition to alternative energy sources will have a smoother path than those who waited until the crisis to start such construction.

Think about the fact that 99.99% of the vehicles on the roads in North America and Europe all run on oil-derived fuel.  Every one of those vehicles will probably run on electricity, hydrogen, or something else in 100 to 200 years.  All the gas stations have to be replaced with charging stations or hydrogen cells.  The infrastructure upgrades carry astronomical costs.  The disruption implied by making that change is enormous.

In any time of sudden, disruptive change, you get social unrest (countries fall apart, political parties rise and fall), war (some people will want the last of the oil and will do anything to get it), and massive widespread economic disruption (what will the people who own Exxon and BP Stock think those companies are worth when there's no more oil to pull out of the ground?)

The next 100 years are going to see tremendous realignments of national boundaries, national priorities, and the rise and fall of fortunes and multinational companies, all driven by the end of cheap petrochemicals.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is actually happening with the body when you "catch your breath"?

How does this process differ between a person who is in shape and someone who is not?

[Assistant]
Being out of breath is caused by high acid levels in the blood: carbonic acid from carbon dioxide (CO2) and lactic acid. Both are produced by strenuous exercise. You catch your breath by exhaling CO2 and inhaling oxygen which is needed to convert lactic acid to water and CO2.

This process doesn't differ much between people in or out of shape. A person who is in shape may have a higher lung capacity and their muscles may convert lactic acid faster if they're trained.


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

[User] [Flintstones] my daughter brought home a stray brontosaurus I can't tell her no how do I take care of it?

[Assistant]
OK. So here's what you do.

1- Try and explain to your daughter that you can't take care of a brontosaurus because it costs too much on your stone smashing job salary.

2- After you fail to stand your ground when she cries, go over your bills and try to find a way to budget for a new pet.

3- After getting hungry and discovering that the brontosaurus has somehow managed to open your fridge and eat all of your over sized steaks, head over to your dumpy friends house to get a sandwich.

4- Your friend will suggest a hair brained scheme involving the two of you dressing up as the baby brontosaurus's mother (using a vaguely realistic dinosaur costume he kept around after his days in the circus) and convincing your daughter to let the baby dinosaur go with you.

5- Scheme starts off well until a male brontosaurus passing by see's you and immediately falls in love and now want's a kiss- JUST A KISS.

6- Attempting to back out of plan and reveal yourself, you soon discover the zipper is stuck.

7- Chase scene. Hilarity ensues.

8- After a short montage of you and your buddy attempting to evade the male brotosaurus you both run headlong into a wall. At this point your friend will discover a second zipper that he forgot about and free you both from the costume.

9- Right before you pummel your friend your wife and her cousin from out of town will happen upon you. The cousin will peacefully subdue the male brontosaurus and reveal that he is a brontosaurus rancher.

10- Your daughter and the baby brontosaurus will sudden arrive and discover the truth. Before she gets upset your wife's cousin will step in and marvel about how that's a rare brontosaurus breed and wants to take it home with him.

11- Despite the fact that your daughter still doesn't get to keep it, she OK's the decision.

12- Someone cracks a joke and everyone laughs. Music starts playing and no one ruins the happy ending by pointing out that you just gave up an expensive animal for free to a man that will most certainly butcher it for food.


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

[User] Why does your appetite slow down when youre sick?

[Assistant]
Firing up the immune system releases hormones that suppress appetite.

One theory is that if you don't eat, the blood sugar goes down, starving bacteria.

The theory behind intermittent fasting is that the body's cleanup system is triggered by fasting.  That would be particularly useful to clean up the detritus of the immune system attack.


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

[User] [Kick-Ass/Batman] Batman becomes aware of Mindy, her backstory and training as Hit-Girl after her father dies. If he decided to take her under his wing how would he be able to re-train her into a non-lethal vigilante, particularly with her heavy reliance on killing and guns? Or is she too far gone?

[Assistant] She's no farther gone than Damien.  Given how much she likes her sick stick, Batman probably trains her up with it and other similar gadgets.  He likely manages to stop her from carrying guns, but not from carrying her swords, which she occasionally falls back on.


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

[User] ELI5: How and why is sushi safe to eat?

[Assistant]
Not all the bacteria present in the fish are harmful to humans. Some are, but not all. Even the harmful ones aren't always bad. Our bodies are constantly killing bad cells.  Any parasites or bacteria are generally put to the death quite quickly by our bodies defenses.

If a fish shows any telltale signs of being unhealthy, then these fish are not used for sushi.  If a fish looks real good, it's cut up and shipped to a restaurant or market.  We have figured out VERY well how to tell if a fish is not healthy.  We also know exactly how to make things even healthier by caring for it properly.

Sushi fish is treated VERY well, and cared for as if a tiny baby.  If a person does not treat the fish properly, it can get contaminated from almost anywere.  If someone touches it without gloves, drops something on it, or lets it sit out too long, the bacteria could start to grow.  If the bacteria is given time to sit and multiply on a tasty piece of fish, it'll start growing into a colony.  One bacteria is easy to kill, but millions are much harder. Sushi is expensive because of the work that humans put into making it perfectly safe to eat.

Often, not always, fish is put into a special freezer that won't harm the fish's taste but will kill the tiny parasites that are harmful for humans.


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

[User]
[WH40K] Could an Imperial Guardsmen retire?

Is it even possible for a guardsmen to retire, and possibly without facing severe injuries or 'shell shock' as a cause? It interesting as I've never heard of this happening.

[Assistant] Yes, often the regiments that are used to take a world are retired upon it as settlers when the conflict is over. Beyond that many regiments do have a limited number of years their guardsmen must remain in service, often quiet a long time however.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do bankrupt companies still operate?

I read all the time about major companies filing for bankruptcy, but still operating. Do they not have to close their doors and attempt to liquidate assets to pay back debts?

[Assistant]
There are different types of bankrupcy, usually denoted by the chapter of the code that governs the process.

Some types require total liquidation and would cause the company to fold, but others allow the company to keep running and restructure their debts.  It is up to the company and the courts to decide what the right path forward is.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] If Muggle studies has been an option at Hogwarts since the days of Voldemort, why doesn't Arthur Weasley know more about basic muggle things?

[Assistant]
Just because a class is available doesn't mean it is taught accurately or that the one teaching it cares to teach it correctly. Or that there wasn't a ministry approved curriculum the teacher was required to follow.

Of course, considering Arthur Weasley himself is head of the Muggle Affairs department of the ministry, the question could answer itself--a case the blind leading the blind.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Does the Wizarding World offer magical protection to the Muggle World's leaders?

Its been implied in the books that the highest echelons of muggle society (Royalty, Prime Ministers, etc.) Are aware of the existence of magic and of the Wizarding World. If that is the case, than does the Ministry of Magic offer magical bodyguards, protections, or advisors to World Leaders like, say, The Queen of England or the Prime Minister? What sort of magical precautions would be used? And is there an active threat of a rogue wizard or witch trying to kill a Muggle World Leader?

[Assistant]
The Ministry does assign protection to the Muggle Minister of Magic during times of crisis. Kingsley Shacklebolt went undercover as an aide to the Muggle Minister in *The Halfblood Prince*. Its unknown if this protection is also extended to the Royal Family but presumably it is, because their sudden deaths would attract unwanted attention.

Its somewhat unclear if the Ministry is Magic *always* has Aurors assigned time Muggle leaders or only during times of conflict, or only during extraordinary circumstances. Voldemort and Grindelwalds wars were certainly extraordinary circumstances because they directly involved attacks in the Muggle world - in the films, the Death Eaters destroyed Millennium Bridge and its implied that the caravan park was destroyed by Death Eaters; in the books, random Muggles get attacked and the Muggles start to suspect that something is amiss.


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

[User]
ELI5: why is it that our bodies are symmetrical on the outside, but not on the inside?

I have always wondered but, well, today i was prompted to ask. We are from head, to genitalia to feet symmetrical and then our heart, stomach etc is all wack, please explain.

[Assistant]
Overall symmetry makes movement and maintaining balance easier since it keeps your center of mass centered inside your body, so there's some selection pressure on evolution to keep such a shape. Sometimes asymmetry still sneaks into living beings where it either provides enough advantage to outweigh the disadvantage (look up the pistol shrimp for an example of this), or else is too minor to get in the way.

The exact placement of the different organs inside your body matters less to evolution, as their density doesn't differ that much. Because of this it can sometimes get away with just placing them where it is convenient and inexpensive in terms energy spent on growth and upkeep.

As far as center of mass is concerned, your insides can be abstracted as a nearly-uniform distribution of generic biomass contained inside a humanoid-shaped container made of skin suspended on bone.


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

[User]
Would there be negative repercussions to a wide-scale reef "re-forestation" and reef creation effort?

I know that ignoring human influence, all ecosystems are balanced to their current needs. But reefs, from what I understand, help biodiversity flourish. Would it be beneficial to start planting reefs (assuming using only native species for each locale) all over the world's coast, or would that throw the ecosystems out of balance in a bad way?

[Assistant]
Marine biologist who works on reef recreation in the Florida Keys reporting.  It depends on what you mean by negative repercussions.  By saying "negative", you are implying that there is a standard normal state of being for an ecosystem and re-creating the habitat would alter that state of being in a negative way.  This is the major problem in conservation biology, is that we have no way of defining what exactly we are preserving.  Ecosystems are notoriously variable and hard to define (where do you draw the line on one ecosystem to another?), and are generally defined as being "stable" or "healthy" when all ecological niches are filled and functioning.

In the case of coral reefs, when corals are removed from a system, you no longer have all of these niches being filled, and it is generally considered an unhealthy system.  By this definition, replacing the corals should have a positive effect on reef associated populations.  However, it depends on how you are building the reef.  Are you replacing the exact coral species that have been lost? This is not always possible in the case of environmental factors resulting in species die-offs, they simply cannot survive in their native habitat anymore.  So let's say you can't replace exact species, so you add in related species that can still survive there.  Have you "saved" the habitat, or created a whole new one?  Well, if it results in associated fish and invertebrate populations evening out and filling niches, then you have had a positive repercussion in at least some way.

tl;dr: Ecosystem questions are hard to define and ask because it is inherently difficult to define what an ecosystem is, and what a "healthy" or "preserved" ecosystem even is.

EDIT:  These same notions apply to terrestrial ecosystems such as forests as well.


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

[User] ELI5: Standards for measurement units (time, length, etc) have developed so that they become more accurate than the one made before. But how can people find out that their new standards is more accurate than the one before if that was the standard?

[Assistant]
It isn't that they are more *accurate* but that they are more *precise* in the sense that they:

A) define a standard of measure to a greater degree of precision (more significant digits); and

B) are based more firmly in fundamental constants (such as the speed of light).


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Why didn't The Doctor reveal who he was on Midnight?

You would have thought that it would make his job a lot easier if he didn't try to avoid questions so much.

Why didn't he just say that he was a 905 year-old Time Lord from planet Gallifrey and that he travels through time and space with a human friend who is currently back at the leisure palace getting a lovely suntan? When asked about his name, he can just say that Time Lords don't have names, they have titles. When asked about why he knows what to do, he can say that in 905 years of his life, he learned how to be an electrician. He doesn't have to say "Because I'm clever!".

These people in the bus have seen aliens before, so explaining that he's an alien shouldn't be as much of a shock to them as it is to people like Donna.

I think if he had just explained himself instead of pretending to be human, that issue wouldn't gotten has bad as it did.

So, why didn't he drop the faade like he did on the Titanic?

[Assistant]
Once the entity had entered the bus, it was more of a risk to reveal that he wasn't just an ordinary person. If the entity had discovered that he was super-intelligent, nearly immortal and had access to time travel then it would have made him a much more interesting target. While the Doctor has no idea what it is it's much more sensible not to reveal what he is. For all he knows, it's an entity like the Family of Blood that's been searching for a Time Lord body to live in.

Before all that happened, he just wanted to be an ordinary holidaymaker having fun, he didn't want to stand out in any way. There's also a high chance that Time Lords are a legend to humans at this time period and they wouldn't believe him even if he did tell them.


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

[User] [Christmas] Santa can see all the nice/naughty people in the world. Why doesn't he help law enforcement catch criminals or find missing people?

[Assistant] Santa operates at a level beyond our mortal laws.  He is busy all year using his arcane powers to command his elf servants to help him build toys and IDK do battle with Hannukah or something.  He isn't the arbiter of what's legal or illegal, solely what's naughty or nice by his own morality.


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

[User] ELI5: If handcuffs are so easy to pick, why hasn't a new design been popularized to prevent escapes?

[Assistant] Plastic wrist ties are becoming more popular among law enforcement because they're much cheaper and easier to use than the old steel cuffs. They're immune to lock picks and they're almost impossible to break out of (don't believe those youtube videos of people snapping these off their wrists - those are not police issue plastic restraints, they are usually cheap cable ties).


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

[User]
[DC] How do the Robins feel about each other?

Just wondering if there's much information about each Robins relationship with each other. How does Dick feel about Jason, Tim and Damian and so on.

[Assistant]
It's a little tricky due to the different continuities. In general I'd say:

Dick:

* Initially felt rather insecure that Bruce took on another Robin & even adopted Jason before Dick. Tried to be a confidant to Jason since he had experience dealing with Bruce's parenting but they had some tension since Jason was abrasive and refused his help. Felt responsible for his death. After Jason came back as Red Hood Dick would try to reach out to him but the relationship became very antagonistic & he had to fight against Jason a lot since the latter had become a villain. Post-Flashpoint he & Jason aren't at each other's throats or anything but there's still a bit of distance.
* Helped convince Bruce to take on Tim as Robin & even helped train him himself. Made a conscious effort to be closer to Tim after what happened to Jason. Very close & brotherly. Ultimately refused to have Tim be his Robin since he viewed him as an equal which dented their relationship a bit but they eventually recovered.
* Damian was Robin to Dick before Bruce came back. When Bruce was gone it was Dick who took care of Damian and helped smooth his rougher edges. The two are very close & Dick was rather depressed after Damian's death.

Jason:

* Initially felt a lot of pressure to live up to Dick's example & so was very insecure and even worried Dick would try to take his old identity back. Both looked up to & resented him. After he died & came back he repeatedly tried to kill him. Post-Flashpoint he's a lot less villainous & is more the black sheep of the family. Feels Dick is Bruce's favourite.
* Jealous of Tim's position as his replacement and repeatedly tried to kill him. New 52 continuity has the two as weirdly close & brotherly but that seems to have been dropped.
* Clashes with Damian & (Again) repeatedly tried to kill him.
* In general he was more villainous & antagonistic before Flashpoint. Now he's just kind of the distant black sheep of the family.

Tim:

* Looked up to Dick. The two were very close. Though their relationship took a bit of a hit when Dick made Damian his Robin and wouldn't help Tim look for a believed dead Bruce. Though they later reconciled. Made his own contingency plans to fight every hero with the notable exception of Dick.
* Jason tried to kill him. New 52 continuity had the two as being closer but that seems to be no longer the case.
* Very tense relationship with Damian. Damian belittled him & resented him while Tim was a little jealous Damian was his replacement.

Damian:

* Initially dismissive of Dick but grew closer over their partnership. To the point that he missed Dick when Bruce came back and took over as Batman again. Called their partnership the best.
* Outside of Dick, Damian doesn't really get along with his brothers because he's so abrasive and condescending. He's made comments about the others being adopted & Jason having died, gotten into fights with Tim, once attacked the others to try and prove himself the better Robin etc. Though deep down he cares & so do they (Tim & Jason helped Bruce bring him back. Dick didn't as he'd infiltrated Spyral).


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

[User]
What shape is the universe?

I had a very strange thought come to my head today. The earth is round, correct? Well what if (not saying it is) the universe was round? I know that everyone says it's endless but if the universe was round in "shape" then that could mean it's in its own form of galaxy! Probably just sounds stupid, but I was blown away by the concept!

[Assistant]
This is a major unsolved problem in astronomy.

Present evidence proves that the universe is 'close' to flat, but curvature kicking in on scales of a quarter trillion or more light years cannot be ruled out.

If curvature does kick in on that scale, traveling in one direction far enough can possibly return you to where you started.


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

[User]
CMV: Matriarchy will be just as bad as patriarchy

It is common to see claims that if only women were in charge things would be much better and nicer.  e.g. people would be much happier at work, inequality would fall, climate change would be solved.

I don't believe this is factually true. It seems to rest partly on some cherry picked anecdotes about female prime ministers/CEOs. And partly on a gendered conception of power which supposes that the best explanation for why people in charge of things seem so mean, self-serving, unresponsive to their constituents' needs, etc is that they are **men**. It seems far more likely to me that this follows from the structure of **power**.

My concern is that assuming bad power is because of men leaves us unprepared for the very probable discovery that women  in power are just as bad. We should be focusing on restructuring power so that leaders are more accountable and employees etc more empowered (e.g. via workplace democracy) rather than focusing on trying to change the gender of the people we grant dictatorial powers to.  I suggest we should care less about the gender of the supercompetitive alphas who get the top jobs, and more about the poor saps who will be ruled by them.

*Sidenote: I see the world rapidly shifting away from patriarchy and towards matriarchy. Equal rights for women combined with men's significant underperformance in education have led to women dominating ever more of the professional management jobs in rich countries. For the moment it is true that senior levels with real power are still dominated by men, but that seems an age cohort thing, not a gender thing. In the next decades we will see those jobs as CEOs, lawfirm partners, cabinet ministers, high school principals, mayors, etc increasingly filled by women instead of men, simply because there are so many better qualified women moving up through the system.*

Edit:

Apparently some people are confused by my definitions:

* Patriarchy = the people in charge of things are mostly men
* Matriarchy = the people in charge of things are mostly women

Other definitions of patriarchy/matriarchy certainly exist, but many of them seem circular with respect to this issue, e.g. defining true matriarchy as a society of perfect equality, harmony, etc (like a 'truly socialist society'). So I will stick to my simple definition.

[Assistant] Google just told me that \~15% of CEOs are women.  In a non-patriarchy/matriarchy you would assume that number should be closer to 50%.  What you perceive as a march toward matriarchy is really just the scales balancing. As for the claims that things would be better if Women were in charge of everything are pretty much never made by people actually in charge of anything.


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

[User] [General Fantasy] What's the difference between a healer and a necromancer, when they both raise the dead?

[Assistant]
"True" resurrection usually finds the person's actual, original soul and restores it to their body. This restores the person to their pre-death state, plus or minus some trauma.

If a Necromancer works on a body, they are not putting the original soul back in--they're either re-animating it without a soul, or putting in some substitute. If a Necromancer works on a soul, they're not putting it back into the original body, they're usually capturing it or binding it in some fashion. Necromancers tend to create servants or slaves or automata, while a Healer will restore someone with their free will intact.


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

[User]
How does computer memory work when the computer is turned off?

Do the currents keep on going somehow in the semiconductor chips? Is it somehow that the state is stored in a static manner?

[Assistant]
For RAM, the data is stored as charge in extremely small capacitors. The charge slowly leaks out of the capacitors and into the substrate, hence it must be periodically read out and written back. When the computer is turned off, the data is lost after a few seconds when the charge leaks away.

For flash memory, the data is stored as charge inside of 'floating gates', which are more or less significantly better isolated capacitors. These require larger voltages to write and erase, but don't need to be periodically rewritten and hence will retain the data when power is removed.

Hard drives store data in the orientation of magnetic domains on the platters. The write head uses a magnetic field to change the direction that the domains are magnetized in, and the magnetized domains induce a voltage in the read head as the platter rotates underneath.


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

[User] [Stephen Kings IT] Was there a real Pennywise the dancing clown at some point, whom Pennywise killed and replaced?

[Assistant] There is a hint that Bob Gray was a real man, and that a clown terrified some people some time ago.   All the vagaries in the book suggest that this being amalgamated these names and personae in order to seem at first familiar before unsettling and ultimately terrifying to Its victims, savoring the process of "salting the meat," as it were.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Is there a black market for magical objects in the Muggle world? Are there any government agencies that try to use magical artifacts to their advantage without wizards' knowledge?

[Assistant] Well, there's an entire ministry department that deals with magical artifacts in the muggle world (which Arthur Weasley is part of). A black market for such would he harder, though - any muggle with a known connection to magic would be *obliviated* as soon as discovered. And it's much easier to discover who muggles are when you have magic.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are games made for consoles and ported to PC instead of the other way around?

[Assistant] Essentially because consoles offer a more standardized and easier environment for design. Also, most of the time the console's hardware is more constrained than many PC's, so it makes sense to insure the software is optimized and runs well on the console and then throw on additional resource intensive bells and whistles for the PC port.


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

[User]
I believe the Supreme Court Justices decide cases based on how they feel then use the Constitution to justify it, versus trying to determine what the Constitution says about an issue. CMV

The judicial restraint practiced by people like Oliver Wendell Holmes is not being practiced by the current SCOTUS. Although Chief Justice John Roberts said the following, SCOTUS is not living by it:
Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nations elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.

[Assistant] How could you possibly know this? Unless you could enter the minds of the justices themselves, or they write in their opinions something to the effect, then what leads you to believe they just picked "what they felt was right" rather than what they believed was within their judicial purview to decide or what best squared with their interpretation of the Constitution?


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

[User]
ELI5: How do rebreathers work?

I'm watching a documentary on the USS Atlanta and they mention the world record for the longest dive was 30 hours. I've dived before a decent amount of time but never worked with rebreathers, how are they able to stay under for so long without adverse effects?

[Assistant]
If you're suffocated by being locked in a small box, it's not actually the lack of oxygen which is the problem.

Normally the cycle is 20.9% oxygen, 0.04% CO2 in, then 16% oxygen 4% CO2 is exhaled.

Inhaling 1% is very uncomfortable, "stuffy" air.  7%-10% CO2 is toxic and will lead to suffocation *even if there's sufficient oxygen*.   Excess CO2 will change blood pH and the body can't handle that.

So if you exhaled into a bag along with a tank of pure O2, well you could add the equivalent of +4% pure O2 on one side and vent out 4% of the volume of gas on the other side, but the CO2 mixed into the air so you don't remove the 4% CO2.  No, the new CO2 level after partial venting is 3.84%, still toxic.

So we're got 3 problems here:

1.  We can't maintain breathable air by just adding O2.

2.  You can't breathe pure O2 when diving either, O2 is toxic at the increased pressures experienced while diving.  We can't dilute it with CO2 either, it can ONLY be diluted with nitrogen or (rarely) with helium.

3. We don't want to waste any volume of air here other than the CO2, but we can't just vent CO2 selectively.  Not only would we waste the remaining 16% O2, but a larger volume of inert nitrogen too, and we don't want to carry a huge volume of nitrogen.

Same's true for spacecraft.  Spacecraft can't tolerate high O2 either because it makes everything super-flammable.

What we have is a CO2 scrubber of lithium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide.  These adsorb ONLY CO2 from the air and form a carbonate, this does reduce the volume of air and and equivalent volume of O2 can be added.  The nitrogen (78% on Earth, varies in diving and space ships) is not consumed nor regenerated.  The CO2 is literally "scrubbed" out.


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

[User]
If an electron is a "elementary" particle, how can it combine with a proton in electron capture during radioactive decay and turn into something else?

If electrons and quarks are elementary particles, how can they combine to form a different type of quark, e.g. in electron capture of a electron by a proton to form an neutron and an electron neutrino? Is 'elementary' a misnomer as far as irreducibility or unchangeability of so called elementary particles? How does this work in a QFT sense?

[Assistant]
Electron capture is a 2 -> 2-body process:

electron + up quark -> electron-neutrino + down quark

The 'elementary' in elementary particle means it's not composite (not made of anything else). They can still be created, destroyed and their flavour changed, as long as the appropriate conservation laws are obeyed.


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

[User]
[40K] I passed my trials and I'm about to join the Astartes, do I get a new name?

All of the great Space Marines I've heard of have names in High Gothic - Dante, Azrael, Sapphon, Sigismund, Marneus Calgar. Yet the Astartes recruit from worlds that are barely civilised, let alone literate. How come there's no Low Gothic names suited to the worlds they're recruited from - Sergeant Olaf, Librarian Dugdug the Smashinator, Chapter Master Mitch Roberts? Is a new name part of the rebirth into one of the Emperor's angels of death or is it a remarkable coincidence?

[Assistant]
You have to remember that the changes wrought upon the Astartes are as much mental as they are physical. It is very rare that a Space Marine remembers much, if anything at all, about his past life and they tend to not be particularly sentimental about their human days. Some Chapters, notably the Grey Knights, totally purge the memories of their initiates as a matter of course.

New names help signify the totality of their transformation as instruments of the Emperor.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What does Snape have against wand waving and incantations?

So, in Harry's first potion lesson, Snape says "There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class.". It's an atmospheric line except, you know, *what the fuck is he talking about*?

He's a *wizard.* He's in a wizard school. He's a member of a culture based *entirely* around wand-waving and incantations. Basically every single thing he owns works via wand waving and incantations. He works at an institute of wand-waving and incantations, in an economy based around wand waving and incantations, in a society who determines social status almost entirely based on skill at wand waving and incantations.

 It's not like he's some weird Luddite equivalent- we know he uses wand magic, and even makes up his own spells. And he's a 30-something halfblood with a pureblood mother, it's not like he's new to the whole thing.

So, this line is at best the equivalent of your P.E. teacher randomly starting a class with "fuck textbooks" and more like them leading with "fuck writing as a concept". It's a really weird thing to say, basically. What was with the sudden, out of nowhere disdain for the fundamental underpinning of his entire society right there?

[Assistant] Potions are serious . Potions are dangerous. There will be no wand waving and Incantations because they can cause the potions to go horribly wrong. Like a science class. There will be no horseplay or something will explode and  someone is going to hospital and then you will fail this class.


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

[User] Why radians are preferred over degrees as a unit of measure of an angular displacement?

[Assistant] Radians relate a distance walking outward from the center of a circle to a distance walking around the outside of a circle.  Measuring an angle as distance around the perimeter per distance away from the center makes the notion of angle something universal, something that doesnt depend on what choice of units you have made for measuring length or how many pieces you have decided make up the standard number of circle divisions.  In contrast, 360 degrees is arbitrary, largely chosen because it has a lot of integer factors that make it easy to figure out how to fairly cut up a pie with pen and paper.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Religion of Men/Hobbits/Dwarves?

I've not read the Silmarillion or anything so please forgive any errors in detail. So the mythological lens through which we view Middle Earth is obviously the universe's truth: that the world was created by Eru Illuvatar and his chorus of Valar, that Melkor fell from grace and became the ultimate evil in the world, and that Elves are the chosen of Eru Illuvatar and his first children.

My question is this: do the non-Elven races of Middle Earth hold their own unique religious views about the origin and nature of the world? Do Men have their own pantheon of gods, or do they worship the Valar and Eru Illuvatar under different non-Elven names? Or, since Elven language has already been a wide influencer of Men, have they also adopted the Elven view of history? If so, why do they seem not to view the Elves as divine beings, since the mythology would obviously support that interpretation (they were literally created eons first, cannot die from age or illness, and often have access to some sort of magical or divine grace that the other races of Middle Earth lack)?

[Assistant]
Sauron has turned several groups of Men in the Far East, South and even Numenor to the worship of Morgoth. In fact while Sauron was a prisoner on Numenor he eventually built a great black temple where the small remnant of Faithful numenoreans were burnt alive as sacrifices.

The numenoreans at first had a holy temple to the Valar on the top of the highest mountain of the island, this place remained untainted during the darkness

The Men of the Mountain broke their oaths to Gondor because they worshiped Sauron as a God

The Rohirrim favored the Vala Orom the hunter who they called Bma

The dwarves favored Aul, their creator. And they kept secret everything he taught them because they found them so sacred

Basically everyone in the west knows about the Valar and acknowledges them while everyone under Sauron's control acknowledges Morgoth as the true God, the Valar as charlatans and Eru a lie.


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

[User]
Eli5 Why do nuclear tests not create a nuclear winter?

Just confused because people always talk about the dangers of nuclear attack being the radioactive particles carried off by the wind so why is that not the case in areas like outside Vegas where bombs were consistently tested?

[Assistant]
Surprised no one has said this but nuclear winters have a horribly misunderstood cause, the explosions themselves dont cause it, the subsequent fires that happen all around the world do. The explosions, while producing some radioactive waste, dont really have a bunch of smoke lingering after them to do anything significant in this regard.

All the explosions we have had have generally been avoiding burning things.


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

[User]
[My Hero Academia] Will Deku using 100% of One For All release the same amount of power as All Might using 100% of One For All ?

I have arguments for both sides.
Deku using One For All releases way less power because if his body can take 8% OFA recoil without getting harmed then maybe we can assume at 15-20% his arm is severely fractured. My point is, he shouldn't be able to exert any more force i.e. he can't fire a 100% Detroit Smash (100% meaning the complete power contained in OFA and not his 100%).

On the other hand, if we disregard the above point as it follows the laws of physics of our world and not Deku's, I can argue that as OFA is a power stockpiling quirk, Deku's OFA is better than All Might's OFA because it has his power (however little) added to it.

Thoughts ??

[Assistant]
Look at it as potential power vs the hole that power can fit through. Deku can only handle around 8% when using Full Cowling. That is the size of the faucet. The power behind him, if it goes over that, then has some power wasted trying to force the power through a smaller faucet.

The potential power behind it is very large, and Deku has more power from OfA than All Might ever did. But his vessel is not yet able to utilize it at 100 percent. To further complicate matters, as his control over the power increases, his body's upper limits should be increasing as well, further growing his own (and OfAs) eventual power cap.

As for how much stronger deku would be at 100% control vs Prime All Might, it is really hard to say. All we know is that in about 7 generations it went from the strength of one average man to a city buster. The scale clearly is either exponential or logarithmic, and there have been further... complications on the nature of OfA in recent manga chapters. All that means is when Deku says in the narration that he becomes "the greatest hero" there is no doubt about that.


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

[User] [Star Trek/Star Wars] What are the differences between Subspace and Hyperspace?

[Assistant]
Subspace consists of many different layers that are still vaguely connected to normal space. Subspace is also the only place where tetryon particles naturally occur.

Hyperspace is a different dimension that can only be traveled on certain routes, due to the danger of mass shadows.


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

[User]
[BattleTech] No nukes, no bioweapons, no orbital bombardment? Really?

In the BattleTech universe humanity has seemingly adopted a practice of avoiding the above methods of war, but how practical is it?

I know there is the Ares Convention but that seems more ceremonial without much enforcement. How do you police this? How do you punish offenders? Can you even prove an offense?

Aren't there enough rogue elements in the periphery and deep periphery that things can get kind of crazy?

[Assistant]
It's more of a case of deterrence in that if you use any of the above things, the signatories of the Ares Convention would be free to use the things that was used against you.

It's self policed with the signatories, usually with Comstar as a relatively neutral third party observer. Comstar has a vested interest to keep relatively neutral in the matter of the Ares Convention because they don't want their facilities or Terra be nuked/gassed/glassed.

Case in point, Word of Blake started using nukes in their attacks, everyone in the Inner Sphere started nuking them.

Unfortunately, as is most conventions that just put a limit on the actions that can be in war, it legitimises any actions taken that isn't banned and is probably one of the reasons that perpetuate the wars between the Great Houses.


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

[User] Why do our voices age and how? (Why do old people sound different than say a 40 year old, etc)

[Assistant] Speech/Lang student here! As you grow from a child to an adult, you vocal folds lengthen and strengthen (hence why your vocal range is larger and deeper than that of a child). But as you grow old, your vocal folds weaken. Vocal folds are like any other muscle in your body, they get stronger until a certain age and then weaken in old age.


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

[User] [LOTR] Im an Uruk-Hai sent by Sauron to find the one ring. By luck I stumble across Frodo and kill him. The ring is now mine, what happens next ?

[Assistant]
You simply walk into Mordor.

Serious note, even if the Uruk became power hungry, the Nazgul would track him down easily. Sauron would get his ring back, and the Valar (Gandalf's bosses) may have to intervene directly to stop him.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are GPUs utilized for number-crunching work?

What makes a rig with many graphics cards better than a rig with many processors?

[Assistant] GPUs are more powerful than CPUs. The difference is that a CPU is better at more things. Think of a GPU as a guy with huge biceps who can curl 50kg dumbells all day but sucks at everything else, while the CPU is a slim, all-round fit guy who can do all kinds of exercises (but he can't curl like GPU, not even close)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do meal combinations become "boring" and unpleasant over time?

For example, if I eat rice and beans flavored with the same spices for several meals or days in a row, why do I get "sick" of that particular meal, yet enjoy it again if I go back to it after a hiatus?

[Assistant]
Our bodies need a lot of different things in order to be healthy. Vitamins, minerals, etc.

Different foods may have different toxins that the body has to deal with and expel, or it may have different vitamins that are absorbed differently and that enhance or inhibit absorption (ie: vitamin C and iron... calcium and iron).

Varying our diet means we're more likely to get what we need, not miss trace minerals, and not consume huge amounts of toxic substances that might be in a particular food (think of Taro root/cassava).

We're probably genetically programmed to seek out and desire a variety of food sources to make sure our needs are met.


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

[User]
CMV: The phrase "that's just the way things are" shouldn't be considered valid justification for cultural norms

From time to time, society takes a step back and needs to reconsider whether certain cultural norms are worth preserving. We're currently seeing a huge paradigm shift on how we perceive people smoking marijuana, for example.

There are plenty of catalysts for these reversals, but a large component involves people seriously thinking about whether accepted beliefs are good for society. This often involves people discussing what the merits of a social norm are.

During these discussions, people often reply with "that's just the way things are." This is a non-answer, and when I find myself discussing this sort of thing, I don't see it as a good reason to keep the norm. Of course, it's not a reason to discard it either.

When people say this, it usually means one of two things. Often it just means that they don't understand why the rule is in place, but agree with it. This is fine, but we should really take a deep look at why some of these norms exist.

Sometimes it's just a way of blindly following the status quo. I'm of the opinion that shaking up the norm is sometimes required, so this feels unsatisfactory as well. Change my view.

Edit: I should clarify a few things. My view is centered around critical discussions, which I realize aren't exceptionally common. If you're not intent on digging into the real reason a norm exists, that phrase may be plenty.

The phrase isn't a good reason to support a norm, but it also isn't a reason not to. Most people aren't aware of why we follow a norm, simply because the reason is often nuanced and complex or understood subconsciously. This isn't a reason not to support a norm, but it isn't a reason to support it either.

[Assistant]
This is a fundamental component to the difference between conservatives and progressives.

There is a *reasonable* (though not conclusive) argument that a cultural norm which has "stood the test of time" shouldn't be overturned without specific evidence that the change is beneficial, because absent any evidence to the contrary, the fact that it has been preserved for a long time indicates that *some* people are deriving value for that norm or that it is preventing some harm, most likely quite broadly if it is truly a "cultural norm".

Basically, it's a claim about the burden of proof for changing a cultural norm. If the norm has been around for a long time, who should have to provide evidence that it will be a) harmful or b) harmless to change it?

Whether or not you agree with people that say "whoever wants to change it" and "harmless" to that question, it's not an empty statement with no validity to it.


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

[User] ELIA5 the "War Z" fiasco, please.

[Assistant]
The game has been released and is in really early development.

A lot of the features being advertised are not in the game [yet?].

People think it's false advertising and are unhappy with the end product.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does nobody care enough to try and stop what's happening in Syria?

Which countries have invested interests in the continuing massacre of the general population by Bashar Al-Assad's regime? Why has this been allowed to continue?

[Assistant] Mostly because its none of our, or anyone else's business. Sure we might know that Bashar Al-Assad is a bad guy but we don't know much about the rebels either. Historically getting in the middle of civil wars like this doesn't work out too well very often.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does turning off your computer with the physical power button cause file system damage?

I was always told never to turn off my computer (or even gaming consoles) with the power button because it can mess up the file system. But I never understood how it happens, or why it happens. Do you think computer technology will ever advance past this obstacle?

[Assistant] Files systems are slow. Your computer and game console will sometimes keep data cached in RAM and commit it to the file system at a later time. If you turn off the power before the data is written to the file system then it could result in data corruption.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can you get food poisoning from cooked chicken that has been left out for 12 hours on the counter, but not from a piece of chicken that has been stuck in your teeth for 12 hours before you brush?

[Assistant]
The difference is which type of bacteria grows on the chicken. Since the chicken is cooked, any bacteria on/in the chicken was killed, meaning that only environmental bacteria will grow on it afterwards.

On the counter, bacteria from people touching the counter, dust and air, and all the other things that may be in the kitchen could make its way onto the cooked chicken. Some of this bacteria may be harmful, potentially causing food poisoning.

In your mouth, there are loads of bacteria already present, all of which (assuming youre healthy) are not harmful to you. When chicken is stuck in your teeth, its almost guaranteed that the bacteria growing on it are from your mouth and not harmful to you. Also, if a bit of bad bacteria have made it onto the chicken, its likely that they will be out-competed by less harmful bacteria already in your mouth.

TL;DR: Mouth bacteria are generally less harmful than counter bacteria.


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

[User]
[Austin Powers] How good of an author is Austin Powers?

How well did Austin Powers book, Swedish-made Penis Enlargers And Me: This Sort of Thing Is My Bag Baby, sell and did his endorsements of Swedish-made penis enlarger pumps have any affect on the industry?

[Assistant]
There is basically no information about this topic in any of the movies.

However, given his wide spread popularity it stands to reason the book sold quite well and increased sales of said product. It's like the kardashians or whoever endorse a new product and sales sky rocket.

So, as far as articulation and writing abilities there is nothing to comment on but his popularity probably helped sales immensely.


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

[User]
How do we know what the Milky Way Galaxy looks like if we're stuck on the inside looking out?

While watching Cosmos last night, it dawned on me that all the pictures we see of the Milky Way must be artistic representations, since it would be impossible to view ourselves from a third person perspective.  How do we know for sure that we are living in a spiral galaxy or things such as the number of spiral arms?

[Assistant]
Think about it like classical map making; you measure the direction one object is from another, then measure the distance. So what we have are many thousands of measurements, each plotting the direction and distance of a single point - a star.  That is enough to build a comprehensive map (or in this case 3D model) which gives you a top down view (or in the case of a full 3D model, any view you want to make).

Classical mapmaking would also use triangulation, but obviously we only have on measuring point.


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

[User]
What actually is consulting?

I often hear stories about people who left academia to go into consulting. Recently a colleague told me that consulting is his plan B in case he can't get tenured, but he couldn't really answer when I asked what the hell consulting actually is. It honestly feels like some kind of an academic meme at this point.

I'd love to hear different experiences from people who have left or are considering leaving academia to go into consulting, especially regarding what a job like that actually involves.

[Assistant]
Quick problem-solving, usually for businesses. Academics (well, those who aren't socially awkward) tend to be good at this type of thing: you absorb and analyze a ton of information in a short span of time and devise a solution.

Alternately, some big companies hire long term consultants to help with designing user experience, usually social scientists.

Non-profits very occasionally consult economists to develop for program evaluations.

Consulting is just a catchall term for "experts" who do the thinking and offer an outside perspective. It means different things to different fields. There are image and fashion consultants, but they probably aren't from Physics.


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

[User]
Do different isotopes (e.g. Carbon 12 and Carbon 14) have slightly different electron emission spectra?

Do isotopes of atoms cause the electrons to have slightly different energy levels and therefore slightly different emission spectra or do the electron levels remain the same?

[Assistant]
Their atomic spectra will be slightly different due to *isotope shift*. The nucleus is not actually a point as we often pretend in chemistry; it has some extended spatial structure. And different isotopes of the same element have different nuclear structure.

The finite size of the nucleus has a small influence on the atomic level structure, so if you change the structure of the nucleus (for example by adding a few neutrons), you change these very small shifts in the atomic spectrum.