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

[User]
What is the difference between boiling and evaporation?

So I was told that water turns into vapor by boiling it. The boiling point of water on earth in about 100C

But when I spoil a glass of water on my desk and leave it there for a day, it has completely evaporated. But sure it didn't boil?

[Assistant]
short answer: Boiling happens throughout the liquid, evaporation happens only at the surface.

You may know that the "temperature" of something is a measure of the average kinetic (movement) energy the thing's particles have. As with most averages, some particles have more kinetic energy than the average and some have less. Some have so much energy that they have enough to overcome the forces keeping it in the liquid phase. If one such particle happens to be at the surface of the water, this could mean it goes into the gas phase. Evaporation.

Boiling is when the majority of the particles have adequate kinetic energy to go into the gas phase, and this occurs throughout the liquid.

Fun fact: because the high-energy particles evaporate out of the liquid, the average kinetic energy of the liquid never reaches that of its surroundings; the liquid is always slightly colder. This is called "Evaporative cooling".


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

[User]
[Marvel] What if black bolt whispers into a microphone/megaphone?

Would the effects be destructive? Assume he's speaking in that voice so low that doesn't cause damage.

[Assistant] Black Bolt's destructive power comes from himself, speakers amplify sounds yes, but they aren't a magical multiplication effect. Regardless of the input a speaker recives it can't overcome the limits of its own output.


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

[User]
CMV: I just don't "get it" with the idea of forgiving student loans entirely

This is an odd CMV, for me at least. I'm completely open minded here, but do keep in mind my position on the majority of political issues is libertarian. With pretty much every mainstream idea from the right or left though, I've always understood it. I may have disagreed, but it at least made sense. This idea isn't like that for me at all. I can't figure out how anyone on the left would think this has a chance of ever happening. Like, the Green New Deal has a better chance of happening then this.

\- Why not just eliminate the interest? Or even pay back the interest everyone has already paid? With no interest being accrued, and the prior interest paid back, however "predatory" the loan was becomes irrelevant. Then, make a law going forward capping interest at a very low amount. Given all of the protections the lender has to recoup their money, this seems more than fair to me.

\- However one feels about student loans, the fact is the student received a service. They should pay for that service they received.

\- Some of the burden of giving people free college, will be on those that didn't go to college. This seems entirely unfair to me. If I decided to go to a trade school for my career, why should I have to fund someone else's college education?

\- Why can't we do this for other predatory practices? Could payday loans be forgiven? What about money lost from gambling? What about money lost on the stock market? We can presume the money the person gets would go back into the economy...which is often an argument I've heard for why forgiving student debts would be a good thing.

[Assistant]
Forgiving student loans is a fast way to juice the economy. Plenty of people will just be glad to breathe easier, but lots of people will take that money and buy homes, have kids, start businesses, trade in a junker for a newer, greener car, travel, etc.

Student loans are an easy target because the government does most of the lending whereas the government doesn't run the stock market or Las Vegas sportsbooks.


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

[User] ELI5:Why does coffee smell so much different than it tastes?

[Assistant]
Its because our sense of smell and our sense of taste are both a part of our sense of flavour but they are seperate senses.

Our noses can detect over 50,000 different chemicals. Hot coffee releases loads of delicious smelling chemicals that our nose detects as sweet and rich. Things like vanilla and flowers and chocolates are all common aromas given off by brewed coffee.

Unlike our noses, our tongues only detect, sweet, sour, bitter, salty and Umami. The chemicals that produce the tastes of bitter and sour are not released into the air. They are trapped in the liquid. So when we drink coffee, suddenly we are hit with bitterness and sourness where once all we could detect was sweet.

This is a part of how humans taste food because of how our noses and mouths are shaped. Next time you drink coffee, after you swallow, close your mouth and breath out through your nose. Youll find a pleasantly familiar aroma.


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

[User] [Startrek] The Q friend, foe, or a cosmic annoyance like paper cuts?

[Assistant]
As a "species" they are neither friend nor foe. The rest of the universe is beneath them and of no consequence, so there's no reason to be a real foe. A few individuals from the collective might be friendly at times, but don't expect it to be for long.

The Q are cosmic cats. Sometimes friendly and loving, sometimes angry and vengeful, always unpredictable.


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

[User]
[DC] Has there ever been a comic where Batman has definitively beaten Superman at full power?

I know DKR gets cited as him beating Superman, but its problem is that it falls into the same "Superman holds back" BS as so many other arguments, which is crap because if the two ever fought for real, there would be no holding back.

So have we ever seen a comic, canon or Elseworlds, where Superman has fought Batman with 100% of his power and still lost?

If not, have we seen what Batman's plan will be when he has to handle that situation?

[Assistant] See here's the thing about your "no holding back" condition.  It doesn't work.  The vs isn't about someone with Superman's powers vs someone with Batman's skills and resources, it's about Superman vs Batman.  And Superman, by his very nature, holds back.  If you're looking at Rational Man With Superman's Power's vs Batman without holding back, you're seeing Superman flying into orbit and heat visioning Batman to death.  Oh Batman is hiding somewhere?  Well, if this hypothetical being isn't holding back, then he is heatvisioning people Batman cares about until he comes out of hiding.  So no, there is no instance of Batman beating a Superman that isn't holding back because there are hardly any instances of Superman not holding back to begin with.


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

[User]
ELI5 why reddit auto-downvotes?

**Answered**:
>It is to stop people from using bots to up vote their own posts. What it does specifically is stops them from knowing if their vote has been ignored or not.
If they had a bot, and up-voted a post, and the post number stayed the same. Then it would be obvious that the bot was ignored and then they could work towards circumventing it.
>However, if instead of just ignoring it, it gives the post one up-vote and one down-vote. They wouldn't be able to tell if someone just down voted it, or if it was the number fuzzing program.
>So put simply:
>It constantly moves the numbers around so you can't tell if your vote actually counted or not, but it totally does count unless you have blocked by spam protection.

 *Thanks guys*

[Assistant]
It is to stop people from using bots to up vote their own posts. What it does specifically is stops them from knowing if their vote has been ignored or not.

If they had a bot, and up-voted a post, and the post number stayed the same. Then it would be obvious that the bot was ignored and then they could work towards circumventing it.

However, if instead of just ignoring it, it gives the post one up-vote and one down-vote. They wouldn't be able to tell if someone just down voted it, or if it was the number fuzzing program.

So put simply:

It constantly moves the numbers around so you can't tell if your vote actually counted or not, but it totally does count unless you have blocked by spam protection.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come bottled water is such a hot commodity while other animals can still drink water from unfiltered lakes and rivers?

I understand that pure water = good for you, however why do we place such a high priority for it when any other mammal can drink lake water without any repercussions?

[Assistant]
Wild animals have lots of parasites and DO face serious repercussions. There's a reason the animals in zoos live longer and grow bigger than in the wild, and it's not just that they have no predators. Try adopting a stray dog right when it arrives in the shelter; they're full of parasites and need a LOT of medicine to get healthy.

Also, you've lived your whole life on clean food and water. Your gut is full of friendly, weak bacteria, unadapted to killing off parasites. If you drank contaminated water, you'd build up some degree of resistance as your bacterial flora adapt. But even that won't save you from tapeworms and the like.


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

[User] ELI5: How does Turing machine capture the essence of computing?

[Assistant]
Let's say someone wants to make a peanut butter sandwich, but has never done it before. Could you give this person a list of steps to follow that always makes a peanut butter sandwich?

Yes! It would start with something like "get two slices of bread" and go on to "open a jar of peanut butter", and eventually end with putting the whole sandwich together. Anyone who could understand your list of steps could make a peanut butter sandwich.

Now let's say someone wants to write a song that everyone they know will love. Could you give this person a list of steps to follow that always makes such a song?

You could try to tell this person what kind of songs *you* love, or teach them things about music and lyrics, but no matter what you tell this person, they might not be able to write a song that everyone they know will love.

Why are there some things that you can always make if you follow the right steps, and other things that don't seem to have steps that always work?

It is important for people who study math, logic, and computers to know what things you can always do with a list of the right steps and which things don't have steps that always work. After all, a computer can only do something if you can tell it how with a list of the right steps! (In fact, the original "computers" were actually *people* who knew the right steps to figure out the answers to hard math problems using pencil and paper!)

People who study computing call a list of steps that a machine (or a well-trained person!) can follow an "algorithm". In order to understand what things you can or can't do with an algorithm, you need to say what an algorithm is in the language of math. There was a time when people weren't sure how to do this, but a man named Alan Turing figured out a way. A "Turing machine" is what we call Alan Turing's way of saying what an algorithm is in the language of math.

Around the same time that Alan Turing came up with his way of saying what an algorithm is, a man named Alonzo Church came up with a different way of saying what an algorithm is in the language of math. We call Alonzo Church's way the "lambda calculus", and it turns out it says the same thing as Alan Turing's way, just phrased a little differently!

Turing machines "capture the essence of computing" because they give us a way to carefully describe what it means to be an algorithm. Anything that is an algorithm you can phrase as a Turing machine, and anything you can make a Turing machine do is an algorithm. With this careful way to say what is or is not an algorithm, mathematicians and computer scientists can study what it is possible or not possible for a computer to do!


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

[User] [40K] Could an ultra marine captain really kill a demon prince single handily?

[Assistant] A CAPTAIN could, under the right circumstances, particularly a brand spanking new Daemon Prince caught largely offguard (he honestly expected Titus to be dead at that point) and when given a seemingly divine protection from the Warp.


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

[User]
[DC] What happens in general to the family/social life of a Green Lantern?

I mean, they're dragged over an entire sector of space constantly to save people and enforce order and stuff right. How often do they go home to their people, to their family and friends? It's a lot of responsbility. Do most Green Lanterns just wave a last goodbye to their family and loved ones and just patrol the universe? Do they keep in touch and pop by every now and again? I don't think that would make for a health relationship honestly... I know the guardians are boring little blue midgets, but surely they realized that this would be an issue with a lot of sentient life?

[Assistant] Their friends and family are aware of the the privilege and responsibilities of being a Green Lantern so they don't expect to see him very often. They are allowed to take vacations and visit their him planets occasionally.


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

[User]
How do we still receive "data" from voyager when it's billions of kilometers away from earth?

My question is about the method of spacecraft data transmission methods. What's the frequency ? How? What are the LIMITATIONS?! Voyager is 17 billion kilometers away and we still receive signals from it?!
Lets say the signals can get to earth easy-peasy, isn't there anything, any object in space that might block these waves?
Someone please put my mind to peace with this issue. I tried to research it on wikipedia with no luck.

**EDIT:** But my question really was what is the frequency are those radios operating at ? can I receive it from somewhere else in our solar system or our galaxy?

[Assistant]
Basically, wireless.

Super powerful radios and super sensitive receivers on both ends. The vacuum of space makes it easier for radio waves to travel. Galileo uses 2.2ghz (close to wifi frequency)

As for objects interfering with the signal..it depends on the radiation pattern and the size of the object. The antenna voyager uses to send its signal is directed towards earth, obstacles are inevitable but are usually temporary obstructions.


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

[User]
ELI5 why does the value e in math have so many things based around it?

As the title says, how come the value e is special? it has functions and rules just dedicated to it, but what sets it apart from another random number?

[Assistant]
Imagine you have a snowball rolling down a hill. As it collects snow, it grows.

Let's say that the amount of snow it collects depends on how much snow it already has - so it's getting bigger faster and faster! What would a plot of its size look like?

It turns out that you'll find an 'e' in the equation you'll need to describe this slope - e is 2.7 and change. The equation  y=e^(x) creates a curve whose slope (rate of change) is equal to its value at every point.

So lots of things in nature involve this kind of growth - like a colony of bacteria where the rate of growth depends on the number of bacteria in it. It's very special in calculus, as y=e^(x) is unaffected by derivatives. The questions 'what's the value of this function' and 'how fast is this function changing (i.e. what is its derivative?)' have the same answer!


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

[User] ELI5: Why do high-end digital cameras need a physical shutter, while cell phone cameras don't?

[Assistant]
What Ansuz says is really only half the story. Cameras like the Sony A7 don't have a reflex mirror, and are fully electronic, but they still have a physical shutter.

While cameras can operate without a shutter, each pixel must be powered up and down to take a photo. It's simply not possible to achieve this in 1/8000 of a second (a speed that many digital SLRs and mirrorless cameras go down to these days), so the pixels are powered up in the dark, exposed for this short amount of time physically, then powered back down in the dark again. It also allows for more precise timing of the exposure time.

As Ansuz07 says, many shoot video, and they use the shutterless method to do that. As a side note, the 'wobble' that you see when you move digital cameras rapidly is called the 'rolling shutter' effect -- even top end digital cameras would not be able to deal with the amount of data taking a full picture for each frame at the same time would produce, so instead they 'roll' down the frame line by line, only having to process one line of pixels at a time. However, because of this, movement during the 'roll time' will stretch and bend things.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does it even mean for the fundamental forces to be unified just after the Big Bang?

This concept simply doesnt make sense to me. The idea that they could be unified. How does that even make sense, and how would it manifest in the world at the time?

[Assistant]
What scientists have been able to prove is that once you add a certain amount of energy to a system, certain forces start behaving the same way. Going up in energy you first have Electromagnetism and the Weakforce merging into the Electroweak force, then the Electroweak force and Strong force merge and finally, that new frankenforce will merge with gravity once we hit a certain energy level.

Problem is, the last time the universe was at that energy level was right after the big bang. Scientists really want to know what happened there because if they're able to describe how the forces split off one another, it should be considerably easier to come up with one unified model for how forces work. This is particularly important because at the moment we have to irreconcilable branches of physics to govern small and large systems (quantum mech. And gravity) but figuring this out might merge the two together.


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

[User]
ELI5: why can i proof read for a long time and find no mistakes, but as soon as i give it to someone else to proof, all the mistakes are so apparent as they are proofing the document?

This seems to happen a bit with me, i may have to look over a presentation for mistakes. I will pick up the initial set of mistakes, but then everything looks perfect to me. When i go to show it to a supervisor, suddenly, all these mistakes that i hadn't seen before are now very apparent as i go through it with the supervisor.

[Assistant] Because you already know what you are trying to say, and instead of actually reading what is there your brain fills it in for you with what you intended to say. Pro tip: proof your own work by reading it backwards word-for-word and you'll find a ton of those mistakes also.


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

[User]
eli5: why do humans brace for impact if going limp results in fewer injuries?

Why is our instinct to brace for impact when falling, getting punched, getting into a car accident, etc., when going limp causes less injury/damage to the body?

[Assistant]
It doesn't always.

Naturally, tensing up was part of our fight or flight reaction. It was a means of engaging muscles, altering blood flow, producing hormones, all things that would help us survive a fight. Since it worked, we survived the fight, those genes got passed on.

That same reaction tied over to any sort of panic, say, falling off a cliff. In that case, you were pretty much dead or survived, anyway. Being tense or not being tense wasn't the controlling factor, so it didn't play into evolution to adapt one way or the other.

So we have the trait, tensing happens, but in a car crash for example, we've engineering a "soft and safe" system. Going floppy in a car helps because you're going floppy into cushions, an air bag, and a seat belt. If you tense up you can cause internal damage to organs, bones, blood vessels etc.

Long story short - we evolved going tense because it helped us survive in times when survival depending on tensing up. In situations where it didn't help, it didn't matter so no further traits were developed. In our modern world we are basically "post evolution" so the old traits don't help us like our evolution taught us.


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

[User] ELI5: What actually happens when your voice cracks?

[Assistant]
Play a guitar string. Now coat that string with snot and play it again. Now press slightly as you play it. Then again with snot covering it. More importantly, stretch that string (turn the peg back and forth) while plucking it. That's what the muscles do. Just like your legs get tired, so do those muscles.

The different Things inside you at any given time affect the vibration of your vocal cords. Muscle strain also does.

Unless you mean when your voice _changes_ in puberty. In which case, turn the tuning peg while you strum the string. The vocal cords are literally changing.


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

[User]
[Python/Probability] Why is random()*random()>.25 approximately 40% of the time but random()>.5 approximately 50% of the time?

```
a = [random.random()*random.random()*240 for i in range(1000000)]
```.
```
len([n for n in a if n>=60])/10000
```

[Assistant]
it's a probability theory thing.

When you only have one random(), then there's only one way to obtain 0.25. However, when you have two randoms, there are many different ways of obtaining 0.25. Here are a few of them:

0.25 * 1 = 0.25

1 * 0.25 = 0.25

0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25

If you looked this up in a probability textbook, it would tell you that by multiplying two random variables like this, you have created a new "probability density function" that is non-uniform (i.e. not all values are equally likely)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why shouldn't you mix different battery brands?

A lot of electronics that require batteries recommend that you shouldn't use batteries of different types or brands. I understand why you wouldn't want to use batteries of different voltages but why do brands matter?

[Assistant]
Different brands can have different design and capacity.

Ideally you shouldn't mix cells of different chemistry, maximum capacity, and state of charge. The reason is that you want the cells to have the same voltage, and maintain similar voltage as they discharge. If one dies sooner than the others, it can leak caustic electrolyte. Plus the other cells are likely to be replaced prematurely.

Edit : changed "current capacity" to "state of charge".

"current capacity" is ambiguous.


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

[User] ELI5: How did the Spanish Flu end in 1919/1920?

[Assistant]
Viruses mutate and evolve.  Over time it evolved to be less deadly.  More and more people survived catching it and developed immunity to it.  Immunity can be passed onto offspring somewhat and so children born could already have some immunity to it either preventing them from catching it or making it so they could survive it easier.

It's actually still around and people still catch it every year.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Are Marvel heroes that hated and feared that they mistake appreciation for oppression?

In a DC/Marvel crossover, the Marvel heroes were getting autographs and praise for their heroics in the DC universe, and found out that DC's heroes were getting statues and museums in their name. Captain America apparently found it disgusting and believed that the DC heroes were forcing people to love them. Does that imply that the Marvel heroes are so used to being constantly hated and feared that they can't grasp the concept of people actually showing appreciation for their heroic deeds? Also, does Captain America presenting this belief imply that on that Marvel universe, the Avengers are public pariahs in a similar vein to Spider-Man or the X-Men?

[Assistant]
There's appreciating you and then there's building multiple full-size museums for the specific purpose of teaching people how great you are.

People don't just love the Justice League. They *really* love the Justice League. They have statues everywhere and regular parades and are allowed to supersede the sovereignty of nations based on sheer trust. A lot of people genuinely consider Superman *literally flawless*.

If you only just found this out, you don't have to be a self-loathing paranoiac to suspect something is wrong here.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does a song get stuck in your head?

Every morning when I wake up a random song will pop into my head . Sometimes its a song I love or one thats been recently overplayed on the radio. But sometimes its a song I forgot even exists and havent heard in years. Just this morning I woke up middle of the night to use the bathroom and a song popped into my head. I go back to bed and hours later wake up, having completely forgot about the song, and first thing this song pops back into my head. How does this work? What occurs in the brain that causes this to happen?

[Assistant] Sometimes your brain wants to play Baby Shark over and over and thats called an ear worm! Your brain views the music/lyrics as a puzzle that it wants to finish.  If you get caught in an ear worm, a simple cure is to listen to the song or do something that takes your mind onto a new chore (like puzzles, lego building or Minecraft).


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

[User]
I believe storylines in video games are not nearly as good as those seen in the majority of films and novels. CMV

I love video games, but I can understand why most people do not take video games seriously as an art form. Films have their Apocalypse Now's and their Godfather's (granted, there are also stupid movies but at least there is an AFI Top 100 movies that all have fantastic storylines), graphic novels have Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and the Sandman as well as others, and novels, well, it's all about storytelling, so it's explanatory. For games, it doesn't seem as necessary to tell a good story. For example, Splinter Cell: Blacklist got a 4 out of 5 by Adam Sessler although it has a piss poor story. I feel like video games get the shit end of the stick when it comes to storylines, and whenever something marginally good comes along, we hail it as brilliance, i.e. Bioshock Infinite and The Last of US (although they are great games in their own right). The only people in the business right now that seem capable of telling an excellent story is primarily Naughty Dog and Rockstar, and that's it. I'm not really aware of Japanese games, so maybe I don't know much about them.

TL;DR Video games, as a whole, do not have as many great stories as everything else that tells a story.

[Assistant]
Games are capable of producing rich and deep stories of an entirely different type. Games tell great stories about places, events or times. They allow for a depth of 'place' that novels and movies are hard pressed to replicate.

Consider your average movie and its limited view and lack of structure. Think of how many lines of text it would take to encapsulate just the smallest description of the rich 3D interactive worlds of a video game. These games have dozens if not hundreds of hours to create a world around us, with sight, sound and words, something no movie or novel has. Are these games telling stories that are the same as a book? Certainly not. They are an entirely different medium, but they are telling a very potent story, and they transport us into another created realm.

A land riddled with ruins and old prophecies can tell us a far richer story of loss and the decay of an empire by placing us there, letting us see the sunlight passing through old spires. We are given to understand the tale of this place.

A haunted house where we are forced to hide in the shadows as monsters stalk in the dimness lets us understand fear. And we can learn the story of the horrors that stalk there all the more potently as we shift through decaying documents while wolves howl in the night.

These are not better or worse stories, they are different stories. Primarily, because unlike most fiction, they are told from the second person. But we are nevertheless transported into a different time and experience something new and creative.

This is an old argument that comes along every time that a new media makes itself known. The stories told by film are very different that novels - they are short, truncated, bereft of any internal dialogue, etc. But we will come to appreciate stories of video games in the same way we have come to appreciate film, not by their similarities with the older medium but in their own merits.


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

[User]
Is XKCD wrong? Does centrifugal force  outward force?

I've heard a lot of debate to centrifugal force vs. centripetal force? Why is this so easily confused? Is a bunch of people misreading wikipedia? I apologize if this is a repeated question (as I imagine it is) but I couldn't find anything with a search that answered my question.

[Assistant] In grade school they teach you that centrifugal force is what you feel on a merry go round. In highschool they teach you that centrifugal force does not exist, only centripetal. In university, they teach you that centrifugal force does in fact exist, for observers in a rotating frame of reference.


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

[User]
CMV: Old people need to have their drivers licenses renewed yearly

I think this needs to start at age 70. Here is why:

1. The older you get, your response time and judgment are increasingly compromised. At a certain age (I forget how old), you are statistically more dangerous than a drunk driver.

2. I realize that some people keep their mental and physical faculties for longer. But in general, people start declining fast at retirement age. Yes, there are bad drivers that are way younger, and yes, we need to be better at screening or removing bad drivers from the street.

3. The test to renew yearly needs to be much harder to pass than a traditional license. This will slowly weed out those that are losing their touch.

4. DMVs can still issue state ID cards in place of licenses for identification purposes. Many states already do this.

I cant tell you how many horror stories Ive heard of old people dying, killing someone, or almost doing both. My wifes grandfather has fallen asleep multiple times at the wheel. He also forgot where he parked the car and reported it stolen, only for it to be found a month later exactly where he had left it. His kids finally had to take the keys away, after he was pulled over driving 45 on the interstate (speed limit 80).

Ive also personally witnessed old people driving up one way roads the wrong direction, ignore red lights or stop signs, cut people off, and just drive generally horribly (I live in Florida, so there is a disproportionate number of old people). I realize that this is not universal, and that some old people drive just fine. But the majority really struggle, especially as car tech keeps advancing.

But what about those who can still drive well? A once-a-year visit to the DMV will not affect their lives, even if they make a stink about it. Legal immigrants do it all the time in some states (personal experience). It will just make the roads much safer to slowly weed out these old drivers.

Dont get me wrong, I love old people. My oldest grandfather is 76, and he still works and functions normally. But there are many his age or younger that are severely impaired. It needs to change.

[Assistant]
Why target old people specifically? A bad driver is dangerous irregardless of age. Applying the test to all drivers would get all dangerous drivers off of the road instead of just the old dangerous drivers.

As a follow up question, men are killed in car accidents about 2.4 times as frequently as women. Would you propose that men be subject to a yearly driver's test while women are not?


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

[User]
Why are we still writing cover letters or not useful stuff when we submit a paper?

I know that you have thought this in the past. I know I am not the only one. Why are we writing cover letters and stuff that nobody cares (reads)?

I mean, we could easily write the paper, then submit it and there you go.  These are formalities that need to be removed ASAP.

So, please choose me as the future Editor in Chief of your favorite journal and I will remove this tedious part of the process for you.

Edit: I firmly believe that an abstract is more important than anything else. Usually when skimming through new/old papers, if the abstract is poorly written or not very attractive, I wouldn't even bother reading the paper.

[Assistant] I've found editors may only read the cover letter and based on that, decide if it goes to review or not.  So it's not a waste of time in that sense.  Editors don't have a lot of time to go through each paper that crosses their desk so they need something quick and straight forward to help them out.


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

[User] [The Sarah Jane Adventures] Whatever happened to Sarah Jane Smith and her adopted son Luke?

[Assistant]
The official word is that her story goes on forever.

There have been no reference to her death yet on screen (like there was for the Brig.) so she is probably still out there, somewhere.

I hope they make a reference to it one day. It was just a little too soon after they made a big deal out of the Brigadier Stewart's death. (Making it the one act that stopped the 11th Doctor running away from death, re-introducing his daughter, having him come back as a cyberman).


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

[User]
[Marvel / DC] I have made it my life goal to become a street level hero. What are the steps I should undertake?

Try not to copy other street tier heroes, don't tell me to just get bitten by lots of radioactive spiders.

[Assistant]
Episdode 1. You take a baseball bat and go outside on patrol. You see a guy running out of a store he just robbed. You go to conk him on the head. He grabs the bat. After a lengthy tug of war, you manage to get your bat back, and smack him in the shin for all you're worth, shattering it. He can no longer run from the cops. You do. He gets apprhended.

Episode 2: same thing. Except this time you put a sock over the bat. This time the bad guy goes to grab the bat and only gets a handful of sock and you conk him over the head.

Episode 3: everyone on the news is talking about the this new... BATMAN!


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

[User]
Does exposure to covid increase immunity for already vaccinated people?

So, given that we know a 2nd dose of the vaccine boosts immunity, even in the Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine. What can we say/speculate about how a vaccinated person's level of protection/immunity might increase after exposure to the virus? Is this further exposure, which could be asymptomatic, or is very unlikely to be a case of severe illness, likely to increase immunity?

[Assistant]
We dont really know how long immunity lasts.

The vaccines are more about teaching the body how to fight the viruses. This is why even the single J&J vaccine works. Even after being vaccinated then infected a persons immune system fights it off easily. Preventing serious infection and preventing death.

So yes after being vaccinated then infected. There would be fresh antibodies in the bloodstream boosting defense.


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

[User]
Postgraduate Imposter syndrome?

I'm a UK MA (humanities) student and I'm deep into my first semester and have looming deadlines. I absolutely love what I'm studying, principally African/Haitian history and Postcolonial literature/politics, but the fields are so vast and complex. So much so that I often feel as though I'm an imposter scholar with no validity or credibility and no right to be making additions to this field.

Did any you feel a similar way? If so, how did you overcome this feeling of being an imposter with no worthy contributions to your field?

[Assistant]
Not a whole lot to say, but almost everyone gets that feeling. Youre not alone. Keep pushing, and put out the best work that you can. It will get better.

Also, Im of Haitian descent, so props there.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a boomerang return to you after you throw it?

[Assistant]
A returning boomerang is made like a 2 or 3 wing propeller with uneven wings. When you throw it spinning it creates lift at almost a right angle to its surface (because the wings are uneven).

So if you throw it level to the ground it will just go upwards while it flies away from you until it slows down so much that the gravity is stronger then the lift and then it falls down.

If you throw it at an angle to the ground it will try to fly in a curve or a spiral. So you practice changing the angle until you learn how to make the path to go towards you.

You can also change how strong rotation you will give it while throwing so you can time the moment it goes near you with the moment it starts to fall down, if done right the boomerang can be made to almost stop right in front of you.


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

[User] [John Wick] Does John wick seem to have supernatural abilities? I understand training has a lot to do with it, but it seems hes excessively efficient in killing and agility. The way people react when hearing his name leads me to believe he is more of a god in the underworld.

[Assistant] None of his acts exceed reasonable capability. Most of it is actually a matter of preparation, but even then not an unreasonable amount of it. I've also heard a rumour that he may not have been acting alone but had a silent partner for some of his greatest work, which would definitely push someone into "legend" status if done properly.


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

[User]
I think "Buy Local" or "Buy American" are unhelpful concepts and, in many cases, even morally objectionable. CMV.

We hear it all the time. People place a large amount of abstract benefit to a purchase made locally. e.g., 'A t-shirt made in the US is more desirable than a t-shirt made in Vietnam.' Or, 'I only buy coffee at local coffee shops and not chains.'

I think you should buy items from wherever in the world that offers you the best combination of price and functionality in the product.

Many people cite a vague concept of keeping money in the local economy but there's not much economic evidence to back this up. I'd love to see it if anyone has it. If the concept of 'foreign-made' is bad, where do you draw the line? Buying American is better than foreign. Buying from your state is better than national. Buying from your local community is better than some company in a state far away. But why stop there? Why buy anything outside of the people on your block or even your own home?  That way, your money never even leaves your home and just keeps recirculating between family members.

Certainly if you believe the quality of a foreign good to be inferior, it can be a reasonable decision to spend your money with a different manufacturer. But many times the foreign product might even be of better quality but gets demerits for not being made locally.

Here's where the moral angle comes in. By choosing to give special privilege to shopping at a local store, you are saying that this person is more deserving of your money than a person in a far-away land. Assume you are choosing between two scented candles of identical quality, one made locally and the other produced by a company in a 3rd-world country. Likely, the maker of your local candle is much better off financially than the foreign worker. Why does this person deserve your money more, especially when it's likely that the person in the 3rd world needs the money more desperately?

Now, some caveats. I recognize that there are some serious human rights issues at stake in this subject. I do not want to turn a blind eye to them but, in my opinion, the best way to confront those is through positive change in working with those companies to better their working conditions as opposed to stopping doing all business with them altogether. A good example of this is Apple. They work with a lot of suppliers and many of them have had some serious ethical issues with their workforces in the past. Apple didn't abandon the suppliers but instead has worked very hard with them to improve wages and working conditions. According to independent auditors, conditions have improved greatly.

If instead of working with them to improve conditions the buyer simply stops purchasing from them, the foreign company very likely will release some or all of their workforce and it's the poorest workers who are the worst off from the drop-off in sales. Many of them choose to work jobs in very sub-par conditions simply because their only other option without that job is outright destitution or starvation. That's the outcome that's never discussed when people rally some big boycott of a foreign manufacturer--what happens to all of those workers when the orders stop coming in? They certainly don't keep getting paid out of the goodness of the company's hearts. And besides, there's a much better social safety net in first-world nations than in third-world nations.

I believe that there is no inherent benefit to buying locally and, in many cases, it is even morally objectionable.

Change my view.

[Assistant] What about looking at it from a climate change and carbon emissions standpoint? Buying local reduces the travel required for the product to reach you - and thus reduces the overall carbon footprint of that product.


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

[User]
[Fallout] Why is Megaton a town?

I remember visiting Megaton a while back and leaving near immediately. They have a nuclear bomb in the center of their town. I remember a mate of mine explaining why but it didn't make much sense back then.

And now re-visiting the place and seeing a miserable crater all I can think is, "Wow. You people were dumb. You people were so very, very dumb."

Unless I'm missing something here. Was there really all that good of a reason to build a city, which could be built *anywhere*, on top of a nuclear bomb?

[Assistant]
It originally started as a waystation, but the town grew up around it, mostly for one reason.It's the crater. It offered pretty much the only shelter in the area (which was added to by the walls build of scrap) and served as a collection basin for water. With water being so scarce in the Wasteland, any water source you can find is worth hunkering down on, and as far as sources go... Megaton's water is relatively clean.

And i mean... what are the alternatives? A derelict Aircraft Carrier in an irradiated, undrinkable bay surrounded by Super Mutants? A tower full of egotistical, wealthy bigots? A town populated entirely by cannibals?

As far as shit places to live go, Megaton isn't that bad.


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

[User]
How can a skunks spray be so powerful over such a large distance? Is it a trick of the mind, or do they really saturate the air?

Skunks seem to be capable of producing an overpowering odor up to a mile in radius, how is this possible from such a small animal? Are they really pumping out a large quantity of gases or are they simply taking advantage of a defect in our perception of smell?

[Assistant] I have no idea about the actual air saturation, but the skunk's spray is composed of chemicals known as mercaptans (thiols) that can be detected by humans at really low concentrations (i.e., 10 parts per billion).


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

[User]
CMV: If you believe abortion should be illegal on the grounds that a life is being ended, then that fetus should get FULL protection under the law, including being an American citizen and all the perks that come with it

If we are going to consider those fetus' human beings which need protection from "murder" or whatever form of child abuse you want to call it, then that fetus should be legally treated exactly as a child. This means it is a citizen and it's parents are protected from deportation.

It means child support should start at 6 weeks, or whenever we consider it "life".

It means mothers who need it should be getting additional welfare benefits once determined to be pregnant.

From a tax standpoint, yes a fetus should be treated just the same as a child. Let them be claimed as a dependent because they are. If they could earn income then it would be reported all the same, too.

If the parents are forced into a legal obligation to care for the child then they absolutely need to also be given the same benefits that parents of "birthed" children can enjoy.

This post is about logical consistency more than it is moral superiority. I'm not making a claim on what is morally right, only following a line of logic where if A is true, then B must also be true to maintain consistency.

>EDITS AND ADDITIONS

-Okay here are some other ideas I've seen that should also be included here
- Pregnant women in the carpool lane
- compulsory kidney donations? Hey it's an interesting convo even though it's not exactly the same thing
- Criminal punishment for pregnant drug use
- Fetus life insurance
-Pregnant muder=double homicide

Edit: I am going to reinforce that this post operates under the assumption that an abortion is the end of a human beings' life. If you don't believe that is true then any arguments would fall outside the scope of this post.

-Additionally, to all the people calling this a "gotcha" post, I don't personally believe that a fetus is deserving of the right to have it's existence legally protected. That being said, if we were to decide as a society that fetus existence is worth protecting, then I believe that we would also need a host of other protections in concert with an abortion ban in order to maintain logical consistency.

But again I'm trying to deal in logic here and not moral superiority.

For the people who say children already have exemptions from the law, I would argue that they actually are the benefits of additional laws to protect a vulnerable population and not a sub class of human who's rights are being taken away, in MOST cases

Leaving this line here for informational purposes but my mind has already been changed : "Also, if a job provides paid maternity leave benefits then those should be allowed to start as early as 6 weeks into pregnancy."

[Assistant] Child support and extra welfare money stop when the child reaches adulthood. This is because at that point the parent is assumed to no longer have additional expenses due to the child.It is logical, then, that they would start at the point when the extra expenses increase, which for the most part is at the birth of the child. (I realize pregnancy has additional costs as well) The citizenship part would also be very difficult to carry out because it is far easier to prove where a child is born than proving where it was conceived.


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

[User] I keep hearing suggestions of 'universal income', but have never understood how it would not lead to inflation that would make the universal income essentially worthless. What am I missing?

[Assistant] Many defenses of the basic income, like for instance Munger's "One and One-Half Cheers for a Basic-Income Guarantee," suggest that the basic income would replace other government spending on poverty. So for instance in that paper Munger notes that the USA federal government spends about half a trillion each year on poverty programs. The suggestion is that instead of spending that money on these programs, it should just be given to poor people. So, you're not increasing the amount of money in the economy, you're just changing who it goes to.


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

[User]
Let's say that today the governments of Earth declare General Zod our supreme ruler. How does this affect the average person on a day to day basis?

I've always been curious how having one supreme overlord would change things for the little people. I figure if he set up shop in Washington DC the people who live there might be a little nervous to get in his way. But would he care about taxes? Would he actually help settle currently ongoing territorial disputes? What are your thoughts?

[Assistant]
As all property and all people now belong to Zod, war is a crime against Zod and will be punished. Murder is a crime against Zod and will be punished. Religion is a crime against Zod and will be punished. Laziness is a crime against Zod and will be punished. Attempting to flee to the Free Republic of Australia is a crime against Zod and will be punished.

President-for-Life Lex Luthor has no wish to antagonize his all-powerful benefactor Zod. President Luthor deeply respects and admires Zod. For that reason, Luthor will not allow refugees to get past his ever-vigilant border guards. There are no gaps in the patrol schedule, not even six kilometers east or west of main checkpoints. There is no food and water for you there. You will not be allowed to buy your freedom with trade goods or raw materials which Australia requires. You will not be issued false papers or placed in refugee barracks. President Luthor does not have a master plan to remove Zod from power, so obviously President Luthor does not need skilled and experienced soldiers and industrial workers.

Do you understand? Do not come to Australia.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] Are there other planets inhabited with Pokmon?

We know that Deoxys came from space, and there are rumors about other Pokmon originating from space, so theres a precedence for Pokmon surviving space.

[Assistant]
Almost certainly yes, though we never see them.

The list of Pokmon stated or implied to come from space or have a connection to space are:

Cleffa/Clefairy/Clefable - these appear at the sites of meteor crashes and dance along with the moon. Theyre believed in-universe to have arrived on Earth from meteors.

Staryu/Starmie - These flash their center gems in patterns that correspond with signals from the stars.

Lunatone/Solrock - Arrived via meteor around 40 years prior to Pokmon X and Y.

Deoxys - Unambiguously an alien. It is a virus that was on a meteor that turned into Deoxys after exposure to a laser beam.

Elgyem/Beheeyem - Landed in the Desert Resort about 50 years prior to Pokmon Black and White. Rumors are that they arrived via a crashed UFO.

Kyurem/Reshiram/Zekrom - The original fused dragon arrived in Unova via meteor that crashed around Lacunosa Town and started eating people.

Eternatus - Landed via meteor 20,000 years prior to the events of Pokmon Sword and Shield.

Honorable mentions: Minior (is a meteor), Jirachi (legends are tied to the stars), Rayquaza (lives in the upper atmosphere and deals with space threats).

There are enough Pokmon who have arrived via random meteor strikes that its almost certain that 1) theyre coming from somewhere that also has Pokmon and 2) the meteors have hit elsewhere and seeded them with certain Pokmon species.


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

[User]
Once urine is in the bladder, is there any way for the body to recoup the water in it?

Say your bladder is full of urine, but your body is also becoming dehydrated. Can it get anything useful out of the urine in the bladder without you having to pee it out?

[Assistant] The bladder is lined by a type of skin called transitional epithelium. The function of this type of epithelium is to allow it to expand and contract without leaking. This is because that is what the bladder is intended to do. The transitional epithelial cells are connected together by tight junctions, which form an essentially water-proof barrier intended to prevent toxic metabolites within the bladder from getting back into the body. Therefore, once its in the bladder, the fluid is essentially inaccessible to the rest of the body without some sort of pathologic process going on.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do women get intense cravings for certain foods while pregnant?

I am just curious as a friend has a pregnant wife and shes making him get all sorts of things. The cravings are almost like an addiction withdrawal he says. Why are certain bizarre foods craved as well, like pickles? Do the cravings go away when the baby is born? Thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
There's no hard and fast answer for this - esoteric cravings in the brain still aren't wholly understood. But some scientists guess that as a woman's body exerts itself in the pregnancy process, burning excess calories and fat to help "feed" the baby and change itself to prepare for birth, it manifests any particular deficiency it's experiencing as a craving for a specific food.

If the woman's body is low on sodium she might crave pickles, for example, or if she needs simple fats she might suddenly be hungry for ice cream. It's not a perfect answer - it relies on a rather tenuous connection between unconscious autonomic processes and a specific craving in the brain, as if your body could "remember" which processed foods contain which nutrients it needs at the moment. But it seems to be an explanation that accounts for the observed behavior.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do diesel engines create so much more torque?

[Assistant]
Engineer here, there are a few reasons:
1. Diesel has a higher energy density for its volume compared to gasoline.
2. Diesel engines have a higher compression ratio because diesel can withstand higher pressure without self ignition.
3. Higher energy and a higher compression ratio result in more force on the piston which results in higher torque on the crank shaft.


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

[User] ELI5: When you turn off a light, where does the light go?

[Assistant] For the most part, it's absorbed into the walls as heat. It doesn't vanish instantly, but because light travels so fast, it has time for billions of collisions with your walls before your brain can process the difference in time.


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

[User]
[Coraline] Do we know what Other Mother is?

Was watching it today and thought of it. What exactly *is* she?

[Assistant]
Don't let it's maternal self-skin fool you. It's a damned spider's web of a word, is all, tailored individually for each silly little fly that comes in. It can create beings (like the Other Father) and entire worlds that exist solely to enchant. It's not a mother at all, so much as it is Other. The guise it wears is part of the trap. It finds easy prey in the lonely, and traps them so it can feed.

What is the Other Mother?

Hungry.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we get crushes?

[Assistant]
Mating instinct.

One of your most primal urges is the urge to breed (or at least perform the reproductive act). Humans, along with other social animals, have this urge strongly linked with pair bonding, as having 2 active parents for young offspring greatly increases their chances of survival.


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

[User]
How are the pillars of bridges constructed (bridges over water specifically) ?

Bridges built over water are supported by these huge pillars. I have always wondered:

1) Are they built outside (on land) and then placed in the water. If the water is pretty deep, the pillar must be massive quite a burden to lift and position correctly

2) How do they ensure the pillar is steady on the underwater floor. If the soil beneath is loose and gravely, how do they ensure the pillar gets a good solid foundation which will not just slip away on the soft soil below?

[Assistant]
1) They are usually built in place, not on land and moved into place. Although this is starting to happen more with smaller bridges over water using pre-cast concrete elements.

When building in place they will place what is called a "cofferdam" around the area where the pier will go. This is a wall made of steel sheet piling that is embedded into the soil. Once the wall is built fully around (circle or semi-circle for stress reasons) they pump the water out.

There are other ways of doing this, but the above is probably the most common.

2) The pillar (or pier as it is usually called) is built on a large foundation that usually encapsulates a group of pre-cast driven piles or drilled shafts (essentially a bunch of concrete columns driven into the soil). These are embedded to a depth that will provide stability for the pier above.

Usually the length is determined based on the loads of the bridge alone, and then is increased a certain dimension based on how much scour is expected due to the flow of the water and the soil type.

Piers that can be expected to be struck by barges or ships will either have a deeper foundation, or they will have some sort of barrier protection that will deflect seafaring vessels from impacting the piers. The larger the type of vessel that can be expected in the channel, the higher the likelihood that these barrier protections will be required rather than increasing the length of the foundations.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Roles reversed, would Palpatine have confronted Yoda?

After order 66 was invoked and the Jedi were decimated, Yoda's back was against the wall. Faced with the rise of the Empire and Vader's rampage, he decided the best course of action was to bet the course of the galaxy on single combat with Sidious.

We see Palpatine use trickery and planning over brute force at practically every opportunity, even attempting to avoid the fight with Yoda (what could be perceived as an unnecessary risk in his ultimate victory). But assuming a switch in roles where Darth Sidious is the one with everything to lose, would he put it all on the line to willingly seek out Yoda like he did with Maul?

[Assistant] Of course not.  Palpatine has hidden for decades, the worst case if he loses is that things go back to the way they were before TPM.  Hed resume scheming and seeking immortality, though this would slow him down.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does a dead laptop turns on right away when plugged in but a dead phone must charge for a few minutes before turning on ?

[Assistant] A laptop can run directly off wall power; a phone cannot.  Even when a phone is plugged in, it's actually running off battery power.  So when you plug in a dead phone it takes several minutes to build up enough charge to power itself up.


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

[User]
ELI5: What determines whether gas exits your body as a burp or a fart?

Thank you.

[Assistant]
A burp is built up air in your stomach. Only by drinking, swallowing or eating will you get air in your stomach. You stomach isn't made to process air or gasses and sends it back where it came from: your mouth.
Farts are gasses given off by bacteria that decompose the food in your intestines. When they take out valuable vitamins and minerals from your poop they give off gas in return.


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

[User]
[MCU] What was HYDRA's next move had Project Insight succeeded?

If Captain America and his friends weren't able to stop HYDRA during the events of Winter Soldier, what was HYDRA planning to do next? Were they going to openly declare a one world government under their control? Were they going to still operate in the shadows? How were they going to explain the twenty million dead people, including the President and a bunch of well known generals and superheroes? How long would they be able to hold onto power?

[Assistant]
Many of the targets were military personnel And high-ranking officials. Hydra specifically targeted those that would oppose and threaten Hydra's plans to take over. Their overall plans was likely to use their soldiers to perform a military coup and take control of the largest first world countries, and use their resources to further take control of the world.

Sure you would be upset if your president and many of your government representatives died, but would you open revolt against an army of hydra soldiers who are willing to bomb their own soldiers, let alone innocent civilians? Hydra would control the USA and their nuclear weapons. Likely every country with nuclear weapons on the planet would be targeted and taken control of with Project Insight. From then on Hydra can take over all the smaller countries with their vastly superior military.

Who would stop them? Superheroes would be targeted by Insight. Any military commander with experience would be targeted by Insight. Anyone smart enough to make a difference and willing to stand up to Hydra would be targeted by Insight (hell Stephen Strange pre-magic was a target). And the minute you choose to stand up against them? You're also a target of Insight and will be killed as soon as they learn your name or general location.

Hydra believes might makes right. They believe in excessive force. They believe that ruling a world of ashes is better than ruling nothing at all. They don't just want to have their cake and eat it too, they want all of the cake in the world and that means stealing or destroying every other piece of cake so that they control it all. They are petty. They are arrogant and prideful. They are Hydra.


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

[User] If somebody had an eye transplant, would they see colors differently?

[Assistant]
If you received a healthy eye, with similar cones to that of yours, then yes. Some differences would appear, but they would mostly be negligible.

However, if you could transplant a brain, that'd be a very hard question to answer. A research involving monkeys, (that have no red sensitive cone cells) involved mutating some of their natural cones so that they could perceive the colour red. Sure, after a few months they were able to distinguish green and red dots in a grey image.

However, the interesting part is that they neurons weren't programmed to perceive red light. They just... started to. Some of these scientists believe the same thing happens to humans. When we're born, our neurons don't respond to colour in a default way. We may develop our own sense of colour.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do websites push so hard to get you to download their mobile app? What advantage does it have for the website owner over using a browser?

[Assistant]
Many times that app is ad supported meaning they have another source of revenue. Also the app may not specifically be free giving them even more revenue.

Right now in Software Engineering app development is the flavor of the month. Everyone is doing it because it's a quick profit due to the huge market.


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

[User] What happens when someone gets a blood transfusion of the wrong blood type?

[Assistant]
The donor cells have antigens on them (either A, B, or AB, plus the Rh factor if present) that cause the recipient's body to treat them as foreign.  This results in the recipient's own antibodies (anti-A, anti-B, or anti-Rh) to attack the donor blood cells.  The cells are hemolyzed (they get broken open), causing the reaction listed by other posts, namely kidney failure.

Yay for phlebotomy!


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

[User]
[Time Travel] how can you move through time and end up in the same place?

   In the time travel documentaries I have seen, and read recently there is a constant theme that has me confused. How do the Time Machines move through time, but end up in the exact same place (geographically) that they left. Wouldn't the Earth have moved a GREAT distance over the time that was traveled leaving the time travelers in empty space when they arrive at their destination?

   Take The documentary Back to the Future. How does Mr. McFly travel from the 80's to the 50's but remain on the same stretch of road? I only witnessed him inputting the date, not the spacial location he was supposed to arrive at.

[Assistant] Time machines deal in *space-time coordinates* generally. This means that when they travel through time, they also travel through space - presumably, if no *space* portion of the coordinates are entered, the time machine will automatically calculate how to travel to approximately the same position in another time. This would involve calculating for all movement - a difficult proposition certainly, but by no means impossible.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why is it so cheap to buy items in America vs other areas of the world

Why is it so cheap to buy items in USA vs other areas of the world? e.g. Housing prices, groceries and living expenses.

I currently live in New Zealand where buying an average house costs around $350k-$500k NZD. Why is there such a price difference between the two nations and what are the major influences behind this?

[Assistant]
It *totally* depends on where you live in the US.

**Housing Prices**--go to San Francisco or NYC, and you'll see a moderate home costing more than $500,000 USD. Go to Nebraska, you'll see a home for less than $100,000.

Part of it is geography. New York and other metro areas (San Francisco, Boston) are constrained. Manhattan is an island, so there is a definite limit to new housing. In the northeast (New York, Massachusetts, the rest of New England) there is literally *no* unincorporated land. Every town borders another town, so finding new space to build houses often means building *vertically*. In the Mid-West, there's a lot of flat open land, a lot of *unincorporated* land, and not a lot of people, creating "suburban sprawl" as new houses get built. (Can't find a house you like? Go a 1/2 mile outside of town and build a new one!)

**Groceries**--Again, depends on where you live. A *lot* of land in the Mid-West is farm land, and then a lot of land in California is farmland. The closer you are to where your food is grown, the cheaper (and fresher) it is. Ask an Alaskan or Hawaiian, and they'll tell you about $9/gal milk and other ridiculous prices, because food needs to travel so far. The US tends to have a lot of farm subsidies as well, which keeps food prices pretty low (because farmers can and do overgrow).

**Living Expenses**--Things like gasoline are way more expensive in places like Europe. Part of that is the fact that we have some domestic oil, part of that is the fact that we don't tax our oil/gas very much. Other random products that are produced in the US are sold to you more expensively because they're imports, and have to travel pretty far to get to you.


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

[User]
If we judge our moral theories by our ethical intuitions, then what's the point of our moral theories? Why not just jump straight to our ethical intuitions?

I was thinking about the role of intuitions in our evaluations of moral theories. Here are two common classroom examples:

1. **Kantian deontology** requires that we not lie to the axe murderer at the door. *But we ought not tell the truth to the axe murderer*. Therefore, deontology is false/needs to be revised.

2. **Utilitarianism** requires that if an innocent person wanders into a hospital and we can harvest their organs to save five other people who would otherwise die, then we ought to harvest their organs. But this is an absurd consequence because *it's impermissible to just kill someone like that*. Therefore, utilitarianism is false/ought to be revised.

**Formally:** In each of these cases, we're showing that some moral theory M entails some obligation P. But P is false (i.e., ~P is  true). Therefore, ~M.

**Not begging the question:** We hold that "P is false" (or ~P is true) on the basis of our ethical intuitions. (If we weren't using our ethical intuitions to justify ~P, then we'd just be begging the question against the moral theory.)

**Ethical intuitions:** But if we allow ourselves to justifiably say that ~P on the basis of our intuitions, then what's the point of having a moral theory (if our moral theories will always just be revised to align with our intuitions)? Why not just intuit all of morality?

If ethical intuitions are admissible, then *what is the value of a moral theory*? And shouldn't we just skip right to our intuitions and just be ethical intuitionists?

Thanks.

[Assistant] You've been given lots of good, long answers, so here's a one sentence version: our intuitions often conflict with each other, so theorizing can help us get clear about where the bulk of our intuitions are actually pointing.


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

[User] Why does smog stay local rather than dissipate throughout the rest of the atmosphere?

[Assistant] It does dissipate, substantially so. But you must remember, there are many cities on Earth, and a great many cities are on flat terrain. If those cities don't tend to have a lot of air flow, then the air can be pretty stagnant and stick around. That's why some cities are much more well known for smog than others, despite comparable population and automotive use levels, because of the differences in airflow. A fair percentage of cities tend to be nestled into valleys, which causes air flow problems and exacerbates air quality issues. You'll notice that cities like, say, Chicago and New York aren't particularly known for smog, even though they are very large cities with tons of automobile traffic, but they tend to be a lot more windy than, say, Los Angeles or Beijing.


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

[User]
Point of origin on Stargate

If the destination code is six symbols, why is the point of origin just one? Presumably Earth has its own "dotted lambda" symbol because it's special, but there can't be nearly enough symbols for all the other gate planets.

[Assistant] Each stargate has 38 symbols around the perimeter that are identical on every stargate in the galaxy, and one custom symbol that's unique to the planet the gate is from. So, for example, the only gates which have the "dotted Lamba", as you put it, are earth's. Dakara would have its own symbol in the spot where the "dotted Lamba" is located on earth's gate, and so on. The rules are different for the Pegasus galaxy gates, but not substantially.


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

[User] ELI5: Why am I paying for Highspeed Internet with a speed of 20 mb/s Download rate, but when I go to download something, it says I am only getting 1-2 mb/s?

[Assistant] You might be paying for 20mbps, while your download rate is measured in mBps. Bits versus Bytes. A byte is 8 bits. So if you are paying for 20mbps, you might expect a maximum data transfer rate around 18mbps (you never quite get what you're promised, plus overhead, rounded to make the following math easier). 18mbps is equivalent to 18/8= 2.25 megaBYTES per second.


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

[User] ELI5 - Why does biting aluminum foil hurt?

[Assistant]
Because you probably have metal fillings in your teeth.

Take two dissimilar metals and a conductive medium between them, and (depending on the metals), current will flow between them, carrying ions away from one surface and plating them onto the other.

This is the operating principle behind batteries. They're effectively lumps of two different metals with some salty water between them.

Since your fillings aren't aluminium, biting down on the stuff makes a mini battery in your mouth, electrocuting your teeth just enough to be unpleasant.


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

[User]
ELI5: What a callus is and how it is formed.

More specifically on older hands that see lots of work during their lifetime, there are calluses from using their hands so much (I.e. carpenters, woodworkers, etc). What I want to know is, how the calluses come to be and what causes them.

[Assistant]
Your skin is given some atypical stress and is like, "Oh crap, that was pretty tough. Better bulk up in case it happens again."

Your skin starts producing extra keratin, which are basically the cells that make up skin.

The extra keratin piles up, eventually forming your very own callus, tough enough to take on the world!


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

[User]
[Sci-Fi] How many examples of cultural outliers do we get in species with "hats"?

I'll use star trek just because it's the clearest example, but there's a lot of other possible candidates among sci-fi (and fantasy with elves/dwarves/orcs/etc, tbf)

So, the Klingons are proud, boisterous warriors. But like...*all* of them? Are there no pacifistic heretics or wallflower outcasts among the species anywhere? Do we ever see them?

Likewise the non-materialistic Ferengi, or the artistic and passionate Vulcans, or honest Romulans, or people from that mafia planet who find fedoras stupid. They must exist even if they're despised by their fellows? Do we ever see them? Or do other species somehow manage 100% cultural homogeny?

[Assistant]
Most of the party members in Mass Effect, really;

* Garrus, from a species with a strong martial reputation and seen as the galaxy's best law enforcers, is a cowboy cop-turned-vigilante.
* Wrex, from a species that has a reputation as warriors who are killing themselves due to not adjusting their behaviour to a sterility plague, is a skilled leader who advocates for peace among his species and is a keen, cunning mind.
* Mordin, from a species that has a reputation for highly unethical wetworks and who has no moral objections for driving another species to near extinction with unethical science, is a highly-ethical doctor trying to undo one of his species' greatest crimes. Sure, he's skill a spy and a master assassin but he would *never* use medicine to do harm.

And going by the Star Trek examples cited, TV Tropes actually has a page called "Klingon Scientists Get No Respect", based around someone who doesn't follow a species' gimmick as being looked down upon. The series actually *doesn't* do this for scientists as the Klingons treat them with respect and admiration due to their "Fight against ignorance". Examples cited from the series on that page include:

* The Deep Space 9 episode "By Inferno's Light", where Worf is forced to do battle against multiple warriors in an arena one after the other, with Sisko having to treat his injuries as best as he can. As Worf keeps winning fights, there's talk about his inspiring great songs due to his battles... with Sisko also mentioned as "the healer who bound the warrior's wounds so he could fight again!"
* The Enterprise episode "The Augments" where a Klingon scientist is actually *proud* of the possibility of being executed by his superior officer... for curing a bioweapon his superior was using dishonorably.
* Worf's grandfather, from Star Trek VI, managed to earn the rank of General... by being a highly respected lawyer.

In fact, *Krogan Scientists* get no respect, as they're so rare that other species think the krogan aren't even smart enough for it. We actually meet three of them in the second game and they have... less than ideal reputations;

* Okeer is a famous warlord and the person who created the genetic clones used by the Blue Suns as target practice, while also creating the genetically-perfect Grunt. His callous treatment of the clones is one reason he's hated but it's also hinted that he's a war criminal whose crimes go beyond the likes of other krogan mercenaries.
* Urdnot Fortack actually hates the work that Wrex asks him to do in the second game which is... developing new kinds of medicine and genetically modifying crops so they can survive on Tuchanka, a highly-irradiated world.
* A mechanic in the Urdnot camp who is treated terribly despite the fact he is the sole person maintaining all their equipment.


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

[User]
CMV: It's ridiculous to "believe" or "stand by" either Ford OR Kavanaugh.

The way I've seen every crime ever handled is that you treat both sides with credibility until one side is proven correct. My opinion is that Ford should absolutely be treated with that same credibility, and the claim should be investigated as such. However, it seems completely unreasonable in my eyes to "believe" or to "stand with" her, as many of my liberal friends have claimed to do.

It seems very unlikely for an accuser to make something like this up, but on the other hand humans do shitty things all the time. I don't see why this is being handled differently than any other crime. Yet from the \*day\* her accusations came out, I've had my left-leaning friends posting things online saying that they "stand with Ford," and in my opinion frankly that just makes you look stupid (especially to say that so soon after the accusation). On the other hand, my right wing friends say that it didn't happen at all or it's a complete lie. I think that's just as moronic. Were you there? Do you have proof it didn't happen? No? Then why don't all of you shut up and just let the justice system do its work?

I think that unless you have inside knowledge of the situation, which most people do not, it is showing nothing but idiotic bias either:

A) against a political party you dislike, or

B) against Ford for saying there's a chance that a person you like did a bad thing

I understand that the recent media coverage of sexual assault and the #MeToo movement probably contribute to this, but I still don't see why people should be choosing sides yet. People on both sides of the political spectrum act like I'm a terrible person and a complete idiot when I tell them this, so Reddit, change my view.

[Assistant]
Dr Fords accusation is not a criminal prosecution.  Even if this happened, statute of limitations ran out decades ago.  Hes not going to jail.

Kavanaugh is applying for a job.  A Very Important Job.  He is not the only qualified candidate.  There is no rush to fill the seat.  There are other candidates with zero sexual assault claims against them.  Hell, most people go through their entire lives (public figures as well) without ever being accused of sex crimes.  If it were that easy to make a quick buck, or pushing a personal agenda, accusing a public figure of a sex crime, wouldnt all of or most of us do it?  Easy money! 15 min of fame!

You can believe that Dr Fords story has merit, given how prevalent sexual assault is, you can stay neutral until you see hard evidence, you can ignore the whole thing, or can assume that women lie like they breathe, you can believe her story but dismiss it as  boys will be boys horseplay, or take any one of a whole range of stances on this.  And thats not even taking politics into it.


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

[User]
[[Tolkien]] How did Sauron influence the Elven rings if they were created independently and without his knowledge?

RoP on Amazon re-sparked my interest in LOTR so I've been skulking the wiki.

Sauron tricked Cerebrimbor into creating the rings for him and then went to create the One Ring to control them. The Elven rings, however, per the wiki, were created independently and without Sauron's knowledge. So how did they still fall under the One Ring's influence?

Does that mean that the One Ring can influence all pieces of jewelry regardless of whether Sauron was involved in its creation?

[Assistant] IIRC, they were still made with the knowledge he provided, so it might be roughly analogous to having a backdoor incorporated into the design in a way that's not obvious, even when the technology is developed independently.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do motorcycles sound louder than cars?

I thought they had smaller engines but they tend to be more noticeable.

[Assistant]
Not all of them do, it depends on whether they have a useful muffler or just a chromed tailpipe on them.  lot of motorcycle owners like the noise so the manufacturers use a minimally restrictive muffler on them. Most car buyers prefer them quiet so manufacturers engineer the muffler to eliminate noise.

 Sometimes the opposite is true. A lot of big cruiser type bikes are real quiet and a lot of car and truck buyers purchase less restrictive aftermarket mufflers to make them noisier.


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

[User] [Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade] that knight has been waiting with the grail for centuries, when Indy arrives hes reading a book. Has he been reading that one book for 700+ years?

[Assistant]
The Bible? Yeah dude, hes a Crusader and a Brother-Knight of the Cruciform Sword. That kind of person tends to be pretty pious.

He doesnt have the strength to recover the Grail so it will remain at the bottom of the chasm, as God willed it.

Yes he will die. The cup gives enteral life through salvation in the Kingdom of God, not through temporal immortality.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is honey resistant to bacteria and rot?

[Assistant]
A couple reasons.

First, it's low in water. Bees process the nectar they collect in flowers by extracting a whole lot of the water in it. This makes it thick - so bacteria and yeasts (more likely than rot) can't get through its viscous surface to get into it - and with very low available water (i.e it's dry enough to resist bacterial growth, even though it's a liquid). In fact, honey sucks the water out of bacteria rather than the opposite, killing them before they can really get started.

Second, bees actually add a few antibacterial chemicals into it that they produce when processing it.

Fun bonus fact: You can water it way down and throw yeast into it to make a drink called mead.


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

[User] What effects would castration have on a man's body?

[Assistant]
Effects of castration are largely dependent on WHEN that castration takes place.

A primary hypothesis that describes hormonal actions is called the 'organization and activation' model.

During development in the womb, the body (more specifically the nervous system) is organized by high testosterone (if you're a male): male traits are emphasized while female traits are 'defeminized'.

After birth there is a nadir in T, followed by another peak during the first few months after birth.

Then T levels drop until late adolescence at the time of puberty, where this organization is 'activated' by another induction of high testosterone.

After this, testosterone declines with age.

In short: Castration before puberty would have detrimental effects on both brain and body development, afterwords not so much...but would effect sperm counts, fertility, etc...


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

[User]
[Starwars, General Question] Before Starwars I, II and III came out how much did people know about Darth Vaders past?

Basically, did any comics, books or anything else hint at Darth Vaders past as Anikin? Or were the newest movies designed to fill that gap?

In other words, were the first three movies already in comic book/book form and the movies were just made around this, or were the movies essential to the universe canon to explain where Darth Vader came from?

[Assistant] IIRC, the only things that were established in detail about his pre-vader days were him being trained by Obi-Wan, being an amazing pilot, spawning Luke and Leia, and losing his limbs in a lightsaber duel on a volcanic planet.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] I'm a rebel and Darth Vader has boarded my ship. We meet face to face. If I gently lay down my blaster, lay down on my stomach, and interlace my fingers behind my head, is he still introducing his lightsaber to my insides? Or does he let me live?

What if I'm not a rebel, but he still has boarded my ship for whatever reason? Would he kill indiscriminately?

[Assistant]
If you're \*very\* lucky, there's a non-zero chance that you might live. You'd probably be toiling at the mines of Kessel for the rest of your short miserable life of course, but otherwise you might survive. If you shot some of your buddies in the back before surrendering it might even increase the chances.

If you're not a rebel, and your ship is being boarded by Darth Vader, then it means that SOMEONE is a rebel on this ship. You must fully cooperate with the imperial law and immediately give up any suspicious passengers on board.


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

[User]
[40k]Who is still around from the time of the Emperor and the Horus Heresy?

I've been doing a bit of reading and I came across this supreme badass named Bjorn the Fell-Handed who still remains living by means of a Venerable Mars Pattern Mark V Dreadnought. While he spends most of his time in stasis are there any others that still are in service to the Imperium of Man or the Ruinous Powers? I know that some of the traitor primarchs became daemon-princes and are still mucking about, but do they do anything? Chaos forces always seem lead by one of their officers rounding up a war party.

[Assistant]
A lot of Chaos Space Marines are from the days of the Horus Heresy that fled to the Eye of Terror.

Thanks to the fact the Eye is basically on the border of the Warp, time is funky around there. Some Chaos Space Marines are 10.000 years old (Like Abaddon the Warmaster) and others just feel they were in the Siege of Terra like, 8 years ago.

Most daemon-princes don't do much outside the warp because it's really bloody expensive (in blood) to summon them. Angron got out once, it took a massive crusade to fix the damage he caused and Magnus was sighted on Fenris not so long ago, wreaking the Space Wolves stuff (Battle of the Fang).

But with the Loyalist, we only know of Bjorn the Fell-Handed.

Some Primarchs are still hinted to be alive, such as Leman and Vulkan. Leman on the state that there is some hint that the thirteen company of the Space Wolves who followed Leman to the Eye of Terror is still around. Vulcan on the fact he can't die.


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

[User]
As someone gets more obese, do their actual skin cells stretch or do they replicate fast enough to keep up with the increasing surface area?

A follow up question would be:

If the cells stretch more than they replicate, does this mean that there is a lower concentration of nerve endings? Would stretched skin around large fat deposits be less sensitive to touch?

[Assistant]
Their skin cells divide to increase surface area. Individual cells have limited elasticity and if they simply stretched to cover the increased fat tissue underneath, it would be like blowing up a balloon (e.g. getting thinner). In fact, more than just the skin cells help cover the area. Blood vessels, connective tissue, the fat cells themselves all have to accommodate the increased tissue volume. As a corollary, when someone has massive weight loss, you can see the large amount of loose and excess skin. The signals from the body to make the skin cells divide to cover the larger area can't just reverse instantaneously (you also have issues with looser connective tissue, loss of elasticity of various components, etc.) so now you have large folds of skin hanging around.

EDIT: Forgot to respond to your follow-up. You can have issues with less touch sensitivity but it's hard to say that it's just because of less nerve endings (your nerves can make new connections so you still have touch sensations). More often, losing feeling in really any part of your body (bodybuilders with massive skeletal muscles, areas of fat deposits) is a combination of factors like poor blood flow to the cells rather than just not enough nerve endings.


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

[User]
What is the scientific explanation for your stomach rumbling when you're hungry?

It may be a silly question, but I'd just like to know!

[Assistant] Mass movements are initiated by the large intestine when you aren't active to encourage defecation. It is just rapid movement of the feces toward the anus. It is different from peristalsis, which is a controlled movement used by both the large intestine and small. This usually coincides with the stomach being empty, but not always. Mass movements are sometimes heard and felt, and interpreted as "stomach rumbling"


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

[User]
CMV: The depiction of Germany in the new Wonder Woman movie is simplistic, historically inaccurate, harmful, and unnecessary

After watching the new wonder woman movie two days ago I was quite concerned by the depiction of Germany in the movie.

**What was wrong?**

The film watched like more of a World War 2 movie than a Word War 1 movie. In the film German soldiers and officers are depicted as evil, or in many cases as radically evil. In my opinion this is the result of a long chain of films and video games which depict the German forces in WW2 as a radically evil force; this is understandable. The Nazi regime was the most effective radically evil force in history, and although the average German soldier or even officer was not himself evil, it's an inaccuracy that must be borne in the production of art and storytelling that allows us to deal with and understand the horrors of the Nazi forces.

That all being said, this is not a WW2 movie; it's a WW1 movie. Historically speaking wonder woman's stories often took place during WW2, but it appears that the movie's writers just changed some details and pretended that it took place during WW1. To be clear, I have no problem with a WW1 wonder woman movie. But if it's going to take place during WW1, the Germans should not be depicted as radically evil, because to put it simply, they behaved no worse than the allies.

In fact it was the French that first engaged in chemical warfare, and although the Germans did first employ effective deadly gas, the British quickly responded by developing and deploying gas of their own.

**How should it have been done?**

It would have been very easy, and in my opinion more effective, to alter the storyline in two respects:

First, by depicting the German motivation for the development of toxic gas not as radically evil or diabolical, but as a necessity of war intended to end the war quickly, potentially even reducing overall deaths. It is understandable why the German army might have developed gas with less than evil intent. Of course it is still possible to have wonder woman be disgusted by this calculus of death, but it makes the German forces seem more liked flawed humans and less like inhuman monsters.

Second, the British forces should have been depicted as willing to develop gas themselves. What if the protagonists had gotten the notebook to London, only to have the military brass use it to develop chemical weapons of their own? Then, wonder woman and Chris Pine could have worked to intervene and prevent the breakout of deadly chemical warfare in a way that demonstrates far better what I believe to have been the intended message of the film anyway: that humans in war are often well-intentioned but end up losing their humanity in the passions of war. This route is better because, if you make the British be more or less "the good guys", the viewer can believe that the allies were fundamentally good. As it was presented, wonder woman's comment to Chris Pine, "you're just like they are", seems unbelievable and untrue. But historically, the British were more or less "just like them", and it was a disservice to the viewer to depict them otherwise.

**Why does it matter?**

This film simply re-enforces the stereotype that the Germans are "the bad guys of history", and that the British and other allied forces could do no wrong. Especially when it comes to WW1, where there was no right side of history, this black-and-white good-guys-and-bad-guys view of history is inaccurate and allows modern American, British, and French people from taking responsibility for their part in the horrors of WW1, and allows them to convince themselves that WW1 was just and not the absolute moral clusterfuck that it was on all sides.

**Tl;dr:** The movie was lazy and inappropriately reused "the Germans are evil bastards" theme from WW2 movies in a WW1 movie. This is unfair to Germans historically and weakens the movie's message that war corrupts people because it makes the allies seem fundamentally good in comparison to the Germans.

[Assistant]
I don't think you can discuss the plot without bringing up Ares at all. Your proposed solutions undermine major aspects of the movie. If the movie shows the war as completely morally ambiguous from the start, then how is WW supposed to find Ares at all? Who is she going after? And where in the movie do you put all this? If these things happen before she kills Ares, how exactly are is she going to be convinced that any humans are fundamentally good enough to deserve protecting? If it happens after she kills Ares, then the story structure of the film just doesn't work (since the action climax of the movie happens in the middle).

I also disagree that the movie characterizes Germans, on the whole, poorly. There are two unambiguously bad Germans in the movie. The general, and the mad scientist lady. Both of them are clearly directly influenced by Ares himself. The rest of the German high command is ready to end the war, until he goes rogue and kills them all. You're way oversimplifying things by saying that the movie shows Germans as evil.


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

[User]
[WH40K/Lovecraft] The Chaos hordes are sweeping through my planet, but I have found an ancient and powerful tome known as the Necronomicon, should I use it to save myself?

My name is Randolph Waite the Third, Nobleman of the Waite family line based in the Hive-spire of Inneshive on the hiveworld of Irem. It seems the Planetary governor has been dabbling with the Arch-enemy and opened a most horrific rift through which all manner of blasphemous horrors pour through. The family shuttle has been taken by the blasted servants and I am trapped in my familial home.

However in my possession I have come across an ancient tome that has been passed down the Waite family for generations: The Necronomicon. Upon its discovery I spent many months deciphering its crude and ancient tongue, learning revelations both enlightening and horrific about our tenuous reality. The side benefit is I now know many rituals to summon and bring forth ancient and maleficent  beings known as the Great Old Ones, abominations not of the warp but older and more terrible. In this most desperate of times I have prepared a ritual to bring through an entity that the book describes only describes of Him Who is Not to be Named, The King in Yellow and the bearer of the terrible Yellow Sign. If I partake in this ritual and set this "King" against the hordes of Chaos could I make my escape or would I simply become slave to a much greater evil?

[Assistant]
Most likely Randolph, you will either

A) Accidently more Chaos demons

B) Get eaten in broad daylight by invisible pirranhas

C) Go crazy and become a lap dog of some evil demon

D) Go crazy, then get the good old BLAM! to the face.

So, you are screwed either way.


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

[User] ELI5: Why aren't there any green stars?

[Assistant]
Stars emit light mostly based on their temperature which produces light of all wavelengths, but with a peak. The higher the temperature, the shorter the wavelength of the peak light and the more blue it appears. Colder stars peak at longer wavelengths of light and appear more red. Two stars with similar surface temperatures will emit light of very close to the same distribution.

Our Sun's peak is ~500nm while the color green is ~510nm. In this sense, our sun is a 'green' star, but we perceive its light as being white. Humans only see a narrow band of wavelengths and we are adapted to use the light in that range. Thus we see the natural illumination of the sun as 'white'.

So, there are 'green' stars but we see them as white because that is how our eyes and brains perceive that distribution of light.