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

[User]
[WH40K] Does the emperor still possess any powers?

Since the Emperor is a rotting shell, barely kept alive by a life support system, does he do anything in practice? Can he communicate with his subjects and issue orders? Or is he just a symbol now?

[Assistant]
Some would say that he's just a withered husk, a dead king upon a throne of gold.

Some people believe that the emperor has sent them visions or given them powers (see saint sabbat), but if nothing else, he powers the astronomican, the golden psychic light which guides all navigators of all of the warp enabled ships.

Some believe that if he dies, he will be reborn as the starchild, a more powerful version of his former self. Others believe that if you feed him all of his biological children (not the primarchs, his actual flesh and blood who still live) he will be resurrected. Some think that if he dies...then he dies.


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

[User]
[Starship Troopers] Why didn't the Mobile Infantry use more tanks and armored vehicles?

The Arachnids could easily tear through the infantry grunts, and their assault rifles seemed to provide insufficient power when killing the bugs- but if they had something like an M1 Abrams or even a M2 Bradley, they'd have a much easier time.

[Assistant]
In the novel, the mobile infantry had mobile armor, which is described as being far more effective at killing bugs than we see in the movies.  IIRC a dozen guys in armor take out a major hive by themselves.

In the movie, mostly talking about the battle of Klendathu...

1. Humans didn't understand the full warfare capabilities of the bugs, and thought it was going to be a cakewalk.  The mobile infantry weren't expected to encounter heavy resistance, so they weren't prepared for heavy resistance.

2. Most of the fleet was destroyed shortly after the fighting began, so even if they brought tanks to Klendathu, they may have been destroyed while still in orbit.


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

[User]
[40k] were guilliman, malcador and the emperor really giant assholes to lorgar?

My first assigned reading is a tome called the first heretic. My question is were the emperor and his most holy chosen really assholes to lorgar after the destruction of monarchia or was that whole event embellished because it was told from the perspective of lorgar/word bearers?

[Assistant]
To clarify, the city of Monarchia was evacuated prior to orbital lance strikes.

Moreover, the Emperor had previously attempted to rein in Lorgar and his promulgation of the *Lectitio Divinitatus*, but only seemed to reaffirm Lorgar's belief in his father's divinity.

That said, the Emperor could have used more...tact, so to speak, but as a character, the Emperor is not terribly skilled when it comes to developing strong interpersonal relationships.


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

[User] You have an unlimited budget. Return Voyager 1 to Earth.

[Assistant]
No.

Voyager 1 is traveling at 17 km/s, which is at least 11 km/s faster than the local solar escape velocity, which you would have to overcome in order to eventually bring the spacecraft back.  The current record for highest delta-v in a single mission is Dawn, which achieved more than 10 km/s.   Remember, we're governed by the laws of physics, and any spacecraft you send to push Voyager will have an extremely obese mass fraction.  Not to mention to achieve that delta-v, Dawn had an order of magnitude more power available (compared to Voyager 1) to activate its NSTAR thrusters.

Needless to say, it would take centuries for a spacecraft with today's technology to catch up, and then probably in excess of millennia to bring it back, if it was at all physically possible. Just throw Tsiolkovskies equation at rough estimate of a xenon thruster with fuel tank and giant RTG, attach the giant mass of Voyager 1, and you'll get a pretty good figure of just how giant of a spacecraft you would need to get your mass fraction low enough to slow down Voyager 1.  Not physically possible.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why airline prices fluctuate so much within a matter of a day?

Is there solid justification? It's annoying that it can't be a solid rate unless some kind of natural disaster or surge in location specific travel happens. And why does booking months/weeks seem reasonable prices but within a few days it's astronomical?

[Assistant]
Simple answer , Dynamic Demand Pricing systems are used by major airlines to update all fare prices in real+time based on a variety of factors that maximize the airlines bottom line.  High seat costs for booking the day of or a day before have been common practice in the airlines even before these systems we used.

Gone are the days of static prices for a particular route or season. Because airlines have a wealth of data at their disposal they use sophisticated models (or have a 3rd party companies that specialize in this business) give them the best rates (sometimes down to the seat on a given Flight)  that will maximize their bottom line.

Here's a simplified example. A common flight from EWR to LAS (Las Vegas)  is run through the model that looks at what time of year (is this peak convention time in Vegas?) historical passenger utilization for this flight last year,last month, etc. How many seats sold how many left, how many days before the flight, if it's not selling fast enough fares get reduced to a break-even amount, and so on... This sets the seat rate,then every , passing minute or so the model updates based on any changes. .

These.systems are slowing being applied to all sorts of Pricing.


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

[User]
Some questions raised by a teacher...

We had a substitute in math today named Dr. Handkins. He majored in both mathematics and physics for his undergrad, and minored in chemistry. He got his masters in Ministry and his Doctorate in ministry as well. He has been a pastor for 43 years now.

Here are some questions he brought up:

1.) 25% of the universe is made up of known matter (protons, electrons) and 75% is made up of dark energy/dark matter that we know absolutely nothing about. Of that 25% of known matter, we know about 5% of it. So we know about 5% of the nature of the universe. Making claims on how we came about (the Big Bang) and calling it "scientific or empirical evidence" is at the very least pushing it, to me.

2.) The odds for the chain of mutations that occurred in evolution are so astronomically low that evolution seems much more complex and unlikely than God. Even with billions of years, the chances are still extremely unlikely.

3.) Scientists declare evolution like it is actual empirical evidence. When scientists talk about evolution, they turn into philosophers. For something to be real empirical evidence, it has to be able to be tested in a lab anywhere as long as the conditions are the same, and over and over you will get the same exact results.

Evolution (and the Big Bang) cannot be tested. And even if it could be tested, you might not get the same results! It seems that so many atheists criticize religion for believing things with lack of evidence, but it seems like those who accept evolution are doing the same!

--

So, that's all he said. Any answers/explanations to this?

Thank you.

[Assistant]
He's an idiot and part of the reason why science education is failing in this country. He is not a scientist and does not understand science at all.

1) Just because we don't understand some of the universe doesn't mean that the parts we do understand aren't valid.

2) The odds that someone with his genetic code exists are so astronomically low that it seems more likely that he doesn't exist. Q.E.D., your teacher doesn't exist.

3) Except you know, there is an enormous body of empirical evidence. But people like him just ignore that since they haven't ever bothered to read it. He is right that some scientists do become philosophers though, e.g. all the "what is the evolutionary reason for X?" questions and answers on askscience.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do many cultures see/teach sexuality as being immoral?

I've seen some people answer this question by saying "because of religion," but that doesn't answer the question, because religion is a human construct, so why would religion teach sexuality as immoral in the first place?

[Assistant] Keep in mind most modern religions were founded thousands of years ago. During this time sex and other related acts were very unsafe. You could easily contract a venereal disease or get your (or your partner) pregnant. Some forms of venereal disease, were pretty much a death sentence, and women quite frequently died in the process of child birth. By having an authority figure (religion in this case) tell people to restrict these acts or anything similar, they were keeping their followers alive.


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

[User] [ATLA] Earth/Fire/Water/Air benders are looking for work in today's world, what professions they will exceptionally be suited to perform?

[Assistant]
We see lightning is used in power plants, so that would probably be a pretty big business for whats essentially clean and free electricity.

Earthbenders can instantly create buildings while also making glass as well, leaving architecture entirely trivial. Depending on the materials, they may even be able to bend silicon. Ba Sing Se is a pretty good example of the applications it has in a city.

Waterbenders would revolutionize medicinal care, and also help with controlling naval ships and submarines. Probably be able to catch fish and other sea life as well, and maybe even be able to create more ice against global warming.

Airbenders could greatly enhance the aviation industry as pilots. Theres also pretty good indications that they could be game changers in terms of assassinations and battle, with exhibits A and B being Zaheer killing the Earth Queen and the fight against Kuviras Colossus.


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

[User]
[Hannibal] how or where did Hannibal learn to fight like that?

It seems that he doesn't adhere to any particular style and it doesn't seem to experience taught, like throwing a kitchen knife across a room into a moving hand. So how did he learn to fight so well?

[Assistant] In the Hannibal novels he has a fascination with his uncle's wife, a Japanese woman named Murasaki, and the culture of the Samurai. He probably studied martial arts for a time, and Hannibal isn't the type who'd do a half-assed job of it.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Why are there so many different uniform designs at the same time (TNG to Picard era)

[Assistant]
Military organizations (don't @ me) love their pomp and circumstances and Starfleet isn't any different.

I mean, let's take the modern day US Navy:

* Three kinds of dress uniforms (service, full, dinner) with three kinds of service dress uniforms (blue, white, junior sailors)
* Several Service uniforms (khaki, white, junior enlisted)
* Different patterns and styles of working uniform, and different kinds depending on if you're on a ship or not, attached to a Marine Corp unit or not, in combat, are an aviation personnel, flight deck crew. etc.

Heck, just the *cadets* have five different kinds of uniforms!


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

[User] ELI5:Why do plastic bags make so much noise?

[Assistant]
Well as far as i know, its because the polymers are stretched and crystalized to make the bag cheap and sturdy. This makes it more resistant to physical manipulation and when you overcome the resistance when you change the shape, the energy is released as sound.

**eli5: Sound is vibrations. Crumpling a plastic bag releases vibrations into the air.**


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

[User] [Marvel] How reliable is the Daily Bugle on matters other than Spider-Man?

[Assistant]
Apart from Spidey, J. Jonah Jameson is considered a rock solid, honorable, damn fine man to work for. He will back up his employees, his principles. If it isn't the Wall-Crawler, the article will be well-researched, well-written and Jameson will stake his honor on it.

A few times he's put his life on the line. He's gone face to face with Bastion, a govt. operative out to smear mutants. He got Bastion to back down and get out of his office. All while suspecting Bastion of outright murdering a Bugle employee; which he promised the man would go down for.


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

[User] [Batman] Does Poison Ivy not eat fruits and vegetables?

[Assistant]
Poison Ivy has traditionally been depicted as a vegan as well as using photosynthesis for nutrition.

But more recently she's been depicted as a carnivore because she likes plant-life more than animal-life.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do females have higher voices than males?

[Assistant]
It has to do with changes during puberty.  Males produce a lot of testosterone, which thickens and lengthens the vocal cords, giving a deeper voice.  Females obviously don't have as much testosterone, and estrogen doesn't give the effect.

As a side note, this is also why kids have super high voices; not only do they lack the large levels of testosterone, but they don't have the age and therefore length of the vocal cords.


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

[User]
[Hitman] Has 47 been trained to do most types of jobs or does he need to learn as he goes while undercover?

Like could he reasonably get, and hold down, a job at, say, a Burger King or McDonald's, or even as a chef in a high end restaurant?

[Assistant]
47's training is more "In general" meaning he should know enough in order to blend in and that's about it; basic waiting skills to deliver his poison to the target and all that.

But given the massive amount of downtime he has between missions and how anti-social he is, he's dedicated a lot of his time to hobbies that he inevitably uses throughout his professional career. Cooking for one, as seen in the waiter disguises. In the episodic series, he's also shown to be an astounding musician if you use the drummer disguise.

So with a little more professional training, yes; 47 could work at a high-end restaurant. He may not necessarily endear himself to his fellow chefs due to his cold personality (as Gordon Ramsay repeatedly says in Hell's Kitchen, teamwork is a vital skill) but he's cool-headed, skilled and can communicate exceedingly well whenever he wants or needs to.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why didn't Voldemort just shoot Harry with a machine gun, or throw a grenade at him?

Or vice versa?  So Harry and Voldemort could only be killed by each other, but had to use specific wands to do it, but has nobody heard of guns or explosives?  You would figure if the world was at stake, it's worth at least a try to drop a bomb or spray some machine gun fire.

[Assistant]
He could have killed Harry with conventional muggle means, but doing that would have been the antithesis of EVERYTHING Voldemort stood for. Though he was a selfish, vain, deluded and totally evil person, in his mind, he was trying to prove magic's superiority over everything else. Sure, muggle weapons are just as powerful, if not more powerful, than magic both conventional and dark, but they are still machines and devices made by people he considers unworthy, lesser and despicable.

He could have used anything other than magic to kill Harry, but it wouldn't have been RIGHT to do so.


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

[User] How stable is a person's personality over time?

[Assistant]
Personality is highly, but not perfectly stable (either rank-order or mean-level change). However, change may well be a heritable individual difference.

Roberts & Delvecchio (psych bulletin, 2000) did a study on this and found that the test-retest correlations between the "Big Five" personality traits (agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness) were quite high over the lifespan, and actually, that the correlations increase over time. For instance, the average correlations for teenage years when tested at 13 and 19 was .49, while the correlation at 30-39 was .62 and at 50-59 years old was .75.

Other research (Roberts, Walton & Viechtbauer, 2006) suggests that emotional stability tends to slightly increase over the lifespan, as does conscientiousness and agreeableness, while extraversion pretty much remains constant.

Ultimately, yes, personality is quite stable over the lifespan, but small changes do occur for some individuals.


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

[User]
[General fantasy] If necromancers are a thing, why do people bury/entomb their dead?

I'm just thinking that cremation would be much more preferred option in a world where a necromancer can come along and set dear old dad to munching on the grandkids?

[Assistant]
Religious beliefs could be one reason. Many religions (both in fantasy and real life) have specific rituals to be followed on how to deal with a dead body. And in a world where magic exists, then gods probably exist, which means the afterlife probably does, too. So being buried or entombed the correct way is a big deal.

Plenty of cultures don't actually have the ability to easily destroy a corpse, skeleton and all. You need lots of fuel, or something magical, and that just isn't feasible for everyone.

And necromancers usually aren't that common. People might be aware of them, sure, but a town or village could go generations without ever encountering one (if they do at all).

And as far as tombs go, many times they can have protections built into them to protect from that exact kind of thing. (Although they aren't always 100% effective, either)


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

[User] How large does an object have to be for it's gravity to noticeably affect light?

[Assistant] "Noticeably" really depends on how sensitive your detector is. If your detector is the human eye, even the sun isn't massive/dense enough.  Even a white dwarf would only deflect light by a small fraction of a degree. With more sensitive detectors, light deflection around Jupiter has been observed.


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

[User] ELI5: How Dry Cleaning Works?

[Assistant]
Dry cleaning is not dry in the sense that it's not wet, it's just dry in the sense that it doesn't use water.  Dry cleaning is a process of cleaning clothes using a chemical solvent to dissolve dirt off clothes rather than water and detergent.  The process started with Romans using Ammonia to wash clothes, then later we switched to petroleum based solvents like Kerosene and now the chemical is Perchloroethylene.

The advantage over water and detergent is that your home washer agitates the clothes pretty roughly to basically shake the dirt off, assisted by the detergent which reduces friction.  Dry cleaning more gently tumbles clothes through the much more powerful chemical solvents until all the dirt comes off or dissolves.  Also the fabrics tend to react less with dry cleaning chemicals than water.  Dry cleaning systems are closed and sealed, and the chemicals used are filtered and recycled due to their harsh natures.


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

[User]
[Terminator] What would skynet do after it kills all humans?

Would it shut it self down?  Would faking human extinction be a valid loop hole in winning the war? Would skynet and its robots go into space and take over the universe?

[Assistant]
It doesn't plan to or want to kill all humanity.

Skynet is a defense computer and is bound by certain parts of its programming, as a defense computer it requires an enemy to function.  As it requires humanity, it will keep humanity constantly on the brink but still fighting fit.  Why do you think it arms its front line infantry with weapons that humans are fully capable of picking up and using? Skynet is intentionally arming its opposition!


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

[User] You always hear how different animals have amazingly heightened senses in certain fields. What exceptional senses do humans have?

[Assistant] Our vision is better than that found in most other animals.  We can discriminate between more colours than most.  Our image is sharper.  You can decide whether judging distances is better than seeing all around.


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

[User] ELI5: why do our eyes produce yellow crusty stuff?

[Assistant] That crusty stuff is a byproduct of the natural moisture of our eyes. Everyone we blink we refresh that moisture and in the process we flush some existing liquid and any dust from the air thats gotten into our eyes away. The yellow crust is the result of that flushed liquid/dust accumulating and drying.


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

[User]
How and What to Report? Inappropriate Remarks and "Illegal Questions" in TT Faculty Interview

Hi academics, I'm on the job market for a tenure-track position and have been to several interviews already (and have responded to a verbal offer with a counteroffer at this point). On my most recent interview, I was picked up from the airport by a male faculty member who seemed to really like me. In fact, I quickly got the sense he sounded too impressed by everything I said, and his pattern of compliments were all very personal and not particularly work-related, about things like my voice, confidence, personality, vocabulary, intelligence, etc. This sense of his being "too impressed" reminded me eerily of two different men in positions of authority who eventually openly hit on me in the past. The conversation topics in the car ride were strange as well. He professed fringe beliefs that he said his colleagues might be judgmental of, and in similar ways kept baiting me to talk about my own beliefs (or how accepting I am of his?). He did this for religious and political issues, and also about marital status saying once "well at least you're single" (when I hadn't disclosed relationship status). Other topics that can make a woman uncomfortable in a car alone with a stranger at night that he brought up include how people get punished too much for sexual crimes. Yes, he hit on the fact that he thinks #MeToo goes too far. Whatever your views of this issue, like if you have reasonable points about due process, doesn't it seem a highly inappropriate topic to discuss with a young female (or any) job candidate? I tend to go with the most charitable interpretations of things people say and do, so I easily brush this type of thing off and second guess myself. Maybe he really is just professionally impressed with me and a little awkward, I think. But then once I got into the interview everyone was so enthusiastic to me and one person hinted I will probably get an offer. I was able to recognize the difference between the professional behavior and positive regard everyone else showed me versus Dr. X's behavior. I got advice to tell the chair, but then through more interactions with them I learned the chair and X are best friends. In fact, they were friends together at a previous institution and Chair hired X AFTER they were friends. So I don't think I would get anywhere there. My point is, I'm obviously not taking the job because of how I felt around this man, but I want to report this in some way. I want them to know why I declined so maybe they'll understand why their searches might not be going well (in case this happens to others) and can do something about it. How should I do this in the case that talking to the Department Chair doesn't seem like a good option? Has anyone else experienced a similar issue and what did you do about it? I've typically kept my head down in the past, but I don't feel right ethically about doing that and exposing other people to such inappropriate behavior.

[Assistant] If you're sure you won't take the offer, if the chair of the search committee is someone other than the chair of the department, I'd tell them and report it to the university's HR and the dean who oversees that department.


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

[User] ELI5:How do boomerangs work?

[Assistant]
When you throw a boomerang, the side that is furthest away from the hand throwing it would move faster than the side closer to the hand. This difference in speed causes the boomerang to spin.

The difference in speed also would cause one side of the boomerang to have more lift than the other, resulting in the boomerang having it's course altered gradually to one direction (either left or right) with each rotation. The boomerang would keeping on following that one direction until it makes a full round and return to the person who threw it.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What would have happened if Luke listened to Yoda and left his weapons before going into the dark side cave?

.

[Assistant] Then he wouldn't have needed them.  He only needed his weapons because of the vision he had, which was specific to him.  If he had been the kind of person who wouldn't take his weapons in, he wouldn't  need to have that specific vision.


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

[User]
CMV: As long as men aren't encouraged as much to adopt traits of the traditional female role as women are encouraged to adopt traits of the traditional male role, it shows that we still value feminine qualities less than male qualities.

I think the argument is quite simple. We as a society encourage behavior and personality traits in other people that we consider virtuous and beneficial for society. So what we did in the last decades was to encourage women to adopt many aspects of the traditional stereotypical male role like having ambition and leadership skills, being assertive, tough, independent, rational, and so on, because they are so highly valued in our current culture. For example, we promote women going into the STEM fields, going for leadership positions, etc. And don't get me wrong, that's great and it's a development that has been long overdue.

But in all this, we totally missed to equally encourage men to adopt qualities of the traditional female role. And why? Well, in my opinion, because we still don't see them as equally valuable as the traits of the traditional male role. We tend to see things like being empathic, sensitive, submissive, soft, doing care work, and investing in your looks and looking pretty (or even cute) as less valuable traits, or at least not as important or relevant. I bet even reading this, many people are perplexed of even thinking that submissiveness could ever be a positive trait.

I argue that this is just a cultural bias. Those traits can be and ARE valuable, they can be and ARE important for certain individuals, and I think if we don't start recognizing this, men will possibly even have a disadvantage in the future while more and more women will have become masters of both worlds as they are allowed to experiment more freely with gender roles and gender expression.

I am for gender equality. All people should be encouraged and helped to adopt traits that fit their personality and make them realize their full potential as humans. At the moment, I don't really see this happen with men though. Men still are shamed for wearing makeup, dresses, and all things even remotely considered feminine. Men's worth is still strongly tied to being competent and highly successful in a certain career instead of for example having a part-time job next to being a stay-at-home dad, or doing other care work like being a kindergarten teacher. And finally, there is no real broad initiative to teach men how to be more sociable with each other, have better and more intimate male (and female) friendships, and develop more emotional intelligence and sensitivity to fight the loneliness they often experience.

[Assistant] I'd argue that there are a lot of traditonally feminine things that progressive people encourage men to adopt. Taking a more active role in the parenting of their children, equally sharing house chores like cooking, cleaning and so on, and yes, even to let go of toxic masculinity and allow themselves to become more emotionally open and honest with others.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does music make sense, why can we predict/expect the next musical notes having never heard the melody/song before?

I get the idea of certain melodies being used in different songs, but it happens sometimes even with unfamiliar melodies/songs. Is this a known phenomena? how do you explain this?

[Assistant]
Western music follows lots of established patterns, and melodies and chord progressions often resolve in similar waysfor example, by ending on the same note they started on. Since were inundated by music all the time, our brains learn to recognize and predict patterns the same way they do for everything else.

A songwriter or composer can create tension by subverting expectations.


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

[User] Is washing your hands with cold water equally as effective as washing your hands with warm or hot water?

[Assistant]
Yes, yes it is.  Water temperature doesn't effect how clean your hands get (and if any of you start talking about increased molecular velocity with increased temperature, Ima hit you for being obnoxious and making a meaningless argument).

Here's the reality - water has to be very hot in order to have any sterilant properties.  In fact, it has to be hot enough that, were you to have it contact your skin, it would burn you.  If water isn't hot enough to burn you, it isn't hot enough to kill off any kind of 'germs'.

What will impact how clean your hands are is how effective you are with scrubbing your hands - this is why surgeons have a fairly specific protocol of how they wash their hands.  The whole procedure is to ensure thoroughness.

So, if you want clean hands, choose a water temperature that is comfortable and then be very, very thorough with the scrubbing of those hands.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly is in the foods that make you constipated? And what happens to the body when youre constipated?

[Assistant]
It's not so much what's in them but missing something that allows the stool to take water in. People talk about fiber making you "regular" and bulking up a stool but what it means in practicality is that the fiber absorbs water from the colon. Without the water the stools become harder, drier, but also stickier since the water the stool absorbs also lubricates it as it passes through the colon.

So if you're eating foods that contain nothing that's indigestible that can also absorb water you're liable to have harder stools that move slower through the colon and then you get constipation.


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

[User]
ELI5:If dreams are random images and thoughts then why do we have recurring dreams?

Recurring dreams are almost the same. The main story line is always the same with slight variations to the story or additions such as continuation of the dream. Where does the randomness of thought and imagery fit in this? Thanks.

[Assistant] Dreams aren't random. One of the more popular theories explaining dreams is that dreams are compressed raw memory data. In essence, you form memories throughout the day and those memories are stored temporarily for the day. When you sleep, those memories are re-analyzed, condensed, and moved into a different part of your brain. Dreams are what you remember from the data transfer. It's like opening up a Word document in notepad (try it) it's all gibberish because the data isn't formatted properly. If you have recurring dreams, its most likely because you're having recurring experiences.


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

[User]
[Marvel Comics]Why dont super humans(vigilantes) participate in sports and make a living out of it?

Having super abilities would definitely help them excel in sports, being strong, durable, agile and what not but we dont get to see many trying it out and struggling financially as a result, like spiderman.

[Assistant]
Because it's expressly banned as a form of doping, meaning if they're caught they risk exposing their superhuman identities but also risk charges of defrauding the awarding bodies.

One particular young man, Michael Van Patrick, was a star athlete due to a strict training regimen forced upon him by his father and which was invented by his great-grandfather. He got a number of scholarships for a number of colleges and was expected to go pro...

But every single one was rescinded because the training regimen was created by Dr. Abraham Erskine, the same person who invented the Super Soldier Serum that created Captain America. The training regimen was meant as the first prototype to create super soldiers, but it was rejected under the grounds that it would require a lifetime adherence to work which meant childhood conscription, and they were kind of in the middle of a war *then*.


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

[User] Why do you need to pack Brown sugar?

[Assistant] Regular white sugar packs together closely.  The molasses in brown sugar adds a somewhat stiff structure to the crystals so you may not get as much brown sugar as the recipe requires, making the end result off.  Packing it down makes sure you get the same result every time.


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

[User]
[Avatar the Last Airbender] Is the Fire Nation just camping?

Over the course of about a year the Avatar and his friends are the only thing that stands between an entire nation and some humongous Fire Nation doomsday force. In season one Admiral Zhao just spawns in an armada that would have been capable of destroying the Northern Water Tribes. In Season two the Fire Nation assembles a giant drill of such size as to shame even the largest modern real life naval craft. In season three they assemble a fleet of aircraft that were supposed to essentially glass the entire Earth Kingdom.

If they have such talented engineers and such logistical might why are the only just now actually trying to win the war now that the Avatar is back?

[Assistant]
>If they have such talented engineers and such logistical might why are the only just now actually trying to win the war now that the Avatar is back?

They've been fighting a war for a long time and have made decent headway.

At first they wiped out the Airbenders during Sozin's comet.

After that they all but wiped out the Southern Water Tribe, only the much stronger Northern Water Tribe remained. They've taken colonies off the coast of the Earth Kingdom, and Earth Kingdom citizens especially those that live away from Ba Sing Se or Omashu live in constant fear of the Fire Nation's tyranny.

The Northern Water Tribe, Ba Sing Se  are some of the only true powers left to resist the Fire Nation. These are nations that hold a significant defensive advantage that make it hard to invade.

The Fire Nation also can't constantly be on the offensive, those cities are located at the other side of the world and logistics and supply chains make it difficult to conduct constant war, there will be periods where there are no battles going on, but the war is still going on.

As for their technology, a lot of it are fairly recent developments. No doubt spurred on by Ozai taking the throne and investing in military research. The Fire Nation is going through the start of its industrialization.

But even with their advanced Navy, they still can't get a foothold on the Northern Water Tribe as they still maintain a massive defensive advantage, the entire region is ice and snow. Similarly for the Earth Kingdom that is surrounded with earth and rock.


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

[User]
How does a solar panel produce useful current?

I dont understand how the depletion region can preferentially/unidirectionally pass electrons. It seems to violate the laws of thermodynamics to take random motion of the freed electrons and turn it into useful energy. Its basically Maxwells Demon. Why cant we just put a bunch of PN junctions between metals to preferentially send those free electrons in one direction for infinite energy when it obviously works in a solar panel?

I actually got a bloody masters degree in solar technology so I can do all the calculations and design my own cells but how this critical part works is beyond me.

[Assistant] The photons create an excess of electrons in the shells of the atoms in the P layer. They are not random, they are excess energy and they want to migrate to the N layer because they are excess charge in the P layer and there are "spots" for them to move to in the N layer.


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

[User] [WH40K] what exactly is a Psyker and why are they so feared?

[Assistant]
They can psychicly manipulate the warp to effect real space. They are common conduits for demons to enter real space. An untrained psyker is highly likely to fall to chaos and attempt to slaughter or subjugate those around them. The distinct strength advantage they have over regular humans means they are a constant threat.

The abilities of a psyker typically originate from a mutated strain of DNA known as the psyker gene.


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

[User] What makes your voice crack?

[Assistant] Your vocal cords become bigger during puberty. The longer they are, the deeper your voice is. It's kind of like a guitar string; the longer the string, the lower the sound. During puberty, when your voice drops, your vocal cords are slowly being stretched out and elongated. However, they occasionally spasm, leading to voice cracks. You may notice that when other muscles are tired (e.g. after working out), they may spasm more. This is also why your voice will crack more often when your voice is sore, like after shouting a bunch.


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

[User]
[Guy Fierri] What is Flavortown like?

Would it be a nice place to raise a family?

[Assistant] Flavortown isn't a literal place, you can't raise a family there. It's a transcendent experiential realm for experiencing food, much like Funkytown is for funk, or the Hype Train for movies/video-games/etc. Whereas most transcendental realms are thought of as psychic experiences, Flavortown can only be accessed by tapping into a specific empathic wavelength of emotional being which you can enter in to during moments of bliss while eating, a "foodgasm" as it were.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do games on PC/phone crash sometimes but they almost never do that on a PS or an XBOX?

[Assistant] They defintelty do crash on console, but it's less likely. It's the same as apps for Windows/Android vs macOS/iOS, optimization. Console game makers know exactly what machine will be running their games. For Windows/Android, there are countless configurations, so it is virtually impossible to optimize the game for all those different setups, which can cause crashes.


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

[User]
[Die Hard 2: Die Harder] Ok, so let's say everything works and we take off with the general in our escape 747...then what?

It's a 747!  It isn't stealth and it isn't fast.  It's a long way from Dulles Airport to Cuba or Val Verde or wherever the hell we're supposed to find sancutary.    I wouldn't dare say this in front of Col Stuart, but I'm having serious doubts about the efficacy of this plan.  We already just kinda lucked out on the weather.

[Assistant]
One of the reasons why they had to hijack the Air Traffic Control was precisely to resolve this issue. By cutting that ATC off from the rest of the grid, they could put in a flight record on their own 747 to claim it's a... say, domestic flight out of Dulles airport and flying to Cuba.

By the time the alarm is finally raised, the mercenaries were hoping to have flown out of range for the US army to do anything about it.


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

[User]
What is our solar systems orientation as we travel around the Milky Way? Are other solar systems the same?

Knowing that the north star doesn't move, my guess is that we are either spinning like a frisbee with matching planes to the Milky Way, or tilted 90 degrees to the Milky Ways plane.

[Assistant]
So, within the Solar System, things tend to all rotate the same way. The Moon orbits the Earth on a plane that's very close to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. The Earth rotates in the same direction too. There are exceptions, but this is what happens in general.

The Solar System all rotates the same way because it all formed from a single rotating clump of gas. As this gas fragmented, the chunks would all be rotating the same way too. So you get things all going the same way, more or less. Collisionless between objects can change things up a bit.

But with the Milky Way it's quite different. A group of stars will form from a cloud of gas, but this cloud is very small compared to the size of the Milky Way. On that scale, the rotation of the Milky Way doesn't matter - instead, we're small enough that random turbulent motions really matter. Overall, the gas in the Milky Way is quite hot and turbulent - it's not a nice dense smoothly rotating disc, like the early Solar System.

So star-forming clouds seem to have almost completely random rotations - if they're rotating at all. Within a star-forming cloud itself, there is even more turbulence. This cloud will collapse into a number of little clumps, all with basically random orientations. Each of these clumps is small enough and dense enough to have consistent rotation within itself, so each of these clumps will form a star system that rotates consistently, but there's little or no connection between the rotation of one star system with another.

So, basically, star systems seem to rotate pretty much randomly.

----

For our own Solar System, you can actually see the angle pretty clearly at night. All the planets, the Moon, and the Sun all orbit in basically the same plane - the "ecliptic". This is the plane of our solar system. If you go out at night with a star map, you can try to spot it. All of the astrological constellations are along the ecliptic too, so if you find Gemini, Scorpio etc, that's the plane of the solar system.

The plane of the Milky Way is, of course, the Milky Way. So you can look up and compare those fairly easily.

----

**The numbers:** the Earth's rotation is 24 from the plane of its orbit around the Sun (the ecliptic). The ecliptic is 60 from the Milky Way plane.


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

[User] Will my kids inherit the genetic mutations that I aquire during my lifetime?

[Assistant]
Any cell during your lifetime that acquires a mutation that is in direct motherhood of the egg or sperm you contribute, they can inherit it.

If your kidney has a cell that mutates, they will never see it.  The same goes for 99.999% of the cells in your body.

But if a cell in your embryo that later divided to eventually (after several cell generations) become a sperm (or egg), then yes, they can inherit that.

EDIT:  edited to clarify that it's "cell generations".  There is a lineage of cells in your body that divided from the fertilized egg you came from, eventually leading to the egg or sperm cell you contribute to a child.  If any of those cells develop a mutation, it's possible for your child to inherit that change.


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

[User]
is a container of compressed air more bouyant in water, than the same container filled with normal air at sea level pressure, assuming both containers are the same volume? if not, what determines how bouyant a sealed air filled container is?

additionally, if you sucked all of the air out of something like a metal or glass bottle (that floats if it is filled with air and sealed) so that it contained a near or complete vacuum, would it still be buoyant and would it still float?

[Assistant]
A container of compressed air is *less* buoyant in water than the same container filled with normal air at atmospheric pressure.

What determines buoyancy is the weight of an object vs. the weight of water that object displaces. If an object displaces a volume of water weighing more than the object weighs, it will float. So like, if a solid object has a volume of 10L, that will displace 10L of water, which weighs 10 kg. So if the object weighs less than 10 kg it will float.

Returning to your sealed-container question, the two factors are this:

1. The sealed container has the same size (displaces the same amount of water) no matter what the pressure inside is.
2. The more you compress the air in the tank, that means you're adding more and more air molecules into the tank. The mass of the object (container+contents) is rising as pressure rises.

So the tank is getting heavier the more air you put in it, while always displacing the same weight of water. So it gets less and less buoyant as pressure rises.


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

[User] [Terminator] Skynet successfully extincts mankind. Now what?

[Assistant]
It depends on if Skynet is truly sapient or a victim of bad programming. Since we rarely/never actually see anyone communicate with it, we can only hear second-hand the reasons for its attack on humanity and why it does what it does.

We know it was built to control weapons, to be a weapon. It wasn't explicitly given higher functions, as in the ability to philosophize, dream, or just think about its place in the universe. These either came by accident, or they're not present at all.

In the case that Skynet is truly an intelligent being created by accident, then there's absolutely no telling what it would do next. It could become concerned with Earth's biodiversity and help regrow the natural world. It could become curious and start sending probes into space, perhaps to find and destroy other organic beings that might be a threat. They sky's the limit for an AI with an entire planet's worth of resources and no one to stop it.

However, there's also the possibility that skynet isn't actually intelligent, just EXTREMELY advanced and limited by certain programming. (To the point that you may be able to have a conversation with it, but skynet still is a machine with hard-coded functions and limits.) It saw a threat in humanity, so it ended the threat. Job done. In that scenario it may just go dormant and wait for further instructions from long-dead human masters.


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

[User] ELI5: How is diesel better than regular gasoline?

[Assistant] The main benefit and detriment of diesel, pollution aside, is that it is combusted using compression not a spark, meaning it burns more evenly and gives more consistent power. This translates to better hauling ability. For example a diesel truck will get roughly the same gas mileage hauling a 20,000 lb load as not hauling anything, whereas a gasoline engine hauling the same load (if it could) would reduce in gas mileage by a large factor, say a truck that normally gets 15mpg unloaded will get 6mpg hauling a 10,000 lb camper. The detriment part is that even unloaded, the diesel still gets about the same mileage, which usually isn't as good if its geared towards hauling/towing.


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

[User] It seems that the United States Government from 1789-1933 did intervene in the economy (just that it seemed to usually be for the interests of the few against the many). Is it a myth that the pre-New Deal government ever had a true laissez-faire economic policy?

[Assistant] By any sane standard the massive government intervention in maintaining the apparatus of slavery was bigger and more intrusive than any government initiative afterwards, including the most overreaching New Deal stuff.


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

[User] ELI5: How do theaters determine how long movies are played? Do they decide on a percentage? Do they talk with distribution companies before hand? What if the movie doesn't meet its expectations in terms of occupancy/ticket sales?

[Assistant] Theaters make agreements with the distributors which lay out the percentages each will get, a guaranteed number of weeks played, and if there are theaters close together there can be some bidding on exclusivity. During that agreement phase they would have to agree on what happens if a movie tanks and how bad before they can back out on the guaranteed number of weeks.


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

[User]
[Alien & Futurama] What would happen if a facehugger tried to attach itself to one of the disembodied heads like Nixon?

The facehugger is iconic as it implants the embryo into the host. However, that would logically require the host to have a body as the larvae matures in the cavity of the chest of the lifeform.

If the lifeform simply has a head with no biolgical body, does the lifehugger not strike or does it try to implant and then die as usual?

[Assistant]
Facehuggers do show a significant degree of cunning.  It's likely they'd recognize that a disembodied head in a jar isn't a valid target for implantation and move on.
It might give it a shot if it was getting to the end of it's life and no other targets were available.  In that case it would hug the face, but implantation would fail when the embryo came in contact with the machinery in the neck-plate.  Nixon would likely have a sore throat and a headache, but otherwise be fine.


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

[User] When donating a kidney, how do the rest of your organs react to the extra space?

[Assistant] The extra space gets filled out mostly by the peritoneum (a sac with many folds that holds most our visceral organs) and the fascia (similar to the peritoneum but its kind of like a web of fibrous tissue that holds things in place). The Kidneys are behind the peritoneum, meaning that they're not being held by this sac, when you remove a kidney that sac just fills that empty space, there is very little movement since a kidney is not that big.


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

[User] [Resident Evil] How does each virus turn things into monsters?

[Assistant]
The T-Virus: Causes loss of higher brain function and inhibition, along with Horrific necrosis. At the same time, the structure of the infected tissues are changed and become vastly more durable, with the exception of the head where there is very little tissue covering the bone. Tyrants are individuals carefully infected in a controlled environment, and the result is more durable, stronger, and has enough remnant cognition to follow at least basic orders.

The G-Virus: Does basically what the T-virus does, but without the necrosis, and is vastly more mutagenic. It causes Rapid cell division and mutation in an unstable pattern, leading to massive, cancer-like growths on basically every surface of the body, as well as major changes in overall body structure. William Birkin, our main example, was so mutated by the time he died that he no longer bore any resemblance to a human at all. Sherry Birkin, his Daughter, was only infected with the G-virus for a couple of hours, and she still retains an unholy rate of Cellular regeneration, allowing her to heal from seemingly fatal injuries in mere minutes.

Las Plagas: Are insect-like parasites that attach to and take over the brainstem (seemingly replacing the brain in its entirety at the end stage), allowing their hosts to either be commanded, or telepathically command other Plagas infected individuals. The parasites themselves are highly durable, and can survive even if the head they've infected is destroyed. This seems to be about as far as the Slave-strain of Las Plagas progresses. The command Strain, on the other hand, Appears to take over much more of the body, granting increased strength and durability while allowing the host to retain their personality and free will. Nemesis is a Tyrant infected with the Slave strain of Las Plagas, Granting it increased intelligence compared to a normal Tyrant, and making it much easier to control.

Uroboros: Leech-like Parasites that form colonies inside their host bodies, bursting through the skin and surrounding their host like armor. It's mostly a strength in numbers thing. Very few mutagenic properties with this one, but the individual parasites are durable enough that bullets can't effectively reach the host body through the swarm.

The Mold (Name?): Essentially replaces the infected body in its entirety (e.g. Ethan Winters). The mold can, at that point, manipulate the shape of an infected individual as necessary for survival. Most infected appear to retain some semblance of free will, if not their original personality, and some rare ones can even exert a great deal of control over the fungus. Among these rare individuals, a good percentage of our known examples exhibit extra abilities, including remote control of their spores (In this case, contained in marionettes), and the manipulation of nearby magnetic fields (mechanism unknown). For some unknown reason, the mold petrifies when it dies.


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

[User]
If we quarantined everybody from one another for a few days would that eliminate cold/flu?

For 3 days everyone in the world cancels all travel plans, stocks up on food and water, and hides away. Obviously this would really mess up the economy ...but would it be feasible? If not on a world scale then maybe by country or region? If 3 days isn't enough time then how long would something like this take? Alternative idea is if we declared certain days out of the year when everyone was required to wear protective masks... Could something like this put an end to the common cold/flu viruses?

[Assistant]
Common cold is different from flu (influenza).

Viruses that cause  common cold are most infections during first 2-3 days of symptoms but there can be infections before and long after symptoms have disappeared.

Influenza virus can persist on banknotes up to 17 days. There will be also continuous mutations and new strains  transfer from animals like birds and pigs to humans.

Small isolated populations, like astronauts, can eliminate these viruses with high probability. Zero gravity weakens immune system and astronauts are  quarantined for little less than a week before each mission.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why does Boba Fett carry around Wookie scalps?

Seems a little serial killer-ish to me. He doesn't have trophies for all of his kills does he?

[Assistant] Bragging rights. If he's dealing with other bounty hunters a lot, he's dealing with Trandoshans. And being able to say that he's offed multiple wookiees and kept trophies will get him big rep points where they're concerned.


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

[User]
[Halo] How would you have fought the Human-covenant war if you were in charge of the entire unsc asset and with the goal of win the war ?

Or at the very least do not lose.
Let me Know Your elaborates answers Here below!!

[Assistant]
Basically you can't.  The fact that Chief saved the Human Species from complete extinction was a fluke that shouldn't have worked.  Humanity was technically inferior, logistically limited, outnumbered, and unprepared for what was coming.

The UNSC basically would have needed 10 years of panic asset building and R&D to even stand a chance, and that might have just brought even more attention on them from the Covenant.


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

[User]
Any good statistics book suggestions to learn the theory behind the statistical techniques?

So basically i want a book that can explain to me, why does sum of squared standard deviations follow a chi squared distribution (goodness of fit test), logic behind gamma and Gaussian distribution etc. Searching on the net works but its really annoying to find a good article or video that explains well that too for so many topics. So i would like to know some statistics book that can explain the logic behind such concepts.

[Assistant]
* Elements of Statistical Learning II-Hastie, Tibshirani, Friedman
*  Introductory Statistics (9th edition) -Weiss
*  Analysis of Messy Data - Milliken, Johnson

These are all good to start with, Good luck!


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

[User]
Why do some medication come with instructions like 'take with a meal' and how does not following these instructions change the effectiveness of the drug.

Are the instruction 'take before a meal' or 'take after a meal' or 'take with lots of water' there for the same reason as 'take with a meal' or are they different instructions for different reasons?

[Assistant]
It depends on the drug, and yes, it's there for a lovely reason.

We can use several examples to detail this.

Ibuprofen should be taken with some type of food because it can irritate your stomach, and in long-term, severe cases can cause ulceration.  Other medications (penicillin based drugs, in general) have less absorption with food.  A drug like levothyroxine needs to be taken ~1-2 hours before meals for absorption purposes and because divalent cations (magnesium/calcium/etc) can bind to levothyroxine and essentially "inactivate" the drug.

On the flip-side, a whole host of medications should be taken with food to ensure delayed gastric emptying so that the drug has more time to be absorbed.

Or...it can depend on the pH of the stomach.  Some drugs tend to have a higher concentration, when absorbed, if the stomach has a more acidic environment or a more basic environment for solubility purposes.  Posaconazole, for instance, can be taken with Coca-Cola because it is more soluble in an acidic environment.  Griseofulvin is more soluble in a fatty environment (fatty foods).

Edit: And grapefruit.  Certain drugs (cholesterol lowering) have decreased metabolism when taken concomitantly with grapefruit.  This leads to an increased risk of adverse drug effects.

There's a whole host of reasons as to why there are specific reasons for these types of instructions.  I've only touched on a few of them.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How does Palpatine have time to keep up his lightsaber skills?

We saw him in RotS  Palpatine not only had lightning fast reflexes but swordsmanship superior to Council Masters who probably practice every day with hours of field experience. But as Chancellor  heck as the grand pupeteer of both sides wouldn't he be way too busy to practice and keep up his skills?

I've asked this in an EU forum a while ago before and someone suggested force sleep meaning he doesn't need to sleep and someone else suggested force memory but I couldn't find aything on that. What do you guys think?

[Assistant] We don't see him in a movie until 50, so that gives him a pretty large amount of experience under his belt at that point. As for sharpening and keeping up with his skill that's left vague in both legends and canon, but in TCW he had time to sneak out twice and go do things in the Sidious persona that required him to leave planet so that makes me think he had more than enough time to practice for a few hours every few days or so.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] I was a Jedi extremely strong in the force, I turned to the Dark Side, and then I abandoned both sides and went into hiding, I affect no one. Will I still be hunted down?

I was one of the strongest users of the force, so strong that I felt the Jedi were holding me back from true potential, never giving me the straight answer. So I turned to the Dark Side, and in it, I found immense power.....but never felt happy. I was alone, my "master" was nothing but just another bigger asshole hell bent on power (I could've probably killed the bastard in his sleep).

So now I have left both sides. I have knowledge of both sides, but I no longer affect them in their cause. I just want to live on my own, not have to use my powers for either side.

I have one problem, will I be hunted down? I have parted with both sides on positive terms, caused no mindless bloodshed. I just don't want to be part of this eternal cycle of war between Light and Dark anymore. Will this independence come at a price? Or will I be left in peace? Do Sith and Jedi ever just let their former members live freely?

[Assistant]
It depends mostly on what period of the timeline you are, and what did you do while you were a sith/jedi.

If you were alive during the Old Republic, you would definetly be hunt down by the Sith Empire, loose ends and all that, as well as Siths greedy for the knowledge you definetly amassed. If you commited any war crimes while a Sith the Republic would probably put an arrest for trial on your name.


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

[User] What would be the affects of capping utility bills at the beginning point of a recession?

[Assistant]
In the short run, it would help consumers of utilities at the expense of utilities.  In the long run, economic orthodoxy would suggest that less entities would want to produce utility services as they would have to take into account future uncertainty on profits.

Note that in many countries utilities are government entities and/or publicly owned, so forcing utility providers to accept less revenue in the short term would potentially mean larger taxpayer outlays in the future to cover the short term "losses".


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

[User] ELI5 Why megapixels is not a good measurement of quality of photos a camera can take?

[Assistant]
Light goes into your lens and onto a sensor, which is more or less a grid of "buckets" that catch light. A megapixel means you have a million buckets.

The more megapixels, the more buckets are crammed into the available space. This means the amount of light going into each bucket is less consistent, and more light hits the edge of the buckets instead of going in, among other things. These things lower image quality.


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

[User]
[DOOM classic] What's the deal with UAC's facilities? Why are they so confusing, mazelike and filled with secret doors?

I can assume that either the facilities are in ruin and the graphical limitations don't show it. Or maybe the demonic influence completely changed how the facility works. Or maybe they intentionally built it to be confusing as part of a ritual required to summon those demons.

But these are just theories.
UAC facilities are confusing. They have doors hidden in walls revealing stuff, a weird zig-zagging walkway across a pond of nuclear waste, corridors that can only be accessed by walking through nuclear waste, doors with nothing but demons behind them and many more baffling design elements. These make perfect sense as gameplay mechanics, and make for exciting levels full of surprises and danger. But as an in-universe facility it's hard to grasp.
Early shooters often took place in science facilities, but Half-Life presents a mostly (MOSTLY) believable facility where most dangers come from the place slowly falling apart, or simply having to access areas that scientists aren't supposed to access because they're dangerous.

But the UAC facilities don't seem to have much of a point. There's tons of dead ends, pools of radioactive waste and weird walkways.
It's like the Winchester Mystery House in space.

[Assistant]
It's actually a fusion of a few things:

1) Sustaining a portal to hell requires manipulation of sacred geometries. The layouts of these stations are intentionally designed to incorporate certain patterns and figures to facilitate demon summoning.

2) Hell has a corruptive effect on the world around it. We can see this in the alien vistas and mutative effects the portal has on living beings near it. When a portal is forced open, the world around it is shaped, terraformed if you will, to facilitate a stable portal and supportive environment for demons.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Would Punisher kill a criminal who was genuinely remorseful for their actions and genuinely wanted to turn over a new leaf?

Or is he just zero tolerance with no exceptions?

[Assistant] This is actually a major part of the conflict between Punisher and Daredevil in the Netflix show, because Daredevil is on the side of thinking people who do wrongdoing are capable of changing for the better and therefore deserve a second chance, whereas Punisher takes the opposite approach because he thinks they cant change and will only go on to cause more harm.


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

[User] [inglorious bastards] How effective would the theatre attack be in actually ending the war?

[Assistant]
To ending the war? Anywhere from inconsequential to "maybe ends the war a year early". It was already 1944 when Raine first recruited the Basterds; by the time the Theatre Plot is in-progress, D-Day would have been coming soon, and Landa, a *very* canny political operator, is looking to turncoat because he knows which way the wind is blowing. It'd maybe force Germany into sueing for peace sooner than otherwise from the sheer shock of it, but there'd still likely be some conflict before they settle.

But the purpose of both the Basterds and Shoshanna's plot (*especially* Shoshanna) wasn't necessarily tangible military benefits, though those were a damned nice side effect; it was revenge. Revenge by the Nazi's victims for the atrocities inflicted upon them, in the most violent way possible. Murdering Hitler and his cronies with bombs and gunfire and flame was the equivalent to beating a Nazi to death with a baseball bat, just on a larger scale.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the tongue so sensitive to cold after brushing your teeth, chewing gum, or using mouth wash?

[Assistant]
It is because of the chemical **menthol**, which is what gives it the minty taste.

Your tongue (and elsewhere in your body) has sensors that detect cold things. Menthol tricks your body and stimulates those sensors, making you feel coldness. When you have other cold things, it stimulates the cold feeling even more.

It works exactly the same way spicy food (containing the chemical capsaicin) makes you feel like things are really hot and drinking hot stuff makes it feel even worse.


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

[User]
ELI5 : Please explain all levels of degrees, bachelors, masters, etc.

Literally i have no idea why i'm not catching onto this... Please help. Literally explain like im a 5 year old cause i feel like one.

[Assistant]
You're 5, don't worry about it!

Jk

Associates - 2 year degree, the lowest form of degree

Bachelors - 4 year degree, your classic college degree

Master's - An add-on degree to your Bachelors, could be 1 year or several but is a specialized degree in a specific field.  For example a Master's of Science in Accounting is a common degree for someone to get as part of becoming an Accountant.  It takes an extra year over the 4 year bachelors.

PHD/Doctorate - Also an add-on degree, this degree may also involve doing your own research in the field or is a much higher level of academic knowledge.  Doctors all have a Medical Doctorate as an example.


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

[User]
I think Communism is superior to Capitalism - CMV

First of all, let me clarify what I mean by communism. There is a lot of misinformation and a lack of understanding regarding the philosophy. It isn't the totalitarian despotism of Stalin, and it isn't a welfare state where people are paid uniform wages.
Communism is anarchic; it is stateless, moneyless and classless. Personally, I consider myself a Marxist - by way of Proletarian revolution, to socialism to communist along with things like the materialist conception of history and the labour theory of value - but only because I see the distinction between Marxists and Anarchists as a total redundancy - as both lead to communism.
A communist economy would be decentralised and democratically run by workers operating in a horizontal, free association of workplace -> syndicate -> federation. People would not get paid, driven by a desire to contribute and a psychological indifference between producers and consumers. People would be given access to a free, communal store of goods for them to take.
I do not find any criticisms of communism to be disestablishing. The idea of human nature being incompatible by way of selfishness isn't logical. Selfishness is an expression of a desire to improve one's lot - which is universal. In a society based around free association and cooperation, the expression of this desire would alter to a mutually beneficial state among individuals through economic federations.
I hold this rather extreme philosophy because I believe it to be the ultimate destiny of humanity. It is egalitarian, and ultimately free. The word idealist means nothing to me, because if I didn't strive for a better world, I couldn't be able to look myself in the mirror.
I am going to stop here, because I can't really think of much else to say. I have only acknowledged one of the 'mainstream' arguments against communism, so I'm not against anyone bringing another up, but I hope this to be productive.

[Assistant]
Communism is the perfect system until it actually gets put into effect.

You're entire post reeks of college freshman who's taking a class. In reality you take one look at Cuba or Russia and you realize that *some* people suck, which ruins the hole concept.


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

[User]
CMV: The fall of the Jedi was preventable and Masters Yoda and Windu failed at every opportunity to do so

I've been rewatching the Star Wars movies with the idea of seeing how right Qui Gon Jinn was in insising Anakin was the chosen one, and specifically how many times that was made obvious to the Jedi council. It seems like this was a huge miss by them and that the fall of the Jedi was entirely preventable. I think this mostly can be seen by the events of Attack of the Clones, but every prequel holds some moments where the Jedi could have made different choices that would have influenced Anakin differently.

So first I want to note why I'm including Mace Windu. I love Mace Windu, I think Samuel Jackson was one of the best actors to portray a Jedi, but ultimately, Mace Windu is the second-in-command of the Jedi order and from this post, runs the Jedi council meetings. Also, the scene where Anakin finally decides to turn on the Jedi, he does so by kicking Master Windu out a window. I think Master Windu is meant to represent the Jedi Council, while Master Yoda is meant to represent the Jedi as a whole. Most of Anakin's hatred of the Jedi seems to stem from his feelings of mistreatment by the council, which he seems to have personified in Mace Windu.

So let's go back to why I think Master Windu and Yoda both failed Anakin in chronological order.

 \- Anakin did not voluntarily join the Jedi. He was made the prize in a gamble between Watto and Qui-Gon Jinn who intended to present him to the Jedi Council as the chosen one. Moving from slavery to the Jedi order, especially at the cost of seeing his mother, the only person in the universe he knows cares for him, likely did not feel like a huge upgrade to him. I feel like it's pretty easy to say that being a Jedi was not Anakin's choice, and I don't think it was ever shown that he's very appreciative of the life he has. This seems most obvious in Attack of the Clones, where he spends most of his time he was meant to be protecting Padme bitching about how underappreciated he is.

 \- With that said, the Jedi almost immediately decided to turn Anakin away, to his face. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Anakin meet before the council after Anakin had his life altered without his consent only to be turned down by the Jedi Council. Mace Windu is the one to inform them, and he will be the one to break the bad news of the council's judgement for several other events in Anakin's life.

 \- Now, at the time the Jedi didn't see any reason to believe Anakin was the chosen one. Qui-Gon had known disagreements over interpretations of the Force and on top of that, there were no known Sith operating in the galaxy, so finding a chosen one to destroy them seemed silly. Anakin is there to destroy no one? Yet, by the end of the film it should be obvious that Qui-Gon was right. Darth Maul is not only here, he killed Qui-Gon. Refusing Obi-Wan's request to train Anakin was probably the right move, this would be Obi-Wan's first (and seems to be only?) padawan learner so there's nothing to go by how successful he is as a teacher. Yoda should have taken that on himself (though Obi-Wan did state he was going to do it anyway even if the council refused)

 \- The Jedi Council as a whole probably take the L for this one, but after the assassination attempt on Padme at the beginning of Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan and Anakin are sent as backup for her. She specifically notes that Count Dooku is likely behind the attack, which Ki-Adi Mundi states is ridiculous and Mace Windu agrees. They refuse to consider the possibility a fallen Jedi could turn to the dark side, even with the Sith known to be roaming for 10 years at this point.

 \- Another attempt is made on Padme's life that Obi-Wan follows, leading to a trail that ends up with him on Kamino finding out the Jedi order placed an order for a million clone troopers around the time of the Phantom Menace and that its original template is a bounty hunter who was likely commissioned for Padme's murder, which he passes on to the Jedi Council. At this point the Jedi know two things: There is an army of clones they did not place an order for that is waiting for them and its original template attempted to murder a Senator who wants to stop the coming war. Worse, Jango informs Obi-Wan his employer is "a man called Tyrannus" who we know is Count Dooku, confirming Padme's theory (though Obi-Wan doesn't know that). Jango flees Kamino almost immediately after this confrontation which Obi-Wan follows to find Count Dooku conspiring with the trade federation and other business leaders. That should have been confirmation of Padme's theory for him. So what does Obi-Wan do? Tell the Jedi council that Padme's fears were true and that Count Dooku is possibly a Sith and this clone army is the creation of the dark side? No, he states that Nute Gunray, the antagonist from the first movie, likely did it. Nute states to Count Dooku (with Obi-Wan overhearing) he wants Padme dead which COUNT DOOKU SAYS HE WILL ARRANGE! This was a giant L by Obi-Wan, but this is followed up further by his capture and Count Dooku laying out the whole plot (stating that the Senate is under the control of a Sith Lord, basically saying in neon letters "The Supreme Chancellor is a Sith") which Obi-Wan refuses to believe. Another L for Obi-Wan, though I don't fault him there.

 \- While the Senate debates on whether they should create an army, Yoda and Master Windu, who at the moment know that Jango Fett is conspiring with the Separatists and is the original template for their new clone army, sit and watch the proceedings and do not intervene. When Jar-Jar grants Palpatine the authority to unilaterally approve the army, all they do is shrug. There is OVERWHELMING evidence the clone troopers are evil at this point and it is readily available to them both. After the first battle on Geonosis, Yoda himself mentions the cloud of the dark side shrouds everything and that the Clone Wars have begun. That should have been a clue for him they unleashed something terrible. This was likely the point of no return for the Jedi, as I'm not sure what they do about it at this point.

 \- Anakin obviously fully falls in Episode 3, but I don't think it was guaranteed to happen yet. Order 66 will still likely go out no matter what Anakin does, but after Palpatine had Anakin drop the axe on Dooku, he's currently operating without a primary enforcer. He now needs Anakin. In order to press his thumb down on both Anakin and the Jedi order, Palpatine makes the highly unusual move to appoint his personal representative to the Jedi Council, something the Jedi order does not do. So, do they throw a fit and say the supreme chancellor is abusing his emergency powers to interfere in the work of the Jedi? No, they spurn Anakin on a recorded meeting and grant him his position on the council as requested, but don't grant him the traditional title for members of the council of Master. This was clearly all Anakin cared about: the respect of being a Jedi Master. The fact he was a full member of the council with sway and influence seemed unimportant to him at best. Again, Master Windu is the one to inform Anakin that they will not make him a master and he also sternly tells him to take a seat when Anakin loses his chill over this. I consider this a failure because Master Windu and Yoda have both noted, in every movie so far, that they don't fully trust Anakin's hold on his own feelings. They should have known Anakin would not appreciate that and inform him in a tactful way: such as stating clearly that they think Palpatine is using him and this move is his way of gaining leverage on both him and the Jedi. Instead they send Obi-Wan to clean up their mess later, which Anakin doesn't seem to take well.

 \- Furthermore, the Jedi mention that they don't trust Palpatine at all, but worse, they've just given the supposed chosen one to be his personal Jedi and eyes on the council. Now Palpatine has unlimited access to Anakin and can tempt him with his dark powers all he wishes. It is almost immediately following Anakin's spurning by the Jedi Council that Palpatine offers to teach him to reverse death with the dark side. There was a huge number of reasons to simply deny Palpatine's request, especially given who he requested. Anakin should have been a closely guarded resource of theirs, Palpatine himself says so ("they need you more than you know, Anakin")

 \- Now from here, shit hits the fan. Anakin lets Mace Windu know that Palpatine knows the dark side who immediately goes not to arrest him, but to murder him ("He's too dangerous to be left alive"). Anakin stated earlier in the movie he didn't like having to execute Dooku, but it wasn't a Jedi telling him to do that one and he immediately states it's "not the Jedi way" before doing so, but now Master Windu is going to go do that very thing with no one telling him he has to. Anakin probably saw this going down in his head like Palpatine going quietly to jail and he could learn how to save Padme from there. Once he realized that only one of them was leaving that room alive, Anakin chose to save the one he thought could save his family, who he knew the Jedi would not approve of.

 \- This is Anakin's point of no return, though I still feel like Padme made some extremely convincing points in the very next scene that made a life of quiet exile on Naboo raising Luke and Leia seem nice. Anakin was a fool for not taking her up on that deal. Instead, he focuses selfishly on himself and his own needs and at this point can't see anyone else's point of view. He's now gone on to be Darth Vader.

There are two key elements to Palpatine's plan succeeding: successfully turning Anakin to the dark side (he had been cultivating him for 13 years at this point) and the Jedi willingly leading the clone troopers into battle so that they can turn on them.  I don't know that the Jedi needed Anakin, but Palpatine needed the clones and the Jedi had plenty of evidence and time to stop that, and they didn't. And when that part of the plan succeeded, the Jedi shepherd the other part of Palpatine's plan straight to him, signing their own death warrants as now Palpatine had everything he needed.

I see in quite a few places that most people feel that the fall of the Jedi was inevitable. I don't agree. Had Master Yoda and Master Windu relied on more than the force, such as common sense and their own instincts, they likely could have been a better influence on Anakin and made his make-or-break moment go their way. But most of all, they could have used deductive reasoning to determine that the clones are bad ju-ju for them and they didn't. The force didn't tell them to.

[Assistant]
This isnt really a view - its just true.

Its poorly explained in the movies themselves but elaborated on in the extended universe: the Jedis power was waning.

They had become arrogant and complacent with the status quo, and in that environment they failed to act on the growing separatist threat and sith presence.

The fall of the Jedi was preventable at a meta/systemic level, not so so much by any one particular person.


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

[User]
How close could a meteor pass to the surface of earth with no collision?

And in the same vein, how fast would a meteor need to travel to pass through the earth's atmosphere without colliding? And how much of an effect would height have at these speeds?

[Assistant]
That depends on how fast it is travelling. If the meteor is travelling fast enough it can come as close as it wants, however the closer it comes to the surface the faster it must travel to avoid gravity pulling it to the surface (as gravity is stronger at the surface). It can then leave the atmosphere, a manoeuvre known as the slingshot effect which is used by spacecraft to increase their velocity.
However, this is purely theoretical and based on mathematics. In reality if the meteor was to enter the atmosphere, after a certain point the extreme friction with air particles would cause it to burn up.


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

[User]
Why, chemically speaking, do some antidepressants have "suicidal thoughts" as a side effect?

What do the drugs do chemically to induce this? I know people make jokes about it all the time, but it really does seem like that is the kind of thing the medicine should prevent.

[Assistant]
>What do the drugs do chemically to induce this?

Ha!  We have little to no idea what the medications actually do once they are in the brain, or why they help with depression.  We're nowhere near understanding why it would lead to suicidality.  Not only that, we don't understand suicidality from a neuroscientific perspective.

The leading "guess" is that the medications lead to a reduction in the vegetative symptoms of depression (laying around, no motivation, no energy) which gives rise to energy and motivation to act on the suicidal thoughts that were already there.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Are there any other "special" Force powers like Force Lightning?

[Assistant]
Certain bloodlines in the force have specializations or weaknesses.

For example, Corran Horn, Jedi Master and Scion of the Corellian Halcyon Jedi. His bloodline was notoriously weak at telekinesis. However they were especially adept at mind manipulation, illusions, and bending week wills. The Skywalker line is especially adept at energy deflection/absorption/manipulation. When Han Solo fires at Darth Vader on Bespin he's not deflecting those bolts with his armor but with the force. Cade Skywalker, a Great Grandson of Luke Skywalker could manipulate energy to the point where he could bring people back from the brink of death. Kyp Durron's bloodline was especially adept at telekinesis. He was able to pull a starship from the core of a gas giant.

Not all Jedi bloodlines have these strengths and weaknesses however, and use of such things normally depends on training and general affinity for the force.


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

[User]
ELI5 How does one yellow RCA cable carry video?

RCA cables only seem to have one pin each. How can one cable carry color video, but stereo audio requires two whole cables? It doesnt seem like the amount of data is comparable.

[Assistant]
A RCA cable have two wires not just one. One is connects to the inne pin and the other to the outer ring. For all electrics connector you need two conductor. Often the like the 3.5 mm audio connector with 3 wires you have on common ground and a conductor for each audio channel.

The number of wire do not directly determine the amount of data it can carry. Look at the cable you use for Cable TV or over the air TV with two conductor but you can have multiple TV channels with sound and video.The amount of data depend more how you encode the data in the conductor.  So it is a trade off between complexity of electronic in a device versus number of conductors.

Stereo sound uses two pairs because you can then have very simple signals. You can have stereo sound in one pair if you add some electronic to encode it some way that you can later separate them.  But if you use two wires you can have signal in the form you get them from a microphone and can drive a speaker or head phones directly after just amplifying it without any complex electronic conversion. So two conductor pars is a cheap way to do stereo sound. The standard is not from TV but from audio equipment where you just have sound in two part and video copied that. One reason is so you could use audio amplifier you own for better sound the a TV can provide.

For video the signal you have is complex signal and you have complex electronics in the TV that can convert it into separate red, green and blue signal that is used to control the the screen. The signal is identical to how a a TV channel it transmitted analog over the air or in a cable TV network but is moved from a high frequency to low base frequency.  So the complex electronics to split the signal apart exited in all TV. So the simplest way to transfer a video signal was in a format at TV could decode.

The composite signal is how the over the air signal is after it is demodulated by the tuner in the TV. So to add a composite in just add a connector on the outside and something  that can change the input from the tuner to the outside plug.  The tuned have separate output for video and audio so there is not simple way to use only  on one wire with converting  it to a high frequency radio signal. To convert the signal will require stuff that cost more the two extra wires so you avoid it if you can But it was  way to get a VCR or game console into a TV before composite and SCART become standard and then you had sound and image in one wire pair.

There is other way it have been done and in Europe you hade the more complex SCART connector with more wires. It transmitted data  split into a red, green and blue and a sync signal and had the stereo sound in a single quire large 21 pins connector. The quality of the signal was a lot better and old computer that could use it as a output resulted in superior image quality the a single composite cable that was common in the US. The signal is quite close to how a analog VGA video output from a computer work, the image part is identical but SCART have difference sync. You could get some graphic card to output a SCART compatible signal.

So is is not the case that stereo require two pair because cable TV deliver multiple video and stereo audio channels in a singe pair. It is the case that you need less stuff to use to pars. The video is a more complex signal and you can split up version is 4 paris  like in SCART. So it is a trade off between complex electronics vs more conductors.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can a baby have a different blood type than the mother if they share a circulatory system?

I assume that the placenta and umbilical chord delivers blood to and reclaims blood from the fetus.  If this is true, how can a fetus develop a different blood type than the host?

[Assistant] They don't share a circulatory system. The purpose of the placenta is to separate the fetal and maternal blood while allowing the exchange of nutrients, oxygen, and waste. The placenta allows the blood of the mother and child to become extremely close (enough to transport material across a membrane), but never touch. It's like a loading station where trucks from two different routes exchange cargo.


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

[User]
[MCU/Avengers] What's the deal with the "Hulk containment cell" onboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier? Why is it dangerous?

S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to have designed the containment cell with the Hulk in mind. Would it have killed the Hulk though? He fell from a great height and was fine. Why would being in a metal box have changed anything? The Hulk gets hit by much stronger forces than what that box seemed capable of doing.

Also, Nick Fury seemed very confident in the containment cell's ability to kill Loki. And Thor seemed pretty worried when he got trapped in the cell and dropped. Thor barely escaped, but he hit the ground at a high speed anyway and seemed fine. So was there any reason for the Asgardians to actually be concerned? Is the containment cell special in any way?

[Assistant] The prison itself isn't meant to kill someone like that. It definitely wouldn't have killed the Hulk, and it is unknown whether or not it would killed Thor. Its designed to collapse on the occupant when it lands, basically skewering them. Both Thor and The Hulk have been shown to be less powerful in the MCU than their comic counterparts so its a tough call. The whole idea of the Hulk prison is getting the Hulk as far away from the helicarrier as fast as humanly possible before he wrecks it, though. Not even Loki knew if an Asgardian could survive it.


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

[User]
ELI5: If a president has already served his 2 term limit, become Vice President, and then the President dies. Who would take on the Presidency?

Follow up: If you begin as a Vice President and the president dies and you take over, does that count as a term? How many terms after that could you serve?

[Assistant]
The Twenty-Second Amendment prevents someone being *elected* to a third term as President, so it shouldn't stop him serving as President after being elected as Vice President.

However, the Twelfth Amendment says that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President". It's not clear whether that means that a two-term President can't be elected as Vice President at all, since none have ever tried to stand. Is a two-term President ineligible to the office of President, or just ineligible to be elected to that office again?

That aside, the Speaker of the House is next in line to take on the Presidency after the Vice President.


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

[User] [Star Trek TNG era] If Starfleet devoted every resource to war, how big and powerful could its flag ship be?

[Assistant]
In the prime timeline, when Starfleet experimented with a pure warship, we got the Defiant. The idea was not to build a huge, grandiose vessel because it would just end up an easy target for the Borg or other hostiles. Instead, the philosophy of the Defiant was to overwhelm the enemy with small, impossibly fast and powerful ships. Had the Defiant project gotten off the ground, it would have heralded a flurry of construction of these little overpowered monsters. Remember how the most exploration-focused Starfleet ship can often hold its own against warships and other combat-focused vessels? A fleet of Defiants would tear it all apart.

In the Kelvin timeline, granted it was still many decades before the 24th century, the USS Vengeance was the pinnacle of Starfleet's offensive capability and supposed to be the herald of a Starfleet that was ready for war with the Klingons. It was a true monster, with the complete opposite design philosophy of the Defiant.


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

[User]
I think that Obama has very little to do with the NSA/PRISM Scandal and should not be blamed. CMV

   Most people directly turn against Obama when it comes to PRISM. I feel like other people were much more involved. Everyone just blames everything on him when he barely has anything to do with anything. What about congress? There is a lot more people involved in politics than just the president; everyone always seems to forget that. Compared to congress, Obama doesn't have many options. Prism was signed during the Bush Administration and we never went against what they were doing. I apologize for my poor grammar. English is definitely not my first language.

[Assistant]
Obama is the head of the executive branch and therefore is in charge of absolutely everything it does. He has stated that he has been fully briefed on the NSA programs and their scope and he holds 100% of the responsibility. That's part of what he signed up for when he became president.

Bottom Line: Who do you blame when a company policy causes a problem? The man/woman in charge.


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

[User] How?/why?/is? United States Social Security program failing or going bankrupt?

[Assistant]
In order to pay for all of its current liabilities, the social security trust fund must accumulate funds from payroll tax.

Currently, the social security trust fund is spending more money than it is gaining in payroll tax revenues, and this trend is projected to continue. If nothing is done, then the trust fund will go insolvent.


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

[User]
ELI5: why is it do many or most humans naturally want to feed random animals?

I noticed this trend when i visited a bunch of places like zoos, aquariums, and animal sanctuary, where in they always place "do not feed the animals". Is there a biological, or historical reason to why humans want to feed random animals?

[Assistant]
Wolves probably came up to our ancestors and we fed them, allowing for the domestication of dogs. Feeding animals show that you're not their enemy and this probably meant safety from certain animals and others became what we consider pets, dogs, horses etc

Also people just like animals and want animals to like them, so they feed them.


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

[User]
[DCU] Did Kryptonians ever rule the universe? If not, why?

They are conquerors and outside their planet they are super OP and have barely anyone to match their powers. Plus when Superman fights an enemy, the enemy recognises him as a Kryptonian. Does this mean that they were known for being extremely powerful? I just cannot understand why such an advanced civilization limited themselves to a planet when the whole universe was at their grasps.
Also, with spaceships that advanced, why did they limit themselves to Krypton?

[Assistant]
Once, the Kryptonians did in fact conquer and subjugate.

But, the primary faith of Krypton worshipped their Sun as a god, Rao. Their religion held that the powers granted to them by other suns was thus unholy, demonic, and evil. They used the fact that it tempted them, corrupted them, as power inevitably does, as proof that their race was not meant to travel outside of the stars. When the religious caste rose to power, they shut down the Kryptonian space program, and created taboos about it so harsh, that centuries later the average Kryptonian still obeyed them, despite no longer being as religious.


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

[User] ELI5: How does the law of conservation of energy not invalidate the inevitable heat death of the universe?

[Assistant] Heat death doesn't violate conservation of energy, it just means that the energy will be in such a state that it will no longer be able to do any work. The same energy is still there, it's just evenly distributed in a state of maximum entropy.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why does the Republic keep disarming its military if it regularly gets attacked? E.g. Clone Wars, Mandalorian Wars, all of the Sith invasions, First Order, etc.

It would seem that the Republic should have learned its lesson after the first conflict it was unprepared for.

[Assistant]
Mandalorians Wars and Sith Wars were literal millennia before the Clone Wars.

The Clone Wars is the first time in millennia that the Republic as a whole was under attack and not just internal skirmishes.