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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it nearly impossible to breathe when strong winds hits your face?

For example, when you lean out from the car window when driving, or when it's just storming outside, it feels like the throat is "closing" and makes it really hard to take a breath.

[Assistant] So when air (a gaseous substance) is in motion it creates a low pressure zone, as opposed to stagnant air. Your lungs work by expanding and creating a low pressure zone for the surrounding air to push into and then by compressing and creating a high pressure zone the air in your lungs is pushed back into the lower pressure surrounding air. When you try and breath in a low pressure environment, like your head out the window, you are fighting a very low pressure environment with the comparatively high pressure air in your lungs. in essence 'sucking' the air out of your lungs. Think of it like the opposite of when you are blowing up a balloon, its harder to blow more air when the balloon is full. as opposed to when it has less air in it. (ignoring the initial push to get the rubber to expand at the very beginning)


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

[User]
What is the unit of measurement for gravitational waves?

Now that we have found einsteins gravitational waves; I am writing a bit of science fiction which is centered around space-fold/warp technology. I am curious, now that Einsteins gravitational waves have been proven; what is the unit of measurement by which they are measured? Also are these gravitational waves measurable in the electro-magnetic wave-length? I ask, because by this measure, wouldn't "warp" drives use wave-length to measure jumps?

[Assistant]
The typical unit is strain h, which is dimensionless. It's the change in distance over the total distance (h=L/L). This is a very small number, as you might imagine, since gravitational waves are extremely hard to detect. For LIGO, h was 1 x 10^-21.

You may also want to consider the gravitational wave frequency, which was in the 10s to several 100s of Hz for LIGO. For other experiments, such as pulsar timing arrays, h is expected to be many orders of magnitude larger, but at frequencies much, much lower, so LIGO can't detect them. The frequencies are analogous to electromagnetic frequencies since gravitational waves propagate at the speed of light (i.e., the wavelengths are defined the same way).


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

[User] For every poisonous item on Earth, do we know it is poisonous because someone tried to consume it and died? Or is there a way to know a substance is lethal without the trial and error?

[Assistant]
We have the Universal Edibility Test, and it was probably used by people of the past as well.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Separate the plant into its various partsroots, stems, leaves, buds, and flowers. Focus on only one piece of the plant at a time.

2. Smell it. A strong, unpleasant odor is a bad sign.

3. Test for contact poisoning by placing a piece of the plant on your inner elbow or wrist for a few minutes. If your skin burns, itches, feels numb, or breaks out in a rash, dont eat the plant.

4. If the plant passes the skin test, prepare a small portion the way you plan to eat it (boiling is always a good bet).

5. Before taking a bite, touch the plant to your lips to test for burning or itching. If theres no reaction after 15 minutes, take a small bite, chew it, and hold it in your mouth for 15 minutes. If the plant tastes very bitter or soapy, spit it out.

6. If theres no reaction in your mouth, swallow the bite and wait several hours. If theres no ill effect, you can assume this part of the plant is edible. Repeat the test for other parts of the plant; some plants have both edible and inedible parts.


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

[User] [Rick & Morty]what happened to Rick that made him loose his contempt of authority so much he became a Cop? Why does the Citidel even bother policing its slums?

[Assistant]
He probably did it because he cares for Morty and most "criminals" appeared to be Morty.

Also remember (according to Evil Morty/Rick) Ricks can be categorized on a moral spectrum and "our" Rick is on the pretty "evil" side, at least according to Evil Morty.


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

[User] [Star Wars] What did people expect to do after the Clone Wars if their side won? Did General Grievous have a retirement plan?

[Assistant]
There was already a government in place for the CIS. Dooku was essentially the Chancellor of the Separatist Senate, each system in their senate had similar powers to the Republic Senate, the primary difference is they believed it was far less corrupt and was not as stagnant as the Republic had become.

That wasnt the case obviously, because the primary forces of corruption in the Republic had a huge hand in shaping the Separatist government. So they probably thought theyd just live as a rival power to the Republic, and that likely over time more systems would join them, leading to the eventual collapse of the Republic. Most Separatists werent the monsters that Dooku and Grievous were, they largely were kept in the dark about the actual actions of the war, fed propaganda about what was happening. They viewed Dooku as an honorable man who was a war hero helping preserve the integrity of a better galactic government. Thats also how Dooku viewed himself, but was planning to make the new Empire into the better galactic government.

The only time the average Separatist would see the war for themselves was when the Republic was the one invading their world, and the generals of the CIS were military crazed or the same corrupt figures those systems abandoned the Republic to get away from, so the only people who knew how atrocious their actions were, were corrupt, evil, or droids.

Dooku on the other hand, was well aware that Palpatine was the Dark Lord and believed when the Republic eventually won out, hed be given a position within the newly constituted Galactic Empire. Im not sure how he though that would work after waging a galaxy spanning war against what many would still consider the Republic, but thats what he thought.

Grievous did not have a retirement plan, he was content killing Jedi, he didnt have much greater political ambitions or anything. He hated the Jedi and enjoyed, as much as he can be called to have enjoyed anything, killing them. He was not a Sith but his hatred for the Jedi seemed to rival if not surpass most of the Dark Side force users we see. Im not sure if he ever thought about what would happen if they were all destroyed. He was a warrior first, life after the war wasnt his concern at the time.


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

[User] ELI5: I recently got an electric toothbrush that has a UV chamber to kill germs. How can such a little blue light actually do anything?

[Assistant]
The blue light is just what your eyes actually see. Ultraviolet light is beyond the range of human eyesight.

DNA, when exposed to UV light, will take damage. This will kill living cells. Shining bacteria in the stuff will kill them fairly quickly with minimal effort.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who/Marvel Comics] Could Reed Richards outsmart the Doctor from Doctor Who if they were both trying very hard to acheive their goal?

The Doctor is one of the smartest being in fiction. Hes fought very powerful beings on regular basis and won with mainly using his wits. He's considered the smartest person in his universe. Reed Richards is generally considered the smartest person scientifically/generally in the Marvel Universe. Let's say they both have somethign they want to acheive very badly could Reed outsmart the Doctor in any scenario? If there's no chance for Richard if they're both trying hard then make it a regular Doctor from Doctor Who.

[Assistant]
The Doctor is very clever, and has a LOT of experience to draw from, but he often bumbles around and makes silly mistakes. While he's great at recovering from them, this shows that he  isn't always paying enough attention.

Reed is always, always thinking at insane levels. He's built devices that shoot bombs that make universes, he literally helped re-engineer all of the multiverse, and he's way more dexterous and durable than the Doctor.

Given a problem the Doctor has encountered before, he probably has a tool or a plan ready to go to handle it. But, with an even start for a task requiring scientific creativity and innovation, Reed would probably outshine the Doctor.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] How did the Klingons ever manage to build a spacefaring civilisation?

They have a strong tendency to be hot-headed and short-sighted, highly prone to violence, with little respect for intellectual pursuits, and leadership often being decided by melee combat.

This doesn't lend itself to the stable, intricate infrastructure and highly educated population required for that kind of advancement. So how did they work around that?

[Assistant] Im gonna guess that not all Klingons are hot-head, rash types. There must be many individuals in the species who are more intelligent and less impulsive who make great engineers (and doctors, lawyers, priests, or their equivalents thereof), but they are simply underrepresented in the higher echelons of the military and government. Ergo, Starfleet (and, by proxy, the viewer) just doesnt have much contact with the Klingon nerds.


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

[User] ELI5: How do one-way mirrors work?

[Assistant] It's really just a window with tiny flakes of something reflective (Aluminuim or silver, for example) in it. When the other room has very bright lighting (and the observation room very dim) the window looks like a mirror because so large portion of the light comes reflected from your side.


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

[User]
[Halo] What is so important about Reach and why was it's fall a major event in history?

Was it a strategically important location or was it purely just the Covenant saying "look we can knock you on your ass even at your strongest fortresses" hoping to demoralize humanity?

[Assistant]
Reach is at Earth's metaphorical doorstep, being 10.5 lightyears away from the Sol system. It was the nexus of the UNSC military command, Humanity's 2nd most populous colony, and a major producer for the UNSC's war material and recruits. It's titanium mines are the largest sources for humanity.

Its fall to the Covenant meant that the UNSC just lost its second most largest source of its logistics to rearm, resupply, and replace any lost military units. It meant that the Covenant were now closer to Earth and therefore closer to eradicating humanity. It meant that the UNSC could no longer mount offensive operations to reclaim any of the Outer Colonies either lost to the Covenant or went dark to avoid genocide.

Most importantly, the Fall of Reach was the impetus to Spartan John-117 and the *Pillar of Autumn* to discover the Forerunner Installation 04 and hence, the eventual victory of humanity over the Covenant.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why is spiderman so hard to kill

I mean he heals fast but a single bullet though his brain would end him. So why hasn't this happened yet? He's not Deadpool or Wolverine he can't just regrow his brain.

[Assistant] Spider-Man knows the bullet is coming before you even fire your gun. His spider sense and instant reflexes make him hard to hit, let alone kill. He also has a genius level intelligence backing up his powers.


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

[User] [King Kong 2005] King Kong fought and killed three theropod dinosaurs. Are they Tyrannosaurus?

[Assistant] They're closely related descendants -- it has been 60 million+ years.   Just as there were very similar relatives of crocodiles long before even the dinosaurs, they're not technically the same species, just very similar in appearance.


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

[User] ELI5: Whats the difference between torque and horsepower?

[Assistant]
Torque is the real, measurable force applied by the wheels to the road. (It's generated by the engine, then multiplied by the gearbox, final drive, and wheels.) Because it's applied by a circular wheel, it's measured in a combined unit of weight and length - pound-feet or newton-meters. A torque of one newton-meter applied to the road is equivalent to the force exerted on the wheel's hub by a weight of one newton, suspended horizontally from a stick that's one meter long and attached to the hub at the other end.

Horsepower is not a real measurable force - it is a mathematical construct that represents the engine's ability to accomplish work over time. The work is moving a certain weight (the car) across a certain distance over a certain time. You'll notice that compared to torque, time is now added. So if the weight of the car is the same, and the distance it's traveling is the same (let's say, a quarter mile), then to do the work over a shorter period of time - get there faster - you need to use up more horsepower.

Because there is a direct mechanical relationship between the engine's revs and the wheel revs, and therefore the car's actual speed, horsepower is calculated as torque multiplied by revs, and divided by a specific coefficient to account for the difference in units. Note: this is about engine torque, measured at the crankshaft. The torque at the wheels is a much larger figure, multiplied by the gearbox, final drive, and wheel circumference.

(A horsepower is around 745 watts, because James Watt calculated this as the power of a typical mining horse and used it for marketing, to show how many horses his engine could replace. In the standard system, one watt is the amount of work/energy that raises a weight of one newton to a height of one meter in one second.)


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

[User] ELI5: Why do cars lose so much value the moment theyre driven for the first time?

[Assistant] If you decided you'd made a mistake and wanted to resell the car, do you think *anyone* would pay as much for it as you did? For that, they can go to the dealer and get a certifiably-new car. So you'll have to offer a discount, to make the deal worth considering.


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

[User]
If I am poor, and get a life threatening disease, do I just die?

So I am poor, not homeless, but no insurance (Other than obamacare). What happens if I develop cancer, am I just let die? Do I get sub par care?

[Assistant] In any civilised country, apart from America, you get treated, hopefully return to full health, then go home and forget about it. In America, generally, you get treated, hopefully return to full health, sell your home to pay for it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does my poop smell fine to me, but it smells terrible to other people?

It usually smells okay for about 10 minutes, and then after than it starts to smell like anyone else's poop. Farts apply here as well.

[Assistant]
Our sense of disgust is a way to stop us getting bad germs in to our bodies. This is why we don't drink gone off milk. Our noses are pretty good at telling us what is bad and what is good hence why we can smell whether food is good or bad.

This sense is triggered when smelling a fart. Only the understanding that it was your fart puts you at ease from being disgusted. Since if it came from you it's less likely to have germs that weren't in you already.

A great test for this is when two people fart silently at the same time. Both are comfortable with the smell only till they realize someone else farted.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does water mostly stay still while you turn a glass?

If you have a glass of water with ice and you try to turn the glass around to drink from another side, the ice will mostly remain in the same spot while the glass turns. So if the ice was hurting your teeth and you wanted to drink from an end where the ice isn't, it's not as easy as I feel it should be. What is happening and why is it happening?

[Assistant]
Physicist here.
So imagine that the water is made of several layers starting from the walls of the glass and going in.
When you turn the glass, the layer of water that is touching the walls of the glass will rotate with the glass itself, because it is being directly pushed. Then, the first layer of water tries to push the second one (which is closer to the center of the glass), but since water behaves like a liquid there is less friction between the two layers of water than between the first layer and the glass. This way, the second layer won't rotate as fast.
Add this up for all the next layers and soon the effect of the rotating glass will no longer be noticeable in the inner layers.
To solve your problem, simply keep spinning the glass so more momentum is transfered over time to the inner layers, eventually making the ice in the center spin.
Enjoy your drink!


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

[User] ELI5: why do the moving parts of cartoons have a slightly different color? Like if a car for is about to open, it will be a slightly different shade of color until it opens. Then when it's closed/done moving independently, its color matches the rest of the car.

[Assistant]
Those are animation cels. Rather than have the animator draw the background for each frame, they instead have one background sheet, and then a series of celluloid sheets with the movements of foreground objects.

Because of the different techniques for creating celluloid sheets, colour matching between the background and foreground was not perfect. This is why you can tell when something is going to be a moving object based on its colours.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are humans more interested in planetary travel/discovery rather than fully exploring all of Earth first?

[Assistant]
There is interest in exploring all the unknowns. There are teams studying the ocean floor and atmosphere and finding what they can on earth.

But earth is still local and a limited space, and when considering the pace of humanity, space is where we will continue to expand. And like the many nomadic tribes before us, we always are looking out for the next possible place to settle.


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

[User] What is the general Marxist view on charity in the modern sense, and more specifically, charity based organizations?

[Assistant] In general, if the means of production aren't changing hands then nothing is *really* changing and this is why charities aren't effective enough for the Marxist: they don't cause lasting change that empowers the beneficiaries, they don't allow for an escape from poverty.


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

[User] Can you make blackholes from electromagnetism? If so, why are there so many made from gravity since electromagnetism is so much stronger?

[Assistant]
Black holes are a gravitational phenomenon.

However, an object with electric charge (and black holes can have electric charge) creates an electromagnetic field around it. The energy and momentum in this field are included in the energy-stress tensor, the source of gravity in general relativity. So the spacetime *metric* (which describes how spacetime is curved) is a bit different for a charged body than for an uncharged body.

But again, although the electric charge of the body does ultimately affect spacetime, it's not really the charge *per se* that matters, but rather the energy and momentum in the electromagnetic field. And, of course, it's all just a source term included in equations that describe *gravity*, not electromagnetism. So there is really no such thing as "a black hole from electromagnetism".


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

[User] [Pokemon] Whenever trainers catch Pokemon like Magikarp, Relicanth, Whiscash, or other fish-like ones, how the hell do they survive on land? How do they move around?

[Assistant]
[](/derpyhappy) They can survive being roasted, poisoned, paralyzed, electrocuted, hyper-beamed, exploded, constricted, stabbed, bitten, telepathically assaulted, crushed, or haunted. You're worried about them *suffocating?*

As for locomotion, well, they're pretty good at flopping around.


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

[User] ELI5: If alternating current oscillates back and forth at equal frequencies, how does power still flow in only one direction?

[Assistant]
Imagine you want to move a heavy box. If you push it, where does power go? Well, it goes from your hands to the box, and then into the friction of the floor.

What if you pull it instead? The power still goes *from you* to the box, and then consumed by friction! So, no matter if you push or pull, the power goes in the same direction!

In general, power transfer can go any direction, direction of actual movement doesn't matter: it can even go in direction where there is no movement at all (like a motor connected to a wheel. The power goes from motor to a wheel, but nothing moves in that direction!)


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

[User]
[40k] Has there ever been any case of chaos ever working with any of the other factions in the 40k universe?

I don't know why I ask, but I've seen Imperium/Tau/Eldar alliances, and it just crossed my mind, has chaos ever had an alliance with any of the other races, even if it was a sort shaky alliance that ended in betrayal?

[Assistant] Since the warp entities can't enter the material plane without being summoned and sustained by someone else then they have had 'alliances' with everyone. The chaos space marines are in a way allies of chaos through corruption or promises of power and almost every race has had some of its members corrupted at one point or another.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Who's a better shape shifter, Mystique or a Skrull?

Bonus question: Has Mystique ever interacted with a Skrull?

[Assistant]
Skrulls have infiltrated super heroes and super villains organizations. They replaced meta humans for years before the invasion and were able to replicate their powers, personality and even fake relationships.

Mystique is more of a one pony trick for spy missions and that's it.


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

[User]
What is the latest and greatest theory of the origins of life on Earth?

I have heard that the 'Primordial Soup' model most of us were taught in grade school is largely regarded as discredited.  What is the current thinking?

[Assistant]
Some version of the primordial soup is right; there were lots of free organic molecules floating around, some how they got into the right configuration to start self replicattion. Most of the current work has been focused on what order the core aspects of life arose in and where.

Key things you need for life are 1. metabolism 2. heretibility and 3. structure that contains the other pieces.

So we have two main schools of thought; metabolism first theory, and RNA first theory. Both propose that specific component showed up, and the others came later.

Key evidence for the RNA first is that there are RNA molecules that are self-replicating. There are also reasonable precursors to RNA that could fulfill the roll that have more favorable energy characteristics.

The container problem seems to be reasonably easy; phospholipids self organize into spheres and wave energy mixing things up would eventually get the right molecules within the right sphere.

Where it happens; people have proposed life originating in deep space, or chemosynthetically at deep ocean vents as well as the warm little pond. A recent paper supported the warm pond style hypothesis by examining the proteins that all known life has in common, and concluding based on something (not sure what!) that Earth's surface temperature/pressure was optimal in some way.

Hope this helps!


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How expensive is Hyperspace travel? Are there any other common and/or convenient methods of quickly traveling the galaxy?

Hyperdrives seem ubiquitous with space travel, so they cant be prohibitively expensive (especially given the large amount of privately owned small craft we see throughout the galaxy), though Ive never seen any numbers regarding the costs of space travel for any ship.

[Assistant] You wont find *any* hard numbers for vast majority of Star Wars mundane details. Best we can go by is Hans price to smuggle two people to Alderaan, and go down from there. Which IS prohibitively expensive. Yet in Attack of the clones Anakin and Padme travel in a shitty public transport ship, which is unlikely to cost thousands of credits...


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

[User] [Spider-Man 3] What happened to the piece of the symbiote Dr. Connors had?

[Assistant]
Really good question.

If the tiny symbiote mass is independent from the rest of the symbiote mass, a separate consciousness, It wouldn't have died when Spider-Man exterminated the bigger mass that bonded to Eddie Brock. the small portion of the symbiote might even grow larger over time, assuming it wasn't destroyed before that could happen.

If the symbiote is just one consciousness that always stays with its largest union of mass, the tiny mass Dr. Connors had would've been like a disembodied finger its owner remote controlled. The tiny portion would've gone limp when Spider-Man annihilated the largest union of symbiote mass.

If the symbiote can choose which portion of its divided mass carries its single consciousness, then the symbiote consciousness could've been remote controlling its larger mass while staying safe in the tiny portion with Dr. Connors. It wouldn't have died when Spider-Man obliterated the larger mass.


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

[User]
Why were the jedi put in charge of the clone army?

With the low number of jedis, wouldn't they have been more useful as special forces or spies? Would a jedi know anything about large-scale military strategy or logistics?

[Assistant]
Ah! This is an interesting topic that comes up a lot when studying the fall of the Old Republic.

In theory, the Jedi are a "peacekeeping" force for the Republic, tasked with negotiating, maintaining order through nonviolent means, and acting as mediators. Given this legacy of pacifism, why were they called upon as warriors as soon as the Clone Wars broke out?

Well in truth, the Jedi have a long and extensive history of militarization. During the (many, many) years of Sith-Jedi wars, the Jedi were often called to combat as some of the only units capable of taking on another force adept without massive losses or massive overcompensation. After so many years of being trained as front-line soldiers, bits and pieces of tradition still held on, even during the thousand years after the Ruusan reformation where there were no full scale Jedi-Sith conflicts.

Force-influenced charismatic leadership qualities, an ability to discern their enemy's intentions, and "battle meditation" a well documented and *very* effective ability where powerful force users can inspire their troops to work with greater unity, efficiency, and coordination, all lead to Jedi being incredibly effective leaders, especially when on the front lines. Ironically, it is these exact qualities that make them such effective mediators and negotiators.

In short, the Jedi were charismatic leaders, trained in combat, and even without their more unique abilities would likely make notably effective front line leaders. *With* these abilities, given the sheer scale and unexpected rapidity when the Clone Wars began (remember that both the Clone and Droid armies were entirely unexpected by both the Jedi *and* the Republic!), it's no surprise that the Jedi were called upon as warriors to defend the Republic with such little deliberation or negotiation.


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

[User]
[HarryPotter] What does the wizarding world export?

The wizarding world seems to purchase a lot of mundane stuff (like food) from muggles.  Enough that Gringotts does currency exchange as a regular service.  But what do muggles buy from wizards?  Wizards don't seem to make a lot of mundane stuff, and muggles certainly aren't allowed to buy property in the wizarding world.  Yet without a balance of trade, the exchange rate would quickly collapse.

[Assistant]
Natural resources would be a good choice. Locatus Diamondus or a similar incantation would allow the wizards to find something that muggles would easily accept. Or Cowus Biggus and such spells would make them highly effective organic farmers.

Effective divination could allow wizard and witch brokers to make big money in the stock market, then use that money to buy muggle goods to sell to their fellow wizards. Then they'd be paid in currency they can actually use in their daily lives.

Beyond that, possibly there is a grey market ins special magical services for muggles illegally in the know. Scrying, healing, etc. Things that are easily hidden from the outside world, but potentially valuable.


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

[User]
It is often said that fascists misinterpreted Nietzsche's philosophy. How true is this position?

Nietzsche's disdain for nationalism is often brought up. However, fascism isn't just excessive nationalism. Nietzsche was also deeply anti-democracy and anti-socialism which is an aspect that he shares with fascism.

What are the specific misinterpretations of Nietzsche by fascists? What parts aren't misinterpreted?

[Assistant]
The most common "misinterpretation" referred to is the antisemitism of the Nazis. Nietzsche's sister was a virulent anti-Semite who misleadingly edited many of his works to reflect this bias of her. By all accounts, Nietzsche did not think highly of anti-Semites, and even lost his friendship with the Wagners because of his other associations with Jews.

However, there are plenty of very easy to make readings of Nietzsche that would suggest his possible approval of other parts of fascism. As you say, hes famously anti-democracy and anti-socialist. Some of the most lauded people in his writings are warmongers, the biggest being Napoleon. In the Cosima notebooks, he talks about the need for a large portion of society to be slaves to a few men of genius, including of military genius. In the *Genealogy* it is hard not to take his account of the early nobles who ruled by strength as an approving one. We might think that, if it weren't for the mass murder atrocities they committed, Nietzsche would probably have looked favorably at Nazi expansionism.

Edit: Another comment points out that Nietzsche was completely against mass politics, which is true. So for that aspect of fascism he probably would've been disdainful. But he certainly would not have looked down at the militaristic and focus on "strength" aspects.


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

[User]
ELI5 How do hearing aids work, and can any hard of hearing person use them?

What I mean is, are there some medical issues that make the use of hearing aids impossible? Or can you use hearing aids and then one day no longer be able to use them? If so why?

[Assistant]
At their core they're just a tiny microphone and speaker - the simplest version fits in your ear and basically just makes everything coming into that ear louder. There's tons of different versions depending on where exactly you put the microphone and speaker. The whole system might be in the ear canal, part or all of it might be worn behind the ear, or some of it might be integrated into the frames of a pair of glasses.

Those types of hearing aids are dependent on having a relatively functional external ear canal and eardrum - if that's not the case there are still some options. If hearing is only poor on one side, the hearing aid can basically just pump the sound from the bad side over to the good ear so the person can still hear sound coming from every direction. If neither external ears are functioning bone-integrated aids are an option, where sound is basically vibrated through the skull to the inner ear, allowing the person to hear even without a functioning eardrum.

If the inner ear isn't functioning then hearing aids won't work and you'll need a cochlear implant - that's basically a microphone and a wire setup that directly stimulates the cochlear nerve, transmitting sound information straight to the brain. That's a much more invasive operation to perform so hearing aids are almost always preferred if possible.

As for your other question, yes hearing aids will eventually stop working for some people. If whatever causes your hearing loss is progressive (i.e. gets worse over time) then the hearing aid will stop working at some point. However the majority of people can use them their whole lives, they may just require occasional adjustments. A doctor who is consulting someone on hearing aids will take into account how long they can be expected to last when deciding what type of hearing aid is best.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do vehicles "smoke" more from their exhaust pipes when they first start up, and then when the engine has warmed up, stops?

[Assistant]
The 'smoke' you actually see is water vapour, the product of combustion of hydrocarbons and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water. (CxHx + O2 -> CO2 + H2O)

When the engine and exhaust gas is cold, or the weather is cold, this condenses much quicker in the air to give a denser "fog". When the engine is running at temperature and the whole exhaust system has heated up, the water remains as vapour, rather than condensation, so the exhaust gas is largely invisible.

There are of course other things in exhaust gasses since combustion isn't perfect. Diesel fumes, in particular, really do contain sooty particulates.When a diesel runs rich (youtube videos of diesel tractor pulls!) they really so make a tonne of smoke. Lots of effort is being made ot capture these particulates, since they are very harmful to health if inhaled.


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

[User]
Does anyone have seemingly "great" ideas that you lose interest in after a short period of time?

I love programming, I love problem solving, and I love creating something out of nothing that other people ogle over because "they could never do that".

One issue that I've found I have is that I lose interest in things too easily. I start projects, that would be great in application, and would benefit myself and others if completed, but for some reason I just lose interest. I started building an iPhone Application a year ago, got pretty close to launching it, and then just got over the idea, and it's been sitting there on my hard drive in the corner ever since, collecting dust. I just have no interest in it now for some reason.

Does anyone else have this issue? What do you do when you run into that wall?

[Assistant]
Three slightly contradictory bits of advice here.

First: be less ambitious. Get used to only starting projects you know you can finish, and build it up.

Second: keep it up. Just keep doing what you are doing and eventually it'll click.

Third: go back to old projects. You never know, you may be re-inspired.


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

[User] ELI5: How do noise cancelling headphones work?

[Assistant] They have a mic which records the ambient noise around you, then when your music or whatever plays, thos noise cancelling headphones play the reverse wave of the ambient noise around you, essentially cancelling that noise.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do musicians always seem to have an "era?"

That is to say, why don't they just keep churning out popular hits for their whole careers, instead of a particular decade. Very few artists transcend this paradigm of music invention. I am writing a paper about this, but have been unable to find much information that directly pertains to this phenomenon.  [serious]

[Assistant] Popular music has always been tied into youth culture.  Youth culture is ephemeral.  Artists reach their fame and popularity with a specific youth demographic at a specific time, but that demographic doesn't stay young long.  A few bands can cut cross generations, but the up and coming youth demographic  is looking for something new and different.  The cycle begins again.  The older generation then associates the music of their youth with the events and experience of that time, that era.


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

[User] ELI5: If nothing can travel faster than light than why light is unable to escape the blackholes?

[Assistant]
If you think of space like a big, flat, rubber sheet, then you pinch a part of that sheet and pull it down some, the dip you get in the sheet is how gravity works.  That's a "gravity well".

Now roll a marble along that sheet - that's light.  The marble encounters the well, maybe straight on, maybe at an angle, and depending on how it hits the gravity well, the marble may come out straight or it may change course (like a golf ball on a putting green where it clips the hole)

Now - PULL THAT SHEET DOWN SUPER HARD.  Make the gravity well go WAYYYYYY down.  Further away you get a gradual slope but right at the center?  A sheer pit.

No matter how fast you shoot that marble, it's gonna hit that gentle slope first, so it's gonna angle down.  Then it hits the steeper points, and its going down already, so if it hits a deep enough part of the well, there's just no way for it to go back up.  It might kinda fly across the hole but its gonna hit the wall on the other side and bounce, and keep going down as it does so.

That's a black hole - light crosses a certain threshold and it doesn't matter how fast its going, its going down.


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

[User]
Would a Roman be able to digest today's food? How about a caveman?

Or going even farther back, would Lucy have been able to digest the stuff we eat today?

[Assistant]
I don't see any reason why they wouldn't, the genetic varieties of plants have changed quite a bit but the fundamental nutrients are the same.  It would be like us eating food in a foreign country, you can easily get a tummy ache but you won't starve.

The bigger problem would be the pathogens and any bacteria in the food, as the diseases have changed dramatically over the centuries. Fatal infections are very possible and diarrhea is all but guaranteed.

And the term "caveman" doesn't really apply to the majority of our ancestors, living in caves is mostly what Neanderthals did, and it is not yet clear how closely related we are to them. Neanderthals had a very different diet from our traditional ancestors, but apparently we are both of the same species. They ate much more meat than we do, up to 80% of their diet in some cases!


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

[User]
I helped a professor draft his letter of recommendation for grad school. Am I screwed?

I feel a bit dishonest for helping him with it, but he asked me to. Hes quite a busy guy and English is also his second language. Anyways I read somewhere that this kind of thing is extremely frowned upon and could even result in having your degree revoked later on if the school finds out. I now dont even want to go to that school if I get in just to avoid this from happening.... thoughts?

[Assistant]
It's actually quite normal (or at least not unheard of) for students to basically "write" their own letters of rec.

If anything, it's a good opportunity for the student to let the professor know which traits they really want to show on their application. The professor may have thoughts of their own, or wording/stories that they want to add, but that's up to them.

At the end of the day, as long as the professor signs off on the letter, there's no issue.

We talk about plagiarism a lot in academia, but letters of rec are probably one of the places plagiarism isn't really possible.


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

[User] ELI5: When plants face the sun, how do they know where the sun is, and how are they able to orient themselves?

[Assistant] There are cells in the stem of the plant that grow at different rates depending on if they are lit by the sun or not. The ones that are not in sunlight grow more than the ones that are, causing the stem of the plant to twist towards the sun. When you watch a time lapse of a plant growing it can really look like the plant knows where the sun is, and is actively moving towards it, but in reality the directional growth is just caused by chemical reactions, and is completely automatic.


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

[User] ELI5: Why did the swiss bank change the value of the franc and what effects does that have on the economy?

[Assistant]
The Swiss Central Bank has been holding the Franc/Euro Exchange rate at a 1.20 Francs per Euro minimum rate since 2011.

Today they announced to no longer keep it this way, which made the rate shortly drop to 0.85 Francs/Euro, right now it's about parity/1:1. At the same time they announced to push interest rates from -0.25 to -0.75%, meaning you "pay" to hold Swiss Francs.

So what are the consequences? Bad news for Swiss export industry and tourism (no one can afford the Swiss Franc anymore, Swiss Market Index is about 10-15% down), Franc/Euro and Franc/USD went down, USD/Euro also went down, and bad news for people holding credits in Swiss Franc (lots of Polish people apparently, it gets much more expensive to pay off their loans).


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

[User] [Fallout] I got a fair amount of Nuka Cola bottle caps but they're all creased and a little rusty. Will the caravans accept them? I need my Cram.

[Assistant]
Yeah, sure. Not every cap comes from a pristine, perfectly preserved bottle of Nuka fresh from the Vendo-O-Tron. They get traded around, carried around the wastes, dropped, and generally beaten up. As long as the person you're trading with *believes* it's a genuine cap, it's a genuine cap.

I've heard back in the Pre-War days they used paper money. Paper money! Now THAT'S something that would be hard to take care of. It's not nice and hardy like a cap.


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

[User]
[MCU] Who is Thor's stylist when he uses Mjolnir to 'suit up'? And related questions.

*ENDGAME SPOILERS!*

In the first 'Thor', upon earning back Mjolnir, Thor holds the mighty hammer aloft and as his powers are restored so too is his costume from earlier in the film.  Okay, that's simple enough.

I forget in what capacity we see this in other films until 'Endgame' - if I recall he's pretty much just in whatever costume already whenever he needs it.

But then in 'Endgame' he's been without Mjolnir for quite some time, he has grown fat and disheveled and has presumably not 'suited up' in a long time.  However, towards the end when he, once again, holds up Mjolnir, he is suited up in a costume that is more befitting his new size and grooming habits, most obviously with a braided beard.

So my question is: who or what is doing this?  What unseen Norse god of style is "making it work", so-to-speak?  Obviously he's not just squeezing into an older costume or else it wouldn't fit, and the braided beard thing is a look we'd never seen before.  Surely some intelligent force is deciding this, but who?

At that - could *anyone* wielding Mjolnir get the same glow-up from whatever divine fashionista if they so desire (I assume the costume only appears when desired, since Thor uses it other times without gaining it)?  Could Captain America have gotten a really cool viking makeover had more pressing matters not been at the forefront of his mind?

[Assistant]
Thor did it to himself.  Mjolnir makes your exterior match your interior idealized self - working with what it's got, of course.  It couldn't make you thinner or have longer hair, it just grooms what you have.

Steve's hair is too short for much of a makeover, but maybe it could be slicked back or something if he thought that was the way he should look.


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

[User] If dietary cholesterol has little to no effect on serum cholesterol, why do doctors advise people to lower their dietary cholesterol intake?

[Assistant]
95% of serum cholesterol is produced in the liver (Marks Biochemistry), but without HMG CoA Reductase inhibitors we can't effect this. So in turn we tell people to take control of what we can modify with lifestyle changes, ie dietary cholesterol.

So basically we tell you to lower cholesterol for the same reason you're told to wear a seatbelt, it's a risk factor we **can** control. And everything else equal, it's better to work on that 5% than 0%.


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

[User]
If water boils in a vacuum, what happens if there is not much space for the water to expand into (e.g. the airless volume inside a container is only twice the size of the volume of water as a liquid)?

I was trying to image what would happen if I had some water (say a liter) inside an airtight container and it filled the space. If I could draw a plunger and expand the space to 2 liters, but no air could get in, and the container would resist the pressure, what would happen to the water. Would it become a basically a less dense liquid spread throughout the 2 liter space)?

[Assistant] If you have a vacuum that gets fills with water vapour, it's no longer a vacuum. As water starts to boil due to the vacuum, the pressure increases and eventually the vapour pressure would be in thermodynamic  equilibrium with the water and it would stop boiling.


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

[User] ELI5: What is actually happening when my computer has "limited" connectivity to a network (yet it appears to have no connection)?

[Assistant] In at least one case (I guess there are others), "limited connectivity" means that the computer is able to connect to a network - for instance, the WiFi provided by the router - but not the internet - for instance, if the router doesn't have a connection to the ISP. That means it would be able to send data via network that are destined for the internet, but it will not be able to be sent there because the way out is blocked.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do standard-transmission cars stall when stopped and in gear, but automatics don't?

[Assistant]
Stick shifts have friction plates coupling the wheels with the engine. Stop one, and the other has to stop as well. The friction is too strong.

Automatic transmissions have a fluid coupling between the movement of the wheels and of the engine. The motion is transferred by one set of turbines being driven and dragging along another set of turbines through the motion of transmission fluid. Block one set of turbines and the other continues to have some degree of freedom. There is friction, but no solid parts pressing against each other.


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

[User] In flatland, would the 3rd dimension be time?

[Assistant]
It could be. However, answer me this.
What is the second and third dimension to us? Is it width and height respectively, or length and width?
The dimensions are arbitrary named and you would be correct if you named time as the first or second dimension.
So yes, if in flatland you declare time a dimension you are wanting to measure, then you can name it the third dimension.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes our voice change after sleeping to be more deep, low, scratchy?

[Assistant] A combination of you being very relaxed when you wake up and having mucus dry onto your vocal cords during sleep, making them thicker and causing them to vibrate slower. It's often called morning voice.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes wild boars so dangerous?

[Assistant]
Their attitude.

In more official terms, they are very aggressive.

Most animals could be dangerous to humans if they wanted to attack. The safe animals would rather run away and hide, or find something easier to attack for food.

Wild boars, on the other hand, attack for many reasons, and they have tusks and lots of strength that helps them make an effective attack.


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

[User]
[Game of thrones] Olenna Tyrell - the queen of thorns is a sharp and intelligent woman and effective Matriarch of the Tyrell family, and her granddaughter is her gifted protege. How is it that Mace Tyrell is such an oaf (albeit a well meaning one)

How comes his character doesnt have any of the hallmarks of his mother ?

[Assistant]
Olenna describes her late husband as a clumsy oaf, the same as her son. Which is fair because he  died bird-watching, the man was looking at hawks and rode straight off a cliff.

Mace therefore takes after his father. It's also a medieval society, where Lords were the ones who groomed their sons for leadership. While Olenna might express disappointment in how the boy was raised, she doesn't have the final say. I'll expect Mace gives in to Olenna much more than her husband would have, though he would have also given in more to her than the average lord. Luthor, a well-meaning man raised his boy to become a clumsy oaf like himself.

Olenna seeing more potential in her granddaughter and having more control in her upbringing, grooms her for leadership instead. Margaery possess the same kind of beauty and wits that she herself possessed and used to get to where she was.


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

[User]
[LOTR] How was Frodo able to freely give the One Ring to Tom Bombadil?

Was there some way the ring detected that Tom doesn't care about it and would give it back so the ring let go of the addiction? Did Tom Bombadil have an aura that let Frodo know the ring would be returned to him?

[Assistant]
While others are correct regarding Frodo's state *in general*, it's not relevant to this question since Frodo had trouble handing the ring over to Gandalf, one of his closest friends, and was himself surprised at his willingness to give it to Tom.

The thing to keep in mind is that people aren't just getting addicted to the ring; it exerts an intentional pull on their minds. The ring's intent is always to enslave whomever it needs in order to be reunited with Sauron. Part of that process leads it to pump up the juice every time the bearer is considering taking an action which would put the ring's goals in danger, such as handing it over or trying to get rid of it. Sure, people get attached over time to the point where the ring doesn't need to do much anymore (see Gollum), but that's still a big part of what's happening inside bearers' heads.

Handing the ring over to Tom carried zero risk for the ring. Tom exists in a state that essentially doesn't interact with the ring; giving the ring to Tom is no different (in the ring's perceptions) than setting it on a table. The ring may not even be aware that it was placed on Tom's finger, because Tom is just not the sort of creature that the ring can interact with.


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

[User] ELI5: They say an object has mass has gravity, does this mean i have my own gravity?

[Assistant]
Yes, a very, very, very small amount of gravity. So, you attract the Earth to you with the same force that the Earth attracts you to it. However, you are much, much easier to move than the Earth is (due to mass affecting momentum). So, you end up moving toward the Earth rather than the Earth moving toward you.

Kinda neat, eh?


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

[User]
Why is gravitational mass proportional to inertial mass? Do both of them grow as an object reach relativistic speeds?

If they both grow, how can we explain the strong gravitational field in the object's frame of reference?

What's the difference between them on a fundamental level?

[Assistant]
First, it's much better to think of mass in terms of rest mass, rather than relativistic mass. Almost no physicists think in terms of relativistic mass anymore; instead, it's the formulas for momentum and energy that get modified at high speeds. So we always say that an electron has a mass of 511 keV/c^2, even when it's ultrarelativistic; it just has way way more momentum and energy than you would expect for a particle with its mass and velocity in Newtonian physics.

OK, so now that we are thinking about rest masses, why is it that gravitational (rest) mass and inertial (rest) mass are the same? Per Newtonian physics this is just an accidental fact that explains gravitation nicely. Per Einstein this is a fundamental law of nature: the Equivalence Principle, which states that all objects fall at the same rate in a gravitational field. In Einstein gravity (aka general relativity) gravity is not a real force, it's an artifact of being in an accelerating frame of reference. Gravitational forces are fundamentally the same as centrifugal forces, Coriolis forces, and the force that pushes you back in your car seat when you floor it, in that they only exist when you're using the 'wrong' frame of reference. If you construct the formulae for these 'fictitious forces' you find that they are all proportional to *inertial* mass. So Einstein explains the equality of gravitational and inertial masses by saying that gravity, too, is a fictitious force, so the mass that appears in it must be the inertial mass.

Now, your question about growing relativistic mass still stands in a modified form, because Einstein gravity is sensitive to *energy*, not just rest mass. (It's also sensitive to momentum and pressure!) And the resolution is just that just as the energy, etc of a particle depend on your frame of reference, so too does the gravitational field, and everything is just right (by construction) to make the different points of view consistent. In the rest frame of a particle, though, it has only its rest mass and its ordinary gravitational field---it doesn't "know" that it's moving relativistically relative to something else.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do LED bulbs cause image tracking/persistence in vision?

I recently changed from G9 Halogen bulbs to LED in my sitting room. (2 x 5-bulb fixtures)

I've noticed significant image tracking/persistence in the room since the change - for example, when I wave my hand in front of my face I can see extra instances of my hand along the trail of movement.

A similar effect is created when I wave my hand in front of a computer or TV screen.

This doesn't seem to happen under the halogen light or in daylight.

What causes this effect and why does the type of light make a difference?

[Assistant]
LEDs or your monitor are like stroboscopes, they don't give a constant light, but blink really fast to give the perception of constant lighting.

The still images you see are like what you see on the dance floor in clubs, the subject is iluminated for a very short time, creating a still image like a camera.


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

[User] ELI5: If electrons repelling each other means you never really touch something, how do different things feel differently?

[Assistant] Different configurations of electrons-repelling-you feel different. Your mistake is in assuming that you have to actually touch something to feel it- that's true for a common-English understanding of what it means to touch things, but not if you insist that touching something only counts if the atoms are knocking into each other with literally zero space between them.


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

[User]
[MCU] what makes thanos so resistant to damage?

It takes iron man with his bleeding edge armour just to make a cut on his body, but Thor with stormbreaker can injure him like a normal axe would to an average man. Stormbreaker is said to be able to kill thanos, but what about thanos makes him so hard to kill, and what about the axe means that it is able to kill thanos where other weapons would fail? If its the infinity gauntlet, does that mean that iron man would have done more damage to him if thanos hadnt been using the gauntlet?

[Assistant]
Thanos doesn't have an "origin" for his strength described in the MCU (yet), but in the comics he's a Deviant Eternal - basically a superpowered mutant, from a race (the Eternals) created by the Celestials that were already on a par with Thor.

And it's implied (or maybe stated IDK) that he further enhanced himself with technology later on his quest for power.

So basically, imagine if Thor had a permanent Hulk-style mutation on top of his already massive durability and strength, and then he went around finding and drinking Super-Soldier Serum and Heart-Shaped Herb to become even stronger.


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

[User] [Comics] What's an interesting super power that hasn't been used in comics before?

[Assistant] I want to see lower-powered or super limited versions of popular heroes' powers. Laser-eye vision, but only as strong as a laser pointer. Flight, but they have to put effort into it eg they huff and puff like they're running and arrive sweaty and out of breath. Heat control, but you can't create fire or ice, you can only move heat around eg you can burn a tree but have to freeze a pond to do so. You can teleport but only as far as you can run holding your breath. Comics keep upping the powers, but it's more interesting when powers have limits.


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

[User]
ELI5: Explain this, If we made a stick 600 light years long, put it in between two space stations floating around a planet. If we pushed one end of the stick up about 1 inch, would the other space station get that signal instantly, or would it take time to get to him?

If said space station managed to stay perfectly aligned is a point to discuss, but say the space station ARE managing to stay perfectly aligned and nothing hit the stick, such as another planet or meteor(Or whatever the correct term is).

[Assistant]
Unfortunately, unless Einstein messed up, you can't send information faster than the speed of light.

When you're pushing on that stick, it actually does take time  for the "push" to reach the other side depends on the material properties of the stick. If, for example, the stick was really floppy like a string, if you wiggle the string, you can see that the "wiggle" will take some time to get to the other side. The more rigid the material is, the faster the "wiggle" will go across.

If you have a perfectly rigid object, then yeah the signal will go across at the speed of light. But it won't be instantaneous.

Why? Because objects on a small scale are not continuous - they're a bunch of molecules that have some interaction with each other. For example an iron rod has a bunch of iron atoms a particular distance from each other - close enough so that they can bond together (the reason for this distance is so that they can delocalize their electrons, but this is above a ELI5 level), and far enough so that the charges in the atoms don't repel each other.

So if you push on one end of this iron rod, the 1st bunch of atoms you push on will get too close to the a bunch of atoms in the next slice of the rod, too close for comfort, so the 2nd slice of atoms will move away from the 1st, causing it to get close to the 3rd, etc. until it goes all the way down. On a small scale, this is pretty fast. But on a larger scale (e.g. 600 light years), the "push" will be propagated down the rod like a wave that travels, at maximum, the speed of light.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are bodies able to create an entire body with it's own lifetime supply of regenetive cells, but is itself unable to prevent gradual decay over a lifetime?

[Assistant]
It's a lot like a car.

A new car you want to repair and replace as much as you can. As the car ages, it gets more expensive and time consuming to repair, and easier to just replace the whole thing.

Now consider that evolution is about what survives and prospers as a species. And consider the innumerable dangers that could destroy an organism. Nature has a few creatures that do effectively live forever, but as a general rule, replacing constantly works better, so that is what prospered and spread.

Also note your own body does the same thing. Rather than make cells that never die, it constantly removed and replaces cells. It's such a good system that some of your cells even self destruct or kill other cells to make this happen.

Further, note that replacement allows evolution to happen faster. The shorter a creature lives before procreation and the less it sticks around after, the more changes will happen.

Edit: to summarize, it's possible, but evolutionarily speaking, not desirable. Creatures actually moved away from that as time went on.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does being tickled make us laugh?

[Assistant]
I remember reading that one purpose of parents ticking their children is it teaches them defensive reflexes if they are attacked at different parts of their body (or something along those lines). Like puppies or kittens playing, it teaches them valuable life skills to survive.

It makes you laugh / is fun because it is initially play. Parents wouldn't do it to their children if it hurt them or didn't get the positive feedback. So it is natures way of encouraging you to teach those reflexes to your children.


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

[User]
[Zootopia] How much is rent in Little Rodentia?

Very small apartments, but for very small creatures. Are they as expensive as the normal apartments or way cheaper? Is life better there then?

[Assistant]
There's no way they're as expensive as other units, unless there are regulatory requirements to limit the size of Little Rodentia and prevent large creatures from assisting in construction.

It takes a lot less time and material to build a dollhouse than a full-sized house, and a one-square-foot lot is a lot cheaper than a half-acre lot.

This should have ramifications for quality of life in Zootopia - if employers are required by law to pay a mouse as much as a rhinoceros, you'd expect mice to become far wealthier in the long run, because only a tiny fraction of their income would go to living expenses. (Maybe that's why the gang is made up of polar bear toughs but headed by a rodent.)


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

[User]
Why do beavers build dams?

First: I'm unaware of an "ask an animal expert" subreddit, so I hope this still fits here. Second: The most common answer as discovered by google searching suggests that beavers are seeking calmer waters to build their home. This doesn't sound like the end of the story to me. Surely if a beaver simply wants  calmer water, they'd seek calmer water. I feel like there has to be more to the behavior, so I'm curious.

[Assistant]
When asking why animals do things we can divide the question into proximate and ultimate causes.  For example, the proximate cause of you eating is that you are hungry.  The ultimate cause of you eating is that you need energy and nutrition to live and grow.

The ultimate cause of beavers building dams is to provide a suitable safe habitat for them to live.  Beavers live in lodges, and prefer to have the entrance under several feet of water to prevent predatory entry and allow the beaver to exit under the ice in winter.  Beavers are also faster swimmers than walkers, and are safer in the water.

Where a suitable body of water and embankment exists, beavers often _won't_ build dams.  Instead they will just burrow into the bank and use the pond to access nearby trees.  But in a narrow, fast flowing stream or a location without an embankment, they will construct a dam to raise the water level several feet.  Then they can construct a lodge in the middle of the water with a suitable entrance.

So that's the ultimate reason; beavers need a safe place to live

But there's also a proximate reason.  Beavers are probably about as smart as your average mammal, which means they can't work through the rather abstract chain of logic listed above, any more than your dog knows it needs to eat because of energy and nutrients.  Beavers need a direct reason to build dams, a reason that will help them build dams in the right place and time and keep them repaired.

So what's the proximate reason?  Beavers have a strong instinct to stifle the sound of running water.  In a famous experiment a researcher recorded the sound of running water and played it out in a field near a beaver dam.  He came back a day later and found the speaker buried under a pile of mud and logs and debris until the sound couldn't be heard.  That's the basis of dam building.  If there's a shallow area with water running over it, they'll start dumping logs and twigs and mud on it.  If there's a gap in the dam with water splashing out, they'll fill it up.  All this  dumping debris to silence the sound of running water means that eventually the flow is stopped and a nice, calm pond remains.


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

[User]
[Electrical Engineering] If electric fan knobs are made to resist a set amount of electricity, then is the amount of elecricity consumed in the fan equal regardless of the amount of resistance in the knob?

In advance, I apologize for the horribly butchered question. I wasn't quite listening during workshop class.

[Assistant]
Firstly, fans no longer use resistors, or rheostats, to control their speed. They either use switches that rewire the coils, or dimmer controls of various complexity that use, in one way or another, triacs as switches to control the amount of power that reaches the fan. These control methods are highly efficient, so the power used by the fan goes down by a lot as you slow it down.

Even in the old rheostatic controls, they'd use less power as you turned them down. As you increased the resistance, you'd have less current flow, and as the voltage across the circuit remained constant as the current decreased, (P=VI), the power dissipated by the whole circuit would decrease. But the overall efficiency drops, as, for instance, if you used the resistor to halve the current, The whole thing would use half the power. But the fan would only see half the voltage, and half the current, so would run at 1/4 of the power. The same amount of power would be dissipated by the resistor. This is why we don't use them any more!


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

[User]
ELI5: Why it takes longer to heat up two hot pockets in a microwave than one.

Same applies to any food, obviously. I just happen to be consuming a hot pocket currently while staring vacantly at the instructions.  And does the same effect apply to normal ovens at all?

[Assistant]
A conventional oven that heats up everything inside an oven including air, the oven sides, etc.  That's quite a waste of heat but if you put one or two hot pockets in the oven, you won't see much of a difference.

A microwave oven is much more efficient, which is why it's fast. It only sends energy to food you put in it.  Its energy output is limited though, so the more food you put in it, the less energy each part is getting.


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

[User] How do the Great Lakes 'avoid' being salt water?

[Assistant] They have been and are fed by fresh water sources (rivers, springs, glaciers) and they are above sea level so they drain into the ocean. There is no source of salt that has a chance to mix with the water until it drains into the Atlantic Ocean.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] When a person in a painting walks beyond the egdes of a painting, where do they go?

We know that painting-people can go from one painting to the other, and if you tilt a painting the people in there will slide out. Where do they go when they are between paintings? DO they have their own pocket universe there, or is it just eternal darkness between the few pockets of reality that are the paintings?

[Assistant]
Painting in some buildings - like Hogwarts - are interconnected. The people depicted in them can enter other portraits. Like when The Fat Lady spent Christmas in the painting of the Four Drunk Monks, getting wasted.

Headmaster portraits have an additional enchantment that allows them to move freely between any portrait of themselves, regardless of its location.

Beyond that, a painting is a painting, and they can't leave its confines.


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

[User]
[Tolkien] If Sauron is said to be the most powerful of all the Maiar, and the One Ring makes him even more powerful, why did he lose to Elendil and Gilgalad?

Assuming that Elves and Men are less powerful than Maiar to begin with.  You would think that the two kings were incredibly outclassed.  How the hell did they win?

[Assistant]
There are different types of "Power".  Sauron orchestrated the downfall of Nmenor, the most powerful kingdom of Men to have ever existed in addition to most of the powerful Elves of the Second Age.  He also would have defeated Middle-Earth yet again if not for the blind luck/divine intervention of two hobbits sneaking into Mt. Doom.

Sauron was one of the best smiths of magical, powerful artifacts in the history of Middle-Earth, had uncounted armies of Men, Orcs, and other monsters, had spies all over the world, corrupted the leader of the White Council, and drove the Steward of Gondor to madness.

He also lost a fight to a dog in the First Age.  "Most powerful" doesn't necessarily mean physical power.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does laughter, a physiological response to humour, exist?

[Assistant]
For the type of laughter when, for example, playing, it's a signal to the person with whom you're playing that everything is lighthearted and that they aren't hurting you. Even rats do that.

For the type after a joke, the leading theory is that before you hear the punchline, your brain is trying to come up with the answer and sending signals to all kinds of parts of your brain to find out what's coming. When the unexpected (it has to be unexpected, that's what makes a joke a joke and why they stop being funny the more times they're told) punchline hits, all that energy in your brain has to go somewhere, which results in light convulsions in the form of laughter.


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

[User]
[Marvel/DC] Who are the wealthiest / smartest people on Earth who are not also a super hero or villain?

It seems like most of the top tier superlatives in both universes use their brains and/or wealth as either a means to or a cover for caped adventuring. So are there any noteworthy billionaires who don't secretly go out and cause or prevent mayhem? Any super geniuses who don't also spend their time fighting dinosaurs via time travel?

[Assistant]
To be fair, almost all rich superheroes were rich *before* becoming superheroes, rather than as a result of it.

That said, the first who comes to mind is Spike Freeman for me. He's a media-mogul and billionaire. He's a bad person, and sort of an antagonist, but he's not really a "villain" in any poetic sense. He's a rich douchebag who runs a reality TV show about superheroes, and he knowingly allows them to endanger themselves for ratings.


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

[User]
(Game of Thrones)Some questions about the Night's Watch

I am caught up in the show, and I've only just started the books. That being said...
1. The Night's Watch are supposedly all equals, words like "common born" and "high born" are abandoned after they take their oaths. So why is it, at the beginning of the series, that Garret has to take orders from Waymar Royce? According to the wiki, they both hold the rank of Ranger. Shouldn't Garret hold seniority, given his decades of experience?
2. Why was Benjen Stark allowed to leave the Wall to attend the feast at Winterfell?

[Assistant]
> So why is it, at the beginning of the series, that Garret has to take orders from Waymar Royce?

The Lord Commander placed Ser Waymar in command of the mission so as not to offend his father. The Night's Watch needs to maintain a good relationship with the lords to the South to keep the recruiting pools open.

> Why was Benjen Stark allowed to leave the Wall to attend the feast at Winterfell?

See above answer about good relationships. Additionally, the Starks of Winterfell are the next line of defense after the Wall, so the Watch will keep them abreast of large developments beyond the Wall.


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

[User]
[The Dark Knight] When Mr Lau flees to Hong Kong, and Batman brings him back to Gothom would this create an international uproar?

Would China hold the US responsible for their vigilante kidnapping a prominent Chinese businessman? Mr Lau immediately being arrested makes it look awfully suspicious, plus Batman was seen by many eye witnesses and I'm sure they have cameras.

[Assistant] It'll be a delicate situation for sure. Given that lau is a Chinese national china will likely sue for his deportation to Hong Kong or Beijing. They'll issue an arrest warrant for Batman as well for the kidnapping and the pilot and crew of the illegal aircraft that kidnapped him. Ultimately it'll go nowhere. Lau was already being investigated for his ties to organized crime and once enough evidence is given to Chinese authorities they'll arrest him on corruption charges and sieze his remaining mainland assets. Batman will be wanted by the Chinese government but it's doubtful he will visit china again. Lau will probably be given a plea deal in the US then handed over to china after enough evidence is gathered against the mob. It'll be a week or two of international headlines but lau will sing like a canary to remain in the US rather than face Chinese prisons. The State department will hand him over to china but wait just long enough to let the GCPD build their case.


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

[User]
Are the stars we see at night mostly individual stars or galaxies?

And follow-up: If they are individual stars, why aren't they part of galaxies?

[Assistant]
Majority of the stars we see are from our own milky way galaxy, the only non stars you can see with the naked eye is Andromeda, maybe a couple of satellite galaxies around us and obviously the planets too (edit: forgot about nebulas).

Other than that the light is far too weak for our eyes to make out.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why does Captain America no longer use a gun?

He doesn't have a no kill rule and he was extensively trained with firearms in WW2. We saw him using a gun with his shield but nowadays he only seems to carry his shield. Why is that?

[Assistant]
WW2 was war. Cap was often on the battlefield on the front lines fighting alongside with regular infantry, which is why he used a gun.

Modern day Cap is more special forces - a lot of his missions involve stealth and close quarters combat, which doesn't really rely on him having a firearm on hand.


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

[User]
Is nuclear energy a sustainable source of energy?

I have seen many people on Reddit advocating the use of nuclear energy, and since I don't know much about the subject I decided to research it. However, I have found many conflicting stances on the use of nuclear energy, more specifically on whether nuclear energy can be sustainable. I appreciate any clarification on the topic.

[Assistant] I think that it's technically a non-renewable resource-we are using nuclear fuels more quickly than they are being created. However, the amount of usable nuclear fuel eclipses the amount of available fossil fuel and thus it's considerably more sustainable than every other non-renewable resource. There are certain types of uranium in particular (238 IIRC) that would take us an incredibly long time to run out.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] Why would an Agent's firearm ever run out of bullets? Couldn't the Machines easily give them unlimited capacity magazines, heat seeking rounds, etc?

Given that the Matrix was created by them and is under their control, why make Agents play by the physical constraints of real world weapons?

On the other side of the coin, say a resistance group unplugged a human who had never touched a gun in their (virtual) life and was extremely ignorant of how they worked and what they were capable of. Would feeding them a ton of bullshit exaggerating a gun's firepower and other capabilities make for a more effective fighter when in the Matrix?

[Assistant]
The major problem is that virtual objects are not static -- they are all interacting with each other all the time -- and each and every one of them contains the elegant core code for the physics of the Matrix.

Just like fundamental forces in the Real World (strong and weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravity), every single object is having a dialog with every other object within its range.  Query - response - query - response, etc.

The reason that Neo can warp reality is that he can influence every system necessary simultaneously in order to achieve those results.  He does this instinctively with the speed of thought.

In order for a machine to do something similar, it would need to have override for the natural physics emulation code and be able to activate them all the time.  And *each and every object in the world would need to have that code running as well*.

This is a nightmare from an efficiency perspective.  Any programmer can tell you, if you start adding exceptions and work-arounds to make things integrate, you're going to end up with unforeseen glitches.  You'll also bog down the whole system at run time when you add extra steps to check for those exceptions.

Imagine the extra server load if every single sidewalk tile, every rock and carpet, and every brick had to check every femto-second for the presence of an Agent.

That's why it's necessary that the Agents are built on the same code and operate on the same physics.  They just have maxed out stats.


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

[User] [General] There are evil kingdoms and evil empires. What are some evil republics from fiction?

[Assistant]
Debatably, the Alliance from Firefly.

Its government is never fully explained, but it seems to be run by a parliament. Its evil is of the most banal sort - faceless bureaucracy grinding the disenfranchised into the dirt; scientists experimenting on entire planets, then covering up the deaths of millions as an inconvenience; and psychopaths with badges using their petty authority to enrich themselves.


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

[User] [Star Wars] why/how are the jedi able to dodge and block blasters but can't dodge a punch?

[Assistant]
Jedi can predict where an opponent will attack and respond pre-emptively. However, there are two components to this. One is simply seeing the future, but the other is **reading the opponent's intentions**, then moving in advance to counter what the target wishes to do.

The fact that there is an element of "sensing the target's intentions" is why droids are often favored as Jedi hunters: such telepathic tricks obviously don't work on them. But this also makes a Jedi's "precog" less effective against an attack that isn't consciously telegraphed. If an attacker acts as soon as muscle memory kicks in, without taking any time to consider the action, then a Jedi's precognition is less effective because there's less time to read the target's intentions.

Melee attacks are more instinctively natural for most people than firing a blaster, as the latter requires plenty of training and conscious aiming. Thus, melee attacks are generally less telegraphed, and precog is less effective against them.

It still usually does the trick, though. It's not like punching a Jedi works all that often.


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

[User]
CMV: Mentioning gender is unnecessary in all but the most niche interactions and informing people of one's sex makes more sense

To start with some definitions:

By gender, I mean the cultural identity that loosely related to sex as a concept, but is not inherently bound to it. I believe this understanding coincides with how businesses and the dictionary defines it, but I recognize I could be misinterpreting something.

In this case, by unnecessary I mean that it is almost wholly irrelevant to every situation and conversation I can think of.

The core reason I hold this belief is because any one gender does not inherently allow anyone to safely draw any other conclusions. I have known male-identifying gay friends and acquaintances who will often refer to each-other as she and are more comfortable with those pronouns (or at least, they appear to be;  when I asked there was a lot of good-natured teasing and very little by way of helpful education). This unreliability is, of course, far less prevalent in those that are culturally men and women (I have no idea what the gender version of "biological male/female" is), but when non-binary people are thrown into the mix, as I understand it one can't really derive anything specific about how one should treat them based on just that information.

Now, if there is no reliable conclusions to be drawn from gender, does that not make it a little pointless in all conversations not about gender itself? Wouldn't it simply be better to, instead of indicating one's gender on a form, simply leave it at jotting down one's pronouns? Also, since more and more forms seem to ask for gender instead of sex, isn't something being lost there?

As I see it, your landlord doesn't necessarily need to know a nebulous facet of your cultural identity, they need to know what to call you and what kind of hygiene needs you have. I can't think of what benefit knowing your gender would provide to a tinder date, as long as they know what to call you. Meanwhile, even as a bisexual myself, I still thoroughly appreciate knowing what's between someone's legs before a date for preparation purposes.

Even if mentioning one's sex is uncomfortable, wouldn't it be better to just leave the point unaddressed rather than use gender as an unreliable substitute?

If it helps, I'm coming from the perspective of a cisgendered man who has never been very active in LGBT spaces. As such, I fully realize I'm not exactly on the forefront of understanding in this field, and generally keep my opinions to myself. This has just always bugged me a little and I thought maybe I could learn where people are coming from.

Also, fair warning: I'm not 100% on how to award Deltas, so a little patience on that front would be greatly appreciated.

[Assistant]
Times sex comes into play:

* Doctor appointments
* Discussions about reproduction
* Medical discussions

These are pretty limited.

Times gender comes into play:

* When you see someone
* When you speak with someone
* When you refer to someone else
* When you interact socially in any capacity
* When you use the bathroom

I feel like gender is knocking it out of the park here.

Times I've spoken referring to biological sex in the last year are probably twice. Times I've spoken referring to gender are uncountable.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why can't we breed bees en masse

In nature the bees create a queen with royal jelly. Can we not use the chemicals involved in this process to mass create bee queen's and then farm the hell out of the bee queen's to create billions of bees. Assuming the pupate at a very fast rate?

Could we not solve the bee problem this way?

[Assistant]
The bee problem isn't due to insufficient bees. Be colonies will grow prolifically on their own.

The problem is that we've created an environment in which bees die. You can create more colonies but that doesn't change the fact that we place those colonies in a very hostile environment for bees.

And not just bees really. People overstate the importance of bees and massively understate the importance of insects in general. And insect populations as a whole have plummeted.


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

[User]
How does a muscle attach to a tendon and how does a tendon attach to a bone?

Is it physical structures like microscopic hooks/anchors? Some kind of biological "adhesive"?

Edit: Question answered. Several very knowledgeable people have done a great job of explaining that there is no "attachment" rather there is no end between bone/tendon and muscle, they all just merge into each other. Which is pretty amazing when you think about it. Thanks everyone.

[Assistant]
Tendons are something in between pure fibrous tissue and bone tissue. So they kinda stick to the respective bone as a very adhesive tissue that is interwoven with the bone cortex. As you follow the tendon to the where it connects with muscle, it is more fibrous is origin and resembles muscle itself in structure. Follow it towards bone, it becomes sturdier and more bone-like in quality.

So tendons are a kind of bridge between mucle and bone where in the outskirts the tissue flows in each other.


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

[User]
ELI5: why does Kim Jong Un and the Kim dynasty keep their people secluded?

Are they trying to create their version of a utopian society? Or is it that they are just control freaks?

Surely Kim and others realize he isn't a Dear Glorious Leader or some kind of God right?

[Assistant] Everyone (outside of NK) knows that there are huge problems in North Korea, such as people starving, poor access to electricity, and a lack of education. The only way to maintain that kind of status quo is to make sure that people don't know what the outside world has to offer. The Kim regime is able to live a very good life while most of the people in the country are poor because most of the people in that country don't know any better, and are told that the rest of the world is worse and is responsible for their problems. If enough people realized just how bad they had it there would be a bloody revolt.


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

[User] How do oncolytic viruses recognize cancer cells from regular cells? And how useful are they really?

[Assistant] Many oncolytic viruses does target other cells as well however they are not strong enough to infect or spread infection in them as the immune system mechanisms in healthy cells recognizes them and initiates defenses. However, as many cancer cells often turn off immune responses in themself as part of their cancer mechanisms they cannot defend against the virus and is killed as a result. Oncyltic viruses are often insect virus as far as i remember meaning they do not have mechanisms to avoid mammal immune mechanisms. They have showed promises and is a viable means, however as far as i know they are yet to be used in human trials.


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

[User] [Marvel] Deadpool's most underused power is - mercifully - the ability to instantly summon media, usually comics, from a reality where he and everyone around him is fictional. What's the most damage he could potentially do with a single such item (comic, trade paperback, etc.)?

[Assistant]
I wasn't aware he had that kind of power, since it's usually shown to be only the perception of his being fictional.

The most damage he could do is to summon a complete piece of media that shows the past, the present, and the future (maybe a Marvel omnibus/character atlas?). Maybe a near-future, or something along those lines, and give it to a villain who isn't so narcissistic that they think they cannot be defeated.

The other is to make it public. Not only would knowing that their entire world and lives are a fiction throw the citizenry into disarray, but it also airs secrets, identities, powers, and base locations. People would know who has the advanced technology, where they get it, and how they made/got it. It could easily create a few super villains of their own, or lead regular villains into going after the heroes, now that they know their weaknesses, and who they are in their daily lives.


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

[User]
[How The Grinch Stole Christmas] Where is that "headcanon" of The Grinch character coming from?

I'm not really familiar with the original book but in the newest movies (2000 and 2018) Grinch is depicted as very talented at building some sort of gadgets and machines. Though the first animation, which made him like this was from around 80s - The Grinch Grinches The Cat In The Hat.

In the oldest animation from 1966, which I believe is the closest to the original, Grinch simply sewed his Santa clothes and got himself a regular sleigh. He didn't build any machines or gadgets.

This makes me wonder if the original book has ever suggested he was talented in such way or it's just now an accepted "headcanon" (interpretation) of the newer adaptations of him?

[Assistant]
The original book *How the Grinch Stole Christmas* doesn't really suggest that he's a talented gadgeteer.  He's clever enough to pilfer an entire town's worth of gifts and decorations in a single night without getting caught.

That suggests a level of mechanical ability.   He has to optimize the route for speed and to visualize how to dismantle and hoist a wide variety of items up narrow tubes.  Also fitting thousands of objects into a single sleigh would require enviable packing skills.


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

[User]
ELI5: what is that sinking/sickly feeling you get in your chest when thinking of losing something dear/going through a breakup?

Title says it all, we all know the feeling but why do we physically feel the pain in our bodies?

[Assistant]
That feeling in your stomach is caused by anxiety.  Anxiety triggers the ancient Fight or Flight response that is programmed in to your DNA.  Anxiety manifests itself in complicated ways.  Here are a few:

When you feel stressed or anxious, your body releases a rush of hormones. Neurotransmitters in the brain react by sending messages to the rest of your body to:

1) Get the heart pumping faster
2) Increase the breathing rate
3) Tense the muscles of you abdomen
4) Send more blood to your brain

Anxiety and stress can affect virtually every body system. This includes your cardiovascular, endocrine, musculoskeletal, nervous, reproductive, and respiratory systems.  In the digestive system, anxiety can cause:

1) nausea, vomiting
2) heartburn, acid reflux
3) stomachache, gas, bloating
4) diarrhea, constipation, painful spasms in the bowel

All of these symptoms together create the feeling of Butterflies in your stomach.


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

[User]
ELI5:would the screen rotation function work in space?

I did try to tweet an astronaut about this but I only got a reaction from someone I don't know and I didn't understand what he was talkin about:
****
@xxxxxxxxxxx @xxxxxxxxx it works, but in a weird way, considering the variability of the coriolis acceleration on #ISS: not useful
****
Can anyone explain this like I'm 5?

[Assistant]
Phones have devices called accelerometers which feel the pull of gravity similar to how we do. Take one of these devices on a bungee jump, and it will record the increased force that you feel at the bottom of the cord.

In orbit, everything is in constant free-fall, so there is very little apparent gravity for people on-board the ISS, but the ISS is spinning slightly, creating something called the coriolis effect. Just like those carnival rides which spin and push you up against the wall, people and objects on the ISS are ever-so-slightly pushed toward the outside of the station's spin. The accelerometers can detect this and the effect can be used to force the screen to rotate. However, the force is so much less than gravity on Earth and astronauts don't really use it very much, it is likely more of an inconsistent annoyance than a useful feature.


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

[User]
[W40K/Halo] How does a space marine match up against a Spartan? [xpost whowouldwin]

For simplicity lets say its a battlebrother from a codex chapter against a Spartan other than MC.

[Assistant]
The Warhammer Space-Marine wins.

It's not to say that Spartans are weak or anything, but Spartans are designed to eventually become veterans; To eventually have a life and purpose that doesn't directly involve murdering aliens.

Codex Adherent Space-Marines are not. There are no Space-Marine veterans; There are only Space Marines with more combat experience.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do companies discover that they've been hacked?

If you're a smart hacker, couldn't you figure out how to access information without anyone knowing that you did it?

[Assistant]
If a good hacker didn't leave a footprint then the company wouldn't know about the leak, and you would never hear about the company having a leak.

The Sony hack wasn't noticed by Sony.  It was the hacker group that publicly exposed the hack.


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

[User]
ELI5: Credit Cards, how they work, and what is a good college student card?

Im so confused, Everyone tells me i need to build credit but how?

[Assistant] You just need to apply for a credit card and spend with it, but i can't stress this enough, don't spend more than you make. The last thing you want to do is to get into credit card debt, especially so early in life. And always pay your balance in full.


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

[User]
[Wolverine] In the battlefield, what purpose does his yellow spandex suit serve? Better still, why is it made to stand out like that?

You'd think someone like Wolverine needs more softer black/brown colours to be more complement a more stealthy and animal-like approach in combat, not a sore-to-the-eyes "I'm HERE, Hit ME" sorta bright yellow suit. What positive does a bright yellow/blue suit serve in the battle? And even if it does serve something (Hell, everyone has weird, wacky suits) why is his one so bright and catchy? An enemy could see him coming from miles with a suit like that. Why even wear a spandex suit, you're fuckin Wolverine. Plus I don't even see any utility belt in it, is the suit for the sake of needing to have a suit?

[Assistant]
There was an answer somewhere in this thread from earlier, but basically

Yes, its an Im here, hit me suit.

Because its much better for enemies to attack him, the regenerating, nigh-immortal mutant with an adamantium skeleton, rather than his squishier, less-immortal friends.


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

[User]
[DC/Marvel] If Bruce Wayne was given the same origin story as Tony Stark, how would he have escaped the Ten Rings and what kind of hero would he have become instead?

This scenario assumes Bruce's parents died in an accident when he was a young adult to match up with Tony's timeline. Bruce isn't an engineering genius of the same caliber as Tony but still has his own natural talents to fall back on - though less refined due to not having been driven to develop them from a young age in this timeline.

[Assistant]
He's screwed, basically - Tony was an engineering messiah who built a weapons platform in a cave to escape.

Without first becoming Batman, Bruce Wayne is just a smart rich kid - being raised by his parents for longer would only cement that.

Tony Stark was always Iron Man, only without the suit.

Bruce Wayne became Batman.