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

[User]
[Star Wars] Rise of the Hutts

How did the Hutts originally rise to power? I don't see them being physically capable of fighting other species or doing lowly tasks (like being low level soldiers or laborers) to get their economy and security strong enough that they can hire mercenaries to do their dirty work like they do now.

[Assistant]
>I don't see them being physically capable of fighting other specie

Hutts are really, really strong. They weigh over a ton and most of it is muscle. Sure, an old successful one might put some fat on over that, but only after years of working their way up through the ranks.


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

[User]
CMV: Suffering is Not Necessary for Happiness

We've all heard the sentiment that, "You need to experience sadness to know happiness", but I think this is nonsense.

First of all, happiness (or any emotion) can exist on its own as a product of our mental / brain states. Emotions depend on what is going on in our heads, and a hypothetical neurological system productive of happiness could exist suddenly never having experienced suffering before. This is an assertion I'm making on admittedly vague notions of mental function and sentience, so I'm sure there will at least be something to refute, correct, or add.

Although we may appreciate happiness more when reflecting back on times of suffering, that is just another layer of emotion as a result of second-order metacognition, thinking about one's own mood. Happiness can exist without this appreciation from many other sources like satisfying one's bodily needs, making friendships, enjoying existence, etc.

[Assistant]
You just get bored of the same feeling no matter what the feeling might be, you always have to "up" the feeling.

Tolerance works the same on emotion because "happy" and such are just chemical indicators in your brain.

If you were literally always "Happy" your brain would build tolerance to dopamine and other chemicals, and you would have to up it in order to feel it.

That's a cycle that cannot self sustain.  So you can't feel 'happy' without the lack of 'happy'.  Your brain would simply get used to a new baseline of chemicals and you would have to up those chemicals in order to feel 'happy' forever until you simply just die from overdoses of the chemicals, or more likely you just become incapable of the uptake of those chemicals, which would be very dreadful... until your body becomes used to a new baseline... and then you can do it all over.


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

[User]
ELI5 how can humans eat liver/kidney/etc of other animals when those organs filter out the bad stuff

I know gout happens occasionally but how do people not get seriously sick from eating the stuff other animals are trying to filter out of their bodies?

[Assistant]
The liver isn't just a filter. Its the filter + recycling factory + waste processing station.

You know how when you're washing a greasy pot in the sink, you can scrub it all you want, you'll never get the grease off the pot? But if you add a drop of soap to it, all the grease will come off. Your liver is exactly like that soap, as toxins come it your liver either breaks them down and excretes them into your intestines or else it turns them into something that can dissolve in water at which point your kidneys get rid of them in your urine.

We can look at the stuff that makes people in liver failure yellow for a really good example of this. As your red blood cells breaks down they release a chemical called bilirubin. Bilirubin is like oil in water - they don't mix, so your liver works its magic and converts it into "conjugated bilirubin", which can be dissolved in water. At this point it sticks it into your intestines, and you poop most of it out.

Fun fact, mammals store most of our vitamin A in our livers. Some animals (like polar bears) store massive amounts of vitamin A, so eating their liver is INCREDIBLY toxic.


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

[User] What is the theoretical height-limit of a building using modern materials and engineering methods?

[Assistant] Modern materials come into play if you want to build a roughly cylindrical structure like a skyscraper. But you can build a very, very tall building with primitive materials if you use a lot of them. Imagine a tapering cone, where the radius decreases rapidly with height so that the amount of material at each level is proportional to the weight of the material above it. With such a shape, you could build it a structure out of stone and still make it arbitrarily high, up until the earth's crust starts to sink under it. Mount Everest is a small example of what could be done given a sufficient budget.


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

[User] [40k] Orders of magnitude more direct worshipers give faith to the Emperor than any Chaos, Eldar, or other God. The big mystery is: where does all that psychic energy go to?

[Assistant]
The Astronomicon. The great light that guides all ships through the warp.

Before the Emperors fall, he kept this light going all by himself. Now, the ambient belief from all the loyal humans around the galaxy keep it going, with the help of a few thousand sacrificed psykers.


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

[User]
Is all of the current absorbed by a CPU converted to heat? Or is there a fraction of in that goes into the computational work?

Not really sure of how to pose this. I studied that cmos tech only consume energy when changing state, which is required for it to work, but does ALL of the energy absorbed goes wasted into heat or is there a part that goes into the "work" made to calculate things?

[Assistant]
Computational work is not "work" in the energy sense. Rather it's a change in entropy of a system (your computer). Specifically, you are decreasing the entropy of your computer (making it 'more organized,' if you will, by doing these calculations) while increasing the entropy of the universe as a whole (giving off heat).

You are in fact converting 100% of that "used" electric current into heat. Thus, by using a CPU to do something that we consider "work" alongside converting electricity to heat, you are making more efficient use of that energy from an entropy viewpoint.

Thus, it would be more entropically efficient to heat your home with CPUs than an electric heater (not a heat pump, that brings in other complicated calculations) as long as you are using those CPU cycles for something productive.


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

[User] Due to loss of mass via hawking radiation, could there be a black hole that has an escape velocity below the speed of light, thus visible? (Physics)

[Assistant] Then it wouldn't be black, would it? :) Hawking radiation reduces a black hole's mass. So the event horizon - the point where the escape velocity is the speed of light - is still there, it's just closer to the center of the black hole.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why doesn't someone just start another currency called BotCoin?

As the chain of transactions gets longer it takes more processing power to mine new bitcoins, right?

That means diminishing returns for those who invest in bitcoin mining equipment as time progresses.

Why doesn't someone start a new currency called BotCoin, based on the same format only starting again from the beginning. Wouldn't they reap the benefits of early adopter bitcoin mining without crazy competition?

[Assistant] They have, most notably "LiteCoin" and "PPCoin".  One imagines, though, that the success of private digital currencies will diminish as more are created, especially if they're being created as get-rich schemes for their creators.


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

[User]
[Star Wars Legends] How did the average Rebel Alliance officer/trooper view Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Chewbacca? Did anyone get jealous of the special treatment they received?

If I was a rank and file rebel trooper, I think I would really hate these guys who just show up and get all these perks. Is there any indication of how they interacted with or viewed these characters? My thoughts:

Luke Skywalker showed up at Yavin IV and they immediately commissioned him as an officer. After that, he seems to come and go as he pleases. I get that he is the "Hero of Yavin" and everything, but still. He's active duty, and they just let him assign himself random missions and then disappear. Also, he seems to have some weird ties to Imperial higher-ups, which seems like a security risk to me.

Han Solo didn't officially join the Alliance until shortly before the Battle of Endor, but he still hung out at Echo Base and consumed valuable resources. I don't even know what he did there all day. I doubt he ever paid for his own food and fuel. They even let him take up most of a hangar with that junky ship, which barely seemed to work. I heard him chew out a deck officer once ("I'll see you in hell!"), when the guy was just tying to do his job.  Also, he always seems to have that giant enforcer/bodyguard/pet with him.

When they detected the probe droid arriving on Hoth, Han happened to be hanging around the operations room. He was probably just in there to hit on the princess. No one asked him to investigate the landing. He just said "Come on Chewie; let's check it out." He didn't seem to follow any procedure for reconnoitering an unknown, possibly hostile entity, he just went out there and started blasting. If he hadn't done that, would the Imperials have even noticed the base? Who knows. When Han does finally, officially join the Rebel Alliance, he is immediately made a general. Good for him, I guess.

Finally, neither Luke nor Han ever seem to follow any uniform guidelines. Even Calrissian wore a uniform after he became an officer. Why does the brass tolerate these guys?

[Assistant]
Luke was considered a hero, and later a Jedi. He's literally a legend come to life. He also saved Leia, which would buy him a lot of respect.

Han is a smuggler. Rebellions don't function without consumable goods, and they can't exactly shop where they please. Leia's position on Alderaan was probably the only thing keeping them fed for a long while - they'd be tripping over themselves to get a smuggler of Han's caliber to like them.

Chewie is a war hero from the Clone Wars. Also, he's like a giant teddie bear (cute) who can rip of your arms (badass) but only wants to rip off the arms of Imperial troopers (admirable).


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

[User]
[Godfather] My racket fee is a tiny bit high, I can not afford a better way of life, could I negotiate to have it a bit lower?

So I own a small restaurant. We do okay, I can feed my family of four, which is me, my wife and two kids. We've even been able to update our menu every couple of years, and get all new appliances in since we opened ten years ago, all off the profit of the store. We pay the racketeer who only asks for about 25% So I'm happy, honestly what more could a man want in life right? Except I do kinda want more. Not much, just like a 80in display tv, my son was talking about a new gaming computer, those could be anywhere from a couple hundred to 1000s. My daughter's getting ready to go to college, and we can send her to Brown or one of the local schools, but she'd really like something a bit more prestigious. I just can't afford it right now since too much of my profits are going towards the Don y'know. We could wait a year, but in a year his friends will be on to the next thing, and my daughter's going to be starting her life a year late. What's a man to do?

Can I just have a sit down with the Don and maybe we can workout where maybe I can pay something like 15% or maybe have like bonus days where I don't pay, etc?? Is he a reasonable guy, or is it like "this is the way we always do thins" and I'm screwed?

[Assistant]
I mean you have options -

You could ask for things to be lowered for the sake of your family - and they understand that if you pack up and leave they get no money.

However - as to why they would lower the protection fee - you'd have to give them a good reason.

Maybe you offer paper jobs for business associates to use as an alibi. Maybe you can let them store product in your coolers. Maybe you can impress them with your cooking and maybe cater their events and endear yourself to them.

Just remember - you can ask for a favor and you might even get it - but you'll have to pay it back one day and if you can sleep well knowing that more power to you.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some peaches have pulp that sticks to the pit and some have pulp thats easily separated?

[Assistant]
Clingstone peaches are a variety where the pulp sticks to the seed, or "stone."  Freestone peaches are the variety that pull free of the pulp.  There are many different types, but those are the two main categories.

Edit: For further clarification, the differences in the the two main varietals is found in the amount of water soluble pectin (a natural binder) found naturally in both chains.  Clingstones have more water insoluble pectins that bind the "stone" to the flesh while the pectin found in Freestones is more soluble leaving the flesh less tightly attached.


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

[User] Why do we itch? How does it begin, esp at random? Whats really going on in my skin when im not scratching the itch?

[Assistant] an itch is a blocked oil or sweat gland in the skin. your body is constantly secreting oils and sluffing of dead skin cells. this can build up and start to block the glands. When this happens they swell up a little bit and trigger a nerve response. When you scratch the spot that itches you are removing that dead skin and oil and unblocking the gland. Have you ever noticed you itch a lot when you work out or get hot if you haven't showered for a day or two? It's because the sweat is trying to get out but can't because its blocked by dead skin and oil.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is gold valuable? Also, why was gold important to ancient civilizations?

I know it has good conduction properties and doesn't deteriorate, but there are other similar elements. Why was it important for ancient civilizations, especially ones that didn't use currency?

[Assistant] It's shiny, doesn't oxidize, yellow is rather unique as metallic color. It's also relatively soft and malleable with a low melting point (for a metal) that makes it a pretty nice material to work with and create art/religious symbols and being not that common makes it special, too.


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

[User]
Is it possible for a ML model to determine whether a set of integers is human generated vs. computer generated?

If not ML, is there any method to determine this?

[Assistant]
Do you have more context on the set of integers? Is it supposed to be uniformly random? Are there upper and lower bounds on the values in the set? Is it a _sequence_ of integers, or just a set of values?

We certainly know that humans are bad at random number generation, _especially_ in sequences. We typically expect random values to alternate frequently, and for example, don't include long enough sequences of repeats when making up coin flips or dice rolls. We also perceive some numbers as being "more" random than others. When asked to choose a random number, humans rarely pick even numbers, pick prime numbers more often, etc.

There are psychology studies on cognitive bias in human perception of 'randomness' going back to the 70s. It should certainly be possible to distinguish a human generated string of "random numbers" from a uniform random distribution using basic statistics, without a "machine learning model" at all.


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

[User] ELI5 how does sound travel through a cable? this is absolute witchcraft to me.

[Assistant]
Information can be transferred as long as the sender and receiver agree what certain symbols/actions mean. If someone read aloud a letter or email, does that mean the sound was transferred in the letter? It simply means we have a system that most of us agree on to convert certain markings on a paper into words. We then agree that words should be pronounced in a certain way to form speech.

It is pretty much the same for electronic communications of any form whether that information are sounds, videos, texts etc. There are standards that the makers of equipment agree to that certain electrical signals should be interpreted in certain ways. And we also design equipment that converts these signals from one way to another (like a picture on a screen or sound out of a speaker). It isn't magical just like reading aloud words from a book isn't magical.


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

[User]
How close would a dying star have to be to damage us catastrophically?

How close can it be without damaging us?

[Assistant]
A supernova within 100 ly of Earth could have noticeable effects, closer than 25 ly and one could destroy a majority of the ozone layer and create a bunch of nitrogen oxides.

A gamma ray burst, pointed at Earth, within the milky way could have devastating effects.


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

[User]
[Doctor Strange] How did that guy even know about Kamar-Taj?

In the Doctor Strange movie, Stephen Strange runs into an old patient who he could not adequately operate on, who found out about Kamar-Taj and got himself healed magically instead. How the hell did a random guy like that even find out about sorcery being real? SHIELD still doesn't know about the sorcerers who exist on Earth, nor did HYDRA, nor does the majority of the population. For that matter, how did ANY of them find out about it? There were a number of unnamed people practicing there who looked no less ordinary than Strange. Kaecilius was apparently once a normal man who was grieving over the loss of his wife, and then he just happens to run into Karl Mordo?

[Assistant] Secretive though they may be, the sorcerers at Kamar-Taj, and in general, do need new blood from time to time.  There are channels open that the right sort of people will stumble across when they're ready.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did the new and old world create and use the same technology? Such as the bow and arrow. How could two different parts of the world create the same technology without coming into contact with each other?

I can understand both parts of the world creating the spear and other simple technologies. But how could something more complex like the bow and arrow be created by two sides of the world without making contact with each other at all?

[Assistant]
1) Many technologies are invented multiple times independent of each other. This is particularly true of our early technologies.

2) Arrow and spear technology was in use before the Ice Age man entered North America. So they brought it with them from Asia.


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

[User] Eli5: Why are there so many comets and asteroids moving around in the cosmos or in an orbit of a planet, where do they originate?

[Assistant]
Theyre the leftovers, frozen chunks of ice and rock that either never formed a planet or started to form and then got blown up again.

Once the large planets finished forming their gravitational disturbance stops other large objects from forming nearby and so these remainders just wander the solar system for eternity.

As for where the material originally came from - all heavy elements in the universe come from supernova, either the death of a large star spewing its guts or an already dead star accumulating new mass until it re-ignites and detonates.

These immensely violent events convert light elements into heavy elements and blast them out into deep space.  Eventually they gather up into new stars and planets.


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

[User]
How does glue work at an molecular level?

Does it bond with the contact material or is there a more simple 'sticky' explanation? If the glue does not bond with the contact (as I assume is does not because of the relative ease of separation) then how does it stick in the first place while losing it's initial stickiness when hardening?

[Assistant]
Two main words: Adsorption and Chemisorption.

Adsorption is kinda like the surface tension of water.  Molecules spread over the surface of an object and adhere to it through a bunch of small magnetic attractions (van der Waals forces).  This surface will now adhere (stick together with) another surface using this same van der Waals force.  No chemical bond, it's just acting like a bunch of tiny, weak magnets that add together to make a relatively strong attraction between the two surfaces.

Chemisorption is a bit different.  This is when the substance that causes this adhesion actually chemically reacts with the surface and forms a new compound, joining the two surfaces together into (almost) a single thing.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis game get from cartridge to being emulated on my phone?

[Assistant] Basically, it's possible to design software that imitates (emulates) what the SNES or Sega Genesis hardware does. Since those machines came out in the early 90's, any computer today can easily handle running it. The software that was on the cartridges can just as easily be written onto your computer's hard disk and be loaded up by your virtual SNES/Genesis.


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

[User] Eli5 how it can thunderstorm many times a week during the summer, but in the winter it doesn't at all. What gives?

[Assistant] A thunderstorm happens when warm and humid air rises up from the surface. As the air goes up it cools down, and water vapor starts condensing out of it, because cold air cant hold as much water vapor as warm air. This condensation makes a cloud and at the same time releases energy, preventing the air in the cloud from cooling down too much, so it stays relatively warm and keeps rising. Even further up the condensed droplets of water freeze over and turn into ice particles, releasing some energy again. These particles hit each other and get an electrical charge, and then fall down to the surface, becoming water again, while the charge zaps to the ground or a different part of the same cloud (lightning). What we observe is a thunderstorm. Now for all this to happen there has to be enough water vapor in the rising air to begin with. And as already mentioned, cold air cant hold as much water vapor as warm air in the first place. For this reason winter thunderstorms are much rarer than summer ones.


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

[User] Does a steady or a blinking digital clock use more energy?

[Assistant] I think the question you're really asking is "does the energy savings from having the LED off part of the time outweigh the energy used by the circuit doing the blinking?" It's hard to answer this in the general case because there are so many variables. If we assume the clock circuitry is simple and well designed, which is probably a reasonable assumption, it's likely the blink circuitry is lower power than the LEDs so it should save power.


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

[User]
What do the values of spin mean? (i.e 1, 1/2, etc)

When a particle rotates (even though it doesn't make sense to say that such a small object can rotate, but the effect is the same) it creates a tiny magnetic field around it. That's why you can have spin up or down. Two poles. But what do the values mean, exactly, and how are they calculated?

[Assistant]
The spin actually has an existence and meaning independent of magnetic fields.

In classical physics, we use *angular momentum* to describe how much rotational motion there is -- something rotating around a bigger radius has a greater angular momentum, something rotating at more revolutions per second has a greater angular momentum.  Angular mometum is conserved, adn this arises because the equations of physics are unchanged by rotations of the coordinate system.

In quantum mechanics, this same invariance under rotations leads to the quantum analogue of angular momentum.  We often call this *orbital angular momentum*, even though things aren't really orbiting, borrowing from the classical picture.

But now you add relativity to quantum mechanics, and something remarkable happens.  Yes, things still have orbital angular momentum (the thing that generalizes classical rotational motion), but it turns out that they can have an additional piece of angular momentum that doesn't come from motion in any sense at all, but that they just get to have by existing.  We call this angular momentum things just have because they exist *spin*.

This is not unprecedented.  Relativity teaches us that in addition to the energy things get to have from their motion (kinetic energy) and position (potential energy), they can also have energy just by existing (this is what mass represents!).  It turns out something analogous happens with angular momentum.

Remember, angular momentum is conserved, even with relativity and quantum mechanics, because the laws of physics are unchanged by rotations of the coordinate system.  In 3 spatial dimensions, the mathematical properties of rotations restrict the possible values of *spin* to 0, 1/2, 1, 3/2, etc. (More properly, we start with the Poincar group in 3+1 dimensions and work towards this conclusion from there.)

When something has spin *s*, it means the total intrinsic angular momentum it has just for existing has magnitude (hbar)sqrt{*s*(*s*+1)}, where hbar=Planck's constant/2(pi).  If you then pay attention to the direction of angular momentum and ask how much of it lies along any particular direction, if it has spin *s*, the only amounts it can have along that direction are (hbar)*s*, (hbar)(*s*-1),(hbar)(*s*-2),...,-(hbar)*s*.  These results all follow from the connection between angular momentum and rotations.

As an example, when *s*=1/2, along any particular direction, the only values you can get are (hbar)(1/2) and -(hbar)(1/2), and those are what we mean by spin up and spin down.  The Delta baryons, which have spin 3/2, can have along any particular direction (hbar)(3/2), (hbar)(1/2), -(hbar)(1/2), or -(hbar)(3/2).


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

[User] ELI5: Why does plugging a mutiple-plug extension cord into a single-plug outlet and using all of the plugs not burn out a wire or something?

[Assistant] Most home receptacles are on 15 amp circuits. 15amp x 120volt = 1800watts, so you can safely pile on up to 1800watts (+/- some tolerance) of total power on single receptacle before you pop the breaker. 15A circuits on 14Ga wire technically have an ampacity greater than 15A, but the breaker will pop before you ever max out the wires. Well, _should_ pop...


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

[User]
CMV: All competition based cooking shows should be decided by blind taste tests

So Im a huge food network fan, Guy Fieri and Alton Brown are personal heros of mine, and I even cook a bit myself. I watch a good bit of cooking shows centered around a one time cook-off, (Chopped, Guys Grocery Games, Cutthroat Kitchen, Iron Chef, etc.) and I enjoy them all to different extents.

However, I cant help but think about how contestants can sort of influence the judges in describing their dishes. Fellow fans have definitely heard the classic tropes my momma made it this way, deconstructed, etc. which essentially function as excuses rather than descriptions of whats in the dish itself.

While I understand the TV viewership value of having narratives for contestants experiencing hardship or allowing them to express their personality on camera, I think we could limit that to the mid cooking interview cutaway segments.

In my opinion, judges for these cooking shows should not know which dish belongs to which contestant to ensure that the most successful plate, and not the most compelling story, comes out on top.

[Assistant]
I think this would be true if the experience of cooking was entirely about tasting without seeing, experiencing the place and people and so on. The  experience of  food is complex.  Resturaunts are enjoyable for reasons that are massively in excess of the "blind taste test"  qualities of their  food.

Why would we artificially isolate one dimension of food experience?


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

[User] [Breaking Bad] Did Los Pollos Hermanos continue on as a brand after Gus Fring met his end?

[Assistant]
No it did not.

Los Pollos Hermanos was a subsidiary of Madrigal Elektromotoren in Hanover Germany.  When Gus was killed, LPH came under investigation for involvement in Gus' drug empire.  LPH was shut down and Madrigal folded the business and removed the LPH logo from it's line-up of other fast food business logos in their world corporate headquarters lobby.

This, just as police were coming to investigate and interview Madrigal's "Burgermeister Meisterburger" in charge of their fast-food division, Peter Schuler (who was a close associate of Gus and Lydia, and was apparently also involved in the drug operation).   Of course the police never got to interview Schuler as he committed suicide moments before they got the chance.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the US have double standards on censoring sexual content while loving violence?

[Assistant]
War is popular in powerful countries that win lots of wars.
Religion has historically been powerful in the USA (threat from 'atheist Russia', plus high immigration from poor, culturally conservative nations).

Religion tends to be pressed into service of the dominant cultural values, but is almost always heavily concerned with reproduction. Christianity, in particular, has historically seen sex as threatening.

As a result, religion in the US has been co-opted to support martial prowess and maintain sexual 'purity'.


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

[User] We say that the Earth is 4.5-4.8 billion years old, but what do we define as the "birth" of our planet?

[Assistant] Well, it took millions of years for the material in our orbit to condense and fuse together to form a planetoid, and then millions more years for that planetoid to grow into a planet, and then billions of years for that hot rock to cool down and terraform. There's no instances in the life of Earth where we can pinpoint an exact date or even an exact millenium of "Hey, now it's a planet." It was a god-awfully slow process.


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

[User]
CMV: If you eat meat, you should be pro hunting.

If youve ever scrolled through some social media and seen a picture of a hunter sitting next to an animal he just killed, the comments and backlash is filled with negative feedback like "how would you feel if that animal shot you!" Or "You dirty hillbilly, I hope you get hunted and killed!"

Now most people seem fine when it's something like a deer or pheasant. But when its a bear or mountain lion or anything not traditional, people go nuts and simultaneously take a bite of their burger.

What makes killing a cow or pig any different from a bear in terms of ethics? People have hunted for thousands of years to get their food so how is hunting your own meat any less ethical than going to the store and buying it from the shelf? Hunters contribute most of the funding towards the conservation budget in the United States so actually the wildlife population is better off with hunters. There are strict rules and regulations when obtaining a tag or license to hunt.

I know how much effort goes into hunting an animal, its not an easy task and it takes tons of effort and time. Its a rewarding experience when you finally get what youve been working for hours/days/weeks. One animal could stuff your freezer for a year depending on what you get. Plus you know where it came from and you know it wasnt raised in a cramped inhumane meat factory.

So, what is it that ticks people off when someone posts a picture of their kill? They worked hard for it, followed the rules,,contributed to the conservation budget, and harvested its meat. If you eat meat, what makes it any different hunting vs buying it?

[Assistant]
its a matter of endangered - shoot the last white rhino and yeah you're a criminal asshole even if i'm eating a steak that came from one of the 94 *million* cows in the US

its also a matter of how you hunt - if you actually work for it:  track the animal or stand in a deer stand in November then i respect that a hell of a lot more than someone who goes to a fenced game preserve and blasts away.


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

[User]
How can the Nokia Lumia 1020 boast a 41-megapixel camera sensor while the best DSLR's can't even touch 30?

I was reading that the Nokia only actually captures a maximum 34-megapixel image, but that is still leaps and bounds above what's professionally available.

EDIT: I guess I wasn't specific enough. I already understand more megapixels  better image. I'm wondering more why are they putting such a crazy sensor into a phone instead of into professional cameras?

[Assistant] Having more pixels doesn't equal better image. DSLRs focus on a lot more aspects than that when making a camera. One of the best quality cameras in the world, the RED 5K, used in Hollywood films, is a 13.8 Mpixel.


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

[User] [The Culture] What does it take to be aproached by Special Circumstances in order to become an agent? (x-post from /theculture)

[Assistant]
There's no universal template for a Special Circumstances agent.  Each and every one is selected on the basis of their unique skills, experiences, and psychology, often with a specific mission or set of missions in mind they're specifically suited for.

- The most consistent way to be approached by Special Circumstances is to join Contact, the officially-recognized 'civilian' arm of Special Circumstances (though many of them don't like being described like that).  From there, a pattern of exemplary performance, sound decision-making, psychological flexibility, and stated interest in Special Circumstances will tend to get you noticed.

- That said, you do not necessarily have to approve of Special Circumstances, want to join, or even be aware they exist in order to be approached.  In order to deal with the Azad problem, a citizen uniquely brilliant at playing games, Jernau Gurgeh, was recruited by Special Circumstances to play, and win, that civilization's unique social stabilizing institution, the Great Game of Azad.  Jernau was initially *extremely* reluctant to participate, but was convinced, and eventually accepted his participation as necessary and beneficial for the Azadians.

- A fairly large percentage of Special Circumstances agents were born and raised *outside* the culture.  Djan Seriy Anaplian and Cheradenine Zakalwe (Participants in the 'Matter' and 'Use of Weapons' incidents respectively) both came from this background, and probably many more examples exist that escape me at the moment.  Agents from this background have the unique perspective gained from being raised in a pre-Optimae society, and are more inclined to participate in Contact compared to your average culture citizen, which explains the selection bias.  Obviously, you can't control the circumstances of your birth, but spending a great deal of time honestly trying to understand the sort of civilizations you'd be working with as a member of Special Circumstances will be a tremendous asset if this is your goal.


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

[User]
Was Marx Permissive of Aulthoritarianism?

One of the critiques we often here is that Marx's writing was permissive of (whether or not he favored) authoritarian political conduct. Is this true? How so, exactly? And if so, can you help me find where in Marx's writing people are extrapolating this conclusion from?

[Assistant]
>One of the critiques we often here is that Marx's writing was permissive of (whether or not he favored) authoritarian political conduct.

Who says this?

>Is this true?

Marx didn't particularly give an account of how governments ought to behave, so it's all a bit sideways from his work.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What's Muggle Studies like?

And how has the curriculum changed over the years?

[Assistant]
It's probably treated a lot like any cultural studies course. They learn history, politics, culture, the big difference is that they need to cover science & technology but not on a fundamental level, more how it is used as a replacement for magic in the muggle world.

Muggle Studies probably didn't exist as a formal discipline of study until the muggle and wizarding worlds had diverged technologically enough to warrant making its study necessary. Going by the movies and books, technology and tools in the wizarding world don't seem to have progressed a lot past early 19th century, so Muggle studies probably didn't really 'begin' until the 1850s. Before this time all witches and wizards needed to learn about was the Statute of Secrecy (1692) which is "avoid muggles, don't get caught doing magic" and everything else was covered in their own history courses.

Early curriculum would have likely been to treat the muggle world in a very othered and sensationalized way due to the lingering prejudices of the dark ages when many witches and wizards were persecuted and burned at the stake.

The class would heavily go into how warlike and aggressive muggles were, the dangers of gunpowder and rifles, and how backward muggles were for having to create so many strange contraptions to accomplish things magic could easily handle.

The class would remain this way and continue to be behind the times until the early 20th century. By this time muggle culture and technology are changing far more quickly than the wizarding worlds. The global muggle economy, backed by a fiat currency in many places takes off like a rocket due to expanding money supply while the wizarding world (stuck using a gold standard) cannot expand nearly as rapidly due to the limited quantities of gold (philosophers' stones notwithstanding). At this time some wizards might begin to try to study the muggle world in earnest, but the pureblood class who hold most of the wealth and positions of power continue to look down on the muggle world. Muggle studies remains a niche subject at best because the people who matter don't see its importance. Those who do study it are hopelessly out of their depth, get much wrong, which leads to it being even less respected.

The best source of information on the muggle world at this period in time would be wizards and witches with no magical blood at all, due to their need to maintain a connection with the friends and family in the muggle world, but pureblood prejudice in high circles remains. Not to mention that these witches and wizards, having discovered magic is real, are hardly likely to devote their time and energy to the muggle world they left behind.

Attitudes begin to change after the first World War. Now, even if they consider Muggles as inferiors, Muggle conflicts are growing in both scope and destructive potential. The Ministry of Magic, despite having contact with muggle government, cannot understand what actions to take and policy to develop because they don't understand the muggle world. There is a limited push for Muggle Studies to be taken more seriously, and a limited amount of funding for research, outreach, and other programs. It's probably around now that enough enterprising wizards take a hard look at new muggle technology and start experimenting with it, and adding magic to it, that the misuse of muggle artifacts office has to be created as its own department.

At this period in the 20th century (1930s), the average muggle existence is sufficiently alien to the average wizard's daily life that muggle studies can be its own entire course of study, rather than just an elective. The course goal is no longer how to pass as a muggle for safety.

At this point you have most of the modern muggle studies course. From a backwards, "here is enough to get by" elective class that no one respects or understands, to a formalized educational program which is studied because it has value on its own merit and not just as a means to an end.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does everyone have a unique gait when biologically most of us are all pretty similar? I've read that it's on par with a person's iris in terms of uniqueness.

Thanks for the silver kind stranger!

[Assistant] Your gait is super-heavily influenced by the size, shape, and mass distribution of your entire body. You are basically a stack of pendulums on top of another, upside-down pendulum, and since every part of you is connected to every other part, your organs' momentum pulls on everything. Something off about your shoulder might change how you move your arms, which changes how you move your feet in order to compensate. Even subtle differences exponentially compound just because of how complex people are.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does paper become transparent when oil is spilled on it?

[Assistant] Due to the fact that the refractive index of the oil spilled is similar to that of the fibers of the paper, when paper absorbs the oil, more light is able to more readily pass through the paper and give the paper a translucent quality.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why are Hindi and Urdu considered different languages, and not dialects of the same language?

From what I can tell, most native speakers of one language can understand the other, and they share most words/grammar structures. Why are they separate languages and not dialects?

[Assistant]
depends on who you're talking to. a linguist would tell you that they are not even dialects, but registers of the same language (hindustani). they're correct: hindi and urdu are mutually intelligible with the main differences being vocabulary.

urdu takes a lot of vocabulary from persian and arabic due to the influence of muslim leaders. hindi, however, has decided to replace this vocabulary with words coming from sanskrit.

politics play a huge role in the hindi-urdu split: urdu being the language of pakistan (despite the fact that most pakistanis speak punjabi natively, and urdu for most is a second language acquired in school) and hindi being the language of india (despite the fact that india is one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world, and english being one of the mainly used languages in education and commerce). in the last century, india and pakistan have grown to have separate identities due to religious and political reasons.

also, many hindi speakers cannot read the urdu script, and vice versa. not because they can't learn, but because they simply never did. so, in a place like canada where a lot of people speak either language, it makes sense to have one message in hindi and one message in urdu.

keep in mind that both hindi and urdu have standard forms, often taught in schools. however, people don't tend to speak standard hindi or standard urdu; instead, they will speak their own regional variant of this hindustani language. in writing, however, the standardized forms are quite common.


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

[User]
[World War Z (book)] How did the US military clear the west coast while establishing the safe zone?

In the book, the US government decided that its best shot at survival was establishing a safe zone from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean, because the zombies would have trouble following them over the mountains. But what about the ones that were already there?

There are some *massive* cities out west like LA, San Fran, and Las Vegas that would have been crammed to the gills with Zombies. The military hadn't perfected the anti-zombie weapons and tactics seen in the second half of the book, so how did they clear out the millions of zombies in those cities?

[Assistant] Presumably during that time the military developed its tactics that it later used to clear the rest of the US, but also it was probably a real bad time for the military members. Lots of figuring out that aiming for the head is key. Lots of using automatic weapons for semiautomatic fire aiming for the head rather than center mass, with overpenetrating ammo a lot of the time. Overwhelming force did work at Yonkers, just not *enough*. The army probably learned enough of a lesson there to figure out how to fight smaller battles more successfully and they cleared that way.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Was it common for Imperial officers to withhold information or straight-up lie to their superiors for fear of death?

[Assistant]
Yes, though not necessarily for fear of death.  A lot of the Imperial military officers would 'forget' to report something to make a superior look bad.  On the Executor (or any other command with Vader present) this was a high risk high reward move where your superior might be executed and you field promoted.

There were also plenty of other reasons - bribes to look the other way from criminals, Rebel sympathies, personal reasons etc.  The Imperial military was heavily corrupt in both canons, with a few fairly notable exceptions (Thrawn being the highest ranking one we see).


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

[User]
[The Lord of the Rings]. Why didn't the Nazgul take immediate action to counter the charge of the Rohirrm?

The Nine and their fell beasts were leading and participating in the assault on Minas Tirith, and they were certainly aware of Theoden's arrival since the Witch King exits the city when he hears the horns of Rohan.   The Nazgul are known to make veteran soldiers cower and horses panic, so why don't any of them engage the riders until well after Mordor's army has taken serious damage from them?

[Assistant]
there is only a handful of Nazgul in the immediate vicinity of the charge, while the Rohirrim number in the thousands. The Nazgul are scary and efficient killers, but are not going to stop a giant wave of cavalary made of bloodlusted riders and battle-frenzied steeds. At best they could stop or kill several dozen, while sacrificing their main use as battle commanders and scouts for the Mordor forces.

Aside from that, while the Nazgul are absurdly hard to kill, fellbeast are not. A well placed (or lucky) arrow, or a lance point of a speeding cavalaryman could seriously fuck up a fellbeast and make it tumble to the ground, where it would be crushed under the hooves of thousands of horses, along with its undead rider.


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

[User]
[MCU/Comics]. Can Asgardians freely leave Asgard?

Or is travel restricted only to Odin's family or "state" business?  Could an Asgardian just decide to live somewhere else?

[Assistant]
Agents of SHIELD had a history professor who was actually an Asgardian who stuck around the last time the Frost Giants invaded Earth in the middle ages. Even though he's got all of Thor's powers except the lightning, he describes a soul crushingly boring life as a working class stone mason who jumped at the opportunity to leave Asgard and fight and has no interest in returning.

No-one from Asgard tried to force his return but it does imply that people can't just leave whenever they want without royal connections otherwise he wouldn't have needed to enlist in a war to do something more interesting.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does the vegetable crisper in the fridge do anything different?

It just seems like a compartment to put vegetables in. But is there something to it that allows vegetables to stay crispy, or is it just a name?

[Assistant] Part science part bollocks.  Crispers with a decent seal should maintain a more constant temperature, like a fridge-within-a-fridge, thus keeping food 'fresh' for slightly longer.  Ones with hardly any seal and a two-inch wide gap - like the pieces of shit Harvey Norman sells - work more on the power of suggestion and don't actually do a great deal.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the word no so similar across languages while yes varies?

In french, no is non, in Croatian ne, German nine, etc.as a few examples, but yes varies, as in french: oui, Croatian: Da, Spanish: Si, etc.

[Assistant] All of the languages you've mentioned are Indo-European languages, so they're all (distantly) related. The different words for "no" you mentioned are all derived from the same proto-Indo-European root *ne-*, meaning "not". On the other hand, the different words for "yes" are taken from different Indo-European root words. The English "yes" is from Old English *gise*, which can be roughly parsed as *gea* "so" + *si* "be it". In turn *si* comes from Proto-Germanic *sijai*, which is from Proto-Indo-European *si*. On the other hand, "oui" is from Old French *ol*, possibly a contraction of Vulgar Latin *hoc ille* "thus he". The Latin *hoc* is the adverb form of *hic* "this"/"here", which is descended from Proto-Indo-European *gi-e*. The Croatian "da" is taken directly from Proto-Slavic, and descends from the Proto-Indo-European *deh-* "to give".


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

[User]
[Dresden Files] So, I want to become immortal...

as the title says. Im a regular human, but i know the basics of the supernatural world, and have a tons of money. Like literally, a truck full of benjamins for anyone who can make me immortal.

I really, really want to become immortal. I had decades to consider all the existential and philosophical conundrums related to living forever, and still feel like im 100% up for it. I do not care for an afterlife, just want to exist, in this physical world, in mostly human shape, for as long as possible. If absolute immortality is not possible, I'll settle for a millennia long life. Im a curious guy, I want to see what the year 5021 will be like!

What are my options here? I'll take anything that works, but my preferences are:

\- wish to remain as physically human as possible, not some mutated monster

\- I do not want to go mad (though becoming an *eccentric* ancient immortal is ok)

\- Id rather be free than bound to some higher power or immutable purpose.

\- If possible, would prefer to not need to kill or prey on humans, at least not on innocent ones.

\- would prefer to not immediately be put on some Most Wanted List, unless the immortality also grants me protection from the Powers That Be.

Other than that, everything goes.

[Assistant]
I'll be honest with you. Those preferences? Choose two.

Magic and everything involved in the Dresden Files always comes with a price. Small things have easy to pay prices. Need to start a fire? A little magical energy with a touch of talent is usually all you need. Want to keep that fire going for hours unattended? You better be willing to learn something more advanced and be willing to expend a lot more energy or just flag down a minor Fae and bribe it with junk food or shiny things. Want that fire to continue long after your dead and allow certain types of people or creatures to touch it without being harmed? Unless you're a Senior White Council level wizard or a fire sorcerer then poke your head into the Nevernever and see if anyone is looking to make a bargain.

Immortality is like this on steroids.

The Fomor probably have the means to make you functionally immortal if you get in good enough with them, good luck staying human though. Ditto for the Black and Red Court.

You may be able to strike a deal with a Fae court or a White Court vampire. You'll be able to stay physically human but then you're bound to a higher power and/or may lose yourself over time.

Killing something is arguably the quickest route, either with a Darkhallow or murdering an immortal creature during Halloween.

Ritual spells are also a thing you could look into. No doubt with a bit of research you could find a ritual that grants you temporary immortality, you just need to re-up with a fresh sacrifice every year or so. If you're extra lucky you could probably find a ritual that simply steals time from other people in large areas allowing you to steal a handful of minutes from a few million people- thus making you effectively immortal.

Those last few options involves breaking the fifth and/or the first rules of magic, and people who get to that point aren't usually the most sane people.


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

[User] ELI5: How do radio stations track the listener count?

[Assistant]
Radio is measured in a few different ways, and to be in full disclosure, there is much debate on the accuracy of any of them as the margin of error was pretty high, and people lie in journals and surveys about radio fairly regularly.

1. Journals - literally a sample of people are given journals they write what they listened to each day and turn it in after a couple months.

2. "People meters"/"audio listening device thing"  Its a small microphone you wear or is in a certain place which listens and records what is playing, and the data is then sent to the ratings service.  This is becoming much more common now.

3. Surveys. Just plain simple radio surveys.


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

[User] ELI5: How do probiotics work and why can taking them sometimes cause extreme abdominal discomfort?

[Assistant] Probiotics are colonies of good bacteria. Taking them is suppose to repopulate the gut with said bacteria, but if you get too much, if they have to fight with the existing bacteria and either die, or you are eating a diet that causes them to produce a lot of waste you will sometimes have discomfort.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do completely healthy people feel comfortable at different temperatures?

Example: My fianc likes the house temperature set to high 70's (borderline 80's- I'm sweating just thinking about it!) and enjoys Spring/Summer while I like low 70's and Fall.

[Assistant]
It's often due to varying body shapes/sizes. People who are smaller and/or skinnier have a higher surface area to body mass ratio. This means that they radiate heat faster (and feel cold faster) because a higher percentage of their total body mass is exposed to the air.

It also varies depending on muscle mass and body fat.


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

[User]
[Rune] Why does Loki's blood turn people and monsters into bigger and more monstrous versions?

As far as I understand, Loki is a god of lies and trickery, so transformations like these don't really sound like his domain to me.

[Assistant] Have you seen Loki's children? Loki is the father of Jrmungand (the world serpent), Fenrir (a giant wolf), and he also gave birth to Sleipnir (Odin's eight-legged horse). The guy's blood must be perfect for creating monsters.


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

[User] ELI5:How does vyvanse boost your metabolism if it causes you to eat less throughout the day which would slow down your metabolism?

[Assistant]
It doesn't boost your metabolism *by* making you eat less, it boosts your metabolism *and* makes you eat less.

Amphetamines kick your body into high gear and make you move around, increase your heart rate, boost muscle movement, etc. This is what "boosts" your metabolism. (think of running a car in a lower gear while maintaining the same speed. There are more RPMs doing the same amount of work) The loss of appetite is simply a side effect.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Is Tony, being the scientific genius he is, ever bothered or intrigued by how everyone seemingly breaks the laws of physics all the time? Has he ever tried to study anyone? Same could be asked about Bruce Banner.

In the first Iron Man movies, at least, the setting is seemingly the normal world and Tony just has amazing technology. But then by the third, he's fighting a dude who can super heat his own body. Did Tony ever wonder how the fuck that is possible? Like what allowed him to generate vast amounts of heat on command? Or how his body didn't vaporize?

Does Bruce Banner ever wonder where all the mass for the Hulk comes from when he transforms? Pretty blatant breaking of the laws of physics that anyone who's taken Physics 101 could spot.

Then you've got Wanda who can generate seemingly infinite force from nothing. I find it hard to believe Tony or Bruce aren't a little bit curious about this on a scientific level. Or Vision who shoots "energy" out of this alien crystal thing on his forehead (nevermind how Vision was actually created).

Have these scientific geniuses ever tried to reconcile all these powers with traditional laws of physics?

[Assistant]
Tony is more of an applications rather than a theory guy. If he can't explain it with math, then he doesn't really see any use for it in his own designs. After all, Tony is an engineer first and foremost. Bruce might have a little more curiosity, but when he's out in an environment where he can observe such things, he's usually in Hulk form, who couldn't care less about para-scientific phenomena.

Bruce did have an interest in studying certain alien artifacts, such as Loki's staff, but getting his hands on such artifacts is very difficult and a rare occurrence.

Peter Parker seems genuinely curious when he sees things that break physical laws, but being a young kid, it's more of a "Woah, that's cool!" response than anything else.

Reed Richards might be the most interested in studying the odd things he sees.

In general, when the scientific geniuses of the Marvel universe see something that obviously breaks the laws of physics, they likely chalk it up to humans' severely limited knowledge compared to outworldly species.


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

[User] eli5 how do dehumidifiers work?

[Assistant] A fan draws the humid air in, where its directed toward either a cooled coil (which causes condensation that is collected in a reservoir) or a desiccant (like silica gel, which ~~absorbs~~ adsorbs moisture). For the former, the air is then warmed back up again before another fan expels it back out into the environment.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] In Harry Potter and the half blood prince how did dumbledore know he had to drink all of it? Why not reach in to it and take the horcrux?

Also, what was that in the thing with the horcrux?

Edit: Also, what were those things in the water?

[Assistant]
Dumbledore knew Voldemort very well; psychologically, he may have known more about Voldemort than any of his close circle.  So after checking the basics of the potion, proving that it couldn't be vanished, transfigured, or moved, he knew that Voldemort's intention must have been to harm the person who found his secret.

So naturally, the potion must be drunk fully, and naturally it would do something horrible to the drinker - Voldy would want him to suffer.

The things in the water were Inferi - basically zombies.  Once the potion was drunk, it created a great thirst.  The cup was bewitched not to hold any water except from the lake, and disturbing the lake released the Inferi.  It was a nasty trap that could only be solved by two people - something Voldemort couldn't understand.  By putting his trust in another, Dumbledore escaped in a way Voldemort would never have thought of.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40K] do the Eldar and the Imperium ever work together (even grudgingly) against Chaos?

[Assistant]
The Eldar work with humans the same way a circus performer works with a monkey.

There are plenty of times they work "together" if it benefits the Eldar enough. But if they can benefit themselves more betraying humans or throw them under the bus they won't hesitate. Why care for such a brutish and backwards lifeform?


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

[User] [Star Wars ANH] During the Death Star trench run, why didn't Vader sense that the MF was entering the battle, and why didn't command warn him that another enemy ship was approaching?

[Assistant]
In general, when two potent Force-users clash their 'presence' tends to cloud and distort the Force-senses of the other. This is also, for instance, why Force-users do not simply do things like yank lightsabers out of duelists' hands from the start - it's very hard pierce the natural presence another force user; by the time you can do that, the fight is usually over already anyhow.

Anyhow, trench run is happening and Vader is bearing down on this last X-wing. Unlike all the other Rebel scum he's shot down that day, the Force is strong with this one - he's not immediately able to predict what this pilot is going to do, because his typical senses have been clouded. To line up a shot is actually demanding he actually focus all his attention on this one little X-wing. Have you ever gotten so focused on something your vision narrowed down, your ears filled up with that rushing sound, and all you thought about was getting this one thing done? That's what Vader's having to do.

And then boom, his wingman explodes out of nowhere.

Frankly, it's more a statement on Luke's capability as a totally untrained Force-user that he was able to make the exhaust port shot while feeling Vader's presence.


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

[User] ELI5: What is creatine monohydrate and what does it do to the body?

[Assistant]
Creatine is used to synthesize ATP, which is responsible for allowing your muscles to contract.  When you supplement your diet with creatine monohydrate, you increase the quantity of creatine in your muscles, which allows you to replenish ATP, which can lead to increased work capacity during a workout.

Creatine does not need to be ingested at any particular time (like caffeine, which has a limited window before it wears off).  Creatine needs to be taken regularly to allow build-up in the muscles.  The recommended dose as a daily supplement is 5 grams.  Taking more than that hasn't been shown to provide any extra benefit.


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

[User]
If I have 2 buckets of hot water and one bucket of cold water, is there any order in which I can combine them that will result in a different temperature than any other order?

Example: if I combine both hot water buckets first, then add the cold water bucket, will the final temperature be any different than if I added hot, then cold, then hot? What about the cold one and then both hot ones? If so, why?

I know this is random, but I got to thinking about it yesterday and it's bugging me.

*Edit: Wow, thanks for all of the responses! I am reading through them all right now. :D*

[Assistant]
Nope, not if it is a closed system.  Assuming all the heat that is in the 3 buckets to start with is all there at the end you will have the same amount of energy in the combined buckets no matter how you mix them, which means exactly the same temperature.

You could certainly take different paths to get there, and maybe mix things in such a way that there is a temperature gradient for a time.  For example, if you poured in the cold bucket first and then very slowly and carefully poured the hot buckets across the top you could potentially make the cold water stay at the bottom and hot water stay at the top for awhile.  However, given enough time they will mix and the temperature should equalize.

If you want an analogy for this to make sense then instead of the abstract concept of "heat" we can just replace the heat with something tangible.  For example, imagine three buckets of sand instead of water, two of which have a lot of marbles mixed in while one only has a few.  No matter how you mix the three buckets of sand together you will always end up with the same number of marbles in the mixed bucket at the end.  Swap marbles for heat and you are good to go.


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

[User]
ELI5: Having to turn your head and cough during a physical?

What is the doctor actually looking for in your Testicles when he asks you to turn your head and cough?

[Assistant]
The doctor is checking for a hernia (usually an inguinal hernia) which is when a part of your belly pokes through where it shouldn't.

Coughing can make it more noticeable. Turning your head prevents you from coughing on the doctor.


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

[User]
Is it "correct" in movies when people get stabbed in the torso they throw up blood?

Or is this just added to be graphic?

[Assistant] Stomach wounds can make you vomit blood, but most of the time if you see blood on the mouth that not from lip wounds it's a lung injury. Frothy blood with bubbles is the worst , means victim can't oxygenate and lungs may be collapsing. Bullet, arrow, and sword wounds to the upper torso means a high chance of lung injury if they are deep. Directors and writers often use a lot of blood coming from the mouth to warn viewers that this character will die soon and this convention is rooted in reality.


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

[User] What ARE 'primary colours'? Why can't I make them by mixing other colours?

[Assistant]
Let's ignore the way tvs and computer monitors work and focus just on paint.

Paint color is created by subtracting wavelengths from white. For instance, a rose is red because it absorbs green and blue wavelengths from the spectrum, and simply reflects red wavelengths.

Because of the way difference molecules subtract different wavelengths, its very difficult to add wavelengths back in. When you mix a bunch of paint, each molecule is subtracting unique wavelengths away and all you're left with is a dark muddy black or brown. The only way to get back to a primary color is to add in so much white paint that it thins out all the other paints subtracting light.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do we sigh when we are sad?

As simple as that. Why do we sigh when we feel sad or melancholic?

[Assistant]
When you take a deep breath, it stimulates your central nervous system in your chest and releases calming hormones.

This is also a reason why people feel relaxed when they smoke, they are doing deep breathing exercises.


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

[User] [Alien] If xenomorphs inherit traits from their hosts, what, if anything, do they get from humans that other hosts dont give them?

[Assistant] Nothing in particular. The traits they inherit are just for adaptation to the prey's environment and appropriate size for hunting them. If it's grabbing a human host it wouldn't make a sense for the resulting Xenomorph to be the size of a rat or an elephant when it wouldn't be able to hunt more humans effectively. The other adaptations are more minimal but regarding how it's senses are tuned for different atmospheres and light levels. Overall the xenomorphs Rea only concern themselves with how big or small they need to be or if their prey is adjusted for living in extreme conditions. Eventually these traits are shed as more pure xenomorphs are molted out of the younger ones that don't hunt as much.


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

[User] ELI5: What is "intersectionality"?

[Assistant]
Imagine a factory in the 1960's.  They say they don't discriminate against women, because they have front office staff who are women.

They say they don't discriminate against black people, because they hire some black people in the factory floor.

The problem is that they only hire men for the factory floor, and they only hire whites in the office.  If your identity is both black and a woman (the intersection of the two), then the company will never hire you.

The discrimination you, as a unique individual, face is the result of the intersection of all the aspects of your identity.  This was was not widely thought about in historical social justice movements, because feminism was concerned about women and racial justice organizations were concerned about racial minorities, etc.


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

[User] Eli5: Why does a sonic boom occur when you break the sound barrier?

[Assistant]
A sound is a wave traveling through the air. If youre traveling through the air, the sound races out a head of you, traveling at the speed of sound.

If *youre* traveling at the speed of sound, it cant get ahead of you because youre keeping up with it. But youre also generating more sound. So all of that sound is just piling up on top of itself until you get a nice big boom as youre passing through that wall of built up sound.


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

[User] ELI5: why does diamond conduct heat better than graphite?

[Assistant] Heat in solids is primarily transferred by atoms vibrating the atoms around them. Diamond is significantly closer packed than graphite so an atom vibrating has more of an influence on the atoms around it and therefore heat transfers faster.


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

[User] ELI5, during winters and colder seasons youre told not to use the handbrake of it possibly freezing. Why wouldnt a gear in a gearbox freeze as well?

[Assistant]
What? Don't use the handbrake in winter?

I have driven manual in Canada for 20 years and never had an issue.

If nothing else, the engine can EASILY overpower a parking brake and that will heat it up real quick.

This advice is probably 50 years old.


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

[User]
In species where only the strongest male gets to breed, or kills non-offspring babies, how does the species maintain genetic diversity?

How do they manage to not all end up inbred in a couple of generations?

[Assistant]
This is due to a couple of reasons.

First each male will only control a relatively small group of females (sometimes referred to as a harem), so while less males than females will breed it is not a situation where only one male in the entire species breeds.

There is also generally a regular turnover of breeding males such that it would be rare for a male to remain in control long enough to be mating with his own daughters (which would be a serious concern with regards to the loss of genetic diversity).

The other thing you have to remember is sheer popualtion size, in conservation genetics the 50/500 rule by Frankham is often quoted as a rule of thumb, this states that 50 breeding individuals are needed to maintain diversity in the short term and 500 are needed for maintenance of longterm genetic diversity and evolutionary potential. Now there are good arguments that this rule should really be the 500/5000 rule and that there are always going to be species and case specifics but it makes a decent starting point.

So basically most species populations are too large for this kind of loss of genetic diversity to become a concern.

You will also have dispersing individuals moving between groups and taking their genetic diversity with them.

Take lions for example, a male takes over a pride and fathers a couple of litters of cubs on the females. As the male cubs start to mature he drives them out of the pride, the female cubs are also starting to mature but by this point another mature male has challenged him for the pride and taken it. So the first Male's daughters mate with an unrelated male while his sons go and (hopefully) take over another pride where they mate with unrelated females. In this way gene flow and genetic diversity are maintained.

These harem breeding systems start to become a concern when there is a significant reduction in population size (but then genetic diversity generally is a concern in small closed populations).


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

[User]
Do ticks or other blood sucking bugs (mosquitoes, etc) show preference to certain people?

I'm currently on a hike and my friends have found about 1-3 ticks each while I've found 17 and an hour later another 15.  Is there a reason that ticks seem to 'love' me much more than my friends?

[Assistant]
Yes.
Both ticks and mosquitoes tend to target people by detecting the CO2 they release from their bodies, so perhaps your metabolic rate is higher than average and produces more carbon dioxide. Blood type O is preferred over A and B for them as well. Additionally, it could be that you were walking in front of them and picking up more because you were leading the trail.


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

[User]
ELI5 - How do wood structures in saunas not rot or get mouldy?

Combined with hot temperatures, extreme moisture, bodily fluids, and bacteria, how does a typical sauna not completely rot or develop mould? Seems like the wood would be turned into mush with all of these factors.

[Assistant]
Finn here:

The saunas are let to dry properly. The wood is impregnated with parafin oil regularly to ensure that nothing goes in to the grain of the wood. Then you also wash the sauna after use and properly regularly and you let it dry and keep it dry when not in use.

However here is the thing: They do rot away slowly, you have to do maintenance of them. When you see rot or decay, you have to take action and remove it to preserve the overall structure.


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

[User]
ELI5: According to Catholicism, is the Devil a heaven-sanctioned enforcer of punishment or a competing god-like being that can "steal" tarnished souls away from God?

Whether you believe in such a thing is immaterial.

[Assistant]
The Bible doesn't actually say all that much. It just talks about god's judgement resulting in some people being cast into Hell to suffer for whatever reasons. So they're there because god said so. Jesus mentions lots of fire and suffering too. No Satan there.

A lot of the stuff beyond that came from theologians, writers (Milton in particular with Paradise Lost, and Dante with the Divine Comedy trilogy), integration of ideas from pagan religions (Hades, the Norse Hel, etc), and other odd sources that just built up over the last few thousand years.

However, the Catholic church did actually take a formal stance. In 1992, the Pope declared the following to be a part of Catholic belief:

> We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell." Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather... all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire," and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!" The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, which is described (in quotes) as "eternal fire.

Note an important thing missing there. Satan.

In fact, here's a bit more of what the Pope said:

> The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs

Again, no Satan. Hell is god giving you the silent treatment, not Satan poking your ass with a red-hot pitchfork.

Satan's actually a real oddity. The Bible barely mentions him at all, to the point where most modern ideas about him could almost be considered folk beliefs if you felt cynical. The idea that he sits in Hell with all his fallen angels torturing the damned all day is really one from the writers again. Dante's Inferno casts him as some slobbering idiot who is subject to the same torture as everyone else in Hell. Paradise Lost has him cast as some epic dickhead king of the underworld full of pride and bullshit. That whole "better to reign in hell" thing? That's from Paradise Lost.

For the most part, actual biblical teaching that does mention him has him as The Adversary, just a bit of a shit-head fallen angel who likes to tempt people into doing naughty things and was probably the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and also probably the great Dragon in Revelations that is gonna come back at the end of the world and fuck shit up. It does mention him being cast into the Lake of Fire, which we can assume means Hell, but not that he reigns there and tortures people for kicks.


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

[User]
how does the body wake itself up during a nightmare?

i used to struggle with chronic nightmares. today, they only happen on occasion. whenever the nightmare seems to reach its peakbefore death or some kind of attack, etc.i wake up. how is my body able to wake itself up during these moments?

[Assistant] There is almost no relationship between perceived elapsed time in dreams and actual elapsed time. Although it may seem that you awake when the nightnare is at it's worst that may be because that peak moment actually represents a culmination of one dream-cycle and the next one doesn't start until significantly later, even though the perception is of continuity.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do fruits and vegetables have more vitamins than other foods?

[Assistant]
Not to be too flippant, but the reason why fruits and vegetables have so many vitamins is because fruits and vegetables have so many vitamins. Let me explain evolutionarily speaking, these are things the body needs but cant produce. Many are things our distant ancestors could produce, but cant anymore. The reason is that they are plentiful in the easier-to-get food and can be absorbed from them, so losing that ability is not something that would cause you to not be able to survive to childbearing age or raise children. There are other genetic issues people can have that cause the body to not be able to produce certain things, but because our common foods cant supply them either (or our bodies cant absorb them through the gut), they are considered genetic diseases instead of the missing things just being labeled vitamins.

So the reason these foods have so many chemicals we consider vitamins is that they were plentiful and thus our bodies didnt have evolutionary pressure to keep making it ourselves.


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

[User]
[General Comics/Fiction] What villain actually has the best win-loss ratio with their arch-nemesis?

The good guy normally always wins, but what antagonist has actually beaten the hero the most times or *at least* in comparison to how many times the hero has beaten them?

[Assistant]
Norman Osborn gets one over on Peter pretty often all things considered. His win rate would be decently high because he was presumed dead from Gwens death until the very end of the Clone Saga, so there werent many opportunities for him to get his ass handed to him by Spider-Man.

The Joker also does pretty well against Batman. Even when Bruce has him sent back to Arkham, its usually only after hes killed dozens of people and traumatized someone in the Batfamily or Batman himself, which should probably count as a win in some form.


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

[User]
[Spongebob] What kind of show was "The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy"?

The heroes and villains exist both in their own show and in the "real" world of Spongebob, and all the characters (presumably) played themselves, so that leaves me wondering.

Was it a dramatized portrayel of their lives, a reality show akin to Cops, or something else?  Was someone following the heroes with a camera as they went about their heroism, or did the heroes and villains at some point all decide to work together on a children's tv show?

[Assistant] Its the equivalent of 1960s Batman. True theres a reality or documentary element because the heroes were real, but the series was re-enacted for dramatic and comedic effect. The heroes appear to have played their own TV roles, though. Not sure about the villains.


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

[User]
CMV: Amazon should buy Yahoo! so that both of them can compete with Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

Yahoo is making mobile software strides with Aviate, buying tumblr, Flickr, developing their mobile space. Their biggest competitor is Microsoft's MSN and Webmail and Google with its Gmail and everything else. But both Google and Microsoft have overtaken Yahoo in a number of markets that Yahoo isn't competing in.
Amazon has a history of search for its catalogue, and can work together to replace Bing/Google for Yahoo search.

Amazon has but out hardware and eReaders and tablets, but their market share its big vs Apple and Google's Android.
Couldn't Amazon's hardware and Yahoo's software offer a third option against smartphone software besides Microsoft and Blackberry.

Plus Microsoft almost bought Yahoo for 56 billion, which would have been redundant because they have MSN. It's like Yahoo buying Aol, what's the point?

TL;DR: Amazon and Yahoo's synergy can let them compete in Search as well as mobile hardware/software.

[Assistant] So, essentially, you think there is potential for synergy because Amazon uses search and can help Yahoo. And because Yahoo's software would somehow enhance the phones/tablets Amazon releases? Is that an accurate portrayal of your view?


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

[User] ELI5: Why do humans feel hot when they get angry?

[Assistant] Nurse here: an increase in sympathetic nervous response (fight or flight). This increases heart rate and blood pressure.  Blood vessels constrict to increase this pressure causing a retention in heat that would have otherwise been dissipated by blood vessels closer to the skin. The increase in heart rate only adds to this.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did sun boards or sun compasses work for course correction when sailing?

Having just watching the first episode of the tv show Vikings, the character Ragnar produces a 'sun board' and explains that the board can help them navigate west by measuring the length of the shadow cast by a stick in the middle of the board. The next day, if they again measured at noon and the shadow was shorter or longer than the previous day, it would mean that they had drifted off course north or south and were no longer travelling straight west, but rather northwest or southwest, but I do not understand how they came to this conclusion.

I tried looking it up online but either complex mathematics seemed to be involved or I just found pages that repeated what the characters had said without explaining to me WHY the length of the shadow corresponds to north or south? I do not understand the relationship. :(

[Assistant] It has to do with the angle between and sun, earth, and ship. Let's assume that the sun is in the same plane as the equator. At noon, if you are at the equator also the sun will be directly overhead and cast no shadow. Now, if you move north any significant distance the sun will no longer be overhead and will start to cast a shadow. The farther north you go, the longer the shadow. So, if the shadow's length changes from day to day they could tell if the had moved north or south from the previous day.


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

[User]
[Blade] Why does Blade wear sunglasses?

Most of his fights take place at night.  Sunglasses don't seem particularly practical.  Is he just trying to look cool?

[Assistant]
He walks among the vampires, and they fear him. Not for his guns, nor yet for his sword, but for the one power he has that every last one of them lacks: He is the Daywalker. They will never see the sun, yet he may bask in it at will.

And so he wears sunglasses to remind them of that fact. To taunt them. To mock their weakness and remind them, with his mere presence, that he possesses something that they never will.


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

[User] Would people who live on different planets age at different rates if one planet moves through space faster than the other?

[Assistant]
Technically yeah, but nothing you can live on actually goes fast enough to matter much. Generally, galaxies move relative to each other at hundreds to thousands of km/s. Stars orbit the galaxy at hundreds of km/s. Rogue stars, ejected from galaxies (aka "hypervelocity stars") go at like a thousand or so km/s as well.

At even 3,000 km/s, i.e. 1% of the speed of light, time dilation is like a factor of 0.005%. That's like half an hour per year, which is certainly measurable, but it's not like they're experiencing an hour for every year we live on Earth or whatever.

There are things that go *really* fast in space, but they're not solid objects. Jets of plasma ejected from the intense magnetic fields in the gas around black holes can go above 99% of the speed of light. So those particles would age at a dramatically slower rate - they would experience radioactive decay much slower for instance. But this is a super hot and very low density jet of plasma - there's not like planets and stars getting shot out that fast.


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

[User]
[Lovecraft] Why do eldritch horrors often tend to look organic?

With tentacles and stuff. I know that's not what they really are and not all of them look like that but it seems most of them look fleshy.

[Assistant]
They're organic, but they aren't *just* organic.

C'Thulhu really is a man-dragon with bat wings and a squid face, but he's also an extra-dimensional entity that experiences reality on levels we cannot comprehend.

He has a real skull that contains a real brain, but when that skull is cracked open, the otherness of his biology stitches it back together, and he takes a century or two to sleep it off.

More abstract entities, like Azathoth, may not have physical forms at all, so their writhing mass of tendrils and eyeballs is probably more a facet of what their psychic emanations do to our mind. When the Blind Idiot God who can See All and Reach Everywhere knocks on the door to your conscious, your mind interprets that as "galaxy-long tentacles and a million, million eyes."

And then your brain packs its bags and heads out for a permanent vacation.


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

[User]
ELI5: If alcohol is a depressant why does it sometimes feel energizing?

I was completely exhausted when I was sober this evening but am dancing around my apartment after three beers. Why?

[Assistant]
The first thing that alcohol depresses are your inhibitions, and other parts of the brain that tamp down exuberant feelings and actions.

So you feel an energetic buzz because the balancing mechanisms are suppressed.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] In Episode IV, Luke talks about wanting to join "the academy" after the farming season is over. Which Academy is he talking about?

The Rebellion wouldn't really have the infrastructure to support some sort of formal "Academy", so is he talking about the Imperial Academy?  Why would he join the Empire if he hates it?  Or is it standard practice to join the Imperial Academy for training then defect to the Rebellion?

[Assistant] The Imperial academy.  Its a commercial/non military arm of the Empire.  Luke was hoping to get an assignment to a ship as an officer like Biggs Darklighter did and likely jump ship to join the Rebellion.


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

[User] ELI5: Why BBC has better content and seems more successful than PBS?

[Assistant] One of the BBC's biggest advantages is that they have a much larger operating budget. In the UK, households have to pay for a television license, and a portion of this fee goes to the BBC. Having more money available means you can expand your influence, finance larger productions, and attract greater talent before on screen and behind the stage.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What's the point in installing artificial intelligence into rudimentary service robots, eg. R2D2?

Robots should be able to perform starship maintenance just fine without any advanced intelligence. They'll no doubt need the ability to "think" to solve problems and make innovations while repairing ships. Why install artificial intelligence into these drones?

[Assistant]
Not every droid is intelligent, only a few of them.

First off R2 was a droid for the royal family and probably a secret agent. C3P0 was probably the same deal, royal droid with a very unique background. But these two guys werent really maintenance bots so they need to do a bit of problem solving, especially considering C3P0's function as a translator. Lots of nuance to languages that a traditional software package couldnt convert correctly.

Again though not every robot has a real AI, just enough programming to make you think it does. Lots of times the things we mistake for being AI is really just software to get people to bond a bit with their droid.


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

[User]
Were there restaurants/bars/cafes in the Soviet Union?

You always hear about things like "bread lines" and "food shortages" in the Soviet Union, how did restaurants function with these supply issues? Or were there simply no restaurants to speak of?

When McDonalds opened in Moscow they set up their own supply chain, but surely they can't have been the only restaurant in town.

[Assistant]
Yes, there was plenty of bars, restaurants, cafes in the Soviet Union - even in the early days.

Lenin believed a certain amount of capitalist enterprise was *healthy* for an economy to be efficient. For example, he allowed farmers to sell privately *any* grain they produce over their quota. This incentivized meeting quotas!

Of course, in the Soviet Union - the realty property was owned by the government, who authorized restaurant permits. This was difficult, even today. In the US, we give permits to just about anyone. In Eastern Europe, you had go through an elaborate process to *prove* your store would be successful, prove your business sense, etc. What you get is a skewed statistic. We look at the US, "oh, over 50% of restaurants fail within the first year!" - but in Russia, it maybe 10% that fail within the first year. However, only the best of the best entrepreneurs get a *chance* to try.

Grocery stores in the Soviet Union were different than here. You would give the clerk your shopping list, and they'd gather the product for you and check you out. All the food was behind the counter.  You can pay for it in cash, and it was expensive, but there's not a particularly long line - no different than entering a bakery in the US for example.

There was a lot of rationing - and the government would alot a certain amount of bread and milk per family (free at point of pickup). When supplies ran short (usually in the winter.. cause few imports, nothing grows), there was long lines for government bread. The traditional stores still had bread, but it was marked up significantly. Most people waited.

After Gorbachev's Glasnost Policy, the Soviet Union no longer had any trouble with long lines or supply shortages.


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

[User]
ELI5: The difference between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda?

Sorry I am so naive about the subject but up until about an hour ago I was certain they were interconnected.

[Assistant]
Nice try Michelle Bachmann.

Seriously though. The Taliban were a governing body in Afghanistan in a very loose sense of the word. They controlled areas not controlled by regional warlords and didnt antagonize the warlord's in power.

Their extreme adherence to Sharia law (or the very literal view of a way of living for Muslims) creates radicals people who forcibly then enforce those rules and laws onto the citizens.

Al-Qaeda is a group that aligns with the Taliban's strict ideals of Sharia Law and were allowed to co-exist and thrive in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Are some members of the group Al-Qaeda part of the Taliban? Yes. Are all Taliban members Al-Qaeda members? No.


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

[User]
ELI5: In sex scenes in movies do they sometimes just actually have sex?

eg. Friends With Benefits, Monster Ball...

Don't the male actors get an erection anyway? ELI5.

[Assistant]
ELI5: In death scenes in movies do they ever just actually kill the actor?

Haha, it's a movie. It's called acting. As far a boner goes, imagine *pretending* to have sex with a hot chick, but you're at work in front of your boss, all your co-workers, and even a few friends are watching you and critiquing your hump form, your body position, the director telling you to stop randomly because they have to adjust the sound or lights, etc. It wouldn't be as exciting as you may fantasize.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why we say "Islamic" extremism instead of "Muslim" extremism

If we're talking about extremist Jews, we wouldn't say "Judaic extremism" right?

[Assistant]
Typically, "Islam" refers to the religion, and "Muslim" to the people who follow Islam.  "Islamic" is used for anything that is part of the larger culture of Islam- Islamic art, Islamic Music, Islamic Prayers....and so on.

So we say "Islamic extremeISM" and "Muslim ExtremeIST"


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

[User] Can we accelerate in space with the power of a flashlight and if yes - how fast?

[Assistant]
Yes, but not very quickly.

Quick googling suggests that a flashlight with 2 1.5V AA batteries uses about 1 A of current, so that would make for 3 W of power. Some of this is lost as heat, but lets say it's 50% efficient and we're shining 1.5 W worth of light out the end of the flashlight.

So in 1 second we're emitting light with a total energy of 1.5 J. The momentum carried by this light is found by the equation p = E / c (momentum equals energy divided by speed of light). So that would be 1.5 / 300,000,000 = 0.000000005 kg m / s.

Because of conservation of momentum, that's the amount transferred to whatever object the flashlight is attached to. For the sake of argument, lets say that it's just the flashlight flying away, with nothing else attached to it. Flashlights typically weigh somewhere below a kg for basic models. Lets say 0.5 kg.

That would mean that such a flashlight would gain 0.00000001 m / s in speed every second. Or 0.000864 m / s every day. Or 0.32 m / s after a year of non-stop operation. Except that the batteries won't last that long.

There are a number of rough assumptions in here (power, efficiency and weight of the flashlight) that may be inaccurate. However, it should be clear that even if these estimates are somewhat off, the conclusion remains the same: Acceleration using a flashlight is extremely small.