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

[User]
Why are economists against price controls out of principle?

Economists' consensus is that price floors and ceilings lead to surpluses and shortages, respectively.  However, this is only true if the price control is placed above or below market equilibrium, respectively.  So, why do economists seem to be opposed to price controls (other than the minimum wage and some agricultural price floors) out of principle, rather than being opposed to them *on the condition* that they are incorrectly set in relation to market equilibrium?

[Assistant]
>this is only true if the price control is placed above or below market equilibrium

Equilibrium will change as market conditions change.  New technology makes things cheaper: a previously set price floor is no longer below equilibrium.  Breakdown in supply chain: a previously set ceiling is no longer above equilibrium.

Also, there's enforcement costs. Why have market actors check against a floor / ceiling that's below / above the market price?  It adds some compliance costs (admittedly small) for no benefit.


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

[User]
[Kancolle] How does the military manage to control the ship girls in the first place?

Kancolle is based on the idea of girls somehow gaining the power of old WWII ships to kill stuff with, and they all seem extremely loyal to their base and commanders.

In game they are made to fight each other for naval sectors of their world furthering the admiral's ambitions.

But what prevents them from turning against their commanders? They don't seem to hold any special abilities whereas ship girls seem capable of summoning heavy artillery, have super strength and the ability to glide on the water with no problem at all.

Why haven't they turned on their handlers?

[Assistant] What reason have the girls got to turn on their commanding officers? They're provided for, they serve a cause they think is important, and they'd probably be an extremely high priority target for other forces if they did go rogue.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it required to turn the sound bar up to 60+ on some streaming services/shows whereas others work fine at 15-20?

[Assistant]
At least part of this likely comes down to how the sound is mastered and mixed; some shows/services just generally master their baseline volume to be louder than others.

Sometimes this is due to thematic vs practical concerns; an action movie is likely to have a sound mix with louder vocal levels than some other shows, because the voices need to be heard over or in contrast to gunfire and explosions without the explosions being too loud, so if an explosion is too loud at volume 30, then the voice of the audio will be mixed to be clearly audible at that same volume level.

Contrast to a highly suspenseful horror or drama where the juxtaposition of people whispering to jump scares or emotional scenes with people loudly yelling or crying, and the volume becomes more dynamic, but at the cost of needing to turn up the volume to hear the whisper-y bits.


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

[User]
[Artemis Fowl] How do time stops work?

I get the general idea of the warlocks working together, but what's happening at the timeline? If you went outside the the timestop, what would happen, or if you entered without going through the portal?

[Assistant]
The time stops work using the theory of relitivety. On the idea that the faster you move relative to other object, that object from your perspective seem to slow down in time.

To achive this they use technology developed by studying the fairy's natural ability to use magic and vibrate themselves to near invisibility. The time stop builds on this by projecting a field over a large area and creating vibrations approaching the speed of light. Therefore inside the field, time outside seems to slow down. It also expalins the rediculous amount of magic required to pull it off.

The reason the portal is nessesary is to create a gradual change between the states of low vibration and high vibration for going into and out of the timestop field (much like deep sea divers using pressure chambers to help prevent the bends). If you do not use the portal however you would die from wiplash on the atomic scale due to the immense change in velocity. In lamens terms you would probably turn in to red mist/mush.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we tend to "like" negative news/information more than positive one?

[Assistant]
Positive things happening are far more common, so people think they're boring. Once you've seen an airplane land, then you feel like you've seen a million. So a headline that says "100000 AIRPLANES LAND SAFELY TODAY: Skilled pilots brave varied weather conditions and irritated passengers!" doesn't sound very interesting compared to "PASSENGER AIRLINER FLIES INTO THE SIDE OF MOUNT EREBUS: Many feared dead!"

It's something innate in the human experience to desire to put things into a narrative context. We like stories. When something scary or negative happens, we instinctively hook onto it like it's the start to a grim novel, despite the fact that it's actually our waking reality. (That sounds horribly depressing (and it is) but this is why there needs to be a great drive in yourself to find how to help, and find people who want to help.)


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

[User]
Theoretically, if one could double a male's X chromosome, could one produce a female clone of the man?

Assuming all social aspects were taken care of, is the genetic material there to possibly create a female clone of a man?

[Assistant] The X and Y chromosomes contain genetic information beyond sex determination. You would end up with a female, but not a clone of the "original". The resulting specimen will be closer-related genetically than a sibling, but still won't be a clone due to the genetic differences encoded in the X and Y chromosomes.


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

[User] Eli5, how do conservationist deal with inbreeding gene pool when trying to bring back species from being endangered?

[Assistant]
A good question. In biology there is a measure called minimum viable population (MVP). Earlier hypothesis stated that a minimum of 50 individuals was needed to prevent harmful inbreeding, but a minimum of 500 was needed to prevent the transmission of harmful traits like lack of immunity throughout the entire population. However, newer models taking in many variables like gestation, environment, etc. have shown that there are species that can reasonably survive with a smaller minimum viable population.

Now how is that information used for actual conservation. It informs biologists how many individual they need in a local protected population to ensure any offspring will stay strong and healthy. Typically this is done through finding or moving wild individuals onto a preserve where they are interfered with minimaly and protected by law and sometimes force. To increase genetic variability, sometimes individual from one preserve are traded to the other. Eventually once a threshold is reached the species will be reintroduced to previous habitats in numbers to create their own viable population.


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

[User]
[Scooby Doo] Are the gang still giant skeptics after all their adventures?

So when the gang first starts solving mysteries and unmasks some guy pretending to be a ghost every other week so he can smuggle sheep off an abandoned air force base or whatever it makes a lot of sense to build up a healthy level of doubt that the next guy isn't just some crook in a costume, but since then they've encountered an island of zombies and cat monsters, actual aliens, a witch, and a sentient computer virus. Did that have an impact or do they still roll around like "yeah, whatever" whenever they see some new mystery?

[Assistant]
They actually have a fairly decent reaction.

They assume the monster is just a dude in a costume at first- it usually is, when you hear hooves assume horses not zebras, so forth so forth- but they rarely rule out a supernatural explanation. Shaggy especially tends to very vocally and enthusiastically suggest a supernatural explanation and a strategy to respond in that situation.

Their actions fit quite well "this might be supernatural, but we'll assume its mundane until proven otherwise."


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

[User]
ELI5: Is "potential energy" actually energy? Or just a descriptor?

So a boulder on the top of a hill has more potential energy than one at the bottom, right? But isn't that arbitrary? Is it "energized" in the same way it would be by heating it up?

I suppose what I'm asking is: does "potential energy" actually exist? Or is it just a useful thing to plug into equations?

[Assistant]
>Is "potential energy" actually energy?

Potential energy is only defined relative to a point of reference.

There is no such thing as "absolute potential energy", which is what you intuitively seem to identify as being "not real". There is a difference in potential energy between a boulder on a hill and a boulder in the valley below. This **difference in potential energy is absolute**. When we say something like a book on a table has potential energy, we implicitly define the ground as a point of reference, relative to which the difference in potential energy is measured.

>Or just a description?

Of course it's just a description. Like every other form of energy as well. "*Energy*" is nothing tangible. It is simply a number that seems to be (mostly) constant in our universe, if we add up all the forms of energy we know.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does garbage have a distinct smell when it's such a large variety of waste items?

[Assistant]
You're not smelling the garbage. You're smelling the stuff given off by the stuff that feeds on the garbage. Most food, whether raw or cooked, generally isn't that smelly (yes there are exceptions). But after a while in the garbage, that food starts hosting a lot of bacteria and fungi and molds and other stuff that give off a lot of waste gas as they break down that food's tissues. You'll really notice it with, say, uncooked meat juices such as when you toss out the packaging on the Big Box Store box of chicken legs.

We humans are pretty good at picking up rotten-food smells because knowing food is off and not eating it was a critically important skill for survival. For this reason, to us rotten food smells overwhelm the weaker smells of the constituent foods in that bag of garbage, and the liquids that are full of them can leak out and be absorbed into stains in the container or dumpster walls over time so they really stick around.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Does the brilliant [Muggle-Born] Hermione only has the equivalent of a 5th grade education?

She leaves muggle schooling at age 11 (right around 5th grade) to attend a school to learn the fine arts of wizardry. She goes for seven years, and eventually finishes Hogwarts and starts to work with the ministry of magic..

Her bio never says anything about exploring more of her former muggle studies...

Now, as a member of the wizarding community, I kinda get why she wouldn't need to, but this is Hermione Granger, someone with an almost feverish need for knowledge.. AND with strong ties to the muggle world (with regards to her parents).

Hermione, as highly intelligent as she is, doesn't understand basic geometry... chemistry... algebra... physics?  She doesn't learn about important muggle world events like WWII, Vietnam and the Cuban Missile Crisis and their effects on the rest of the world (outside of the wizarding perspective)?

[Assistant]
She can't practice magic during breaks so when she's not reading ahead in Hogwarts textbooks she's perfectly capable of self-teaching herself what she needs from traditional muggle curriculum. And she definitely wouldn't need ALL of it.

History? Sure. Basic geometry? Sure. Magic sorta undoes a lot of science and complex math concepts though....

EDIT: Alright you guys are right about math.


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

[User] ELI5 : I've seen so many videos of people with Tourrette syndrome, whistling or saying specific words like bi**h or hello there, what makes them use specific words when it's not intentional? (Why these words specifically)

[Assistant] particular tics are things their brain has attached to. Something they thought was interesting, funny, unusual, or awful... basically anything that might stand out over other things has a higher chance of becoming a tic.


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

[User]
Should I put my grad student union involvement on my CV?

Basically the title. It's not huge or anything, just serving as a union rep for my department. Is this inappropriate to include in my CV, eg, under "Service" or "Community"?

[Assistant] If it's not immediately relevant don't add it.  People don't take very long looking at a CV.  A short CV with a few relevant items is going to win out over an extensive CV full of only tangentially related items.


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

[User]
ELI5 How long can you function once your heart stops?

Often in movies and such when a person is struck in the heart they drop like a sack of potatoes. In real life if someone were to shoot you in the heart how long would you be able to function normally?

[Assistant]
Almost not at all.

Your brain needs a constant supply of oxygen. Even when you're, say, holding your breath, your heart is still circulating your blood (so it's still pulling oxygen from the air left in your lungs), so you can hold out for a little while. But if your heart stops, your brain consumes the available oxygen in a matter of seconds, and you almost immediately pass out (in a matter of a couple seconds at most). Your brain cells can survive for around a minute or two in this state before they start taking irreversible damage (the exact time depends on things like the temperature), and you're dead a few minutes after that.

An example of this in a case where the heart *doesn't* stop is fainting. If you have low blood pressure or certain disorders, standing up quickly causes your heart to briefly not be able to lift blood to your brain, and you faint on standing up. In this case, the brain doesn't stay without oxygen for long enough to do any damage, but you lose consciousness almost instantly.


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

[User]
Do some animals get rabies more often?

I have read of both raccoons and bats getting rabies a lot. Is there something that makes them more likely to contract rabies? And if so why?

[Assistant]
Its a combination of ecology and virus adaptation. Bats (especially) and raccoons tend to interact more with their own species than with other species. That means that if a bat gets rabies, its much more likely to pass it on to another bat.

If it does happen to bite another species, then the other half of the story kicks in. Because bat rabies viruses are the outcome of generations that cycled through  bats, theyre more adapted to that species. They can still infect a wide range of other species, but they are more efficient for the one theyre used to.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why shouldn't we judge Yoda by his size?

I keep hearing people mention that Darth Vader was not anywhere *near* as powerful as his potential because a lot of him was prosthetics. These people say that Force potential is directly diminished by losing parts of your body.

But even after losing a few limbs and being burned to a crisp, I'm fairly sure he still out-massed Yoda. And yet Yoda is one of the more powerful Force users out there.

If you work Midi-whachacallems into it, it makes even less sense. After all, Yoda couldn't possibly contain as many midi-whachacallems as the husk of Anakin Skywalker, let alone a full-sized human like Palpatine. How is Yoda so strong with The Force while being so tiny?

[Assistant]
The number of midichlorians do not, as popularly believed, make you strong in the Force. It measures your Force *potential*. If you have a lot of them, you're more likely to be powerful. You still have to be in tune with the Force to be powerful in it, and Yoda is very in tune. It's like that one Jedi said "You do not drink the bowl, but the soup held within."

Note that, during the battle on Mustafar, Obi-Wan was able to match Anakin Skywalker, who had a much higher midi-chlorian count, nearly move for move. Even with the Force. That's because, at that time, Obi-Wan was more in touch with the Force.


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

[User] If I applied a sufficiently strong tensile force to a perfectly uniform rod, where would it break?

[Assistant] Assuming a pure theoretical tension, i.e. no stresses caused by clamping or bending, it will break at the largest inclusion/imperfection/irregular grain boundary. In an absolutely perfect material it would be random.


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

[User]
[Winnie The Pooh] Why do they refer to him by his species instead of his name?

Is "Pooh" some sort of title, or military rank?

[Assistant] Much like Finn the Human from Adventure Time, there is only one known Pooh. Thus, it's used as a title as well as identifying what he is. He is a bear, but he's of the subspecies Pooh, of which he is the only known example. Hence why Christopher Robin calls him Pooh Bear. If Winnie were a black bear or a polar bear, he'd call him that. Winnie is, however, a Pooh Bear.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that we can remember some childhood memories so vividly, and others not at all?

[Assistant] From a psychological perspective we are more likely to remember memories that are associated with high emotion- usually negative emotion. So if you think of your earliest childhood memory it is usually a negative memory like being violently sick or getting in trouble.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do flies rub their hands together whenever they're not airborne?

[Assistant]
Flies have little hairs all over ~~there~~ their body that they use to basically see and feel their way around the world. Because these hairs are so small, and the flies are always moving though the air, they get dirty easily making it hard for the fly to "see". When flies land, they will rub all the dirt off of their hairs and brush them off their hands so they can sense the world more clearly again!

Edit: A lot of people asked why flies have eyes if they can sense with these little hairs. These hairs help the fly feel, smell, and taste which all help it "see" and understand it's environment better in addition to sight. So if a fly lands onto your peanut butter sandwich, the hairs will tell the fly 1. that it has landed on something, and 2. that that something tastes good so they should eat it.


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

[User] Why is it that I can't seem to find any pictures of molten Carbon? Is it particularly difficult to melt Carbon?

[Assistant]
The triple point of carbon is at about 100 atmospheres and 4500 kelvin, so it has to be contained at pretty pressure and temperature to become liquid. Setups that can transiently melt carbon (like quickly blasting it with a laser) exist, but don't really take good pictures.

The device used to hold things at really high pressure is a diamond anvil cell, but that won't work because it's made of the thing you're trying to melt!


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

[User] ELI5: What is the Internet of Things?

[Assistant]
Typically, people only think of computers and phones being able to connect to the internet. But in the past few years many other devices started being able to connect. First it was TVs, but it's expanded to appliances like refrigerators, washers, dryers, cars, and even light switches!

All of these additional 'things' that people don't automatically associate with connecting to the internet now have that capability.


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

[User]
Why are smaller animals generally able to survive high falls with little damage compared to humans?

I just saw a mouse fall from the top of my stair case to the bottom and still manage to run away, pretty much unharmed. This was a 18 foot fall at least, which would I imagine would cause a couple of broken bones to a person. How is this? Why are smaller animals generally better at surviving high falls compared to us humans?

[Assistant]
You and the mouse accelerate exactly the same, at 9.8 m/s^2. Therefore, falling from the same height, you and the mouse would hit the ground at the same speed. This means the mouse caries a FAR lesser momentum than you, since momentum is the product of your mass and velocity. Since your mass is much greater, and the velocity is the same, your momentum is much greater.

The change in momentum can be approximately stated as the product of Force and time. Since the amount of time you guys are slowed down by the impact is the same, and since a much greater change in momentum must be delivered to you to stop you, you must experience a MUCH greater force than the mouse does.

Since the force on lesser mass organisms is much less than greater mass organisms, they're able to survive equally high falls much more easily if they have the same structural rigidity/ resilience.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why only somethings work on touch screens, and others don't, fingers but not fabric?

This might have been answered in a ELI5 about touchscreens but I didn't really see an explanation about what works and what doesn't.

[Assistant] Most touchscreens work using something called capacitive sensing. Basically, the touchscreen uses a conductor to detect when something is nearby. The human body is also a conductor, and therefore it can interfere with the electrical field of the touchscreen. The screen uses this to detect how a human is interacting with it. Fabric does not conduct electricity, so it doesn't interfere with the electric field.


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

[User]
[Animorphs] What happens to the body of the Yeerk that has infested a morph-capable host? What would happen if a morph-capable Yeerk morphed while in a host's head?

Obviously Yeerks remain in control of their hosts while they are morphed, but how?

[Assistant]
Well, you know how the morphing individual can transform tight clothing if they're trying? Given how tight a Yeerk is around their brain, they might just transform with the individual.

If a Yeerk morphed in a dude's head, they'd probably give him brain damage from the whole "I just turned into a sparrow. While in your skull." deal.


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

[User]
Why do my joints ache so bad when I get a cold?

Seriously, whenever I get a cold, my back aches, and my shoulders, and my knees crack more. I can hardly snap my fingers or anything like that, my fingers feel pretty much arthritic.

[Assistant]
Lymph nodes are small sacs of fluid distributed over your body that support your immune system.  Humans have 500-600 of them.  They also distribute a fluid called Lymph.  This fluid fills tiny gaps in your body that allows you to be squishy and move freely.

When you get a cold, they swell up a bit causing discomfort.  They also produce slightly more lymph that causes parts of your body to swell up, putting constant pressure on your joints, resulting in stiffness and cracking of joints.


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

[User]
[Predator 2] Why do all of the non-SWAT cops use handguns with bulky laser sights? And why is LA such a shithole in 1997, what alternate history caused this?

I don't recall LA ever having a significant Colombian or Jamaican diaspora. And why are all the Jamaicans voodoo practicioners but still dress like rastas?

[Assistant] With the unexplained detonation of a small nuclear device in central America in 1987 and the surrounding international spotlight on the area following, the CIA was much less involved in the region leading to a period of expanded KGB influence and for a time the war on drugs became another cold war proxy, this time not the CIA targeting black america, but the KGB targeting all of America. The Berlin Wall and the USSR still fell, but the damage to the US was done, cartel backed drug gangs were nearly an open power in the streets of larger US cities.


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

[User]
If Garfield does nothing but sleep and eat all day, why does he hate Mondays?

They don't affect him.

[Assistant]
Jon's been home all weekend, hanging out with Garfield, making lasagna. Monday rolls around and off he goes to work, leaving Garfield alone with Odie and *Nermal*. It's like you have no ability to empathize, OP.

And tag your posts.


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

[User] [Doctor Who] Its implied that Weeping Angels are so numerous on Earth that theres a decent chance any given humanoid statue is an Angel. With their capabilities, why havent they attempted to take over?

[Assistant]
Quite possibly they've no need to take over.

They're highly intelligent predators capable of communicating with each other, setting honeypot traps, but there's no indication that they have or are willing to establish a civilization, or to enslave a species of any sorts

They're shadowy predators as old as time masqued as stone figures. They're content with what they have, and will only act maliciously if you hurt one of them (Angels Take Manhattan and that one 12th Doctor short story) or it's a fun game of cat and mouse (Angels Take Manhattan and Flesh and Stone)


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

[User]
ELI5:So what did the TURBO button on my 486 actually do and did it make it faster???

So what did the TURBO button on my 486 or 386 actually do and did it make it faster?

[Assistant]
It didn't make it faster.  It made it *slower*.

Many older games relied upon the CPU clock to provide a timing signal.  Newer processors with faster clocks caused those games to run in a kind of "fast-forward", making them unplayable.  The turbo button allowed you to reduce the clock rate so that those games would run correctly.

Newer (at the time) games began to be written to not rely directly on an the CPU clock signal for their timing, which eventually made the turbo button obsolete.


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

[User]
[DC] Does the Flash take really quick normal steps or big powerful lunges?

If the former, do his normal steps have the same stride length as in nomal speed?

[Assistant]
Both. Flash taps into an energy source called the "SpeedForce". When he's running around, he seems to display typical sprinter's form, from what our high speed cameras can detect. However, the "SpeedForce" allows him (according to our scientists at STAR Labs) to move in other, unexpected ways that a person shouldn't be able to move. He can localize the speed into his arms, for example, and create high speed winds by windmilling his arms. Or, he can speed up his own cognition to read and temporarily retain vast stores of information.

In short, he can run, jump, lunge, slide, sidestep, and even vibrate his own body through solid surfaces due to his connection to this "Speedforce". Man, we need to get him into the lab again to study him. Maybe we can bribe him with a dozen boxes of doughnuts like we did last time....


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

[User] ELI5: Why do European trucks have a flat "face", but North American trucks do not.

[Assistant]
The flat fronted trucks are called "cab-overs". They were fairly popular in the US a few decades ago when overall length (truck and trailer) was a factor in legality. However, nowadays, the standard van trailer is capped at 53 feet in the US--when it's connected to a conventional truck, they're still legal. Longer trailers typically require permits.

The advantages of a conventional truck include a softer ride since you aren't sitting directly above an axle, a simpler design, and more space in the sleeper. These traits are extremely desirable on straight, wide open US roads where you cover long distances (Texas is about 800 miles to drive across--about the same distance as Manchester to Zurich!). The main disadvantage of conventional trucks is the longer wheelbase. This makes the vehicle less maneuverable and many areas in Europe still base legality on overall length of cab + trailer. Further, the better maneuverability of cab-overs pairs well with the tighter, curvier European roads.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What are some things Storm could do with weather manipulation that is never explored

With a power as vague as weather manipulation and her being an Omega level mutant I feel like there's a lot of stuff she can do but she doesn't.

[Assistant]
Honestly her powers have been so thoroughly explored and expanded that her powers aren't much different than telekinesis. She's done stuff from manipulating moisture in the air to appear invisible, to causing major solar events, to separating the oxygen in water to let her breathe underwater. Just think of anything at all and how it could vaguely relate to weather through 5 degrees and she could do it.

Want to blow up someone's head? Have her somehow create negative pressure around their head. Want her to throw around metal like magneto? Have her control the very magnetosphere of Earth. Want her to have fire powers? Oxygen fuels it and hydrogen is combustible, so have her turn moisture in the air into fire. Want to lobotomize someone? Have her manipulate the electricity in someone's brain to cause infinite seizures.


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

[User] ELI5:Why are houses in parts of the US seem to be often built from wood when there are always natural disasters (hurricanes, forest fires..etc)? Shouldn't they logically build them from concrete/bricks?

[Assistant]
Let us look at natural disasters.

Hurricanes damage most things via flooding. Brick and concrete homes are just as vulnerable to flooding damage.

Tornadoes are violent enough that they destroy brick and concrete homes just as easily as they destroy wooden homes. They do make concrete above ground bunkers that are tornado resistant. Those have 4' thick walls that are reinforced with steel and have no windows.

Earthquakes wood does better than concrete or brick because it is flexible. Concrete and brick will crack and break where wood houses bend.

Wild Fires: You do have a point there, wood houses are more vulnerable to fire. but a wild fire will gut a concrete or brick house and damage it enough that even if the walls stand they still have to knock it down and rebuild it.

So it all comes down to price and risk of building the house. Building a wood house is 1/4 - 1/10 the cost of a brick, stone, or concrete house depending on your specific method. People are willing to take the very small risk that their house will be destroyed in a natural disaster for the ability to actually build a house of a size that is decent for human habitation.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do I only get car sick when I'm a passenger and never when I'm a driver?

[Assistant] The same reason why you can't tickle yourself, your body is able anticipate the movements because your brain is the one making the decisions, which delays/prevents the onset of motion sickness. With passengers there is a disconnect between what you are seeing and what your body is feeling (all to do with the balance mechanisms of your inner ear), this fools the brain into thinking you are hullucinating which in turn makes it think it is being poisoned. At this stage you get the nausea as your body wants to expel this imaginary poison by vomiting it out.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it so much easier to fall asleep in a napping scenario and so difficult to fall asleep for a night's rest?

I rarely nap because I am always so busy throughout the day but when I get the opportunity to I have no trouble laying down and just drifting off to sleep for a few hours in front of the TV. However, when I lay down to sleep at night the littlest noise or thought in my head will keep me awake all night. Does anyone else have this issue and if so, why?

[Assistant] You take a nap because you are already tired before engaging in the nap. You go to bed at night because you know you need to in order to have enough energy for the next day. So sleeping because you want to vs. because you are supposed to.


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

[User]
James Webb Space Telescope will be launched at the end of this year, how will it compare Hubble Space Telescope?

I mean we already have some unbelievable imagery from the farthest of space, is new telescope a bigger deal in terms of what will become possible?

[Assistant]
Pretty pictures are a nice side effect but they are not the main purpose of telescopes.

Hubble is focused on visible light and ultraviolet with some infrared measurements. JWST focuses on infrared light with some visible light measurements. Different wavelength ranges have different science goals. In the overlap JWST still has a larger mirror so it can collect more light, can see dimmer objects, and has a better resolution. It also has tons of other improvements.


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

[User]
What's going on when I'm getting a "kink in my neck" after sleeping in an odd position?

I must have slept weird but I woke up with a kink in my neck. What happens that causes this?

[Assistant] Tissue viscoelasticity. The extensible elements in your musculoskeletal system have taken on a certain 'set' after prolonged immobilization. That's why normal sleep is best in a large bed to permit frequent involuntary re-posturing during sleep. Like the flat spot that forms in a tire while the auto is parked. A bit of bump remains but soon disappears with flexing and heat.


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

[User]
Should I take a an intro-to-CS course despite having no experience?

So at the college I'm going to, there is this math requirement I have to do this semester. I've always been kind of bad at any type of math past Algebra, but there is a way around the requirement if I take any kind of CS course.

I've always thought Computer Science was interesting but I've never gotten into it because it didn't seem in my grasp. My question is: do I have any chance understanding anything in my uni's intro CS course if I literally had never thought about taking it until a few hours ago? (I'm a film and history major)

I hope this is the right sub to ask this, I just figured I wanted an opinion from people with experience. I think I would likely find the course interesting, I just don't want to get in over my head.

[Assistant]
This is going to be entirely dependent on you and your universities course. Is it an introduction to CS for majors, or for non-majors? What does the syllabus cover?

Honestly though, based on the title alone, I'd assume a true introduction course is something anyone could take to be introduced to the topic.


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

[User]
[Amazing Spider-Man films] So did Peter just stop giving a shit about Uncle Ben's killer?

He randomly stopped looking for him halfway through the first one and didn't even mention him in the sequel. I wonder if he's still out there, killing uncles as we speak.

[Assistant] He didn't stop caring, he stopped *obsessing.* And that's good, because his hunt for the guy was self destructive and damaging. He's still on the lookout for the guy, but he's not actively searching for him. Revenge isn't Peter's goal anymore, helping people is.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the reason behind the QWERTY and AZERTY keyboards?

Why can't keyboards be ABCDE... instead of QWERTY or AZERTY?

[Assistant]
With old typewriters, if two adjacent letters were pressed in quick succession, there was a very good chance that the lever arms which stamp the ink on the page would jam. As such, they developed a keyboard (the QWERTY) that spread out the most used letters to prevent such jamming. When computer keyboards were first becoming a thing, they kept the layout because it was what all the typists were familiar with.

AZERTY was pretty much the same thing, but just for other countries (and was in fact modeled off the QWERTY layout).


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

[User]
[Pokemon] How much neurological damage do Pokemon tend to accumulate?

When I fill out a medical history the doctor is concerned if I have ever been knocked unconscious even once. Meanwhile Pokemon faint in battles on a daily basis and seem none the worse for wear.

[Assistant]
Pokemon are surprisingly resilient. They can take a tremendous amount of punishment that would kill animals in our world.

Additionally, veterinary technology is highly advance. Even conditions, such as paralysis and toxins, can be cured, and health can be fully restored.

As long as you don't subject your knocked out Pokemon to further abuse and get it to a Poke Center, then they will be fine.


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

[User]
[Edge of Tomorrow] What is going to happen to liberated Europe?

After the mimics are beaten, whats going to happen to liberated Europe, where Im assuming most of its original inhabitants are all dead?

Are Russia and China coming from the Eastern front just going to occupy and take territories, and is it going to be a race for the British and Americans to meet them in the middle, much like the western Allies and the Soviet Union at the end of WWII?

Also why was China fighting? Was it because they truly saw the mimic threat a threat to the human race and their own existence?

Or does a global invasion like this, finally unite humanity and people to quit fighting amongst themselves?

[Assistant]
I can see this unifying the nations who now know that a)  extraterrestrials are real and b) interstellar travel is possible. There will be a lot of public support for government efforts to prevent another hostile invasion, which will lead to the development of space.

There probably won't be a huge race to fill the unoccupied areas because that's a lot of space and everyone's already stretched thin resource-wise. Anyone going there would have to be self sustaining or rely on an already stressed supply chain situation for a while. Some refugees who fled might return home.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the space shuttle or the soyuz need special tiles to reenter the atmosphere but spacex falcon does not?

[Assistant]
Are you talking about the Falcon 9 first stage, or the actual Dragon capsule?

If you're talking about the Falcon 9 first stage, that's because it separates from the rest of the rocket at a relatively low altitude and speed, and thus there's less heat during reentry. It also burns it's engines to slow down to further reduce heating.

If you're talking about the Dragon capsule, it does have tiles. The shuttle and Dragon have reusable tiles since the shuttle was reusable and so is the Dragon. The Soyuz does not have tiles. It has a simple ablative heat shield because the capsule is not reusable. Once it lands back on earth, its job is done, so the heat shield does not need to reused either.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do professional fighters "hug"? Is that any kind of defense? Does that have something to do with any rule?

[Assistant] I think you're referring to the clinch.  In most forms of karate, the clinch is a position from which you perform a lot of throws or strikes (such as knees to the head, or elbows to the head).  In boxing, it is a defensive move to make sure that you do not get an uppercut or hook to the face.


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

[User]
ELI5: What's happening in my brain when I "get tired" of a flavor/snack?

Like how I used to love sour cream and onions chips and would eat a bag once a week: now I can't stand them!

[Assistant] Your reward center associated with that particular sensation has all its NT receptor occupied or shut off this decrease neuron activity or stops it altogether.  It's a form of habituation.  Similar to how drug addicts always trying to reach that same high but impossible.  Good for you is that it will eventually go away given time.


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

[User]
[The Terminator]Why did Future John set Kyle's arrival time so close to the Terminator"s

This does not make any sense when you have time machine at your disposal. When John/The Resistance set the co-ordinates/date for Kyle, why did they send him back so close to the Terminator's arrival. Why not simply send him back a week or two prior. This would have given him ample time to reach Sarah and get her out of the city. From what I recall, it was never suggested that the TDE had any sort of limitation terms of how far one can time travel, but I could be wrong.

[Assistant] It was a new technology, and there wasn't really any time to develop it. They basically used the time coordinates that were already put in... it's complicated, but with the earth's movement in orbit and rotation, the output was already not identical to the first trip, though similar. The whole thing would've been a lot easier if it were attached to a flux capacitor.


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

[User]
Could a spider support itself if it was giant, like in Harry Potter?

Theoretically speaking, would a giant, human sized spider make sense scientifically?

Please ignore how this question is phrased, you get the idea.

[Assistant] Probably not. Exoskeletons can't support creatures that large. The surface area to volume ratio means that the inside of the spider would become too heavy for the exoskeleton to support unless is was extremely thick. Also, insect and arachnids breathe through pores in their abdomens, so it is doubtful that enough air would be able to diffuse into a creature that large effectively.


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

[User]
Prof claims first authorship for paper that I wrote 75% of.

Hi everyone,

I was scrolling through the recent posts, and there was this post about getting screwed out of authorship that generated a great deal of discussion. My story is marginally relevant to that post (also on the issue of authorship) but with major differences which I will now elaborate on.

Prof is relatively new to the faculty, and not yet tenured. I'm currently the only graduate student at his lab, and the first PhD student to be under him. One advantage of this situation is that I'm often at the frontline of his aggressive pursuit of new studies, collaborations, and publications, and therefore benefit from active involvement. The disadvantage is that this "active involvement" meant skipping sleep to produce whole drafts of manuscripts within days, running and re-running analyses for all the lab's studies (including undergraduates' projects), and stressing over reviewers' requests for revisions. To provide some context, Prof is not at all handy with data analyses (a huge surprise for me, considering that my field is in the area of quantitative science). I often get emails asking me to analyze data ("Can you analyze this and tell me what you find by tomorrow?), without any specifications of the types of analyses required. My job is to figure out how to frame research questions based on the variables, produce interpretable and interesting findings from the analyses, summarize them, and send them to Prof. Thus far, Prof has provided very little intellectual contribution to any of his projects, an observation that has led to past batches of graduate students leaving the lab and his not-so-pretty reputation in the university.

So one day, after I did the analyses and interpretations for a dataset, Prof told me to submit a draft manuscript to him in 3 days. Incredibly stressful, but I met the deadline. Then Prof just said that he would work on it further before sending it to a collaborator. A few months later, I received an email from Prof asking for edits, and the revised manuscript was attached. The introduction part was written largely by Prof, but the rest of the paper remained exactly, word for word, what I had initially written. I was "informed" (by looking at the list of authors in the manuscript) that I would be third author, and Prof would be first. I'm thankful that I get to be in a publication anyway, but I feel like I'm doing much more work than what the first author has contributed. Sure, Prof provided the resources and came up with the research question (mainly a replication of the collaborator's prior work). However, data interpretation (an unexpected finding) was done by me and the collaborator. I also get the feeling that Prof has been trying to block me out. I have to send him all drafts and revisions, which he then sends to the collaborators, and I'm kept out of the loop until there is work to be done. If my input wasn't needed, I wouldn't have known about the order of authorship until the paper was published.

I'm not here to make accusations and I don't think I'm gonna find trouble for this, but just mildly curious whether this is the way authorships operate. There's another paper that I wrote in its entirety, and now I'm wondering if I would be blocked out of the subsequent processes once I complete my job of producing the manuscript.

[Assistant]
Etiquette on authorship is very field-dependent. Some fields just use alphabetical ordering of authors as standard. However, in the majority of science fields, first author is the guy who did the majority of the work (usually grad or post-grad), and final and corresponding author is the guy who raised the majority of the money to do the work and/or who supervised the work.

So it sounds like you are being screwed here, but it also sounds like this is a small portion of a large pattern of being screwed rather than an isolated incident of screwing.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What if Tom Riddle hadn't been introduced to the Wizarding World?

What if Tom Riddle:

**A** - Still had his magic powers but never met Dumbledore and never learned about the Wizarding World.

**B** - Was a Squib and never learned about the Wizarding World, basically being a Muggle.

What would have become of him? How would things be different?

[Assistant]
Even if Dumbledore never met him, Tom would have eventually been introduced into the wizarding world somehow. Someone else from the Ministry or Hogwarts would have noticed a young boy with magic and would have taken him. Their spells and systems are too good to let him escape notice. They have to be to maintain secrecy from muggles.

But let's say your situation does come true:

a) His innate cruelty and malice would have had him explore his powers more and more. He'd know he was special and he'd find ways to dominate and hurt people for many years. The power would probably go even more to his head than it did normally, since he'd never know there were others like him. He'd assume he was much further above mortals so his already massively inflated ego would expand to untold heights.

However, he would eventually screw up. With no knowledge on how to create magical defenses against muggles and no knowledge on where to live and hide from muggles, he would eventually be killed by police or possibly military forces. Have no doubt, someone like him would run afoul of the law and would get caught. The fight to take him down might be a terrible thing, gaining news attention and the like, but he would eventually meet a bullet.

b) He'd probably live a sad, normal life, expressing his dark side through hurting animals and people. He'd eventually be arrested and sent to prison. Depending on when he gets arrested, he'd either be locked away and left to rot, or given extensive psychological help. It probably wouldn't work, given his nature, so he'd die behind bars or in a psych ward's bed, pumped full of tranquilizers to keep him sedated.


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

[User]
[Back to the Future] Can the DeLorean travel to a year before christ?

Doc Brown never mentions if the machine can travel to a year B.C and it doesn't seem to have a setting that allows it to travel to a year before Christ. I doubt the Doc would overlook something like that, wouldn't he want to travel to the Macedonian empire or to see the foundation or rome?

Added to that. Can the machine go to a year with a number with more than 4 ciphers?

[Assistant]
Yes, in both the animated series and in the Universal ride (of dubious canonicity), the Delorean is able to visit 67,000,000 B.C. and interact with the dinosaurs. In the latter, Biff has stolen the Delorean and Doc recruits a band of 8 volunteers (Universal patrons) to use a prototype 8-seater Delorean to chase Biff down and help recover the original Delorean. The Delorean gets thumped by a dinosaur whilst in flight, barely surviving the prehistoric escapades.

Apparently there's also a non-canon version of events when 2015 Biff steals the Delorean (like in BTTF2) and accidentally thumps the time circuit display with his cane and gets sent back to prehistoric times when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. A velociraptor attempts to steal his bag containing the Greg's Sports Almanac for his scheme, but Biff cracks it in the skull with his cane in order to recover his loot and complete his 1955 scheme.

It's likely there's a toggle for BC or AD, and potentially an extended chronometer for larger date entry.


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

[User] ELI5: How do our bodies tend to crave unhealthy foods with lots of sugar and unhealthy fats more than healthy foods such as vegetables? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

[Assistant]
So, back in caveman days, sugar and fat and salt were really rare. Sugar and fat were full of energy that would help us survive famines. Salt helps regulate our body's fluids. So we evolved to find them delicious, to encourage people to work hard to find those rare treats.

It's only been relatively recently that getting too much fat, salt and sugar has been possible, where we can eat so much of them that we negatively impact our health. But, our bodies are still in caveman mode going "We need to store as much fat as we can to survive an ice age!" Evolution takes thousands of years, and so our bodies still act they way they did when we were cavemen hunting mammoths to survive.


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

[User]
How long after clinical death, can someone be revived?

How long without damage to the body (brain, heart, etc.)? And how long before being unable to keep yourself alive (breathing by yourself, without help)?

[Assistant]
Its quite variable, but even with good CPR and return of spontaneous circulation after only a few minutes people can have quite significant hypoxic brain injuries. If youve been having CPR for more than 10-15 minutes your chances of survival are pretty slim.

There are certain cases where this doesnt always hold true. Hypothermia is the classic one, because the low temperatures preserve the brain. It also depends on the quality of the CPR given. Also probably depends how healthy you are to start with.

I have to say that if Im doing CPR for longer than 20 minutes Im thinking about stopping 95% of the time.

The caveat to this question is that actually the time of death is 5 minutes after the last heartbeat, so youre not even officially dead for the first 5 minutes. And if you started CPR after 5 minutes of no cardiac output your survival chances are even lower. So the question is probably flawed.


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

[User]
[DC] Has Arkham Asylum ever acyually rehabilitated a Villain?

What I mean, is that if there has been a moment where the staff helped a criminal mastermind rehabilitate from their crimes and return to society?

[Assistant]
Technically yes.

They successfully treated Cluemaster, basically a poor man's riddler, of his mental illness. As such, he was no longer compelled to send clues about his crimes to batman/the police, making him instantly far more threatening.

The moral of the story? There is an important difference between someone who's dangerously insane and someone who's dangerous and insane.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why isn't every starfighter a droid starfighter?

A droid-controlled starfighter should be superior to a human-controlled starfighter in every possible metric.

* A droid brain can be directly integrated into the fighter, eliminating precious milliseconds of reaction time and eliminating the inefficient interface between the pilot and the controls.
* A droid brain has direct access to ship systems and is fully aware of every alert and status.
* A droid starfighter can be equipped with superior senses than a human pilot.
* A droid is not subject to the same physiological limitations as a human. They require no life support, and can perform more intense maneuvers without worrying about G-forces.
* Bonus: you don't have to pay or feed a droid!

Given all of these advantages, why do so many navies insist on using cumbersome, fragile, slow human beings??

[Assistant]
Those points should all be valid, but in reality organic pilots kills droids by the score. You'd think that super advanced robotic ships would be far superior, living aimbots with perfect calculations of speed and direction, with an instant understanding of what all other droids are doing and how to use this information to its advantage. But they don't, they sucks ass and they're expensive.
OOU: it really breaks the immersion for me that droids are so shit at everything.


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

[User]
[DC] How fast does a Green Lantern fly?

Obviously these guys must be able to travel entire seconds in mere minutes (or hours or whatever). So whilst they obviously can't move as fast as the Speed Force, surely they could keep up with the likes of Superman and Shazam?

[Assistant] The Hubble Extreme Deep Field (XDF) has shown that there are at least 175 Billion galaxies in the universe, perhaps more. With 3600 Green Lantern sectors, that means that each Lantern has somewhere around 49 million galaxies to patrol. The nearest galaxy to our own is about 2.5 million light years away. So even if a Green Lantern could travel at a million times the speed of light, it would still take two and a half years just to go from one galaxy to the next--and they have 49 million of these things in their jurisdiction. They have to be moving billions or even trillions of times the speed of light when in space, just to do their job. The only other option would be for them to spend lifetimes simply trying to get from one side of their sector to the other.


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

[User]
[Musicals] I was just working in my bar when a large group of people ran into my place, started singing and dancing all over the tables and throwing stuff to each other, stole my hat and ran out again.

They've caused absolute chaos all over town. They're dancing on top of cars in traffic, swinging on lampposts, causing significant vandalism and bringing the whole area to a complete standstill. From information I've gathered, the leader of this group of roaming troubadours had just gotten engaged so had to sing a jaunty number and the rest of the people had just gotten caught up the the group.

Now that I think about it, this happens a lot. A LOT. Random masses of very well choreographed people holding up entire streets, shops, homes and parks are everywhere and seem completely spontaneous despite looking like they've practiced for weeks with music that plays from seemingly nowhere.

I want to know who I charge for the damage to my bar. They've made a huge mess, taken my stuff and caused a lot of damage. Will my insurance cover roving hordes of dancers? And how do I get this to stop? Are the laws deciding who is allowed to lead these singing troupes?  What circumstances warrant these routines? If I cook a cracking roast, run into the street and sing an impromptu song, will other join in or will I look like a crazy person?

[Assistant]
Your insurance doesn't cover it.

Best bet is to start working while singing a catchy tune. With luck, others will pick it up. Soon you'll have a whole horde of surprisingly well choreographed builders arrive and do several hours repair work in about 3 minutes.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did Luke just Force Choke those two guards.

Seriously, he could've just pushed them away with the Force (which is a relative 'simple' thing to do for a Jedi) or just perhapse used Force mind trick. Why did he just Force Choke them, which is not only a bit hard to do, but also very Sith like.

[Assistant] Throughout ROTJ, Luke is struggling with the Dark Side. His black clothing is symbolic of this, as well as the fact that the act of him walking into Jabba's palace is shot such as to deliberately make him look like Vader at first. He Force Chokes the gammoreans because he's angry, frustrated and cocky and those emotions are influencing him to act in violent and cruel ways, as happens to all Force users who run away from their training early on a rash emotionally-charged mission that their teachers explicitly advise against.


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

[User] How does H. Pylori bacterium increases the amount of HCl produced? Or how does H. Pylori increases the activity of the proton pump?

[Assistant]
I assume you're referring to why H. Pylori causes stomach ulcers. It doesn't increase HCL or change the activity of the proton pump at all. H. Pylori causes stomach ulcers by attacking and infecting the cells that line the stomach. With these cells damaged the acid within the stomach eats away at the tissue that's now unprotected causing stomach ulcers.

The reason that th medication class "proton pump inhibitors" work in the treatment of stomach ulcers is that with less acid the stomach is better able to heal without the wound being constantly exposed to acid.


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

[User] ELI5: What benefits do mutual funds provide, and why invest in a mutual fund instead of a dividend stock or other asset that would bring sooner returns?

[Assistant]
The reason to buy a mutual fund is because you are not going to be good at picking stocks.  Buying an individual stock is essentially gambling.  You are betting that you know better than the market what the value of the stock will be.

When you buy a mutual fund you are buying a large group of stocks.  The risk averages out.  You will not make as much money as the best stock or lose as much as the worst stock.

The recommendation is to buy an index fund such as an S&P 500 index fund.  The fund just buys the stock of the companies in the S&P 500.  You will do as well as the S&P 500 does.


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

[User]
CMV: I don't agree with the fact that breasts are considered nudity and are illegal in public places.

I dont think breasts should be considered nudity and illegal in public places.

If a fat guy can wear no shirt, what's the difference? If anything the fat guys man moobs is more disturbing than most breasts.

Here's an experience when breasts being nudity and illegal was ridiculous. Me and my family were at a Waterpark (11 years ago) and a woman was breast feeding her baby, doing nothing wrong. But because her breast was showing she got kicked out.

Girls aren't grossed out by seeing other breasts. Most boys definitely wouldn't be upset about this. And it's the same as a manboob, just it comes out more and is squishy.

But I do agree the other nudity area should be illegal in public.

Change my view.

[Assistant]
Theyve been legal in Canada for close to 30 years.  You know how many times Ive seen a woman in public topless?

You can count it with no fingers.

Most women dont seem to want to walk around topless.


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

[User]
Why is my frosted notebook cover transparent when close to an object, but opaque at distances?

I was in class and I realized that as I opened my notebook cover, the text underneath became rapidly out of focus. The cover to the notebook is a frosted plastic. When the cover is closed and the plastic is directly above the text, everything is easy to read. Once the cover is a distance of a few centimeters from the page, nothing below can be made out.

I assume this is based upon some refraction principle, but I could not find a good explanation anywhere.

[Assistant] the cover refracts light at different angles (most likely due to surface roughness).  thus, at close distances, rays aren't bent much, but when the distance between the medium and the subject are increased, increased refraction blurs the image.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there so many clean air natural gas buses but not many natural gas cars?

[Assistant]
One major reason is that CNG (*Compressed* Natural Gas) requires a pressurized container and contains less energy per volume than gasoline at any reasonable pressure. Thus the fuel tank takes up much more space and mass, which is obviously less of a problem in a bus. It also makes distributing the fuel slightly harder, which favors centralized locations like bus depots.

Then there's the simple thing that 'everyone' uses gasoline anyway so most new development is still focused on it.


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

[User] Is it morally wrong to have sex with a nymphomaniac (sex addict)?

[Assistant]
I think you need to reframe your question to be a little more clear:

* Is it wrong to have sex with someone you didnt know was a nymphomaniac? No, you cant enable something you didnt know about.

* Is it morally wrong to have sex with a nymphomaniac if you are both consenting adults? No, theres consent there..even if it is very loose because..sex addict.

* is it morally wrong to have sex with a nymphomaniac who is currently in therapy for their sex addiction? Yes, probably, because youre just going to aid in their relapse.


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

[User]
[Avatar: The Last Airbender] Couldn't earth benders just bend small rocks and hurl them at the speed of a bullet

It seems much more effective then slowly throwing big rocks at your enemy, or cracking the ground beneath them.

[Assistant]
For the same reason most airbenders dont just bend the air out of peoples lungs, most firebenders dont just fire jet engine streams out of their hands, and most waterbenders dont just strangle people with vines by bending the water in them.

Because its not actually that easy to do. Bending works off of specific styles and forms, and  like all martial arts  it takes years of practice to achieve competence. More specific and esoteric styles exist, but theyre not common and likely take even more years of specific study.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do darknet dealers get drugs like cocaine and heroin in the first place?

Like where does the drug come from in the first place? How'd they make it and stuff?

[Assistant]
The same way traditional drug dealers do.  From producers, or importers (who get them from producers).  The drug supply chain does not change, what changes is how the product gets to the end user.

Think of it like Amazon vs a general store.  They both buy products from suppliers and wholesalers but they retail the products very differently.


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

[User] ELI5 How do bookstores prevent book pages from turning yellow?

[Assistant]
Technically, they don't prevent it.  There are at least two reasons why you don't SEE the pages turning yellow on the bookshelves in a bookstore:

1. Books don't stay on their shelves long enough for you to notice the pages yellowing.
2. Their A/C works to keep the humidity LOW.  Keeping the air dry slows the aging process of paper.


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

[User]
[Firefly] How many planets are in the system?

The intro says that they left our solar system and found a new one with hundreds of earth's, but isn't that extremely unrealistic to have that many earth-like planets around one star?

[Assistant]
Not just one system. It's a local cluster of star systems all within easy traveling distance of each other.

Also, most of the planets are *not* earth-like. They had to terraform many of them, and that's why living on the worse planets is so harsh.


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

[User]
The idea that rape is only about power is ludicrous. CMV

We often hear that "rape isn't about sex, it's about power."

Read any popular article on rape it will tell you that is all about power or control (the terms are used as synonyms).

Really? That's it?

Are you seriously trying to tell me that the phenomenon of rape can be explained by a single cause in all instances? That for every rape committed by every person ever is always about power or control?

Can you name any behavioral phenomenon that can be explained by a single psychological factor for all people - a diverse set of people?

I can't. Because there isn't one. People are different. People are complicated. People are complex. Similarly, so are there reasons for doing things.

[Assistant]
There are a variety of rape types. Nearly all stranger rapes are about power in some form. Sex is used as a weapon because it is singular in its ability to humiliate and degrade and utterly destroy someone's spirit. That being said, what motivates a violent rapist is not going to be identical to a date rapist. The element of power play is always there in some form, whether it be rage, jealousy, needing to put someone "in their place", sadism, etc. That is all less about sex and more about demoralizing.

There've been studies done in which known rapists were interviewed about many things, including their motivation. Across the board, power was listed first and foremost. Now, mind you, these were not get-her-drunk-and-screw-her date rapes. These were stranger and violent rapes (some of the most violent rapes are committed by someone who knows the victim, including their own spouse). Power and control were the main factors, along with establishing dominance, demoralizing, breaking the spirit.

All the nonsense that gets brought up in court...what was the victim wearing, what is the victim's sexual history, etc...none of that played a part in their selection. What they look for is accessibility, the ability to overpower their victim (be it by threat, force, physical size), and privacy.

Date rape, frat rape, roofie rape... these are similarly about taking what they want. Its victims are often treated as subhuman, their desire and will disregarded. That *is* about power in its essence. Power is not just physical. It's social power, mental and emotional domination, intimidation.

Rape is about a sense of entitlement, and taking what they consider theirs to take. That is power play at its core.


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

[User]
Eli5: why was the photo of The Beatles crossing the street so significant and famous to this day? What made it so iconic?

I'm 24 so The Beatles were before my time, but I see the famous photo everywhere on a regular basis, what makes it so legendary?

[Assistant]
Two things:

1) It was the cover to what would become the Beatles' most popular album

2) There wasn't any text on the outside of the album.  You were just supposed to recognize "oh that's a picture of the Beatles" and figure out that it was the new Beatles' album.  This resulted in it becoming a kind of pre-internet meme because the uniqueness of an album without any text of the cover got people to show it to one another and generally share information about it.

So a lot of people who were alive at the time owned the album, thought it was the best album in their collection, learned to recognize it solely from the cover image, and shared it in a fashion that was similar to an internet meme.


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

[User] ELI5: How are film studios able to take old films filmed on a film reel and digitally remaster them to look as crisp as digital video?

[Assistant]
Film is much higher quality than any of the digital video formats in common use.

You can't really put a number on film's exact resolution, but it's ~9-10 megapixels; when you scan a 35mm negative into a computer, you keep discovering additional details until you reach 9 to 10 megapixels, so that's its rough resolution, varying a little depending on the exact brand and quality.

DVD is only 0.34 (USA/Japan) or 0.41 (Australia/Europe) megapixels. HDTV is only 0.9, and Blu-ray is only 2.1. 4K is 8.

Or in other words: if we take a film reel and use a big scanner to create a digital video from it, scanning at Blu-ray resolution only captures around 1/5th of the detail in the film. That's how they make DVDs/Blurays, they use a big scanner.

8K is the first digital video format we've created that's higher-quality than professional-quality 35mm film. It's still not better than 70mm film (the kind used for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, etc and Soviet films of the 70s and 80s).


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

[User]
[MCU] why didnt the Celestias get involved with the Infinity War?

I get the Eternals only dealt with the Deviants, but a Celestials sole way of being born is by leaching the energy of the planets sapient organisms.

Thanos plan fundamentally went against that, youd think theyd want to get involved (Honestly, everyone in the universe shouldve gotten involved on principle if they knew).

Did the Celestials just not *know* what Thanos was doing?

[Assistant]
There are indeed a great many powerful beings and groups which would have tried to stop Thanos or anyone else from gathering all infinity stones. Thanos knew this, and planned for it.

He worked through proxies (Loki, Ronan,) for his early grabs. It wasn't Thanos who had the mind stone and went after the space stone, it was Loki, and that was only in service of conquering a world that was important to him. It wasn't Thanos who went after the power stone, it was Ronan, and that was so he could destroy his spiritual enemies. Yes, these figures getting a stone or two was bad, but no more so than them acquiring a particularly powerful weapon or tool.

Thanos was a known warlord who had attacked and "balanced" worlds, yes, but he didn't openly pose an existential threat to the universe. The only reason anyone outside of Thanos' inner circle found out what his real plan was, was because a member of that inner circle betrayed him to the Guardians of the Galaxy. He didn't go after the stones openly until he was ready, at which point the whole thing took only a matter of days (although we don't know exactly how long assaulting Xandar took, from the Asgard ship to the Snap really isn't very long, a couple days at most but probably closer to hours.)

So it was a time issue. Much of the Universe who even knew about the Infinity Stones or who Thanos was only found out after the fact. The Eternals would have found out about the aliens attacking New York, certainly, but probably considered it an Avengers issue. By the time anyone outside the Guardians and the few people they told knew what was happening, it was over.


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

[User] I was just awakened by a thunderstorm. Is counting the seconds after a flash to the sound of the thunder and then dividing by two actually an accurate measurement of distance?

[Assistant]
Close, but actually divide by five. Very roughly, the speed of sound is 0.2 miles per second. The speed of light is more than 186,000 miles per second, fast enough that we can consider it instantaneous over these kinds of distances.

So, if the thunder is heard 1 second after the lightning, it's 0.2 miles away; 2 seconds 0.4 miles, etc.

Note that this is a pretty rough measurement. The speed of sounds actually varies with temperature and humidity, and the speed of light isn't actually instantaneous. If you wanted an exact measurement, you'd need to account for these things. But, for the purposes of waking up to thunder and wondering (approximately) how close it is, the "divide by five" rule is certainly good enough.


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

[User]
CMV: Republicans will not repeal Obamacare

So the repeal process has started in earnest. My view on this is that the GOP has spent 8 years turning Obamacare into an Emmanuel Goldberg-esque talisman, the key to everything they hate. The question remains whether or not they can repeal it. I don't think they can, and I think this is the reason why.

The best theory I've heard on this is that one of the reasons they can't is that GOP Congressman don't actually know either what's in Obamacare or what the replacement plans do. They've spent so many years hating this bill and imbibing the fury against it, most back benchers in the GOP Congress are no more knowledgeable about what the bill does than anyone else. They don't even understand what it is they want to repeal. All they know is certain portions of it they hate.
Problem is you can't just repeal those portions. But they have also been told that there are these great GOP Replacement Plans that will do even better! Of course, these plans don't exist. But again - how many GOPers in Congress know that?

This is the same thing that happened in 2005 in social security. Lots of GOPers in Congress swallowed the idea that SS needed to be reformed. They just assumed that their genius colleagues had plans which reformed SS in a way that would keep all the good stuff and get rid of the bad stuff. Of course, no one had any plan like that, because the GOP is both intellectually lazy and intellectually dishonest. And so when SS reform got underway, all these Congressfolks finally had to pick something to vote for, and they couldn't. Because no option existed. And so reform died.

Most likely scenario? The GOP reforms some minor parts of Obamacare, stuff Obama himself would have likely been willing to deal on had the GOP just been willing to talk, they will claim victory and change the name.

I would also note that I don't think "Repeal and Delay" will happen, because I actually don't think Trump will sign it. He has no reason to do to so, as he doesn't hate Obamacare in his bones, and he's going to get advice from guys like Bannon saying there's no political upside in him doing it.

Republicans don't want to repeal Obamacare. They just want to be able to say they did.

[Assistant] People like Paul Ryan are vehemently, ideologically opposed to Obamacare in principle.  They would absolutely repeal it out of a true belief that it's making the world a better, less socialist place, and they'd worry about reelection later.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why are the Separatists and their droid army so feared? It seems like they lose most, if not all, of the battles the Republic engages them in

Even their top general, General Grievous, seems to be extremely incompetent in military strategy, with him being beat back at almost every turn. Also, their droids are incredibly inaccurate for robots that have a built in aiming system.

[Assistant]
Actually the sepratists won quite a few battles, especially in the beginning. It's just that most of them were "off screen".

And while most of the droids (and to an extent higher ups) were pretty incompetent(all part of pappa palps plan) they still had staggering numbers on their side and a all around technological advantage(even if it wasn't fully utilised)

Also dont forget palpatine, the leader of the republic was feeding them key intel so they always seemed one step ahead of the GAR (because they were)


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What about the 99.99% of every planet that we don't get to see?

We only ever seem to see a city-sized location on any one planet, neglecting all its other major cities and continents. We see other desert planets like Attolon, Jakku, Jedha, Geonosis, but we only ever glimpse a fragment of each.

What's up with the rest of the planets' land mass? Is anything interesting going on, elsewhere on other continents? Are there even people living there? Or are planets in SW smaller/more centrally populated?

[Assistant]
A large number of Mid Rim and Outer Rim planets are basically farming planets or otherwise sparsely populated outside of a few cities.

Inner Rim and Core planets tend more towards urban, with a fair (but by no means overwhelming) number of them being ecumenopoleis like Taris and Coruscant.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Padme lost the will to live

What does this mean? How do you die by losing the will to live and how did padme do so?

[Assistant]
Padme violated a lot of rules in life because of her love for Anakin. She knew it was wrong to be that involved with a Jedi, and that the discovery of their relationship would ruin both of them in the eyes of everyone - the Jedi, the Senate, the people. It would be a singular downfall for both people. And yet, she never wavered in her love for him. She gave him literally everything.

Then she discovered what he has done as he went over to the dark side. All of the evil, all of the killing, all of the soul-destroying acts. And when she confront him about it, he says "I did it all for *you*. Come be with me, and rule the galaxy."

So suddenly, because he did it all for her, everything that happened is her fault in her mind. And if she had taken a moment to see all the mistakes she was making, to pull back and say "this is wrong", that maybe none of this would have gone the way it had. Anakin would still be good. The Emperor would not be a thing. Millions of people would not have died in vain.

Because of her.

And remember, there is a tangible, proven life Force in the universe. And even though only those lucky enough to have the biology to wield it can feel it, all life is still part of it; all life creates it. And when confronted with the enormous guilt her actions caused, it's very possible she wanted to die *so much* that the life Force of the universe gave her that release.


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

[User]
ELI5. Can the definition of 20-20 vision be changed? Since the definition is "what the average person sees at 20 feet" can the goalposts be moved so to speak if peoples' vision gets better or worse enough? Has this ever happened in the past?

I know that the metric for IQ is changed so that average always remains 100 but is it the same for vision testing? If the answer is no could someone who's into statistics maybe link some current vision data so we can see if the average actually is 20-20 or if peoples' vision has actually changed since the tests were invented?

[Assistant] Having 20/20 vision on the Snellen eyechart does not mean "what the average person sees at 20 feet".  The 20/20 refers to the specific line on the eyechart that the patient can read.  The first number (always 20) is the distance in feet at which the test was conducted.  The second number (and this is a little complicated) is the distance in feet at which the gap in the letter "C" in the font used on the eyechart would cover 1 minute of visual angle (1/60th of a degree).  So, for the 20/20 line on the eyechart, that would mean that 20 feet away from the chart, the gap in the letter C would be 1 minute of visual angle on the retina.  So, if the 20/20 line is the smallest you can read on the chart, then you have 20/20 vision.  If the smallest line you can read is the 20/15 line, then you have 20/15 vision.  20/20 vision is typically considered good (better than average) and the repetition of the numbers is "catchy" so that may be why the phrase caught on.


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

[User] ELI5: How does Google get the money to drive Google Map cars all around the world without getting anything in return? What do they get from doing all that work and from all those expenses?

[Assistant]
You have to remember that although Google has its finger in many technological pies, the vast majority of its income still comes through selling advertising. And to be a world-class multi-billion-dollar online advertising broker requires you to hold as much data as possible on the people who will be viewing your adverts -- the better the data you hold the more accurately you can target advertising, and therefore the more money you can charge your advertisers.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that what Google gains from its streetview programme is simple: lots more people using Google Maps in preference to any other mapping product. The more people who use Google Maps (especially on an auto-geolocating device such as a mobile phone), the more data Google has about those people, which in turn it can use to boost its revenue stream as described in the first paragraph.


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

[User] [SW Rogue One] If "All is as the Force wills it" does that mean the Force wanted all the Jedi dead and the bad guys in charge of the galaxy?

[Assistant]
Sort of, but not really.

The Force is all about balance; it is always attempting to find an equilibrium between good and evil, logic and emotion, life and death, etc... After all, what is goodness without evil to compare it to?

We see, time and time again, in an almost cyclical way, incredible evil being born from a time of great peace and complacency, and incredible good emerging from a time of terrible suffering and persecution. This is balance. Balance isn't found all at the same time, but over time, on a galactic scale. Each "revolution" reinforces these aspects of our nature, and ensures that neither side truly "wins".


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

[User]
Why are there no really shallow seas?

There is lots of really flat terrain just above sea level, so why is there none just below? Why does the sea floor slope away so quickly after the coast?

[Assistant]
Shallow bodies of water tend to be short-lived because the moving water will erode a lot of dirt/rock in  a short time, geologically speaking. Ironically, though, the same effect will tend to deepen the rivers and shallow the regions of their outflow: sediment is transported from up along the riverbed to where it enters the sea.  There are a *lot* of cities and towns in Europe that used to be ports but are now several miles inland because of this effect.

Anyway, you can and do get shallow seas that are endorheic (no outflows), especially endorheic lakes that are *not* rift or glacial valleys. The Salton Sea has an area of about 343 square miles but a maximum depth of only 43 feet. Sambhar Lake has a surface area of about 300 square kilometers but a max. depth of only 3 meters. Great Salt Lake has a very large area (it is the largest lake in the US that is not one of the Great Lakes and the largest salt lake in the Western Hemisphere) of 1,700 square miles but a max depth of only about 30 feet! Lake Trasimene is about 120 square km with a max depth of 6m.  The former Lake Chad only had a maximum depth of about 10 meters with an area of 1350 square km (it pretty much doesn't exist anymore).


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

[User]
ELI5: what's up with the specific jargon and dialect of airline employees?

Flight attendants have the most unusual cadence, and they all seem to talk the same way.

"Ladies AND gentlemen, welcome TO Atlanta where the local time IS 4:45pm."

They always seem to stress and emphasize the least important words in a sentence. Is this taught to them for some reason in training? Does it somehow come across more clearly over a microphone?

Also, they always say, "we have started our descent inTO the Atlanta AREA." Why do they call it the Atlanta "area" rather than just Atlanta? I hope we aren't going to land in the general "area" of the Atlanta airport; I hope we are going to land at the actual airport.

[Assistant]
Most of the odd emphasis is a speaking technique that gives the pilots time to think about what they are saying. Pilots have multiple flights a day and multiple locations, so keeping track of all that information in their head is hard. Instead they are looking over their flight itinerary and finding the relevant information to the passengers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome TO...(scanning for landing location) Atlanta where the local time IS... (scanning for time) 4:45pm."

They take the time because could you image how quickly anger and panic would start from the passengers if the pilot said they were about to land in the wrong city, or later than expected and people were going to miss their connecting flights? The half a second pause prevents this.

> Also, they always say, "we have started our descent inTO the Atlanta AREA." Why do they call it the Atlanta "area"

A simple answer to this, many large airports are not actually in the city that they service. As an example the Cincinnati airport is actually not even located in Ohio, it is across the river in Kentucky. The pilot saying that you are landing in Cincinnati would be inaccurate, but saying that you are landing in Hebron Kentucky would be distressing to people that thought they were flying to Cincinnati.

Hope that helps.


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

[User] [the boys] are there any natural born hero's as a side effect of the v? Can there even be any.

[Assistant]
In the comics natural born heroes are pretty rare to nonexistent. 9 tines outta ten it's exposure to V while pregnant that results in a child with powers or exposure after birth. Only 2 known instances of super powered pregnancy are known and both involved the mother's death. It's unknown if homelanders offspring would have survived long after it's premature birth but its possible.

In the show it appears that most supes are sterile with only homelander fathering a child. It's unknown if this fertility is due to his own unique origins or something vought did after Becca's rape. So far only one natural or close to natural birth is known. All other heroes are created by exposure to v post birth.


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

[User]
[Pirates of the Caribbean]What would happen to Davy Jones if his body were completely pulverized without harming his heart?

Would he regenerate? Where? And from what?

[Assistant] If it's anything like Blackbeard from the book On Stranger Tides, then one piece of his flesh or blood would stick to the hull of a ship and grow like a barnacle, forming a completely new body for him.


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

[User]
How to deal with a "know-it-all" team lead?

Our team lead is a know-it-all stereotype.  He never has meetings.  He won't come to your office to discuss anything, best you can do is go to his office.  He sends out assignment via our ticketing system and may cancel them without notice or explanation.  Change is considered bad unless it originates from him even though we have an incredible amount of technical debt.

How can I break down his grip on the project without risking my position?

[Assistant] I call it the trifecta of leverage - teammates, management, and the lead. If you have the complete support of any of those two, you have leverage. If not, it's pretty much a lost cause. Harsh, but true.


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

[User] What exactly is vacuum or zero point energy and can it be harnessed?

[Assistant]
Vacuum energy in free space is better understood as quantum field fluctuations that arise from the inherent variability/uncertainty of all quantum objects. Note that vacuum energy is not a static, permanent energy that we can extract and use. In other words, although vacuum energy leads to measurable effects, it does not violate the law of local energy conservation by allowing you to extract energy from nothing.

Rather than thinking of quantum particles such as electrons as literal particles that get created out of nowhere, it's more helpful to think of them as wave-like excitations in a quantum field. Excitations become particle-like when they can stably self-exist (even if only for a very short time) independent from the mechanism that created them. Vaccum fluctuations are like excitations that can't stably self-exist.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why we feel like there's a monster behind us when going upstairs in the dark.

Because I'm fuckin' 20, bro and that shit still gets me. wtf bro.

[Assistant]
[Speculation alert]

There's probably an evolutionary benefit to being wary of having your back to an open area of darkness, since in the ancestral environment there was a non-trivial chance that in a 'going upstairs in the dark'-type situation, there actually is a 'monster' (predator of some kind) waiting to strike. Having the feeling of something behind you means you avoid that kind of vulnerable situation more, you move more quickly, and you are more alert and ready to respond if there turns out to actually be a predator there.

Evolution is not tailored for your comfort, but for your survival. It's better to be nervous for no reason, than to get eaten because you felt you were safe.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the decibel value on my stereo decrease as I increase volume?

[Assistant] Your stereo is telling you what it's actually doing.  The amplifier runs at full power, and the stereo reduces the output signal with a resistor, so it's reporting how many decibels of reduction it's applying, since it's reducing the power the decibels are shown as negative, and decrease as you reduce the amount of power dissipation applied.


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

[User] [The Sopranos] If Tony had gone to his mother for advice like Uncle Junior did, would she still have suggested he get whacked?

[Assistant]
Likely not then but later.

She was always looking for slights and if not this, then she would have found another reasons to snap. Maybe it hold her off until she dies, but really, i kinda feel like she is the kind of person who was fed by hate to keep living longer.


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

[User]
CMV: I don't think robots are as bad a technology as people say.

I think it goes without saying that I'm pretty biased when it comes to this discussion. Especially because I work in the field of robotics and mechanical engineering. (for privacy reasons I will not be discussing what my exact job title is or for whom I work for) So let me tell you about my point of view.

Every time I see a new Boston dynamics video showcasing one of their various bots, I scroll down to the comment section and see what the general public thinks. And every time I see comments like *"lol we all gonna die lol the robots are take over now"* and *"this actually scares me a lot. Like all you need to do is put a gun on that thing and we're all doomed"* and it makes me a little sad to see so little faith in humanity.

I think people are to fixated on what they saw as kids in movies. They think robots are some kind of tool used only for menial repetitive task or for mass destruction with no in between. Which I guess is possible but it's impractical and expensive. Not to mention all of the legal ramifications a company would have to go through.

I think most people are like this because of how much they *don't* know. (hell I'm in the damn field and even I don't think I know everything). There is a hell of a lot more to do before we can get even close to the *Terminator Era*

Every time I express this opinion it's always met with dislike. I just don't know how to explain to people that robots will do more good than harm. That this technology, if used properly, can save more lives that it could ever take. This technology isn't inherently evil. Just like how nuclear technology can be used for good by giving us clean energy, it can also be used for evil by making nuclear weapons.

[Assistant]
Robots themselves are not the enemy. It's their purpose is what scares me. Jobs becoming automated. Obsolescence of careers and entire life's works.

With a growing population of humans and machines alike, who do you think is the most prospective hire? I'd bet, for many jobs, they'd pick the robot 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. But this is unnatural. How many times have you had to stand and wait for one of those soulless retail employees to come override the self-checkout machine that yells at you for taking your ice cream off the scale too quickly? They're dead folk walking. Once their previous job has been effectively perfected by robots, they'll be completely out of a job.


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

[User]
[Star Wars/Dune] What would the post-Revenge of the Sith world look like if the Droid Rebellion ended up causing something similar to the Butlerian Jihad?

Let's say at the end of the Clone Wars, the overwhelming Empire decides that AI and supercomputers are evil and decide to banish them. What would the events of A New Hope-onwards look like? Would force-users fill the roles of Mentats?

[Assistant]
Straight up banish? Not going to happen. Droids are far too useful in far too many applications.

The droid army was dismantled or put away because they were the "bad guys" - had Palpatine's plan been to have the CIS win the war, the clone army would have been put down just the same.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are goats able to eat things such as tin cans with seemingly no repercussions?

I don't think they digest the indelible things that they eat so they must defecate them out or throw them up, either way it seems like major damage could be done to their bodies & yet I continue to hear stories about goats eating anything you can imagine. How do they eat such strange things without damaging their bodies?

[Assistant] A lot of farm animals especially goats have powerful stomach acids. Pigs do as well and can digest almost anything but are smart enough not to eat anything that can go in their mouth. A goat is not too bright.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did we first figure out that light even had a speed that could be measured?

It's not intuitive at all that light is not instantaneous, or even that it can be observed as something that's really really fast and hey, maybe we should try to measure how fast that is.

How did we come up with the idea that the speed of light is a finite and measurable thing. (Also, how was the speed of light determined?)

[Assistant]
Ole Rmer figured it out. He watched how Io, one of Jupiter's moons, acted when eclipsed. From earth if you see it, the moon seems to either disappear or reappear instantly. you don't see it fading out in phases or anything. This should happen once every 42.5 hours.

But during different parts of the year it would take slightly longer or would be slightly shorter. It was clear that something was making the light take longer to get here sometimes. Since you can observe that Io is moving at a constant rate, you know it can't be because anything is going faster or slower.

The only real conclusion is that the thing must be getting farther or closer, and that the time it takes to see it is whats changing. Which means light travels at finite speed.