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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How would the wizarding community react to muggle extra-solar colonisation or warfare?

Are Wizards (outside of astronomy) aware of other potentially habitable worlds? Would they simply move with muggles to the new worlds as I presume they did to America? Would a wizard, with their usual ignorance towards muggle technology, be able to comprehend planet sized destruction in the even of an extra-solar war?

Tl;Dr How would the wizarding community fit into a futuristic, extra-solar scenario?

[Assistant]
It's unlikely they would notice for a long time. Wizards raised in wizarding families tend to have no clue about muggle technological progression.

For example in one of the books Ron attempts to use a telephone but has no idea how to use it, resorting to constantly shouting through the earpiece as he couldn't believe muggles had invented a way of instantly talking to another person that far away. (Wizards still rely on owls which would take days to deliver a letter depending on the distance).

Also in the movie OOTP, Arthur is shown to be amazed at escalators and ticket machines suggesting that wizards as a whole tend to have no concept of electricity as a tool. Telephones have been around since the late 1800s so it's unlikely wizards would notice any space-based activities by muggles.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the concept behind Scientology not taken seriously, when most other religions are just as scientifically implausible?

[Assistant]
Part of it is the fact that it's a new and small religion, so we aren't as used to it. Another reason is that some of the beliefs are pretty clearly false, such as the belief that the higher-level members have superpowers or that the unprepared might die if they hear the whole Xenu story.

But the main reason is probably because the church acts in immature and predatory ways, so we don't take them seriously and we don't feel the need to respect their beliefs if they're just using them to make money off of their followers.


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

[User]
is there a scientific approach to personality types?

or at least valid scientific words that can describe personalities.

[Assistant]
The "Five Factor Model of Personality" is empirically validated as a measure of personality traits.  It measures on a spectrum: Openness (the spectrum of a need for cognitive closure), Conscientiousness (The spectrum of a need for organization), Extraversion (How much do you need to be around and interacting with people), Agreeableness (The spectrum of a need to get along with others), and Neuroticism (a spectrum of mental health).

It doesn't categorize people like (for example) the MBTI, although there is a slight correlation between the four aspects of the MBTI and the traits measured by the FFM aside from Neuroticism.  Further research could use the FFM to categorize people into types, depending on where they fall on the range of the factors because where one falls on the different factors predicts various things, for example high Conscientiousness predicts successful job performance, but it also predicts low creativity, High Openness predicts high intellectual curiosity, High Agreeableness predicts sacrificing your own needs for others, and High Neuroticism predicts poor mental health, and so on and so forth, so research focusing on how different scores on different factors interact could be used to develop categorical personality types.  But regardless, if you want a good and validated picture of your personality, the Five Factor Model test (AKA Big Five) will give it to you.

Furnham, A. (1996). The big five versus the big four: the relationship between the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and NEO-PI five factor model of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 21(2), 303-307.

McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1987). Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(1), 8190.

McCrae, R. R., & Costa Jr, P. T. (1989). Reinterpreting the MyersBriggs type indicator from the perspective of the fivefactor model of personality. Journal of personality, 57(1), 17-40.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it bad to keep an electronic device plugged in on full battery?

Ive heard conflicting information about whether its safe to keep an electronic device plugged in all the time. Most recently Ive heard it depends on the type of battery being used by the device? Should I actively unplug my laptop after it gets fully charged, or is it all a myth?

[Assistant]
Back before the 2000s the types of batteries we were using did not do well when constantly plugged in.  Chargers of that time would switch to trickle charge mode when a battery was almost fully charged, but it wasn't good to leave those batteries plugged in for hours on trickle.

The chargers of today will stop charging when they sense the battery is full.  Also many batteries have circuitry in them that protects them from over charge and under charge situations.

If somebody is telling you that you shouldn't leave stuff plugged in they're probably not aware that times have changed.  Just follow your electronic's instruction books on charging.  People don't read their manuals which is why this misinformation continues to spread.


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

[User] [Marvel/DC] How would a military go about integrating superhumans into operations?

[Assistant]
Very carefully.

Military power is something you can create yourself, in the forms you choose, and that you can replace if needed. If we decide we need more ship-boarding teams, we can create more slots in ship-boarding-instructor school, then more slots in the regular ship-boarding school; we can offer more money to men who have that skill if they re-enlist; we can set aside more old ships for training purposes. It all works through a special kind of bureaucratic and cranky process, but we can make what we need, as we need it.

With superhumans, you're dealing with *talent,* and that's something else again. If you're making a movie with Tom Cruise and he drops out, maybe there's no other star who can offer equal value. If that movie was Top Gun 2, maybe you're out of luck. Or maybe you have an expensive script, but the right actor to star in it just doesn't exist. You can no longer win with self-made capabilities; you have to have the right *talent.* It's not easy. You can't just decide to have more flying bricks and fewer speedsters, or whatever.

The most comfortable way would be to just establish a "talent agency" to operate along different lines. Recruit the best heroes and decide how to use their strong, pinpoint abilities to knock out high-value targets. It would be very dangerous to have a whole regular-army unit that depends on the heroes, because if they quit, you might not be able to get more to replace them.


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

[User]
[Star Wars: The Force Awakens] Isn't training Stormtroopers from birth incredibly inefficient?

The First Order apparently kidnaps newborns and trains them to be Stormtroopers  ("programmed from birth").  Isn't that a heck of a lot of effort to invest in creating an army?

Presumably a huge support system is required to do this. Where are they raised?

At what age can they start being used as soldiers? Are they used as child labour before then?

[Assistant] Training, equipping, feeding, and housing an army is expensive; adding the cost of child care to the bill is negligible.  When one considers that a soldier trained from birth will have years of propaganda drilled into their head and have utter loyalty, the small price to pay raising and educating children is more than worth the expense.  It does beg the question of why they are such horrible shots, though.


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

[User]
CMV: The author is the final authority on any of his or her stories and the only true interpretation is the one they intended

I often hear sentiments like "every story can be interpreted a thousand different ways", implying that any and all interpretations of a given work are equally valid. As a writer, I wholeheartedly disagree with that.

If I were to write a story about wizards trapped on a rock in space, and a reader interprets it as them being stuck in limbo after dying tragically while that wasn't my intention, their theory is simply wrong and holds no water. They either just misread my story or didn't like it and decided to change it up so that they'd be able to stomach it better.

Similarly, if I wrote a poem about jazz and 99% of my readers interpreted it as an allegory for suicide instead, that still wouldn't be the correct interpretation. It would mean that I failed at conveying my theme to my audience and that I need to do a better job next time. If people called the allegory brilliant and declared me a genius, it would be dishonest for me to accept their praise.

I find it disrespectful to the author and the hard work they put into their writing when fans insist that their story means something that it doesn't. Of course speculation about literature and its intended meaning is integral to certain college classes and a pass-time for some (i.e. in a book club). I don't think that there's anything wrong with that, but I do believe that the goal of literary discussion should be to figure out what the author meant rather than what the reader wants a work to stand for.

I have dropped an English lit class before because the teacher was into the whole "La mort de l'auteur" thing and I felt like I wasn't going to learn anything from him that semester. He'd encourage students to interpret classical novels as an allegory for social media, for instance, and I found it ridiculous and unhelpful. It was just make-belief and it didn't teach us any of the actual morals and themes hat the authors of the past had so carefully crafted and labored over, and put bits of their being into. It was disrespectful.

[Assistant]
This approach always strikes me as kind of shallow as it relies on an understanding of literature that is deeply fixed and doesn't allow for any emergence or accidental brilliance to come out in the work or in people's individual relationship with the work.

This approach also denies analysis to huge portions of works where we have no understanding of the author or the social context of the work especially if works don't have one clear author. How are we to analyse the works of Sappho of Lesbos or the Epic of Gilgamesh or Beowulf or a huge number of oral storytelling traditions if we are limited to just the author?


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

[User]
ELI5: How do regexes...work?

So, have you ever run into a programming concept that you just *couldn't* learn, no matter what?  Regexes are that for me.  I can't tell you how many times I've read up on the basics of regexes, looked in books, seen websites, used tutorials, and even copy-and-pasted regexes into my code...and they're still fucking magic to me.  For some reason, my brain just shuts down when I'm looking at them.  I think one of my profs scarred me in university or something.

I put to you a possibly impossible task: can you explain the basic principles behind regexes (how they work, why they work) in a way that I can remember and makes sense?  Possibly with a few basic examples, building on each other?

You'd really be improving my life.

EDIT: I'm happy I posted this; hopefully other people benefit from it in the future!

[Assistant]
(Edited to fix formatting and make a clarification.)

Regular expressions are just a way to say "match things that show up in a particular order."

Let's say car manufacturers all start painting the first letter of their brand names on the sides of their cars to make them easy to identify.  Dodges get a big "D", BMWs get a big "B", Toyotas get a big "T", etc.

Let's also say you're standing the side of a road with a flag in one hand.  Your job is to watch traffic go by and every time you see a Dodge ("D"), point at it and wave the flag.  So you sit there for awhile not seeing any Dodges and you do nothing.  Then a Dodge goes by with its big D painted on the side, so you point at it and wave your flag like a madman.  Congratulations, you've become a regular expression engine and have just evaluated your first regular expression:

 > /D/   (D.  The slashes are sometimes used to denote regular expressions.)

What you've done is called "finding a match."  Easy enough, right?  You can sit there and point at Dodges all day.  That gets kind of boring, so your overseers give you a another assignment, find Dodges followed by an Audi.  That's a more complex regular expression:

 > /DA/   (D followed by A)

So you start by looking for a Dodge, and when you find one, you look at the car that follows it.  If the second car is an Audi, you've found a match and you start pointing and waving your flag.  If not, you start over and look for a Dodge.

One more assignment, a Dodge followed by an Audi followed by a Chevrolet followed by another Chevrolet:

 > /DACC/  (D followed by A followed by a C followed by another C)

What's important to note here is that you don't start looking for an Audi until after you see a Dodge and Chevrolets aren't on the radar until after you've found the Audi.  You progress across the expression starting from the left and not waving the flag until you fall off the right edge.  If you fail somewhere in the middle (say, a Dodge followed by an Audi followed by a Ferrari), you go back to square one.

The pattern you should be seeing here is that you're being given a list of "things" to look out for.  That's really all there is to it.  Where regular expressions get complex is in defining what a "thing" is.

Individual characters are easy, but you can use certain special characters to give things special meaning, such as a dot that matches anything:

 > /DA.T/  (D, A, anything, T)

This means that Dodge, Audi, Hyundai, Toyota (DAHT) will match, as will Dodge, Audi, Dodge, Toyota (DADT) or Dodge, Audi, Mercedes, Toyota (DAMT), all because any car can fit in the blank where the dot is.  When you wave your flag and report a match, you report the sequence that matched.

Other characters, like the asterisk, plus sign and braces, apply special meaning to the thing before them to indicate how many you want:

 > /DA*T/  (D followed by zero or more As followed by a T)
 >
 > /DA?T/  (D followed by zero or one As followed by a T)
 >
 > /DA+T/  (D followed by one or more As followed by a T)
 >
 > /D{3,5}AT/ (Between 3 and 5 Ds followed by an A and a T)

Brackets make up a compound "thing" that can be any of the things inside it:

 > /D[ABM]T/  (Dodge followed by a Audi or BMW or Mercedes followed by a Toyota)

So can parentheses:

 > /(DA)?T/   (Optional D-followed-by-A followed by a T, so T or DAT will match)
 >
 > /(DA|TH)F/ (D-followed-by-A or T-followed-by-H, followed by F, so DAF or THF will match)

The pipe symbol within the parens means "any of these regular expressions is considered a match for this thing."

Some special characters are called "anchors" that mean you find the expression at the very beginning or the very end of the string:

 > /\^DAT/  (Dodge, Audi, Toyota being the first cars you see that day)
 >
 > /DAT$/  (Dodge, Audi, Toyota being the last cars you see that day)

There's a lot of punctuation flying around a complex regular expression, but the key to understanding it is to break it into individual "things" and treat them like items on a checklist.  There are also a lot more complex things, but what I've outlined above are the basics that get used 90% of the time.

HTH, and here's looking forward to your sixth birthday.  :-)


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

[User]
[Star Wars][Halo] Could the original Death Star destroy a Halo Ring?

Say someone is being a dick and is priming the Halo to kill everything. Darth Vader doesn't want to have any of that so he orders the Death Star to fire upon the Ring.

Would it be very effective?

[Assistant] Oh hell yes. Records recovered from testimonies given to Forerunner Juridicials indicate that there were several concerns raised by the design of the Halo instillations, the most notable being the fact that they were incredibly fragile. If an overloading Fusion core can destroy one, the Death Star certainly could.


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

[User]
CMV: Framing Climate Change as a Justice Issue is Antagonistic, Inaccurate and Ineffective.

I often read in the news about Climate change activists calling for "justice". From what I have read about Greta Thornberg's speech to the UN (I still haven't heard it myself), this issue was largely framed around being a justice issue.

I find this a very strange and inaccurate way to view this problem. Justice means to "Just behaviour or treatment". When the concept is employed to describe situations or events, it generally employs the archetype of protagonist vs. antagonist. The antagonist does wrong, the protagonist combats the antagonist to do right. We tend to narrate many issues along these sorts of lines.

Anthropogenic climate change is a result of additional greenhouse gas emissions being released into the atmosphere from human causes. The majority of these causes stem from fossil fueled powered technologies. Humans use these technologies not out of malice, or antagonistic behaviour. Rather, humans use these technologies because they enable us to perform many different tasks very affordably and efficiently. The issue is the technology - it is not a result of bad people just doing bad things that require "justice".

Framing this as a justice issue also often accompanies a view that certain people, or certain behaviours, must be punished. I've read multiple posts about people placing the blame on corporations, the wealthy, right wing governments, etc. But, primarily, the root antagonist seems to be consumption in and of itself.

This poses a moral dilemma because coercive legislation or high pigovian taxes can only work effectively if they are high enough, or strict enough, to curb consumption behaviour. With lack of similarly affordable alternatives, this would dramatically raise the costs of almost everything. This would very likely increase poverty rates, which would pose very real implications for a variety of things.

Instead of viewing this as a justice issue which doesn't have a true antagonist, why not just view this as the very obvious technological issue that it is? The focus needs to be an alternative technologies - and I'm not understanding what vindictive tears in front of politicians, skipping school and blaming corporations is really going to accomplish. It seems to me like this movement is creating the very division it so ironically detests.

[Assistant]
Some time this week, another atoll-dwelling family in the South Pacific will give up their garden because their groundwater has become too saline for taro and coconuts. It's a slow but steady process you see all over the region, with dead coconut tree stumps marching uphill as sea level rises. Then they'll decide the water isn't potable either, and build rainwater collection systems. Those will be battered by storms, and after one king tide too many, they'll load up a boat and sail to an island that is larger and taller, and already getting crowded with other families that decided they need to do the same thing.

These are people whose carbon footprint is ridiculously lw. The younger family members don't even know that the rest of humanity relies on electricity that is on 24/7. They're used to the power going off at 10PM every night. And they just left the island they've inhabited for as far as their cultural memory goes. How is this not a matter of justice.


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

[User] ELI5: How do the new prosthetics work where people can seemingly control their new limbs with just their mind?

[Assistant]
It begins with a special operations surgery where the bone is removed but the muscles are left intact. This is so sensors in the limb can pick on impulses sent to your muscles from
Your brain. Most amputations arent preformed this way, however in the unlikely yet extremely lucky chance you are fortunate to lose a limb in a way that allows for the muscles to remain relatively intact, you can have a bionic limb that feeds back with tactile sensitivity and seem less control.


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

[User] [Marvel] Doom hates Reed but what does Reed think of Doom?

[Assistant]
Deep down Reed still pities him. For all Doom has accomplished, Reed is still the one who gets to make a living doing science while being happily married and a father.

At the same time, Doom has also tried to kill Reed, his family and many others on numerous occasions, so sympathy can only go so far.


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

[User]
[Holy Grail] What else would the Book of Armaments contain?

The history and usage of The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is well documented in the Book of Armaments chapter 2 verses 9-21.  What other holy relics could the book detail and how would the text sound?  Is it also possible that unholy or demonic artifacts are also alluded to.

[Assistant] There are several weapons, but to be fair it is mostly a list of geneologies of the weilders of legendary weapons and details about their meals. Picture a collection of the boring parts of Game of Thrones.


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

[User]
Why do waves come in sets?

I was out diving today in heavy surf and got advice from the dive master to watch for a set of 3 big waves to come by before surfacing - evidently after 3 big ones, youll get about 3 or 4 smaller ones, making it much easier to clamber back on to the ladder. I was a little doubtful, but it turned out to provide me the 30 second window I needed to have a substantially easier transition...

But it made me wonder: with the same wind pushing the water, why arent all waves approximately the same size? Why do they come in sets of a few waves at a time, instead of hundreds, or instead of randomly variable waves?

Thanks!

[Assistant] Wind speeds are variable in space and time and this produces a spectrum of waves of different periods and wavelengths. The longer period waves travel faster in deep water so the waves will sort themselves out as they propagate away from the source. These waves interact and the waves with the shorter periods are modulated by longer period waves producing wave packets that vary in wave amplitude as U experienced diving with small waves followed by larger waves than small waves.  The larger waves occur at the crest of the longer period waves.


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

[User]
[Star Wars]Since the redefinition of what is cannon in Star Wars removes the EU and uh... gravity exists, does that mean that the debris from the Death Star DID wipe out the Ewoks and all life on Endor?

 Gravity exists and a giant moon sized base exploding should shower countless tons of debris into Endor! Absent hyperspace nonsense from the EU sucking the debris away, does this mean that Endor has probably been destroyed and the Ewoks are probably dead?

[Assistant]
When they tossed out the EU, they didn't actively say "none of this ever happened," they said "we're going to pick and chose which parts of this we like." That's why you've got Grand Admiral Thrawn running around.

They might not have explained why Endor is still a habitable forest moon instead of an unending river of molten slag, but I'd bet it's still perfectly fine there.


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

[User]
Why do movie/music/book critics revise their original rating of a particular film/album/book and give it a better score than they originally did?

This question is partly inspired by The Big Lebowski. When it first came out, critics were mixed. However, as time went on, some critics re-reviewed the movie and gave it a more favorable score.

For example, "Peter Howell, in his review for the Toronto Star, wrote, "It's hard to believe that this is the work of a team that won an Oscar last year for the original screenplay of Fargo. There's a large amount of profanity in the movie, which seems a weak attempt to paper over dialogue gaps." Howell revised his opinion in a later review, and more recently stated that "it may just be my favourite Coen Bros. film"."

I find the change in his opinion a bit ridiculous, to be honest.

Are professional film/music/book critics just circlejerking each other off to what the popular consensus is? Is that why they change their previous opinions?

[Assistant]
Sometimes it's hard to realise the true worth of a work after a single viewing, which is what the majority of journalists will see of a film before having to do a write up. They're working to a tight schedule, so often they'll watch it once and do a write-up on their initial response.

Some films/albums/books need to be experienced a few times before being fully understood and appreciated.

Also, some works are better when viewed in retrospect. The works of H.P. Lovecraft for instance, when they were released in the 20s, received next to no praise or appreciation simply because it was too different from the contemporary trends. These days, now that we can look at his work in a historical context without our judgement being clouded by current fads, he is regarded as a genius.


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

[User]
[Halo] What exactly does a gravity hammer do?

To me it appears to just be a big hammer smashing people and has very little effect in the gravity. It lights up and makes a loud noise so it's doing something but what?

[Assistant]
Gravity hammers are equipped with a gravity field generator that can emit a kinetic pulse which lets it affect gravity in a small area. If you've been lucky enough to see a gravity hammer in action, you might have noticed it often results in those nearby being pushed away from the point of impact, and if you've been unlucky enough to see what happens to a person who is unfortunate enough to *be* the point of impact, you know that the damage is considerably greater than what would be possible with an ordinary, if very large, hammer.

Of course, how exactly the generator works is a matter of debate among academics as any working gravity hammers would be in ONI's possession and they aren't particularly fond of publishing the results of their studies, but the lighting up and loud noise is assumed to be part of the ordinary function of the generator.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are obvious MLM's/pyramid schemes (like herbalife, huns,... ) not illegal in the USA?

[Assistant]
The main reason is that they are not pyramid schemes.  A pyramid scheme is a scheme where early investors are paid not out of profits from the investment, but from the initiation fees or investments of later members.  There is no underlying business model (or, at least, not one capable of sustaining the business) in these schemes - they only exist because new members come in.

In contrast, businesses like Herbalife _do_ sell product and most of their revenue does come from product sales.  Now, you can make _more_ money if you recruit additional people to sell, but your profits still come from actual sales of product (be those from yourself or from your recruits).

Maybe they _should_ be illegal because the recruitment is a bit deceptive, but they don't operate like pyramid schemes so they shouldn't be illegal just be cause such schemes are.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do bottles of liquor list both alcohol % and proof? Also, why only hard liquor and not drinks with lower alcohol content (beer/wine etc.)?

Isnt proof just double the percentage?

For example, a scotch with 40% alcohol is 80 Proof

Why list both and why only on hard liquor?

[Assistant]
Because the 16th Century English loved their taxes and would look to tax the everloving crap out of everything they could.

They would place high taxes on alcohol if they could prove it wasn't pig swill in content.

To prove or (as they said back then) Proof it... They would mix some with gunpowder and if it went poof when lit, it was PROOF that the alcohol content was at least 50%,,,,, so 100 Proof.
If it fizzled but didn't go poof the alcohol content was a bit lower so 80 Proof.. etc.

Below a certain point the gunpowder would stop igniting so there was no way to proof it.


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

[User] Why does it hurt to drink cold water after I have a mint or use mouthwash?

[Assistant]
One active ingredient in many brands of mouthwash and, found naturally in peppermint is the Menthol essential oil. Menthol is noted for its chemical ability to trigger the TRPM8 receptor on the skin; this receptor is responsible for the cool feeling on the skin.

Similarly, Capsaicin is the the chemical in hot peppers that is responsible for aggregating a sensation of heat.

Both of these chemicals send signals to the brain to emulate the feeling of cool or warm without actually changing the temperature. This can cause blood to flow to the affected area; this is why icy hot becomes effective.


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

[User]
[DC] Sharpness is a property that comes from thinness and high strength. Does this mean that Superman's hair-thin impossible-to-break hair strands could be really sharp? If I run my fingers through his hair and it snags can I get cut?

If I press my hand against a steel wall, even if I'm pressing very lightly, something has to give, either the wall or my hand. Thankfully, as the force is distributed over a large area, no one part of my hand feels that much stress and my skin just deforms a little bit.

If I press my hand against sharp steel knife, even lightly, that force has to go somewhere, and either my hand or the knife has to deform. Unfortunately, unlike with the wall the force is concentrated into a very small area. The result being obvious.

If I run my hand through Superman's hair and it happens to snag, that's all the force of that movement concentrated in a very small area. It's probably not going to be the hair that deforms.

So let's say it's a worst case scenario, I try to pull my hand away from Superman's head pretty damn quick for some reason. I'm talking about "I accidentally hit my friend in the nose while moving my arm it actually hurt a lot" type speed. If one finger gets snagged in a hair does it chop it off?

[Assistant]
Not in your scenario, because the hair is also very flexible. It'll just bend out of the way, unlike a solid knife.

However, a strand could definitely be used to cut something, if secured and pulled across/through it like piano wire.


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

[User]
is "life" possible without oxygen or water?

Say a planet somewhere in the universe had an atmosphere of say pure nitrogen.  Could something evolve into life on this planet?  Life as we know it needs oxygen, but that's just as we know it.  If you believe in evolution than don't you have to believe that it could be possible?

[Assistant] There are plenty of solvents besides water. For example, Saturn's moon Titan has seas of liquid methane (it also has an atmosphere of mostly nitrogen - is this what you were thinking of?). There's no reason Titan organisms couldn't exist in these seas, eating acetylene and excreting ethane or benzene. They would be very different from life on earth (extremely flammable, for one) but if they reproduce they would still be quite identifiable as life.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Why did Sauron need Gollum's help to find the Ring?

Sauron and the Nazgul learn that the One Ring is in the Shire because Gollum is captured and interrogated regarding its whereabouts.

Why did Sauron need to get that information from Gollum? How did Sauron not already know that Bilbo had the Ring? Bilbo had worn it much more recently than Gollum had.

[Assistant]
Sauron doesn't automatically know the location of the One Ring. It makes the wearer highly visible to him and the RingWraiths, but they *still have to be in line-of-sight* to stand out.

The entire time the Ring was lost in the Anduin, he didn't know where it was. While Smeagol / Gollum had it, he didn't know where it was. He didn't know it was being used. He knew it wasn't destroyed, because he still clung to an existence.

Gollum was captured, coincidentally.

 He was odd enough to warrant investigation, being unlike anything that his captors had seen before.

 Someone figured out he was a Hobbit whose life had been greatly extended by magic  and from there it was easy enough for them to work out which magic had extended his life.

Then, they pressed him for information as to where it had passed to.

Shire. Baggins.


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

[User] [Star Wars] The Empire is a galaxy-spanning government with advanced technology at its fingertips. So why do they use slaves to build their death Stars, when machines and nano-tech build in a cheaper, faster, and more efficient manner?

[Assistant]
What nanotech is available is very expensive and typically single purpose applications.  It's not suitable for use on large scale construction projects.
The Empire does employ quite a bit of construction machinery,  where appropriate.  Despite that, there do remain some tasks where a humanoid is the most efficient way to get the job done.
Then there is the political aspect.  Slavery is a powerful way to control certain populations, so the Empire will take a small efficiency hit to their construction projects in order to gain those benefits.


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

[User]
[Matrix] Tank describes Neo during training as "a machine." Why is that a compliment? Shouldn't that be the greatest possible insult?

Morpheus: How is he?

Tank: Ten hours straight. He's a machine.

Neo: I know kung fu.

[Assistant]
>Wow youre a fucking animal!

>Did you just accuse me of fucking animals?

Same thing with the machines. They stop at nothing, never get tired, are hard to kill and have essentially smashed humans back to the stone age.

So he just made that comparison casually basically telling him he is a badass.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do traffic lights cost so much money?

From the Washington State DOT:

"It costs the taxpayer $250,000 to $500,000 to purchase and install a traffic signal. Electric bills and routine maintenance amount to about $8,000 a year."

Thats a ton of money. Or is it?

[Assistant] The cost includes paying people to examine the area to survey the area, design a plan, purchase the parts, and hire a crew to do the actual installation. The crew will have to dig up existing street to install the detection coils, dig holes for the poles to support the lights, and then repave and clean up everything once it's installed. Each intersection is slightly different, so while there may be some reuse from existing intersections, a lot of work still has to go in to a new installation.


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

[User]
Is inbreeding not an issue for insects?

It seems like very, very few insects can result in an explosive infestation (roaches, ants, bed bugs, etc.) Do insects not have the same negative effects from inbreeding that other animals do?

[Assistant]
A lot of insects avoid a lot of the issues with inbreeding by their gender system.

These Male insects only have 1 copy of each chromosome. This means that if they have defective copies of genes, they will die and not progress to adulthood and mating. They cannot hide receive deleterious traits in their genome.

Inbreeding is therefore safer than in mammals, where deleterious recessive traits can combine with inbreeding to form homozygous expressed phenotypes.


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

[User] ELI5: How does sword swallowing work?

[Assistant] Basically, your esophagus is a straight tube to your stomach. If you can suppress the gag reflex and make sure you stand straight up, you can swallow swords. They are usually dull so nothing will get cut.


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

[User] [Saints Row] What was the presidential platform of the Boss? What issues did he/she champion?

[Assistant]
Getting blowed (in all sorts of ways), handling business, getting paid, kicking ass and looking good.

Is there anyone who doesn't want all of those things?

Oh, and the fashionable wearing of the color purple.


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

[User] [Star Wars] why do Storm Troopers wear armor? Seriously it takes one shot to kill them and in Rogue One and Return of the Jedi I've seen them taken down with sticks and stones. What does their armor even do?

[Assistant] I saw that in a Visual Dictionary(?) very few of the stormtroopers are killed. They are knocked unconscious but not killed due to their armor. So the armor protects the troopers from being killed, but not enough to prevent them from being knocked out. Trooper recovery and medical assistance occurs after the battle.


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

[User]
[Forest Gump] Why doesn't anyone recognize Forrest?

He's a major college football star, medal of honor winner, table tennis icon, successful businessman, inspiration for the song Imagine, met three presidents, and running icon.

[Assistant]
His eyes are closed in every public still picture he takes. You'd be shocked at how much that lowers the ability of humans to recognize a face.

Especially when it's covered in a mega-beard and running away from you.


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

[User] ELI5: When I send a monthly payment check to a major company, does someone from that company walk up to a teller at a bank with thousands of checks they must get a month or are they deposited a different way?

[Assistant]
The address you most likely mailed that check to was a remittance processing operation associated with a major bank. It may have had a box number, zip+4, or similar on it for routing.

Essentially, payments from hundreds of different companies come in to the same address and are sorted. The check processor has an assigned desk with any number of specific accounts. One account at a time, they pull the checks out, inspect them for various things (payee is correct, check is signed, etc) and key the data into a deposit batch. Once you run through all the checks the batch is sent for deposit. They used to deliver them to the bank hundreds of batches at a time, but most companies have gone to electronic processing so the checks never actually leave the original remittance center. Digital copies are sent to the bank and the client and the originals are shredded.


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

[User]
[Starship Troopers] Did Diz join the moble infinity because of Johnny Rico?

Or did she join out of her own reasons.

[Assistant]
Diz absolutely joined the mobile infantry to follow Johnny.

Her motivations, however personal, were also noble. For she was more than Johnny's love, more than his closest friend. A citizen has the courage to make the safety of the human race their personal responsibility. Dizzy was a friend, and a soldier. But more than that, she was a citizen of the Federation.


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

[User]
Can a drink actually be more hydrating than just water, or is that just made up to sell sports drinks?

Basically title. How can something hydrate you more by adding electrolytes or salt? Surely the amount of water youre putting into your body is the only measurement of how hydrated you can be? Im torn between I dont know enough about electrolytes to question it and generally assuming all marketing/advertisement is lies.

[Assistant] Salt, and and other electrolytes like potassium and calcium, are very important factors for hydration because they facilitate the movement of water in and out of cells. They have properties that allow them to bind to water and move it around. This is why, to be properly hydrated, you need electrolytes. The "super advanced" Gatorade electrolytes or whatever are mostly just marketing. However, you will see recommendations to eat a banana or take a shot of pickle juice to help with muscle cramps. This is why.


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

[User] ELI5: What are the differences between a thread and a core in a CPU?

[Assistant]
A thread is an instruction that needs to be processed

A Core is a brain that can process a task.

The more cores a processor has the more tasks it can perform simultaneously.

Applications can be single threaded meaning that all of its instructions have to be processed by 1 core, or multi-threaded meaning that it's instructions can be broken up and run by multiple cores simultaneously.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly happens when gas is pumped into a running car that causes a fire or explosion?

[Assistant] It's very unlikely that anything will happen, but leaving your car running increase the chance of a stray spark from a spark from some system in your car, which can ignite the vapors in the air from the gas you're pumping.


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

[User]
[Fallout 3: Broken Steel] Why can't the Enclave just nuke the Citadel?

They have the ability to (orbital strike) and the BoS can't do a thing to stop them. But why didn't they? I mean, it just takes a simple click of a mouse and the whole building is ruble.

[Assistant] That "Citadel" that the BoS are currently occupying is actually **The Pentagon**, which is both an important historic United States landmark, as well as being of high strategic military value. It's a miracle that any of that building remains standing and has not reduced to rubble when the Chinese attacked, and the Enclave, seeing themselves as the last true remnants of the United States Government, are not about to finish what the war started, just because some descendents of army deserters have tried to claim squatters rights on it.


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

[User] [Dark Knight Rises] Why does one of Banes man need to stay in the falling airplane, why didnt they just prepare two bags of fake corpses instead?

[Assistant]
They didn't know they were going to need two corpses. It wasn't until they were onboard the plane that Littlefinger told them the manifest would include one of his men.

It shows their absolute fanatical loyalty to him; they're willing to die not just because it was an intrinsic part of his plan, but because he happened to ask them to make the plan run a little bit more smoothly.


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

[User]
Regarding the meaning of life and suicide.

I realize this is a sensitive topic. But I have spent so much time mulling over these issues recently, and I would like to hear other's opinions regarding my own. I would also like to preface this by saying that these thoughts and statements are made on the pretense that god doesn't exist. I am not looking to argue that particular subject but any discourse is good discourse, I suppose.

I believe that life has no purpose. At one point in time, I felt that was a freeing statement. Life only has the purpose we give to it. But lately I have started to feel as though it is actually the opposite; that it is what imprisons us. If I decide that I have no purpose, then perhaps my real purpose is simply to exist. Existence itself should come with the pursuit of knowledge. But a life as a human is flawed. I feel that as humans we all suffer a deep irony. We are intelligent enough to be sentient, but we are not intelligent enough to be omnipotent. And because we are also too intelligent to be ignorant of our human condition, we suffer in the middle between greatness and obliviousness. There is nothing inherently good about being human. Being human means wanting power. Wanting to reproduce. Wanting to live. In fact I would say being human is the source of all wants, of all desires. A truly rational being would want nothing. Why would it desire anything at all? The source of all wants (some of which are driven by human needs) is being human. I think a being of infinite intelligence, would actually do nothing at all. Being human is not only the source of all desire and fear, but also the source of all pleasure and pain. Emotions are merely distractions we evolved into to aid our survival. From a pure intelligence standpoint, emotions do nothing except cloud our vision. Love and hate are nothing but constructs our minds have created for us. Our innate desire for perfection is merely so we can have the power to nurture our loved ones and also to crush our enemies. Without emotion, without being human, I have no reason to want anything from this world. Which is why I view life as a human as inherently flawed. The most I can do to overcome this is to try and think as though I had none of these desires. And in turn, the more I try to push these concepts of emotion from my mind and view life objectively, the more I realize that life is nothing but an act we carry out to realize our primitive desires.  I feel the only way to truly live a happy life is to live without realizing this truth. Because now all I desire is to be something better than human, or to not exist at all. But what's the point, anyways? I only want these things because I am human. Before I just wanted to live. But if you view life without the lenses of emotion given to us from birth, then things quickly devolve into what I have written here. I no longer understand why I should exist. My only other possible path to an existence without knowing this pain is to forget. Perhaps this is why mind-altering substances are so popular. I can forget everything for small periods of time. I can be blissfully unaware before reality comes crawling back and with it self-awareness. The only time I feel I can truly be happy is when life is so busy or hectic that I forget what a facade it is.

I can't get these thoughts out of my mind. I've been thinking on this for weeks now and I believe I've said all my main points.

If you read this or reply to this, thank you for sharing your time with me.

[Assistant]
You're essentially describing Nietzsche's ubermensch and transvaluation of all values.  In his view, man is a bridge species to becoming the kind of powerful, rational being that can actually shape reality based on how you want it to be shaped.  The transvaluation of values is to take us from the value systems of a race of beings that is in the condition you describe, sentient enough to understand their situation but powerless to change it, to value systems that match up to what we could be: ubermensch.

Something you should be aware of though is the omnipotence paradox: Omnipotent beings can create rocks they themselves can't lift, but then they are no longer omnipotent.  Think of it like having one magic bullet: its possible that with a lot of work, dedication, etc. you could change any one thing in the world you wanted to change: but you can't control what all of the consequences of that change or what the price to create that change will be, because those are determined by the world of many agents and not just your agency.

And even if you are short of the level of pure omnipotence of a god, or the above described level of omnipotence of an ubermensch, there are probably still many things it is within your power to change, and it is both your opportunity and burden to decide what changes are meaningful enough for you to work for, ever mindful of the prices and possible consequences.  To understand the price, the change, and its consequences well enough requires the pursuit of knowledge, and to actually pay a price and make a change requires a pursuit of power (and willingness to spend it).

Lastly, you're wrong when you say life is a facade.  For it to be a facade, the meaninglessness has to be the "real" or more important side of the coin.  But in an absence of things to give meaning, the reality lacks any means to truly distinguish itself as more important than those things that only act like they do have meaning.  This is what existentialists point out when they are talking about absurdity: that really "acting like" is as good as "being" meaning that a surreal, romanticized, or any other "unrealistic" view is just as real as the cold meaningless starting point.

Lastly, if we are truly living on an empty stage in which we can act out any absurdity we wish, enact any change we desire enough, then we are free to choose to become something different than we are now by the act: think of the actor who learns from their character, or the writer who wants to see where their creation will go.  We are the playwrights as well as our own audience, and it would be incredibly boring to do nothing but sit on stage and wait for stage directions that won't come.  So the question to ask yourself is, at the very least, what kind of life would you like to watch?


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

[User]
How important is where you received your PhD from to how others in Academia view you?

I'm guessing this will differ a great deal among people and schools but it's a question that has been sticking in my head for a while now. Are expensive private grad schools worth it or can you do just as well with a PhD from a school no one has ever heard of if you publish impressive research? Have you seen any discrimination based on where someone went to school?

I'm not a member of Academia so forgive me if this common knowledge or a silly question.

[Assistant]
In the long run, an excellent publication record trumps the name on your degree. A few *Science* or *Nature* publications and no one will give a shit.

That said, establishing that publication record can be substantially more difficult if you are coming from a poorly regarded program and/or a poorly regarded lab. Both the program and the lab/mentor matter in the equation. The program and lab are instrumental in establishing the collaborations, funding, and culture that give rise to the excellent publication record.

So technically, the program doesn't matter **if** you have an excellent publication record. However, the program/lab can be critical to establishing that publication record.


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

[User] [Biology] Is there any advantage to having a slitted pupil over a round pupil?

[Assistant]
Slitted pupil can create a wider opening, because it only has to move in two directions. A round pupil has to dilate in every direction at once, and that naturally runs into limitations of flexibility and muscle contraction. The wider openings of the slitted pupil allows more light to enter, assisting low light vision.

On the other hand, round pupils are much better for focusing and all around visual acuity. Oblong pupils whether they're vertical (cat) or horizontal (goat), introduce natural focal issues in various parts of the field of vision.


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

[User]
Since no regulation on bank size was enacted after 2008, and no meaningful regulation of products like credit default swaps was enacted, are we literally just waiting for the next crisis?

And if so, will it be worse given there are now fewer, larger banks running the show?

[Edit: Grammar]

[Assistant]
I'd recommend reading up on the Dodd-Frank Act, because there was, in fact, legislation enacted to regulate credit swaps AND to ensure that TBTF banks are limited in power and scope.

The Financial Stability Oversight Committee now is tasked with identifying institutions which could be disruptive to the global economy in the case of failure and proactively preventing that.  Title VII  Wall Street Transparency and Accountability regulates credit default swaps.

However, due to consolidation of banking institutions, there are indeed larger banks controlling the marketplace, which makes FSOC's that much more difficult.


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

[User]
CMV: If workers are always working extra hours, the company needs more employees

A friend of mine is working for a company for a couple of months now. After his new boss was hired, a lot has changed in his team and now there's a lot of new projects and changes to existing ones. As a result, everyone's been working extra hours every single day and the boss thinks that this is OK and the team is performing well.

I don't think that this is OK as there are lots of consequences in the foreseeable future: burnout, decrease in performance, mental health, etc. The way I see it, the company needs to hire new employees as that would distribute the hours needed for each project into more people working regular hours. There's simply not that many people available in the team to work in everything that they have planned. With each employee working 8 regular hours a day, they constantly need to work extra hours.

[Assistant]
It costs more money to hire a new person than merely the hours they work. A lot more. It's basically cheaper to pay someone double time for 80 hours of work than it is to hire two people. (A slight exaggeration, but not by much)

Besides the salary cost and benefits, providing space and resources for the person to do their work is also more expensive.

This is why it's cheaper most of the time to hire one specialist than it is to hire 3 non-specialised people and split the workload and the salary.

So if workers are always working extra hours, that's by design. Companies are trying to push to get the most out of their investment in salary cost.

 Built into that system is an understanding of staff turnover etc that is already quantified. People burning out is never a surprise to the business and is already paid for, so to them it doesn't matter all that much if people stay or go as long as the turnover stays within acceptable bounds.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Did Anakin enjoy killing the Jedi during Operation Kinghtfall?

Basically, when he and the massive clone trooper legion attacked the Jedi Temple, did he enjoy killing his old allies, was it just a mission, or did he feel bad doing so?

[Assistant]
"Enjoy" is the wrong word. He derived power from the violence and the emotions that caused and arose during the attack.

Anakin/Vader was a peculiar type of Dark Force user who draws his power primarily from pain and grief; this includes both the grief he feels and the grief he inflicts. What makes such a Dark Force user so powerful is that under the right condition both sources of pain feed-back on each other, upping the Force user's passion, and thus their raw power.

This sets him off from many Sith who use passion from ambition and resentment of society as a source of power.


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

[User]
Are there telltale signs (however subtle) of code that has been written by an AI rather than a human?

I'm not a coder, but I would imagine that AI-written code would tend to have certain structures that marked it as different from human code.

If you were tasked with evaluating whether a block of code was written by an AI or a human, what would you look for?

[Assistant]
Well there isn't really any AI that can really 'write' code currently. All Copilot (for example) does is, kinda, copy paste relevant existing snippets.

If it gets lucky it might be exactly what is needed and nothing more. If gets it wrong, the code won't even compile. And then there's all the options in between.

So no there's not really anything specific to spot. Bad Copilot code will probably be indistinguishable from bad developer code ;)


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

[User]
[Wh40k] So, do all these primarchs and superhumans still have basic bodily functions, of the less glorious kind?

Like do they need to eat, drink or shit?

I know that space Marines can eat, and that their stomach acid is strong enough to deal with most things, but do they shit or piss? Or is the restovers so well divided and used so they can just burp or sweat it out? I know they can fight for over a year without breaks, does this include not eaitng or drinking, or do they just eat their foes and drink their blood between punches?

What about the custodes, or the primarchs? Do they need to eat, or are their supernatural bodies selfsubstaining?(Either by warp magic or superscience)

I guess the emperor is selfsubstaining, since he is at godlevel, and is a shape changer and whatnot, so he can substain himself by warp stuff.

[Assistant]
Space Marine armor is equipped with a nutrient reservoir which feeds directly into the bloodstream. So they don't shit.

Urine is going to be collected by the suit and recycled.

They *can* eat and drink, and they would have to get rid of wastes as normal, but they typically don't.


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

[User] ELI5: How can the thermometer on a car give the temperature without being affected by wind from driving?

[Assistant]
Wind chill is specific to humans and animals trying to maintain body temperature.  It doesn't actually mean the temperature is lower, only that you feel as cold as if the temperature were that low in still air.  This is because moving air carries heat away more effectively than still air.  So thermometers are not affected by wind chill.

In fact there's an opposing effect that very fast vehicles (we're talking Concordes and SR71s here) whereby moving very quickly through air causes you to heat up.  Cars aren't fast enough for this to be a noticeable effect.

In fact moving air helps car temperatures be more accurate.  A car sitting in the hot sun will show a temperature that's substantially higher than the surrounding air temperature but, once you start driving along for a few minutes, the moving air will make the car thermometer accurate again.


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

[User]
[Wheel of Time] The Wheel and Pattern are about balance. What weave is the antithesis to Balefire?

What would the weave do and what would you call it?

[Assistant]
[Spoilers for the End of the series]

Some guy said that during the last great battle, the Amyrlin Al'vere discovered a way that 'sealed' the cracks made by balefire. Heard it called the flame of tar varlon.


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

[User] ELI5: How does freezing a wart with liquid nitrogen kill it?

[Assistant] Cells are like bags of water. The wart is like a bunch of those bags filled with dirty water. Freezing it turns the water to ice and pops the bag (since ice is bigger than water). Then your body makes some new bags to replace the damaged area.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Just how powerful were the Shamans?

So I know from If The Emperor Had a Text To Speech Device that Big E was born from all of Terra's ancient Shamans offing themselves to combine their powers because demons and such were killing them and fucking with people. But how powerful could they have been to both die from random demons but also create the Emperor? That is like a dozen tiers of power.

[Assistant]
So there were thousands to tens of thousands of shamans partaking in the ritual, and each was powerful enough to reincarnate upon death.

Granted this is back when the warp wasn't  in much turmoil, but the fact that they did so suggests that they could be eldar-level (beta+) psykers.

The emergence of predatory daemons meant that they no longer could, and said daemons could've ranged anywhere from lesser to almost chaos god levels.

The fact that they still reincarnated a few more times past this point shows that they were able to resist at least weaker daemons, supporting the theory that they were at least moderately powerful psykers.

And thus, the combination of so many powerful psykers (during a period of relative peace in the warp) allowed for a supremely powerful one to be born in the materium, with all of the knowledge and experience of those that came before.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What if Luke persuaded Vader to join *him* on Cloud City?

Suppose that Vader makes Luke an offer to join him and destroy the Emperor, and Luke makes a huge leap forward in maturity and counteroffers that Vader should join *him*, and they can work together toward the same goal. Vader thinks about it, decides that he hates the Emperor's lousy guts, and the Empire seems to be a highly unstable institution anyway, and then decides to join Luke and the Rebellion to try to overthrow the Emperor.

How does the rest of the saga play out now?

[Assistant]
Two things were necessary for the "best win" condition on Return of the Jedi: Luke had to throw down his light saber, deciding that he would not turn to the Dark side even if it meant saving his own life, and Vader needed to realize that in killing Luke, he was finally and forever cementing the mistakes he made in Revenge of the Sith.

If Luke and Vader join forces on Cloud City, neither of those happen, and it probably dooms the galaxy.

Luke was walking a tightrope between the Light and Dark sides. When he entered Jabba's palace, he was dressed like a Sith, not a Jedi, and when he fought, he used techniques, like Force Choke, that other Jedi had not. He thought that his righteous end - save his friends, defeat the Emperor - were more important than his means.

With Vader on his team, this would be amplified by an absurd degree. This is a guy who slaughtered an entire temple full of children on the off chance it might save his wife's life. Vader would do *anything* to accomplish his goal, and with that kind of example, Luke would quickly spiral down the path of the Dark Side of the Force.

Vader wasn't redeemed until he saw his son, with a mechanical hand, being tortured by Palpatine, and realized that history was repeating itself. Vader *hated* himself, but didn't think there was a way to be redeemed. When he realized that he could sacrifice his own life to save Luke, that was when Vader died and Anakin was reborn.

But if Vader doesn't have to make that choice, he is never brought back to the Light. So sure, Luke and Vader together are powerful enough to overthrow the Empire... but they're also powerful enough to build a new Empire in their own image. The end result is that the two most powerful Force users in the Galaxy are now both fully committed to the Dark Side, and there's nobody with even a sliver of a chance at stopping them.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there towns in the Arctic Circle but there are no permanent settlements in Antarctica?

[Assistant] I think what it comes down to is that the land in the Arctic Circle is actually clustered around the southern edge of it--there's no land in the middle, where it's coldest. Antarctica is entirely the opposite, almost all the land that you could reasonably live on is around the pole and is thus very cold indeed.


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

[User] Are the humans on Goku's Earth entirely unaware that there are mystic dragons, green aliens, and incomprehensibly strong forces of good and evil constantly fighting amongst them?

[Assistant]
The same reason people are unaware of the biggest celebrities.

Most did learn after Mr. Satan saved the world from Cell and Buu.  They also can't sense ki.  yes, they can feel the after effects, but to them it may as well just be a hurricane.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did anakins way of fighting change so much?

I mean in Clone Wars hes very do thing without planning, but as Vader hes very calculating. Idk if im missing something here i think that was a massive change very quickly for his character.

[Assistant]
He had a pretty quick and massive change to his life. He believed that everyone he knew and loved had betrayed him, he was slain by his best friend and mentor, he fell to the Dark Side, he lost 70% of his body, and he killed his wife. His reckless attitude cost him everything, so Vader was a new start, a new life.

His new body, while stronger, still had fatal flaws that he had to protect. His position as second-in-command to the only man he trusted and had faith with was tenuous at best. His very life was targeted by the people he betrayed and the empire he served. If Anakin hadn't changed, and quickly at that, he would've died if not worse.


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

[User] Can physicists capture a gluon particle on its own, or even collect a pure sample of gluons, and would it be massless?

[Assistant]
Gluons and quarks are subject to the strong force. This makes them special because they can never appear by themselves. Their attraction to other strongly interacting particles is so large, that if you were to try and pull them apart to examine one by itself, the field lines connecting them would snap and create more particles which then serve to pair up the particles you were trying to pull apart. [Sort of a cartoon explanation obviously.]

Another answer mentioned glueballs. It is true that this is a particle in the standard model which would be made of nothing but gluons However, in practice, it is not really a particle so much as a "intermediate broad resonance", Because as a particle it is so unstable that its existence itself isn't really a sensible way to describe it. It is more like an intermediate state in a long near-instantaneous decay chain of QCD hadron states, which decay their way towards sort of stable particles like pions and truly stable particles like protons.

However, interestingly, it is possible to imagine theories of QCD [The strong attraction] which do not have a light quarks. In that case, the glueball would kind of be the equivalent of the proton, meaning it is the stable form of matter in this theory sector. Furthermore, it is possible that this is realized in nature, but that we just do not yet see these interactions and particles. They could be related to dark matter, or be part of a meta stable "hidden sector" of particles and forces co-existing with our own, but only extremely weekly coupled to us (I.e. Standard Model particles).


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

[User]
What's the texture of our bones like?

Assuming that I've never broken a bone, are all my bones smooth? Or are they rough/scratched?

[Assistant] They are mostly smooth, with rough ridges here and there(called tubercles, tuberosities, grooves, spines etc depending on their specific character and location). These parts serve as attaching parts for tendons and ligaments, while grooves provide running tracks for vessels and such. Bones are smooth on the exterior, but many bones have a spongy inside(where the bone marrow exists).


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

[User] If my hand is penetrated by a knife, just like those in movies, can it fully recovered and function like it always did?

[Assistant]
Depends what it hits on the way. If a major nerve gets sliced it can take quite a while to recover, and may never recover fully. If a tendon gets sliced, it's up to having a good surgeon to re-connect it. Again, full function may be recovered, but may not depending on how badly mangled things are and how good a job the surgeon does. Similar things can happen if muscle bundles are fully or largely severed. Severed ligaments, same thing, though the actual change experienced for severed ligaments could vary widely depending on exactly which are severed.

Edit: "...can it fully recover and function like it always did?" is fine.

Edit 2: If nothing like that is hit (which is entirely possible) the hand could not only recover full function, but could continue to function immediately if the knife were removed (though with pain, blood loss, and risk of further injury, naturally).


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

[User]
I'm a high school student. In a week or two I'm gonna give a short presentation on the philosophy of mathematics. What are some critical things I should talk about?

So far my outline goes like this:
- What is math? Is it discovered or invented?
- Do mathematical entities really exist?
- Is our whole universe/existence composed of mathematical entities? (I'll be talking about Max Tegmark's book here)
- What are some things that can't be described by or composed of mathematics?

I also want to talk about Gdel's Incompleteness Theorems but not really sure how to fit it in so that the presentation has a logical flow. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks :-)

[Assistant]
It might be more productive to focus on one point, and bring that across as well as you can. For example, you might

- Talk about platonism vs. nominalism about mathematical entities

- The history of the foundations of math - especially Hilbert's program of finding universal axioms of math - and how Gdel's incompleteness theorems showed that to be impossible

I worry that if you say you want to give a short presentation, you're gonna only superficially treat five questions rather than give a good, solid overview of one.


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

[User]
[DC] how did kryptonians find out that a yellow sun gives them powers?

in some continuities, the reason why superman was sent to earth as a baby was because earth had a yellow sun and his parents knew he'd be able to thrive there because of it.

but...how the hell did they know THAT? if krypton was under a red sun, how did kryptonians figure out that other colored stars give them powers?

[Assistant] They used to be a space-faring civilization, so it's probably in their records. Most of them returned to Krypton due to their religion, because their sun god Rao called them back. It's feasible that Rao may have given the order as he decided to destroy Krypton after being convinced by Despair of the Endless that it would make for a good story.


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

[User] [Star Wars] The Death Star is the size of a small moon. Why is the Emperor flying in by shuttle? Why not have hangars big enough for Star Destroyers to dock?

[Assistant] Star Destroyers are constructed in space, and not designed to land or dock. Even if it did, it's so huge you'd have to take a shuttle to the ground anyway. It would be a waste of space to have hangars that big. And lastly, less danger from a piloting mishap.


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

[User] [Terminator] Could a T-1000 split into two or three child-sized T-1000s? Can multiple T-1000s combine to form one giant T-1000?

[Assistant]
A few advanced models of liquid metal terminator (from timelines where the war doesn't end with the deployment of T1K and Uncle Bob to the 1990s) have shown this ability, but the baseline T-1000 doesn't. From the Sarah Connor Chronicles, the T-1001 Terminator posing as Catherine Weaver split off some of her mass and has it hiding in a water tank pretending to be an eel, and some of the supplemental books from T2 feature a T-XA shown going so far as to make itself into multiple people or a group of animals, coordinating their activities for disguise and hunting purposes.

As far as mashing together into a giant T1K, I've heard of a single giant liquid metal Terminator (the T-1000000), but not a bunch of individual liquid metal T's tag teaming that way. Especially given that the liquid metal models tend to be more individualistic than the endoskeleton models, that sort of cooperation or submission would probably be tricky to be coordinate.


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

[User] ELI5 Why are insects like moths and other summer bugs attracted to light? And how come we dont see them flying towards the sun during the day?

[Assistant]
There are a couple theories about it.

1 - It's not that they are attracted to the light but rather confused by it. This theory revolves around the idea that such bugs evolved to navigate by star and moonlight, and haven't adapted to fire and modern day electrical lights. So it confuses their internal GPS and they're trying to take a route that doesn't exist.

2 - They are attracted to ultraviolet light because the flowers/plants they feed on reflect ultraviolet light. This theory revolves around the idea that they can see ultraviolet light, especially from artificial sources, and that draws them in.

As to why they are only around at nighttime - that's just how they evolved. The bugs that evolved / mutated to be active during the day would have been picked off by predators and the ones that evolved to be active at night survived and reproduced.


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

[User]
What is the difference between refuting an argument and explaining away an argument?

I'm having trouble understanding this distinction. For ex, I'm reading a paper that says Dennett does not refute X, but explains it away.

[Assistant]
For the purpose of the distinction, refuting an argument addresses the claim and its points, explains why they are wrong, and likely does so with some sort of counter-argument.

Explaining an argument away does not address the argument or its claims, instead it claims that the problem that the argument seeks to deal with is not really a problem and that we were mistaken to think it was.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the derivatives market work?

What are put options, call options, futures contracts and all the other stuff related to the derivatives market? Can I invest in it?

[Assistant]
Derivatives are based off of, but do not consist of, another asset

A call option means you pay a little up front for the *option* to buy an amount of a certain stock at a set price on or before a certain date. If the price goes above the set price you can *exercise* your option and buy the goods at that price, you can also close your position without taking possession of the stock, basically buying at the set price and instantly selling at the higher market price

Put options are the option to sell at a fixed price. If the price drops below the set price you make money.

In both the options, if the price is unfavorable at the end you don't have to follow through and are only out the small premium

A Futures contract is an agreement to buy/sell at a fixed price on an agreed upon date. There is no option to back out if the price is no longer favorable

You can invest in derivatives, but if you're asking here you're not ready yet. Derivatives increase your leverage so you can take a small pile of money and make it bigger quicker, but you can also lose it a lot faster.


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

[User]
If energy is required to have any impact upon the universe, and if gravity has an effect and an infinite range, then where does it get the energy from to do so?

My thought process is such -
1) Gravity has an effect on the universe, and an object passed through a gravitational field gains energy
2) As energy cannot be created or destroyed, obviously this energy comes from gravity
3) As gravity is common to anything with mass, that means everything must be able to provide some energy

Therefore, my assumption from these would be that the energy for this field comes from the mass of the objects itself, as E=MC^2 , and so if you have a mass large enough for a noticeable effect (I.E. Earth) then it has the energy in its mass to provide this field. Is there any validity, sanity or good science to my assumption?

[Assistant] Caveat to point 1): an object passing through a gravitational field (like slignshot maneuvers), do gain energy, but it is taken from the body, if you slingshot with Jupiter, you actually move jupiter also a teeny bit. There's no energy created, just transferred.


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

[User]
[Fallout] Why did Pre-War America know what the Zetans look like?

Not only is there a Zetan on the cover of an issue of Astoundingly Awesome Tales, there are also animatronic aliens in Nuka World. It seems that the US government was aware of their existance, along witht the Cabots and Hubologists, but the general population was not, as the aliens worked from the shadows, yet the Zetans can be seen in pre-war pop culture. The minigame Zeta invaders even mentions the aliens by name. While I know wild wasteland is not canon, even without Mothership Zeta the aliens make a lot of appearances in the series.

[Assistant]
In our world, the popular idea of "little green men" came about around 1955, when ufo sightings and alien abductee stories became all the rage alongside the rise of science fiction films. However, the idea of "aliens" (both extraterrestrial AND mundane foreign) being green and small-ish has been around for centuries.

We also know that the Zetans have been monitoring Earth for several centuries. So perhaps the pre-war American government knew all along what they looked like (as said in this thread, the Roswell incident was most likely a Zetan crash), and rumors/whispers/leaks of their appearance slowly made their way into prewar pop culture. Maybe someone in America was trying to send a message to the people, or perhaps the bastardized Zetan rumors just translated into the perfect pop culture villain to be fought and destroyed in various forms of media. It would have been a great distraction/change of pace from constantly seeing Chinese communists as the antagonists in everything.


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

[User]
[Warhammer40k] Why weren't the Emperor, Sanguinius, or Roboute put on Dreadnaughts once they got mortally wounded?

I'm still very new to Warhammer 40k, so there may be a lot of details I'm missing or that I'm simply unaware of. Still, are there in-lore reasons as to why that wasn't possible?

[Assistant]
Sanguinis was killed. You can't make a dreadnought from a dead person.

Guilliman needed the stasis field to keep him from fully dying. That same stasis field makes it impossible for him to control a dreadnought even if you could figure out how to hook him up to one without breaching the stasis field.

As for the Emperor, presumably because he told them to hook him up to the golden throne and not a dreadnought, although the real answer probably has something to do with no one having the knowledge to hook the emperor up to a dreadnought in the first place.


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

[User]
[Marvel Cinimatic Universe] Are Asgardians extremely long lived or could the Bifrost traverse time as well as space?

Ancient legend tells of Asgardians coming to Norse culture and teaching us language and civilization and legends of Odin and Thor and Loki, but Loki revealed that asgardians being immortal was a myth of humans. Could the Bifrost travel in time as well in space working as a time machine or does time move differently in the realms?

Side question, the 9 realms they speak of, are they literal realms as in pocket dimension type things or sectors of space that contain known planets and civilizations?

[Assistant] I believe the suggestion is that Asgardians are very, very long-lived. The evidence of this is in the Odinsleep, which seems to be super-advanced Asgard technology (indistinguishable from our perspective from magic) which extends the life of Odin.


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

[User]
What components on the Opportunity rover have failed so far and how has that affected it's usefulness?

As a follow-up question, assuming the solar panels continue to stay clean and absorb enough sunlight, which component is most likely to be the killing blow upon failure?

[Assistant]
On Sol 2 they realized a heater on the shoulder joint of its arm was stuck in the on position.  They've had to play with the power system and the joint to keep it from draining the battery at night, but it has become damaged from the temperature swings.  Now they no longer stow the arm unless they're moving, and immediately extend it out again after.

In 2015 one of its 7 flash memory ships started failing resulting in system resets.  They updated the rover's memory systems to ignore the failing chip, and its working fine.

Aside from those the periodic dust build up and wind/dust devil cleaning of its solar panels appear to be the only other *issue* that Opportunity has had.

*EDIT*
Wheel failure will probably spell the end of the mission one day.  If the rover suddenly can no longer move and its solar panels aren't in a favorable allignment with the sun its power will eventually drop, as it did for its sister rover *Spirit*, to the point of complete power failure.  After that they probably won't be able to get it to power back up and the mission will be over.


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

[User]
What is the difference between coke and charcoal?

Thanks for reading. I have tried googling this but it is very confusing and most sources talk about coal vs. coke, not charcoal vs. coke. I understand the superficial differences, coke being derived from the destructive distillation of coal and charcoal being derived from the pyrolysis of wood. I also understand both are essentially high purity carbon.

However the terms are often used differently and in different contexts, and I can't think of what the difference would be (unless they are different allotropes In which case how exactly are they different?). I'm especially interested in when and most importantly why you would use coke for a process instead of charcoal, or vice versa.

I was looking up how calcium carbide is produced and Wikipedia says it's made with coke, but other sources seem to imply any carbon powder is sufficient, which is where my confusion originated (if that's helpful). Disclaimer: I have zero intention of actually using or making any of these compounds, I know enough lab safety to know I do not know nearly enough lab safety, I am just interested in the theory and the chemistry behind the processes.

[Assistant]
Coke, coal and charcoal are all high carbon fuels that contain other oils and gases.  They have different contaminants, water content and flame temperature.

The main difference you will see is the industrial source.

*Charcoal* is really expensive!  You need to harvest trees, transport them, process them, dry them, etc.  The whole reason the industrial revolution happened is a search for cheap fuel to replace firewood for steam boilers.

*Mineral coal* is really cheap.  Like phenomenally ridiculously cheap.  You have no concept of just how cheap mineral coal actually is for the energy it outputs.  Downside: it's dirty with chemical contaminants and minerals, plus it's also got a lot of water.  The water is a problem because it limits how hot you can make the fire.  Coal burns at about 1000C.

*Coke* is refined or "cleaned" (not CLEAN) coal.  Someone has removed the water and volatile gases.  All the polluting nasty stuff was burned off elsewhere, so you can now have a clean burning high energy material at the destination.  It burns without smoke.  It also burns much much hotter than coal which allows for useful technologies like making steel, where you need a really hot furnace.  Essentially, coke only produces heat and carbon monoxide gas, which is great at reducing iron  in the steel making process.

Reason you would use coke for calcium carbide is same as making steel.  The reaction is a reduction and you want that clean burning, containment-free coke versus other carbon sources.  Note: We can substitute for mineral graphite in some cases, but historically that has been more expensive than coke.


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

[User] ELI5: When muscular endurance is increased, if muscles are not getting larger, in what way are they becoming stronger?

[Assistant]
They are getting more blood flow and more mitochondria.

This allows for even more aerobic respiration (burning oxygen) which is sustainable long term unlike anaerobic (making lactic acid) you use when weightlifting. Mitochondria are also where fat is metabolized and burned so they will be able to tap into their fat reserves to a greater extent than a non-endurance athlete would. For blood flow, the muscles will get more vessels supplying them while at the same time the amount of blood volume will increase and there will be more total red blood cells/hemoglobin to deliver the oxygen. Waste products can more rapidly be removed and metabolized.

Its not about strength, its about being able to function for hours without rest.


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

[User]
Should I even attempt to apply for grad school? I have a bachelor's degree in history.

My last year in undergrad was difficult in some senses. Mainly because of my senior thesis. As a history major, I did an almost 50 page thesis about women's suffrage for my senior seminar class and I know to many grad students, 50 pages is nothing, but for me, it took a huge chunk out of my spirit and confidence. I inevitably got an A but after going over and over on simply finding the right research and struggling to write the paper and then getting help from my professor in editing it.

It drained me, and made me originally decide to not apply for grad school and just find a job. Months later, still no job and my life was crap for personal reasons unrelated to finding work. I am in a better place now, but my thesis work made me rethink grad school because when I analyzed the difficulties in writing a simple 50 page thesis,  my logic was that it would be even worse for actual graduate work, and that I would plummet catastrophically from pressure. It doesn't help that if the tax bills pass, it would be financially horrible for me. Although right now, I don't have any college debt due to the scholarships and financial aid I received from my university.

What's more concerning is that even with all the time I had, I still don't know what I want to do with academia. If let's say the tax bill doesn't pass and I go to grad school, I don't know if i want to do education, government, or media. I am very interested in politics, but I am unsure where I would go to do political work. I know strangers on the internet probably won't be able to help but I might as well ask people who are/finished graduate school.

Sorry if this post seems old, these types of questions have probably been asked before in some manner.

[Assistant]
Please do not apply to graduate school. You discovered it would be 'catastrophic' for you. End of story. Even people with *every* reason to go to graduate school in the humanities can often discover that it was the wrong choice for them -- and you have already discovered several angry red flags.

Follow your other passions and use the skills that *did* earn you an A on that undergrad capstone in ways that you find fulfilling. There's a lot of hard, important work to be done in political organizing, charity, non-profit, and other fields of work that you might be great at. If in doubt, start with volunteering your time and energy to something bigger than yourself -- whether that's one hour a week at a homeless shelter or applying for jobs as a grant writer in a small non-profit for a cause you believe in.


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

[User]
[Red Dwarf] Do we know what state Earth is in after Lister wakes up?

Obviously the universe is now populated by GELF and Simulants, but what has become of Earth and Mankind?

[Assistant]
Nothing on screen, but the last novel says there was a trash crisis and the governments held a Sol-wide vote on where it should all be dumped. Earthicans couldn't be arsed to go to the polls, so Earth lost and was designated the system land-fill.

Some time later an errant pilot was trying to write his name in dumped waste and crashed, igniting an enormous gas pocket from one of the trash-continents, pushing it out of orbit. Earth literally farted its way out of the Solar system and became a rogue planet travelling the Milky Way.


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

[User]
[The Walking Dead] How far apart Clementine groups are from Rick one?

They seem to find some characters like Glenn and Jesus. They doesn't to be very far from each other.

How are the odds of them meeting Rick at some point?

[Assistant]
They've come close, but not close enough to reasonably meet.

When Lee first met Clementine outside of Atlanta Rick was still in his coma in Kentucky.

While Rick and his group were staying on the Greene farm outside Atlanta, Clementine and Lee were in Savannah (On the other side of the state).

The closest Clementine has gotten to Rick's group since is likely now with the New Frontier as Richmond is only about 100 miles from where Rick has set up. It's entirely possible she's even heard stories about the safe zone.


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

[User]
[SCP Foundation] What are some novel approaches to getting rid of that goddamn lizard?

I've been studying 682 for months now and I'm convinced it's the single greatest threat to humanity we've encountered. The irrational hatred of all life, the extreme adaptability... It has to be dealt with.

We have the resources of the entire Foundation at our disposal. How can we either destroy it or make it harmless?

[Assistant]
Could get the Darkbody to do it but that has its own set of dangers. Type Greens could probably do it as well but it's not worth the risk in case 682 adapts itself some reality bending.

Honestly, it doesn't escape containment except when they run execution trials. Easier to just keep it Secure and Contained.


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

[User]
[Starship Troopers 3] How is it that the Sky Marshal is such a good singer?

So no big surprise here, I absolutely love Sky Marshal Anoke, and I have all his albums. I think he's the best entertainer and supreme commander, but how does he have time for both? How does someone reach the top of both fields simultaneously? I would like to know more.

[Assistant]
Hmmmm...some treasonous responses here.

Sky Marshall Anoke is a Warrior.  He understands that the battle against the bugs isn't just won on the battlefield but also at home.  So he sings to inspire us all in the war against the bugs.

Equally if it took knitting or telepathy or ballroom dancing he would be adept level at all of them and more.  He is a Warrior and he loves us.  It is through him we can win against the bugs.  He is the flower of manhood and man.  Anoke!  Anoke!
[Would you like to know more?]


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

[User]
[One-Punch Man] Does Saitama still have to complete his daily training regimen to maintain his abilities?

Saitama claims he gained his superhuman strength, durability, and speed from doing 100 sit-ups, 100 push-ups, 100 squats, and a 10 kilometer run every day. After his three years of training, does he still do these exercises? Does he need to in order to maintain his power?

[Assistant] He got his power around half way through the training. He didn't decide he was done and stop. So at the very least, he thinks his continued training is necessary. Dr. Genus believes that Saitama broke his limiter, which all humans have. If that's the case, it's unlikely continued training would be necessary.


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

[User]
Kant not an idealist?

I've read that in fact, Kant never said he was an idealist. What I've understood is that there is sensory input, but that he doesn't care (drops the question) where this sensory input comes from. However, in order for an input to be there, he carefully concludes that there is an external reality that causes this input.

Is this correct? Can someone elaborate?

[Assistant]
for Kant, there is a real non-ideal world called the *thing-in-itself*, it is completely outside the realm of experience. Experience does require perception as we traditionally conceive it, but perception by itself cannot constitute experience, it also requires what he calls *Anschauung* (usually 'Intuitions' in English)  *a priori* ~~categories~~ forms of sensibility that order experience and make such a thing possible, not elements *of* experience. The best-known are space and time, ie. all experience is spatio-temporally ordered (or sometimes just temporally).

So because these ~~categories~~ intuitions are essential to experience, it's not as though you could subtract them and be left with "raw" experience of the thing-in-itself, and it's not as though our perceptions are being 'filtered' through these categories and deceiving us. But there still is real perception going on in experience, just, because experience has this innate structure, it will never be perception of the thing-in-itself, it will always conform to these ideal, not-in-themselves ~~categories~~ intuitions.


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

[User]
Why are magnets U-shaped?

I realise not all magnets are U-shaped, but why are they commonly illustrated as the "classic" red 'U'?

[Assistant]
I don't know where the red came from, but there are two advantages to the U shape:

1) Both poles face the same direction, which provides you with the most force to pick up a piece of iron. This is because the magnetic field is strongest at the poles.

2) Between the legs of the U, there is an approximately homogeneous magnetic field. This makes interpretation of experiments very easy, because homogeneous magnetic fields are the easiest to work with theoretically.


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

[User]
[Star Trek:DS9] Why can't Leeta afford a pay cut?

In the episode where Quark's workers unionize because of low wages and just generally because Quark is a bad boss, Leeta says she can't afford a pay cut.

Later in the episode, Sisko reminds Quark that he doesn't pay rent, utilities, or maintenance fees on his bar because that's not a think the Federation does.  That got me thinking, what is Leeta spending her money on when all her basic needs are covered by virtue of living on a Federation station.  I get that there's still commerce going on, but it seems like basic needs are covered.  Sucks to get a pay cut, and obviously Quark should be paying more fairly, but to say you can't afford to lose the money seems odd given the circumstances.

[Assistant] It's not a Federation station, it's a Bajoran station with Federation oversight. Sisko mentions that he doesn't require Quark to pay his rent, and while there are multiple interpretations of that, one is that under Bajoran law state-owned stations like that require residents to pay for their quarters and other properties, but the Federation covers many of the expenses for people there in the interest of flaunting its whole post-scarcity utopia thing. Maybe it's standard for all stations which the Federation has administrative control over, maybe it's just to sweeten the pot a little and show the Bajorans they're courting that Federation membership is a pretty good gig, maybe Sisko just wants Quark to stay on the station (he had to blackmail him to get him to stay in the first place). So either she doesn't have to pay living expenses because the Federation helps people out, but she's sending money to family back home (Bajor is definitely not post-scarcity atm, they're still trying to recover after the occupation) and her family needs a certain amount to get by, or maybe the deal with Quark doesn't apply to all residents, and she still has to pay her way on the station.


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

[User]
[W40k] Boiling the oceans away?

In the books, many worlds including Terra have had their oceans boiled away through war. Is that really a viable concept? Where would all the water go? Hydrogen and oxygen gas?

[Assistant]
Well, conversion into Hydrogen Fuel was probably one place it went. When you're powering billions of Plasma Reactors the size of office buildings, you go through a respectable amount of fuel, and water is a hell of a lot easier to work with than gas-giants.

Depending on the weapons used, it's also possible that the oceans were literally boiled, and then the atmosphere blown off somehow. The Imperium has weapons that can do that, so it's not a stretch to think that they were used in the past.