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

[User] [WH40K] If all of Ork-kind actually did unite under one banner, could the Tyranids be exterminated?

[Assistant]
Maybe. The problem with the Tyranids is... We don't actually know how many there are. We know there are enough Orks to conquer the Galaxy quite handedly, but when it comes to the Hive Fleets, we dont really have a gauge of their total strength. Even the Silent King didn't really give us a good indication, as A: he likely did.t see the full swarm, and B: his basis for judgement was a Pre-Slumber Necrons, not what we have now.

If we go with the oldest (and thus far really the only) indication of how big the Swarm is... The answer is a resounding no. The 2nd Edition Tyranid rules discribed them as having consumed a thousand galaxies. There is no way in hell any faction in 40k can take on that amount of biomass alone. Even unified, it's unlikely..


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

[User]
ELI5: How are black surfaces able to be glossy?

Black is said to absorb all colors of light, so why can a black surface be reflective, such as a black painted car.

[Assistant]
Light can bounce off of surfaces like a ball. When it hits the surface in an angle from the left, it bounces with the same angle to the right. If all light bounces like this, you can see a reflection. This is how mirrors bounce light.

Light can also scatter all around to all directions. A very white surface may bounce almost all the light but you won't see a reflection because the light bounces to all directions and the "reflection" becomes blurry.

Now, a perfectly black material wouldn't bounce any light at all but it it impossible to make a perfectly black surface. Surfaces can be very dark but not black. If the black sufrace bounces the small amount of light like a mirror, it looks shiny.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] Why did Smith stay?

Hi guys. I looked for answers around the web but couldn't really find any.

Why did Agent Smith stay in the Matrix if he hated it so much and couldn't wait to get out (like he told Morpheus)? When Neo destroyed him, he was "supposed to" return to the Source. Isn't that what he wanted?

He hates The Matrix, describing its disgusting smell and calling it a zoo. So why the hell would he stay after being rendered obsolete?

What do you guys think?

[Assistant] Smith wasn't really returned to the Source after being rendered obsolete. His fight with Neo corrupted his source code which turned his programming from a temporarily piggybacking hosts and programs into a complete takeover. By the time the new Agents were sent to fight the One, Smith had turned from Agent to full-blown virus that could also take down Zero-One through its connection to the Matrix.


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

[User]
How can I combine programming and economic science?

Now I'm studying science economic in my university, And I study programming alone at home.

and wondering how can I combine these two areas, please Give me some ideas and advice.

[Assistant]
What exactly do you want to know about?

There's plenty of programming in economics once you get into doing research or an economist job. Typically stuff like R and Python are the "scientific languages" although stuff like Java might be common as well in some jobs.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why are guillotine blades angular rather than rectangular shaped?

Guillotines chop heads. If you look at the guillotine blade, it is angled, with one side of the blade much higher than the other end. I would think the guillotine blade would be shaped more rectangular.

[Assistant] A straight blade such as a rectangular shape is designed for chopping, while an angled blade is designed for slicing.  The human neck is not hard to cut through, but there are pieces that are tougher than others (the spine for example).  Imagining a tomato, the skin is tougher to slice than the flesh.  Imagine taking your knife, flat against the skin and pushing down.  It would squash the tomato, not cut it.  Now imagine the same scenario, but you angle the knife in the direction of the resistance, suddenly the skin and flesh of the fruit becomes much easier to cut in one clean slice.  A guillotine is the exact same concept.  It's a slice, not a chop.


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

[User]
ELI5 - How can the sun can be out, no clouds in the sky, and it's 83 degrees, the next day, same situation and it's 101?

Today was a pleasant day in Pasadena, but i noticed that the sun was beating down on me, but it felt pleasant. While the last few weeks, the sun has been beating down and it's been unbearable! Why do the same circumstances lead to different temperatures?

[Assistant] Weather is being imported from the areas around you all the time. Hot airs can blow in from elsewhere, a day in the sun can cause a previously cool body of water to heat up some and provide less of a mediating influence, etc.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do bugs all have more than four legs, while basically every other terrestrial animal has four or less?

[Assistant]
Insects' evolutionary journey favored 6 legs. Ants can carry items with the front legs and still have 4 legs for balance and weight distribution. A beetle with a big ass has 6 legs to stabilize all that rear weight. Climbing walls with 6 feet means more contact with the wall at any given time.
Think of ants digging out s tunnel or bees finding pollen or s dung beetle rolling up poop. Think of a butterfly emerging from a cocoon or a moth landing on a vertical surface. Every action is easier because of the multiple points of contact. Even flipping over if they're upside down is easier with 6 long, multiple-jointed, centrally-anchored legs.


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

[User]
CMV:I Believe The Prosperity, Cohesiveness and Generous Spirit of Canadians is Because They Are Simply Americans Without the Enormous Costs Involved In Fighting the Cold War

I love Canada and Canadians. I believe they manage to address their diversity, their health care, their economy and their education smartly and efficiently. I think they are brave and conscientious and when needed they have served militarily with distinction and honor. We share many of the same heritage and lineage. I have often wondered why the Canadians seem to do so much better with the long term big picture. I believe now the difference was the enormous costs associated with the Cold War. Not just economic costs but the focus of our research and scientific endeavors. So my view is that the current state of Canada and Canadians is America less the costs of the Cold War. Change my view!

[Assistant] I think that you need to reach much further back in history to find the roots of Canada's identity. We didn't fight a war to cut ourselves off from Britain. We continued to aspire to be more like Britain and were always somewhat subordinate to Britian... look at the BNA, we didnt even really have control over our own country until after the second world war and well into the cold war.


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

[User] ELI5: What are the differences between dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins?

[Assistant]
Serotonin promotes long-term positive feelings, psychosis, and digestion. A lack of it causes depression and anxiety. An overdose can cause seizures and death.

Dopamine helps with seeking behavior, medium-term pleasure, and movement. A lack of it can cause catatonia, dementia, and a few other disorders.

Endorphins stands for something like endogenous heroin, so theyre primarily painkillers, though they can also promote short term calmness. Theyre what most often modulates addictive behaviors.

In short, they can all make you happier, but they do it through different pathways, with different side-effects, and for different periods of time.


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

[User] Is learning assembly in 2019 a good idea?

[Assistant] Will you be programming in assembly on a regular basis? No, not at all. However, if you want a core understanding of how a compiler works or just a better low level understanding of how the computer works then yes go for it. You will learn a lot and have a appreciation of higher level languages  and what they do. Learning is learning, go for it.


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

[User]
Is it possible to have a numeral system with a base that isn't an integer?

I read somewhere that the optimal base to have in a numeral system was e. I've tried for a long time to figure out how that would work, but I am unable to do so. Is it at all possible to have a base that's not an integer?

[Assistant]
When we write a sequence of digits, i.e., 1234, it is a shorthand way of representing a particular quantity. That quantity doesn't HAVE to be an integer, or even a rational number. In base 10, when we write "1234", we mean:
1 * 10^3 + 2 * 10^2 + 3 * 10^1 + 4 * 10^0 . If we use a different base, the same applies:

"1234" in base 5 means: 1 * 5^3 + 2 * 5^2 + 3 * 5^4 + 4 * 5^0 .

Similarly for *e*, pi, etc.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why aren't they taught Latin and why do they all look so bored?

Latin seems to be the go to language for spells, so why not teach it to make learning, remembering and possibly inventing or adapting new spells easier? Also, whilst on the subject of teaching magic, why are they always acting like studying magic is like studying old poetry? If speaking a few lines of poetry could make you fly, transform into an animal or person of your choosing I'm sure I'd have been thrilled to memorize the entirety of Shakespeare's works.

[Assistant]
Because the spells aren't Latin. Teaching it to them would be like teaching someone Spanish in order to read an Italian instruction manual.

And you may have that attitude as a twenty-something, but you're forgetting that these are all *kids*. Of course they're bored, stuck in a classroom for hours at a time. They see adults casting some of these spells without effort and want to instantly master it and move on. Unfortunately, it's not a matter of just swishing your wand just right and shouting some faux-Latin, as you can see by their struggles to lift a feather, turn a teacup into a mouse, etc.


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

[User] [Fantasy] eli5: The difference between sorcerers, wizards and warlocks.

[Assistant]
A wizard studies hard to earn good grades, and thus has a wider breadth of knowledge.

A sorcerer slacks off on homework and studying and still gets good grades due to natural ability and creativity.

The warlock is fucking the principal.


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

[User] ELI5: Why should you not defrost things, then refreeze them?

[Assistant] A couple reasons. One is bacterial build up. Another is texture. When you freeze something in a normal freezer, ice crystals build up and damage the cells. When you thaw it, those cells rupture. This leads to a bad texture and makes it more available for bacteria. Freezing again just causes more damage.


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

[User] How do we know how long Jupiter's storm has been going?

[Assistant] We don't really, we just know for sure that it's been observed since 1830. There are observations of a spot from the 17th and 18th centuries but those may have been a separate storm, since there's a gap of about 100 years between those observations and what we know to be the modern great red spot. If it's the same storm it's been going for more than 300 years! If it's not, it's been about 190.


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

[User]
Why do severe injuries often not hurt the instant they happen?

When I touch something unbearably hot, I feel the pain almost instantly. I've heard many people who have been shot often don't realize it. I understand that adrenaline masks pain, but how quickly does it take to kick in?

Another example, I smashed my face into the ground (unintentionally) and broke my nose some months ago. The initial impact was painless; I obviously could tell I hit a hard surface, but the only sensation I experienced was the pressure of the ground. Was adrenaline released as I was panicking and falling? Did my body not have enough time to process the pain? I've heard it takes a couple of minutes for adrenaline to be in effect, but of course I'm not an expert.

I'm not sure of this is caused by something else, but I'd love to understand it better.

[Assistant]
Self preservation, an evolutionary survival response.

A minor injury hurts to act as a warning to avoid further injury.

A catastrophic injury (say from a predator) and the body shuts off the pain response to give the animal a chance to escape first, worry about the injury later.

Both have the same goal, self preservation.


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

[User]
Help! I'm a logical positivist!

I ask for help because I'm pretty confident I'm wrong, as logical positivism is an almost universally rejected thesis; and also because before this 'revelation' of mine, metaphysics was my favourite area of philosophy. Perhaps the position I've come across isn't quite identical to logical positivism, but it's pretty close in my understanding.

The issue comes of course from language. My first premise is (1) *Words cannot be meaningfully defined in terms of one another*. By this I simply mean that language cannot be a giant self-referential web. If we define some word W in terms of other words (W2, W3, etc.) then W2 and W3 cannot be meaningfully defined in terms of W. If our entire language just consists of words defined in terms of each other with no foundation then none of the words mean anything. I think (1) is probably a tautology? But I'm not sure how I would go about proving this. I hope you can see what I mean.

Words can't refer merely to other words, so words have to refer, in the end, to something we experience. This is concluded from my second assertion, which is that all we ever have access to is the contents of our own consciousness. I think this is a tautology too. It just seems incoherent to say we can transcend our consciousness.

So for words to be meaningful they have to be defined in terms of conscious experiences. They needn't be particularly precise definitions, as experiences are messy and unpredictable, but they still have to refer to conscious experience in some way or another to mean anything. We can build extremely elaborate systems of concepts that are all built on more elementary ones, but for them to actually mean anything they have to all at some point translate exactly to conscious experiences.

This is the conclusion I find worrying. If all meaningful language just translates identically to descriptions of conscious experiences, how can we do metaphysics, or most philosophy at all? How can it even make sense to speak of 'being'? 'causation'? 'abstracta'? This is my problem, and it arises from what seem to be two tautological assertions.

I suppose this thesis is slightly different from classical positivism in that it doesn't require that meaningful statements describe merely sense-experience, but all conscious experience.

Your help would be much appreciated as these recent thoughts have dismayed me quite a bit. Thank you.

Edit: It appears that my views align very well with those expressed in the *Tractatus* and that the best course of action for me would be to read Philosophical Investigations and other resources on Wittgenstein. I look forward to this and I thank you all for the excellent help and kind hearted responses.

[Assistant]
You're in the thrall the early Wittegenstein.  The cure is the later Wittgenstein.

Read the Philosophical Investigations; it's the standard critique of the theory of language and reference that you're trapped by.


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

[User]
Where should you store your encryption information ? I.. dont seem to get it.

Greetings,

While working on a personal project, I came to the realisation I am severly misunderstanding some key concepts of security/encryption - and I am horribly embarrassed to ask for help on the subject.

I've got a project set up that reads and writes to an encrypted file (nodejs/nedb) I've been useing dotenv to setup my secret/salt as system variables with dotenv (\*/\*\*) and useing scryptsy to generate a key based on that information(\*\*\*)

Even tho this issue is about file encryption, my question extends to database entry encryptions.

(\*) How/Why is this secure ? (it does not seem very secure) It seems to me that the only plus side to this as opposed to writing it plain text in code would be it is saved from codedumps/leaks ? - Surely when someone has gained access to the actual server it does not matter where you 'hide' it.

(\*\*) Is not the only real secure way to do this by entering the key manually on server startup via prompt ?

(\*\*\*) This seems redundant ?

\-----------

Edit, wow a lot of replies - Thank you ever last one of you!

[Assistant]
I think you're doing this already, but you didn't say it so just so we're on the same page, you put your secrets into a `.env` file, and then add that file to your `.gitignore`. If you're committing your dotenv file, then you might as well not have one.

The point then, is that your secrets do not live in source control. Your computer has a copy of your secrets, and if someone else joins your team, you give them a copy of your secrets some other secure way (LastPass Teams or
Psono, for example).

If someone has pwned your server _without_ knowing your secrets i.e. by brute-forcing it, then yeah, you're fucked. But with modern encryption methods the chances of this happening are vanishingly small. With a few exceptions, every major attack you hear about now involves the attackers getting the password somehow (e.g. through social engineering).

This is only redundant if the data you're storing has no value. If you're just starting out with back-end services and making a database of cats, then sure, put your keys on GitHub. Nobody cares. But one day you're going to have the keys to your company's whole product just sitting on your laptop. On that day, you'll be glad you developed good habits when you were starting out, and haven't pushed your secret keys to GitHub.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between a Jazz Bass and a Precision Bass?

[Assistant]
The J bass has a pickup on the bridge (bottom part of the guitar where the strings connect) and near the neck (long skinny part where you push the strings to changes notes).

The p bass only has a pickup near the bridge.  The pickup is the part of the guitar that "hears" the sting vibrate and turns it into a signal for the amp.  On the jazz bass you can adjust the volume of each pickup on their own so it gives you a lot of options in how it sounds.  Because the pickups are in different spots along the strings they will hear slightly differently and give the sound a different tone or color.  As an aside, a lot of times j bass players will just match the level of both pickups because it rejects a buzzing sound that happens with single coil pickups.  But by plucking near each pickup you can change how the notes sound.

The p bass is a little more limited in that sense in that it only has the single pickup, but it's not necessarily a bad thing, just a difference in how the bass works and plays.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How intelligent is the Hulk?

Like, if he could be calm without reverting to Bruce Banner, how smart would Green Hulk be?

[Assistant] Which Hulk?  There are various versions of Hulk that have different levels of intelligence.  Doc Green started out at least as smart as Banner (but has been losing intellect).  Professor Hulk had all of Banner's intellect (and was, essentially, just Banner in Hulk's body).  Joe Fixit had normal level of intellect.  World War Hulk was not Banner-level but was relatively smart, clever, and a skilled tactician- even at his most angry he remained of at least average intelligence.


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

[User]
What would a good visualization of the Oort Cloud be?

Google results produce a spherical definition, and a disc-like definition. Which of these is more correct? To add to this, being able to "see" through the Oort cloud to other stars etc, what is the approximate density of the cloud? I know we can see out of our own, but when we look into other solar systems, is there any obscurity caused by its cloud? Does every solar system have one? Does it change over time?

[Assistant]
The Oort cloud is a spherical collection of comets and other icy bodies at the very edge of our solar system. Gravity may have formed the bodies into a slightly greater density along the plane of the sun (and the planets) but observations of the cloud are scarce since it is so distant from us. It is different from the Kuiper belt in that it is much further out from the Sun, and contains either very long period comets or comets that do not move significantly from the cloud. The Kuiper belt is much closer, right outside the orbit of pluto, and contains larger bodies and shorter period comets.

In terms of density, the Oort cloud is incredibly scattered. Looking out from the sun, it would be very unlikely that your view would be obscured by an Oort cloud object due simply to the tiny size of the objects and their distance from the us. For this reason, it is uncertain if there are Oort clouds in other solar systems. It is difficult enough to detect other planets in other solar systems, let alone small bits of ice that are on the order of thousands of AU from their star.


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

[User]
ELI5: why is it unsafe to take a shower during a storm?

Is that not just an old wives tale?

[Assistant]
So, in the past with copper pipes,  which are good conductors of electricity,  would cause issues in the correct situation.

If lighting struck part the water system, saturated ground, or a house that is not grounded electricity can run along pipes and alone the water that a person is using.  This can electrocute them.

It is not as common now as it was decades ago.

Plastic piping and proper grounding of the homes help this issue.


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

[User] [The Matrix] Cant the Machines just program the Agents to be completely invincible, like a cheat or a privilege in a video game ?

[Assistant] Because as explained by the Architect, in the grand scheme of the Matrix rebellious humans are necessary to its existence so the programmers could not allow Agents that are completely invincible but just strong enough to make the life of the resistance really really hard. The One was apparently the only subject who could use actual cheat codes until Agent Smith went rogue.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between VAT and sales tax?

[Assistant]
Sales tax is only collected at the final stage.

Like when you buy food at the grocery store.
An apple is farmed, then purchased by a wholesaler, then given to a distributor to ship, the purchased by they actual grocery store. And then finally purchased by you.

 It's not taxed until you buy it.

A VAT is applied at every step where the product changes hands. So in the above example everyone there would be paying a little tax.

In short every time *value is added* there is tax. And each step is supposed to be adding value. Wholesaler makes it easier to ship the food. Distributor actual ships the food. Grocer makes it so you can easily get the food.

One of the biggest affects is that with a VAT is that there is a lot more documentation which means it's much less likely for tax revenue to just disappear.

Like if you have sales tax all you need to do is fiddle with the last step to avoid paying any taxes. With a VAT that is much harder. They also tend to incentivize vertical integration I.e. a single company controlling the entire process so the goods never change hands.


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

[User]
What makes a good question?

There's some frustration among some panelists here about poorly-formed questions.  When I was in grad school, asking a good question was one of the hardest things to learn how to do.  It's not easy to ask a good question, and it's not easy to *recognize* what can be wrong with a question that seems to be perfectly reasonable.  This causes no end of problems, with question-askers getting upset that no one's telling them what they want to know, and question-answerers getting upset at the formulation of the question.

Asking a good research question or science question is a skill in itself, and it's most of what scientists do.

It occurred to me that it might help to ask scientists, i.e. *people who have been trained in the art of question asking*, what they think makes a good question - both for research and for askscience.

[Assistant]
The scientific method is good at answering questions that boil down to "What is the relationship between *X* and *Y?"*

The precise *way* in which the question reduces to that form may not be immediately obvious. For example, take the question "Why is the sky blue?" Or, stating the implicit, "Why is the sky blue and not another colour?"

The most obvious comment on such a question is, well, it *isn't.* Not always. At night the sky is black, and on overcast days it's some or another shade of grey. And at sunrise and sunset, the sky takes on a wide variety of yellow, orange, red and violet hues as well.

Which means the colour of the sky appears to have *something to do with the sun.* Which allows us to restate the question as, "What is the *relationship* between sunlight and the colour of the sky?"

And next thing you know, you've got Rayleigh scattering. You've just done science.

Of course, one might not have gone that way. One might instead have wondered what the relationship is between the colour of the sky and the weather. Or between the colour of the sky and the time of day. Or between the colour of the sky and the temperature out of doors. In all of those cases, the answer is that there's only an *indirect* relationship  but even *that* is doing science. Discovering that there is no relationship where you thought one was, or that the relationship you imagined turns out to be far more complex and interesting than you suspected, is what science is *really really good for.*

Bad questions are those that don't move you toward a greater understanding of the relationship between two things. Speculative questions, hypothetical questions, what-would-happen-if questions, is-it-possible-that questions, what's-the-deal-with questions, what-do-you-think-about questions, what's-the-purpose-of questions, and worst of them all help-me-win-an-argument questions these are all *lousy.* Because while they might tickle our curiosity, they don't *get us anywhere.* They don't lead us to a better understanding of how the world works.

Things exist. Things happen. Sussing out the relationships between things that exist and things that happen is what that scientific method is good for. If your intention is to do science  and while it's not mandatory that it must be, that *is* what it says up there at the top of each page in this forum then toward those relationships is where your attention must be cast. Otherwise it's all just nattery and chit-chat.


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

[User]
ELI5:  Why do all radio stations end in an odd decimal?

I've noticed all the frequencies in my city end with .1, .3, .5, etc.  I don't know if it's just Vancouver, but can someone please enlighten me as to why?

[Assistant]
An FM radio signal doesn't actually get transmitted on exactly one frequency. FM means *frequency modulation*. What that means is that the way the station sends the sound is by slightly varying the frequency of its signal.

FM radio frequencies are measured in a unit called *megahertz*.

It can vary the frequency by up to 0.1 megahertz, in either direction (higher or lower). So, a station at 106.1 megahertz is actually using frequencies anywhere from 106.0 megahertz up to 106.2 megahertz.

That means that all the radio stations need to be put at least 0.2 megahertz apart to make sure they don't overlap.

Why odd decimals instead of even ones? Well, that's just because the frequencies that are set aside for FM radio in North America are 88.0 megahertz up to 108.0 megahertz. That makes 88.1 megahertz the lowest station frequency, and then they go up by 0.2 from there.


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

[User] [Kung Fu Panda] Was the Dragon Scroll always blank? Who trained Master Oogway? Was the entire temple's teachings a lie, for lack of a better word? Like there's no 'trick' to Kung Fu, no deeper meaning?

[Assistant]
Yes. The point is there is no secret technique to unlock Kung Fu. It comes unique to the user.

Oogway discovered Kung Fu by himself and developed it into a style that suited whoever learned it

The discipline that was taught wasn't a lie. The idea that people had that there was "a secret to unlock" was one everyone assumed.


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

[User] [Marvel] What is Dr. Doom's PhD in?

[Assistant] Surprising that with 11 comments there isn't a real answer yet.  Dr. Doom doesn't have a PhD.  He was in school for theoretical physics but he was expelled after a machine he'd built exploded (due to Ben Grimm's sabotage).  After he left he just gave himself the title of doctor and no one really disputes it because he IS a genius and far more intelligent than a single degree would account for.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly happens when you lose your voice?

[Assistant] Your larynx is inflamed.  In there are folds of tissue that vibrate to make your voice when air passes over it.  When they get all swelled up, they can't vibrate like they could before.  Think about how difficult it would be to talk if your tongue swelled up, it's a bit like that.


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

[User] [Bionicle] If a Krana is destroyed after it is launched, what happens to the Bohrok?

[Assistant] The Bohrok are really just machines meant to house the krana. Although the Bohrok were originally sentient Av-Matoran, once they transform into Bohrok they lose the capacity for independent thought. Without a krana to guide it, a Bohrok will become inert. It will accept basic commands from others (even from Matoran or other beings unaffiliated with the Bohrok swarms), but will take no actions on its own initiative. The Bohrok Va would sometimes attempt to get a new krana to Bohrok that has lost theirs, but during the chaotic conditions of the Bohrok War many "empty" Bohrok ended up being abandoned by the swarm. The Bohrok are nothing if not expendable.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does 5ghz Wi-Fi penetrate less than 2.4ghz?

Not sure if penetrate is the right word. Basically high frequency electromagnetic waves penetrate more than low frequencies. You can see this with how x-ray machines work ( high frequency x-rays travel through flesh that visible light bounces of). But on the other hand 5ghz wifi has more problems with obstructions than 2.4ghz.

So which is it? Does higher or lower frequency penetrate more? Or is there some lowest penetrating frequency?

[Assistant]
There are two different factors at play here.

 Both are very important and could easily be compared to am\fm radio. It's about wavelength. In the case of 2.4 vs 5 gig Hz it's more than twice the wavelength difference.

How does wavelength impact the way the energy travels?

1 the lower the wavelength the farther the energy will travel (so 2.4 gig is better there)
2 the higher the wavelength the less interruptions it will encounter as it moves thru objects (walls Windows doors clouds etc) (so 5 gig is "slightly" better there)

The biggest improvement is the increase in bandwidth by it is offset by slightly shorter range.

But both are up in the gig spectrum meaning they are not going to travel very very far unless you have a really powerful amplifier connected to your wireless router. (Which would be very dangerous for other reasons)


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

[User]
How can I become a member of the Justice League?

Is there some sort of application I have to fill out? Tests I have to pass? I was looking into the idea of joining when I realized that I have no idea how to apply or what an application would even consist of.

[Assistant]
When you encounter a current Justice Leaguer a few things to keep in mind.

1. They are mistaken when they attack you when you first meet. This always happens when two heroes meet for the first time in the field. Do you best to not die, and to not kill the Justice League member. Doing either will hurt your chances of future membership.

2. Always be on your best behavior. Superman can hear you swear when you stub your toe in your "secret" lair. Batman most likely has already deduced who you are. Martian Manhunter could scan your mind and learn your true intentions. Make sure to always be working towards being an exemplary hero.

3. Ask yourself, what do you bring to the table? What role could you fill if one of the big guns went down?

4. Make sure to be friendly to current Leaguers. It will take some work, but they really are somewhat of a 'who-you-know' system. Someone has to vouch for you. Very rarely will you have an unknown walk on to the team.

5. Big help, try and get into the Titans, the JSA or one of the other 'feeder' teams.

When the time is right (end of the world and/or the current JLA has disappeared into a void) you'll get a call. Make sure to answer the phone when the caller id says Watchtower.


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

[User] eli5 why do some animals die after mating?

[Assistant]
Natural selection.

You're talking about animals where the male, most likely, isn't needed after mating.  The offspring either can take care of themselves or form some sort of colony.  Males hanging around doing nothing between mating seasons use up resources that the offspring need.  For these animals too going from newly hatched to sexual maturity also doesn't usually take that long.

Now, as to why it's not usually the adult females that drop dead after mating where the offspring can look after themselves?  They can reproduce again later.  Sure, the males could too but in the sexual evolutionary arms race a very small number of males can fertilise a large number of females.

This is different for humans where males were important to our social groups.  They could do things like protect the group as human males are bigger and stronger than female humans, for instance.   Plus it takes years for humans to reach sexual maturity so males just dropping dead would actually waste the resources that went into getting them to sexual maturity.

Evolution selects that which works.  It doesn't even have to work well.  It just has to work better or less shit.


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

[User]
ELI5: When you get a shot in the arm, how can you be sure the contents are being released into a blood vessel?

When you donate blood the needle goes into a large, visible vein in your arm or hand but when getting a shot the needle just goes somewhere in your arm.

[Assistant] Many injections don't have to be directly into a blood vein/artery.   Just injecting into muscular tissue alone provides fairly rapid absorption into the bloodstream without the risks of using a vien.


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

[User]
Eli5: Why don't Macs and PCs use the same type of executable file?

Why do macs use .app files and PCs use .exe files? Isn't it just easier to make both OSes run .exe files?

[Assistant]
There are a few things to consider here.

Firstly, what we typically call PCs are PCs running the Windows operating system, created by Microsoft. Macs are very similar computers running the Mac OS operating system, created by Apple.

The operating system can be thought of (for ELI5 purposes) as the program on your computer that manages how the rest of the computer works. Your operating system controls which other programs have access to your computer's hardware (for example the CD drive, hard disk, and the CPU which is the 'brain' of the computer) and what kind of order files are stored in, as well as how everything is displayed on your monitor.

All other programs work "on top" of the operating system.

All computer programs are written in a special coded language, which computers can understand (again, close enough for ELI5).

Instead of every program having to include all the code needed to make a window on the monitor, how to write a file to your hard disk, or how to send something to a printer, programs include System Calls. A System Call is a special piece of code that asks the operating system to do something.

For example, a program wanting to print to your printer would send a system call to Windows, or to Mac OS, along with the information it wants to print out. The operating system then runs the part of its program that knows how to send files to a printer.

This is great because there are so many different printers, which all work slightly differently. When you install a printer, you just tell the operating system how the printer works (by installing something called a driver), and every other program just gets the operating system to do the printing.

**So, onto actually answering your question:** Windows and Mac OS use different System Calls.

Think about how a window looks on a Mac, compared to on Windows. Because the window has to be drawn in a different way you need to give a different set of information to the operating system so that it can draw the window onscreen for you.

Because they use different system calls, you need to write the code differently, so to differentiate between a Mac OS program (with Mac OS system calls) and a Windows program (with Windows system calls) the files are named differently.

**Extra info:**

* The other interesting thing about .app files is that they are really just a folder containing several different files, including the executable. So where a .exe is just one file, a .app can contain a few different files. Similarly, .exes often contain more information than just the program code itself, but it is all stored in a single file.

* There are other operating systems than just Windows and Mac OS. Some of these use different executable file formats. For example .elf files are commonly used on Linux and Unix-like operating systems (these can run on 'PCs' too, which is why we need to differentiate between a PC and a PC running Windows). .exe files originated on DOS operating systems.


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

[User]
[Spiderman] Did peter parker make his web shooters before or after becoming spider man?

If he made them after, how long was he running around without them? Did he fight crime without them?

[Assistant] In the original continuity, he made them after he gained his powers, but he was not at first a crime fighter. Never wealthy, he tried to capitalize on them first by claiming the prize in a wrestling challenge and then tries some TV appearances. He didn't decide to fight crime until a thief who he couldn't be bothered to stop later murdered his Uncle Ben.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Are hyperspace lanes actually dangerous?

I had the thought that if these lanes are well documented and considered the best way to get from point A to point B, then they must have a lot of traffic?

So is there not a concern of crashing into other ships also traveling in hyperspace? Say, heading the other direction?

As an extra question, when fleets travel through hyperspace together, can they see the other ships around them?

[Assistant]
Well charted hyperspace lanes are very safe. There are few events or objects that are undocumented that can effect travel through a known lane, and if there is a periodic event, like a comet or meteor shower that can cross a hyperspace lane and cause a ship to be pulled out, that would be recorded on nav computers so they can make the necessary calculations to avoid it.

Once you're in hyperspace you don't really have to worry about other ships traveling through it as it seems that they don't really interact with each other, it's just the mass shadow of a large object in realspace that can have an effect. The real danger is the moments as you enter and exit hyperspace. Because for a fraction of a second your motion in relation to realspace approaches relativistic speeds. This is why entering or exiting hyperspace leaves a distinct energy signal that can be detected (it's also why thanks to a huge set of very favorable rare circumstances Holdo was able to do what she did in TLJ). Because of that danger, ships traveling in convoy have to be well spread apart to provide enough room for error in case a calculation was off.

The exception is Purrgil, a species of space whale-like creatures that have a natural ability to travel through hyperspace. They are almost impossible to track and a swarm of them is big enough that they can pull a ship out of hyperspace.


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

[User]
Resources on the philosophy of fear?

Since a very young age, I have found this emotion to be one of the most fascinating... especially with how it hinders a person.

If you know of any resources on the philosophy of fear and can share them here, it would be much appreciated! Thank you.

[Assistant] You might find that, through studying what people who study the virtue 'courage' (cf. Aristotle, the Stoics, or any virtue ethicist, really) have to say, it would help to illuminate the nature of fear. Also, this may be a little different from fear (although it certainly contains it), but *angst* or *anxiety* are crucial concepts in the existentialist tradition (cf. Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, or even certain Buddhist texts). And, finally, of course, the key scholars of the psychoanalytical tradition (cf. Freud, Jung, Marcuse, Irigaray) have some interesting things to say about where fear *originates* and how it manifests itself in one's decisions/actions and general perception of the world.


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

[User] ELI5 How is time to death calculated in terminally I'll patients?

[Assistant]
Usually just an educated guess by the doctors who from experience have seen so many they can give a good estimate based on the condition of the patient, the severity of their symptoms and the rate of decline.

Basically they compare it to lots of other patients with similar diseases.


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

[User] How does someone "throw" their voice?

[Assistant]
They shout "SUL MEY GUT"! ;)

In all seriousness though, a ventriloquist "throws his voice" using two techniques;

1) The forming of all sounds has to be done with the lips slightly parted. This is especially hard for the labial sounds, f, v, p, b and m, and there is really no other option than to replace them with other sounds such as th, d, t and n. When done skillfully, it's hard to hear any difference.

2) The puppet/dummy is used to divert the audiences attention from the ventriloquists face. Our eyes tend to be drawn to things that moves irregularly, so moving the puppet/dummy helps to solidify the illusion.

A fact is also that most ventriloquism is performed with the audience a considerable distance away, and often using a PA system as well. This diminishes or eliminates the audiences sense of where the sound is coming from. When watching a ventriloquist up close, the sound can clearly be heard coming from the ventriloquists mouth.


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

[User]
How could the proton and neutron have the same approximate mass if the down quark weighs about twice as much as the up quark? (~4.8 vs ~2.3 MeV/c^2)

Does the neutron lose mass when it binds with a proton in a nucleus?

[Assistant]
You may notice that the masses of the proton and neutron are both almost 1 GeV/c^(2), where the sums of the quark masses amount to a few MeV/c^(2).

The majority of the mass of a hadron is "dynamical mass" caused by the quark and gluon dynamics going on inside, rather than simply the sum of the bare masses of the valence quarks.

So the masses of the quarks alone cannot explain the mass of the entire nucleon, and therefore the difference between the up and down quark masses cannot be assumed to fully explain the difference between the proton and neutron masses.

>Does the neutron lose mass when it binds with a proton in a nucleus?

You can consider the protons and neutrons within a nucleus to retain their individual masses, but the mass of the entire bound system will be different than the sum of the masses of individual free nucleons. This difference is all swept into a quantity called the "mass defect" (equivalent to the binding energy by E = mc^(2)).


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

[User] ELI5: What happens when you sue an individual, and they can't afford to pay the amount?

[Assistant]
You can garnish their wages, place a lien on their property, or seize a bank account.  Unfortunately, the court is usually not that helpful in collecting money, but these tools can help.

The most important thing of all is to keep track of the debtor, so if they do skip town or something, you can find them and keep up the pursuit.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some things burn and other things melt?

[Assistant]
Most things will do both, but one is easier than the other.

Melting is a state change from a solid to a liquid. This requires enough energy (heat) to raise the temperature high enough for the current atmospheric pressure. Some materials simply require too much energy or too low of a pressure for this to happen easily in normal life.

Burning is a chemical reaction between fuel and oxygen. It also takes energy to start (heat), but usually releases even more energy which makes the reaction continue. For some materials, this initial energy is too high to happen easily in normal life.

It gets more complicated when your substance isn't a single material. For example, wood. While we generally think of wood as "burning", there are a lot of other materials in a piece of wood that will melt or evaporate while the cellulose (woody part of wood) burns.

So essentially, it comes down to which of the two needs less energy for the current conditions. This is known as the combustion temperature (burning) vs the melting point (melt).

A somewhat familiar example is magnesium: this is a solid metal at room normal temperatures and pressures that is commonly used in firestarters because it is so flammable and easy to burn. However, if you put it in a non-oxygen environment at the same pressures, it melts rather easily.


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

[User] ELI5 how a amputee controls a bionic arm.

[Assistant]
Theres electronics that picks up the signals sent to the remainder of the arm and translates this to movement.
When you tell a muscle to contract you send a very weak electric signal. The bionic arm will have EMG sensors that pick up the potential difference between a reference point and the signal source (usually the head of a muscle). Data from multiple sources is used to detect the desired movement.


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

[User]
[40k]If your ship is becalmed in the Warp what prevents you from just exiting the Warp?

Read a couple stories where ships were becalmed in the Warp, i.e. the raging currents they were riding stopped and they just had to sit tight in Hell and wait to get moving again.  Much drama was derived from paranoia over how the Gellar Fields were holding up and *if* they had, in fact stopped working and the passengers were just slowly going insane.

There were no reasons given as to why the ship didn't just exit to realspace and wait things out there.  Seems a better option than sitting it out in the most hazardous surroundings imaginable.

True, they wouldn't be at the destination they were supposed to be traveling to, but they would probably be orders of magnitude safer while they were waiting.

[Assistant]
Moving from the warp to realspace is complicated and dangerous. The Immaterium is a complex slurry of psychic energies and waves of emotion and thought. Every single being with a soul causes ripples and eddies in the heaving mess. Greater entities like psykers and daemons create massive fluctuations in the warp and the storms presented there can rip a ship apart in an instant. Even when the warp is "physically" calm, simply being there is fraught with peril. Daemons and spirits can only be held back by a Gellar Field, else the crew will be possessed, corrupted, or rapemurdered to death by the denizens of the Immaterium. Only Navigators can steer a shit through the shifting tides of psychic energy towards their destination, and only the Gellar Field protects the crew's bodies, minds, and souls.

Basically, traversing from the warp and realspace is less like stepping from the sidewalk to the street, and more like jumping through a brick wall covered with venomous snakes. You can try it, but you might not survive the attempt.


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

[User]
[Dishonoured] Why do people pray to the outsider?

While I am not a religious person and so dont entirely get prayer in general, in the dishonoured universe there are several shrines and people who worship the outsider despite it being illegal. I think in one of the games you can even find people tortured or killed by the Abby of the Everyman. Also the outsider states he only gives out his mark to a select few people, only about 10 or so at a time I believe. So why do people worship him if they get nothing out of it?

[Assistant]
Desperation.

Dunwall is a horrible place, a festering oppressive slum run by authority figures who at best don't give a shit if you live or die and at worst actively aim for the latter. The dominant faith tortures and kills on the slightest pretence, the streets are violent and run by brutal crime lords, and the only measures taken against the the plague is making sure it doesn't interfere with the aristocrats parties.

If you're the average common person, never mind someone poverty-stricken,your odds of living a long life and dying a peaceful death are already rock bottom. Your odds of becoming the next corvo or granny rags may be one in 20,000, yes, but that doesn't necessarily rule it out as being your best shot.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does your vision continue to spin even after you stop spinning?

You know, you get in a swivel chair and spin around really fast and then stop but you're vision still seems to "spin"? Is my brain catching up or something?

[Assistant]
Our sense of balance, motion, and direction come from what's called the vestibular system, which is located in our inner ears. Part of this system is 3 small tubules filled with fluid. When when move or spin or change directions, this fluid moves as well, and our brain interprets those signals to determine our orientation and acceleration, sort of like a gyroscope.

When we spin real fast, that fluid in the tubules spins too, and when we stop suddenly, it takes a few seconds for the fluid to stop. Think of it like stirring a cup of coffee. Even after you stop stirring, it takes a few seconds for the coffee to stop swirling and come to a stop. The same thing happens in our vestibular system. Our eyes see us motionless, but our vestibular system tells us we're still spinning, so it causes momentary dizziness until balance in restored.


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

[User] [Dark Soul] How is it that I, a lowly undead is able to fell giants, lords and ancient heroes of the age of fire by merely hacking at their ankles repeatedly?

[Assistant]
You can easily defeat powerful beings from the Age of Fire because the Age of Fire is at its close. The Fire fades and gives way to Dark, and you are *definitely* a creature of the Dark that is gathering power and growing stronger while they weaken. All of them are mere shadows of their former glory.

Also, quite a few of them might be imposters.


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

[User]
How does a program like blender (which is written in cpp and python) run with no installation?

You can load blender onto a usb stick and just run it from there. Also, since it's partly written in python, does an interpreter get packages with the software? If not, does the software require an interpreter to be installed on the running system?

[Assistant]
Installation means copying the files from somewhere to your computer. If the files are already there, like on a USB stick, then what's the difference if they are copied to your computer or not? They can run the same either way.

Blender includes all packages, interpreters, and other dependencies it has with it, so it doesn't need to get them from anywhere.


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

[User]
What's the difference between "metaphysical" and "ontological" in contemporary usage? Do two things with the same ontological status necessarily have the same metaphysical status? What about the reverse?

To elaborate: If I make a claim like

>"there is no a priori ontological difference between what is human and what is not"

what would be the difference in substituting "metaphysical" for "ontological"?

Or if I were to claim,

>"logical possibility entails metaphysical possibility"

how is this different from if I had used "ontological" instead of "metaphysical"?

Thanks dudes!

[Assistant] Metaphysics is more general, ontology is more particular. Ontology is a branch of metaphysics. So something's ontological status is *part of* its metaphysical status. But ontology doesn't exhaust metaphysics. For instance, another branch of metaphysics is mereology, being the study of the relationship between parts and wholes. Consider the ontological status of the City of Gold with its mereology. The City of Gold, presumably, is made up of a whole bunch of city part make of gold--some mixture of golden buildings, golden streets, golden pavements, golden lamp posts, and so on. The city is the whole made up of a bunch if city parts, and this is a metaphysical fact about the City of Gold, where it to exist. But all of that happens independently of whether the City of Gold exists, that is, its ontological status. That's an example of how there is parts of something's metaphysical status which is not part of its ontological status.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it sometimes a flame does not emit any smoke, but after the flame is extinguished there is a lot of it?

[Assistant] Smoke happens when the fuel doesnt completely burn. The flame appears because the fuel is burning at full temperature with proper air flow. If either of those is removed, the flame will be extinguished, but residual heat continues to inefficiently burn the fuel, which creates smoke.


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

[User]
How does a neutron emit an electron when it consists of quarks?

What is this alchemy?

[Assistant]
A neutron is heavier than a proton, which makes it unstable outside of a nucleus; if a particle is heavier and there is an interaction that allows it to decay to another it will eventually. It decays into a proton, an electron, and a electron anti-neutrino. It's actually one of the down quarks that decays into an up quark along with the electron and the anti-neutrino. This decay is described through the weak nuclear force and it doesn't always happen inside a nucleus because strong nuclear interactions between baryons make neutrons more stable,this is precisely the mechanics of beta decay though.

Why that particular decay? Well a few conservation laws have to be obeyed. A neutron turns into a proton because the number of baryons has to be conserved. But uh oh! You've gained charge, so an electron has to be made so the decay has so there is no change in charge. Oh no! You gained a lepton, so an electron anti-neutrino has to be made that way there isn't a net change in the number of leptons. The resultant particles also have their resultant momentum (where they're going and how fast) determined by the laws of conservation of energy and momentum.

Tl;dr: not alchemy, just the weak force in action.


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

[User]
How to ask critical questions nicely at a conference

When I ask a question after a conference presentation, sometimes its critical in nature, but I dont want to sound too aggressive or hurt the presenters feelings. So I want to sound as nice as possible and add comments like thank you for your presentation, its very interesting before getting into the question. But sometimes this feels too superficial, and I was wondering what would be a more natural way to sound nicer when asking a critical question at a conference.

[Assistant]
Go into it with the assumption that they considered what you're about to ask and have a good reason for having done it their way instead.

Instead of essentially phrasing "I think you should have done Y instead of X" as a question, ask "can you elaborate on your rationale for doing X instead of Y" or "what are your thoughts on also attempting this via Y" or "what do you think are the pros and cons of doing this via X vs Y."

I've seen questions asked this way a lot and answers ranged from a jovial "great idea, let's collaborate" to a thorough explanation that probably left the questioner feeling quite stupid because they were wrong (lol), to an interesting discussion about data availability/integration issues (I got to a lot of talks that are studying very large public datasets) that is helpful for many in the audience and occasionally helpful to the author as well.


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

[User]
[Fantastic Four] Reed Richards is the smartest man on the planet so why can't he fix Ben Grimm?

Reed has been shown to be the smartest man in the ~~MCU~~ Marvel Universe and ever since their accident has told Ben that he would change him back from being "the thing" but has never succeeded. Why can't he figure out those damn cosmic rays?

[Assistant]
The Fantastic Four (who do not yet exist in MCU so this is 616) were on an experiential space flight that was bombarded by cosmic radiation, when a solar flare temporarily boosted the intensity of the ionizing radiation in Earth's Van Allen belt.

The effects mutated their bodies, changing their very beings and making them "mutants" without being mutants. They lack the Homo superior X-Gene, but their bodies have been mutated anyway.

This means that there isn't really a "normal" to go back to, they have been changed from one thing into another and that first thing no longer exists. It's like asking why you can't make toast back into bread - the original thing simply no longer exists as its nature has been changed.

A reality warper could do it, as they can change the nature of reality from one thing to another, or just grant him a new body, but Reed works in science and even for all of his ability there are still limitations. He *has* had some success over the years, but it has been mostly temporary.

So Reed may be smart, but he has his limits, when something is fundamentally changed it sometimes can't, or is very *very* hard to change back.


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

[User]
ELI5: What causes animals to die of old age?

Like why would an otherwise healthy being just die all the sudden? Is death of natural causes an actual thing or is it a catchall term for more specific things that just tend to happen as animals get older?

[Assistant]
The cells in your body are constantly replicating themselves and then dying off.  Your hair and nails are made of these dead cells (and that's why your hair and nails grow).

However, every time a cell replicates, it's not exactly perfect.  There's a piece of the cell that acts almost like a timer.  Every time the cell replicates, that timer piece gets a tiny, tiny bit shorter.

Have you ever photocopied something?  You know that the photocopy isn't quite the same?  There's always a slight be a degradation.

Well, that's what happens with a cell.  So eventually, the degradation becomes so bad that the cell can't perform it's function correctly.  That's why we get symptoms of old age as well.

Then eventually, the replicated cells just start to fail and that eventually leads to death.


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

[User]
[Futurama] How does Earth's military go from being so hopelessly inept to being capable of blockading Omnicron Persei 8?

The Omnicronians are a society so adept in warfare that they consider planetary conquest something young Omnicronians achieve for a merit badge, and Earth's ineptness at combat has been demonstrated countless times -such as when the entire planet surrendered to a single Omnicronian child trying to earn his merit badge. But shortly after that, in retaliation the Earth forces effectively blockaded Omnicron Persei 8. How was such a proven inept force capable of blockading such a proven overwhelming force?

[Assistant] Earths home defense forces, headed by Captain Zapp Branigan, are hopelessly inept, and thus kept close to home. The expeditionary forces on the other hand are devastatingly effective. This is because president Nixon is far more interested in offense than defense, also because Zapp is in his good ole boys circle.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can I think about moving my body, but not move it? What's the difference between thinking about moving a body part, and actually moving it?

[Assistant] It's because the parts of your brain that processes though/cognition are separate from the part that controls movement (the motor cortex). Only when the two communicate are the appropriate messages sent to your muscles to force movement. As an interesting side note, there is evidence that simply thinking about performing an action can make you better at said action.


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

[User] [The Matrix] When people connect to The Matrix, Don't they need an un-hung phone somewhere to appear out from as they need to answer a phone to jack-out?

[Assistant]
They need a "hardline" connection, but the signal causing the Matrix representation of the phone to ring is enough to ride on in order for the initial connection, transfer of consciousness, and generation of a Residual Self Image.

The "ride out" requires picking up the phone as a way of engaging the carrier wave for pickup, but the "ride in" just needs the initial connection. This can be seen when the crew of the Nebudchadnezzar goes to visit the Oracle, and they all appear around the ringing phone, still in its cradle.

IOW, a particular landline phone ringing might be a signal that someone is about to appear from thin air to kick your ass.


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

[User]
[Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series] Why are people so insistent about calling Arthur some form of simian or monkey, when no one does the same to Trillian?

I've only read the first two books, but it irks me that Zaphod and others will only call Arthur out. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

[Assistant] Despite being told in the third person, the HGttG series is about Arthur and his point of view. We see much less of Trillian's story (and if you keep reading, several books don't include her at all). For all we know, she was constantly called "some form of simian or monkey" until Zaphod and others got used to her.


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

[User] ELI5: Does an overweight person outlast a physically fit person in a starving to death scenario?

[Assistant]
Short answer: probably.

Long answer: it depends on more than just their relative body fat percentages. But, starving to death is not very common outside the developing world and few people there are overweight to begin with.

The nearest common scenario is something like cancer. People who are very thin tend to die more frequently than people who are overweight.  When you have a wasting disease, the more body reserves you have the better, and cancer treatment often interrupts your ability to feed yourself adequately.


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

[User] [Monsterverse] What caused all the titans to become dormant for millennia?

[Assistant]
Three major events. The first being a lack of solar radiation as the planet formed more completely wiping out most of the titans. Those that survived were wiped out by the Alpha Muto incursion with only a handful surviving their millennia long breeding cycles. Still some managed to survive to be driven into hibernation by the appearance of monster zero and it's devastating effects on the globe. Some are still hibernating as the planet cannot support them still and they will awaken once ambient radiation levels return to higher amounts or called up by an Alpha Titan species.

The vast majority of the titans did migrate into the hollow earth as the surface became uninhabitable to them. Only the weaker species have remained on the surface in dormancy hiding from Kongs, Godzillas, and the Mutos that all preyed on them.


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

[User]
[Lord of the rings] What happened to Saruman after the events of Two Towers?

Since he is one of the Maiar, did he expect to be regenerated like Gandalf was? Or did his defection to Sauron doom him to the same fate?

[Assistant]
Saruman eventually escaped the tower, and made his way to, of all places, The Shire, with Wormtongue and some lackeys along for good measure.

They take over the shire for a while, until Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin return, raise the Hobbitry in Arms, and drive them out.

Ultimately, Saruman is killed by Wormtongue stabbing him, before Wormtongue is slain by Hobbit arrows.

Following this, his spirit was blown away on a gust of wind, and was denied entry into Arda, cursed to roam as a malicious, but ultimately harmless, spirit.

This is all available through the Red Book, called "The Return of the King," graciously transcribed from the original sources by Dr. Tolkien.


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

[User] What are the problems of Stoicism?

[Assistant]
Classical Stoicism held that Nature was ultimately good, and that all actions in accordance with nature would bring about the good. Marcus Aurelius asserts in Book 2 of Meditations that nothing natural is evil.

Stoicism then runs into the same trap as some religions that put faith in an omnipotent and benevolent deity - how do you explain horrible events? Alasdair MacIntyre summarizes the Nature problem in Stoicism quite succinctly: Nature is conceived of as an actively benevolent agent; nature is a legislator for our good (After Virtue 217).


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

[User] ELI5: Why is Bruce Lee so famous in comparison to the thousands of other top martial artists before and after him?

[Assistant]
Uh, well he was not just a martial artist.  He was a movie star, which garners a whole lot more fame and fortune than martial arts alone.  Besides being a legendary martial artist we was a great actor and a genius of directing and performing action scenes in movies.  He partially or fully directed the action scenes of many of the movies he starred in.

His movies were also very good and had totally badass fights.  They were kind of a sweet spot of kung fu movies that really appealed to American audiences in the 70s.  They had a lot of style and created a lot of the tropes we see in martial arts films.


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

[User] If I drop LSD into an aquarium, will the fish be affected in any way?

[Assistant] I think you'd need quite a bit when diluted in a fish tank.  I'll let the real scientists calculate that.   If the concentration was high enough, the LSD will impact the behavior of the fish though -- not sure in which way.  I've dosed crayfish with LSD before--they would become aggressive at low doses, and get "locked" in an aggressive stance at higher doses.


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

[User]
CMV:I think that there is sufficient justification that reality is deterministic and that free will (in the philosophical libertarian sense) is false.

Now this is a CMV where I would *dearly* love to change my view on this, but I think that there is no reasonable way to have 'true free will'.

What do I mean by free will?
Well, I mean the existence of original thought that is bound to the will of the individual. When a person does an evil act or a good act, they are taking advantage of their intellect and shaping their reality in accordance with their will - they choose to impart an evil act. What happened up and until that act is irrelevant, because in that moment the person chooses to become good.

I think that this is an illusion.

Determinism merely states that every micro-instance has an antecedent. We are all shaped from a sub-quantum level of micro instances cascading upwards from instant to instant that shapes our fundamental essence. From every observable action that we take, it is the background of the person that shaped that action 'good' or 'evil' based on the subjective morality of every individual person around them.
To wit - if every single background event from a persons conception all the way up to their current state, with every decision being met, it would be possible with near perfect certainty to predict their next move. You could argue that there is a slight possibility of the entire universe (ie reality) completely fracturing in an unknowable way, but the only rational explanation for that is that there is an outside force - which is, i suppose the argument for the existence of god.

Given that we have no evidence to suggest that this could be the case, the only rational and logical explanation is that reality is deterministic.

There is, undestandably, a group of philosophers calling themselves compatiblists who argue for free will to logically be preceded by determinism, because even if we are able to draw a logical line from existence of the universe to now, we are unable to use that to predict the future, which exists as choice in the mind of the person. I would call that soft determinism; because the part where compatiblism falls down for me is that they don't take into account the persons free choice as a consequence of their determinism.

Tl;DR - reality is deterministic. Free will is an illusion.

Please hit me with your hardest philosophical take downs, i am 100% eager to hear them.

[Assistant]
> if every single background event from a persons conception all the way up to their current state, with every decision being met, it would be possible with near perfect certainty to predict their next move.

I think you are wrong on this one. Even at the smallest level we can currently understand (sub-atomic level), we have absolutly no way of knowing what happens, and what will happens.

Look at chaos theory, and quantum phisics to know more, but basically, randomness is something much more present than what you can think.

And if a lots of things are random, even at the smaller level, how can anything be absolutly determined by previous knowledge, given that something random will interact with it ?

So, whatever free will is a thing or not, at least determinism isn't an absolute answer either.


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

[User] ELI5: How are glitches/exploits/secrets found in video games, surely people don't spend hours and hours trying to find them with only a small chance there's actually something to find?

[Assistant]
Thats exactly how they are found, that and dumb luck.

The larger / more game breaking ones are usually found in the QA process which is literally doing repetitive motions over and over and over.   A few test cases might be something simple like

Jump over the box 50 times.   Or there might be jump over the box 50 times while unsheathing your weapon mid air and spinning your camera around.


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

[User]
Having a bit of a problem with feminist epistemology (not what you think)

Recently I picked up "Feminist Epistemology" aggregated by by Alcoff and Potter. It's an interesting discussion and I'm always willing to look at something that questions my worldview.
I'm kind of lost on what article within it though. In Helen Longino's essay "Subjects, Power and knowledge" she goes at such a length to say something that it gets a bit convoluted.

>One way to articulate the distinctions I am urging is to treat analysis of the context of discovery as a primarily descriptive process of how hypotheses are generated and to treat analysis in the context of justification as involving the normative or prescriptive analysis regarding the appropriate criteria for the acceptance of hypotheses.

Is she suggesting a more holistic approach to forming a hypothesis? Is she perhaps suggesting much more weight in the qualitative data than of the quantitative?
Please help. I feel a bit overwhelmed.

[Assistant]
Longino is arguing that there is a big difference between the "context of discovery"--what scientists do in the lab and the "context of justification" what scientists write about what they did in the lab (journal articles, etc). This part of a broader feminist critique of traditional philosophy of science, specifically normative theories about what makes good science good science. Such normative theories (e.g. logical positivism, falsification) are built on what happens in the regime of justification. That is, scientists write that they have a hypothesis that they did such and such to test it and it produced such and such results. But if you ask any scientist about how well the write-up reflects what actually happened in the lab, they laugh. The lab is a messy, messy place and the context of justification pretends that its clean. The end of all this is that Longino and others are arguing that philosophies of science built on the context of justification are built on fictionalized accounts of how science happens and, as such, not appropriate to the reality of scientific practice.

And this is only the beginning. If all context of justification is fictionalized then it doesn't make any sense to talk about the "accuracy" of findings. And if it doesn't make any sense to talk about the accuracy of findings, then it doesn't make any sense to develop a normative philosophy of science based on accuracy.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is a derivative? Why are they important?

In Calculus with a teacher who hasnt been able to explain the basic concept on a derivative. The internet has given me only complex answers and they havent helped me. Can you help?

[Assistant]
In algebra you learned to calculate the slope of a straight line.  y = mx + b, right?  m is the slope.

But what about a curved line?  Then the slope isn't constant.  It changes: it's higher when the line is steeper, and lower when the line is flatter.  So instead of a single number, the slope is a function of x.  At any given x, your line has a certain y value, and a certain slope.

Calculus is the set of math tools that allow you to find the slope function from the original function, or the original function from the slope function.

The derivative is finding the slope function.  For example the derivative of y=x^2 is y'=2x.  That means a basic parabola has a slope of 2x.

Later you will learn about integrals, which are the opposite: they allow you to reverse the derivative, finding the original function from the slope function.


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

[User]
[MCU/Iron Man 3] How did Stark pay at the hardware store?

He's believed to be dead (and he's obviously trying not to be recognized, with the hoodie and sunglasses), so his credit cards probably wouldn't work. And considering he had to leave in a hurry from what was left of his house on Malibu Point, he likely didn't think to grab any cash, and he seems like he's not the kind of person to carry much with him; he probably uses credit everywhere. So how did he purchase all that stuff to build things before he went to the Mandarin's mansion?

EDIT: And how did he get a hotel room?

[Assistant]
In addition to his personal credit cards, Tony probably also has some business credit cards for Stark Industries that would still work fine.

It's possible that he also carries some other forms of payment for when he doesn't want to be recognized or tracked.


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

[User]
What would Nietzsche think about modern day medicine and drugs? (Everything from ibuprofen, to meds for bipolar/schizophrenia, to marijuana, to the "Limitless" movie drug... how do these substances contribute to the bermensch?

Last semester in Ethics I asked my philosophy professor what Nietzsche would have thought about the drug in the movie "Limitless," you know, the one where the guy gets a drug that makes him amazing at all this stuff, super smart / motivated, etc. She said she honestly wasn't sure, because on one hand, it's man made, a "creation," but also could help develop the bermensch.

So this semester, I have bioethics with the same professor, and I decided for my extra credit project to really analyze this question I asked a while ago. Here's some ideas I have, but please correct me where I'm wrong, and feel free to offer opinions, passages, quotes, etc. I really want to go all out on this. I've only read The Gay Science and half of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

* I know Nietzsche used some type of opiate to get rid of the incredible pains (stomach issues/headaches...), so I'm *assuming* Nietzsche would have been okay with taking medicine that helped cure illness. I also know he took some type of sleeping drug that helped him sleep.

* I know he was clearly against alcohol from his famous quote... right? Or was he just against the abuse of alcohol when it came to avoid suffering?

* What the hell would he think of drugs that better you? Like steroids, the Limitless movie drug, speed (in cases like Jack Kerouac abusing benzadrine to write his famous novel in two weeks)...?

[Assistant]
Neitzsche seems more concerned with peoples motivations than with their overt behavior. Especially their unconscious motivations. For instance, he negatively evaluates Christian morality on the grounds that it is an expression of deep-seated cruelty, self-hatred, and inappropriate pity.

Given this, Nietzsche would likely be interested in why people are taking these drugs and whether the motivations are healthy or rather symptoms of decline. This would probably differ in a lot of individual cases.


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

[User]
[Batman] Would Batman's no-kill rule been different had his parents been tortured to death?

Say similar to how Dick got tortured by Joker, Batman had to witness his parents get the same treatment. But before the killer could finish him off, the cops show up and rescue Bruce as the killer is cuffed away. Waynes are pronounced dead.

Does this change Bruce's ideologies as Batman? Does Batman now excessively torture his enemies? Maybe as Bruce Wayne he hires the most sadistic doctors to run Arkham and then as Batman he sends his rogue gallery there to get tortured endlessly?

And heck, maybe he kills the Joker after he finds Dick Grayson dead.

Basically, does the prolonged and excruciating death of the Wayne's change how Batman would deal with criminals?

[Assistant]
Batman's no killing rule ultimately comes from a desire to not be as bad as the man who killed his parents. It's more a trauma response then a moral code in the conventional sense.

So if anything, it's the opposite- the more sadistic Joe Chill was, the higher standards batman has to hit to not be like him. A batman who's parents were tortured to death might well be an outright pacifist, unwilling to cause pain and trying to talk his villains out of it. To him, torture is the thing the Evil Man Who Took His Parents did, just like killing is to canon bruce, and he'll go to the same extreme lengths to avoid it.


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

[User]
ELI5: If we die in space will our body still decompose or will it float around relativly uncomposed?

As in title, if you get detached from your ship in your suit and just keep floating away into nothingness, once you die will your body decompose (maybe from the bacteria that is naturally in the body) or will it stay relativly "untouched" and just float around?

[Assistant]
Bacteria gets killed by the cold. Theres nothing to decompose you, but, freed of a suit (and perhaps regardless anyway) half of you is frizzling with pure solar energy cooking you up nicely, while the lee side freezes in the cold emptiness of space.

I imagine micro abrasion from flying sand particles would eventually wear you down and in time Im pretty sure youd wind up getting sucked into a gravity well, perhaps eventually descending to the surface of whatever body that is, most likely being dealt with by whatever atmosphere exists there.


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

[User]
ELI5: why can't we produce synthetic gasoline ?

We are able to make complex molecules in labs, so what's the reason for this ?

Edit : I know it wouldn't be a leap toward ecology, just wondering if it has been done and how. There is surely a powerful lobby which could benefit from such a technology.

[Assistant]
In addition to the cost involved, it's important to remember that gasoline is a molecule that can be burned to release energy. In order to create that molecule you have to put an equal amount of energy into it. That energy is stored in the form of chemical bonds. So burning the fuel breaks up the bonds and releases energy. But to create the fuel, you would have to put those bonds together, which means putting energy into it. If it's not biofuel then that energy would have to come from some other conventional source. Since our technology is not flawless, creating the conventional source of energy results in a net loss. Meaning that more energy is put into a power plant than comes out.

So to create gasoline with a conventional power plant we would have net energy loss.


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

[User]
How did it come that japanese economy is smaller than it was 5 and 25 years ago and it seems noone cares and does anything?

I looked for the dynamics of Japanese nominal GDP. It was $4,9 trillion in 1994, and now it's 4,8$ trillion, not speaking about 6,2$ trillion in 2012. Though, throughout the last 25 years the trend seems linear and horizontal, because it fluctuates a lot. This year it grew by 600 billion and after that it fell by 700. How Japanese and everyone kinda okay with that and doesn't pay much attention? I mean their economy is smaller than it was more than 20 years ago and they don't seem accomplishing much in tackling that.

Don't the Japanese react? Change policy? Elect other party and government? Social protests? Though it's only nominal GDP, and PPP grows, I guess it's really a sign that not only indicates current situation but also shows that there's going to be something worse in the long term, if they don't solve it.

...or maybe Japan has reached it's slowly growing potential GDP and just fluctuates around it?

[Assistant]
You should not be using nominal GDP in dollars in your comparison, as the exchange rate fluctuations with respect to the dollar and inflation will have disproportionate effects on the numbers you quote. Importantly, Japan experienced deflation throughout the 90s and 2000s and even in the early 10s, making the comparison flawed since a lower nominal GDP would not necessarily mean a smaller economy but rather one in which things get nominally cheaper.

When you look at real values in local currency (chained 2011 yen), Japans GDP was 425 trillion yen in 1994, 511 trillion yen in 2014 and 536 trillion yen in 2019, indicating positive, if mild, growth. In fact, Japan has experienced positive real growth rates pretty much every year since the 80s, except for the years of the Asian Financial Crisis (1998-1999) and the Great Financial Crisis (2008-2010).


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

[User] [MCU] In AoU Captain America said they couldn't leave a single person left to die on Sokovia. In Civil War he says you can't save everyone. What changed his attitude between these events?

[Assistant]
You can't "leave" a single person to die. You try your best, save everyone you can. That's why, in the First Avenger, Cap goes to save the captured soldiers. Sure he might not save everyone, but he's going to try.

Things like Sokovia show him that not everyone can be saved. Huge, extinction level events can happen, and you can't save everyone. But so long as Cap is still alive, he'll keep trying.

> This job... we try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody. But if we can't find a way to live with that, next time... maybe nobody gets saved.

You can't save everybody. But if you stop trying, everybody dies. You have to *try*. No one gets left behind on purpose.


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

[User]
[DBZ] When Goku and Vegeta removed MajinBuu from Super Buu why did he revert to Kid Buu and not Evil Buu?

From what I remember Kid Buu became Majin Buu after absorbing Grand Supreme Kai. But that had occurred so long ago the process was irreversible. So when Majin Buu got rid of his evil energy he formed Evil Buu and not Kid Buu. And to form Super Buu; Evil Buu absorbed Majin Buu. So I mean logically when they removed Majin Buu from Super Buu he should have gone back to Evil Buu rather than Kid Buu.

[Assistant]
Evil Buu was comprised of a portion of the original's power without the grand supreme Kai's influence. He was Buu but not enough Buu to form Kid Buu. When Goku and King Vegeta removed Fat Buu, evil Buu had a higher concentration of the original's power and became Kid Buu.

This raises an interesting side question, How much more powerful was the original Buu than Kid Buu? Considering that Fat Buu still had some of his power during the final battle:


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

[User]
Why is the mRNA vaccine more expensive than the "classic" vaccines?

My understanding of the process was, that not only the mRNA vaccines are faster to develop, but also easier to scale up in the production. But the prices are between ~20 and ~40 for the mRNA and the AstraZeneca around 4. Why is that so?

Is it only because the production process is new and the factories have to create new production lines for it?

[Assistant]
New production lines, paying for R&D, the storage requires colder, more expensive to buy and operate freezers, and therefore more expensive shipping too.

There's also a level of risk present that many other vaccines don't necessarily face that could also factor into pricing.


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

[User]
Does human vision have a better horizontal resolution than vertical resolution?

Does having eyes in a horizontal line result in better horizontal resolution in humans or is it same in both horizontal and vertical directions? Also, what is the aspect ratio of human vision? Is circular, elliptical or something completely different?

I have recently studied few video coding standards and wondered why we have more resolution in horizontal than vertical in most standards.

[Assistant]
Simple answer: each eye covers an area taller than it is wide, but combining the two human binocular vision is 200 wide and 135 high.

Complex answer:

There's not that much difference in the up/down vs the left/right distribution of  photoreceptors, but most of your "resolution" doesn't really come from them in a practical sense.

Your visual perception isn't really light entering your eye. You perceive a model of the world that exists in your visual cortex, this creates an imagination of the outside world dreamt by flesh and guided by sensory input and visual memory; it holds an internal perceptual "canvas" that is "painted" by your eye glancing at parts of the scene.

The high resolution part of the eye is the macula at the centre of your vision, it sees an area about the size of a large coin at arms length, and as you look around it paints in most of the detail and colour into your imagined world. Given enough light and 20/20 vision, its practical resolution is roughly that of 8k cinema screen, but it's 360p and blurred within a few degrees.

Human eyes constantly dart about to keep the canvas fresh, and like a pigeon jerking its head about you're actually blind during these "saccades". The movements are driven by the visual attention system, which gives the burning feeling that something must be looked at, and that is in part driven by the outer areas of the eye that detect movement. Force your eye to keep still for too long and the canvas will gradually descend into a dreamlike chaos; visual memory is transient and depends on constant change. Hallucinogenic drugs massively reduce this time window, if you're into that sort of thing.

So while eye resolution and field of view is part of the picture, eye movements and visual memory drive most of what you actually perceive. The canvas itself still seems wider than it is tall unless you shut one eye, but its characteristics are that of a window into a subjective, imagined 3D dream of the world, rather than being based solely on eye hardware.


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

[User]
[Batman in general] Why does Batman leaves his mouth and nose exposed and without make up even though one of the main objectives of his costume is to give the illusion he's a monster bat and not human?

Even if he needs to show he's human underneath when rescuing civilians or talking with cops or making out with Catwoman or whatever; surely the genius billionaire could have added a mechanism to remove parts of a full face mask to reveal what's underneath.

And on top of the image concerns; there's also the fact he is often targeted with melee attacks and gas based weapons; both of which are significantly more effective against exposed mouth and nose.

[Assistant]
Hes not actually trying to trick people into thinking hes a giant bat monster, if he was then hed definitely opt for a more anatomically bat-like cowl. Probably with fangs and other creepy imagery. He instead is opting for a spooky silhouette that creeps criminals out when he stands in the shadows or they catch glimpses of him as he attacks.

Also he does sometimes carry a gas mask for specific situations but it would probably hinder his normal breathing to wear at all times.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why people sell to the pawn stars when the item is way more valuable than the money they are getting.

Can't the sellers just sell to auction houses like the pawn stars? They're being ripped off hundreds of dollars and they act like its a norm. Can't they sell to antique stores, it just seems so silly how much money they are getting when the actual value is way higher.

[Assistant]
Most pawn shops don't operate like Hardcore Pawn or Pawn Stars.  Pawn stores generally don't buy items.  They pawn.

You go to the pawn store and give them your guitar/diamond ring/gun/whatever and sign the paper work.  They give you money.  You have X amount of time to pay that money back.  If you pay it back, you get your item back.  If you don't, they keep it and sell the object.

The shows you see are pretty much lies.  Real pawn shops are miserable places where peoples broken dreams are on sale.


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

[User]
ELI5: String theory

It has been a year since the last post. Let's have some new perspectives!

[Assistant]
The illustrations of strings and such that you'll see if you google this subject are almost irrelevant in an explanation of string theory. In physics at the moment, we have two big theories which both produce very accurate experimental data: quantum theory and general relativity.

Quantum deals with very small stuff (sub-atomic level particles), and general relativity deals with space-time and gravity.

Scientists are searching for a Theory of Everything, which would either make quantum and relativity theories coherent with each other, OR it will completely supersede both of those theories.

In quantum theory, the smallest 'things' are elementary particles (including the old favourites - electrons, photons, bosons, and several more). String theory suggests that those elementary particles are made up of *strings*, so called strings because they have only 1 dimension.

Combinations of these strings allow us to build up our usual three spatial dimensions, plus several more. The maths involved has thus far been consistent, and compatible with our understanding of the universe at large. However, we'll see in the future whether string theory can produce accurate experimental results. Due to the scale involved, experiments involving strings are very difficult to put together!


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

[User] [Spider-man homecoming] If Stark is pro-registration, why doesn't he have Peter registered?

[Assistant]
Everyone here is missing the point of Stark being "Pro-Registration." He isn't. He really, *really* isn't. He is a massive fan of the idea of oversight over the Avengers, preferably on the scale of what SHIELD used to be or the World Council or the UN still is, but he definitely thinks that the Accords are *not the way to go.*

What they are is the first step there. They aren't the be-all, end-all, they're a step in the path to be discarded the *moment* they're no longer needed. Stark thinks in terms of the future, and plans, not in terms of the here and now. If they ignored UN mandate with the Accords, there'd be no opportunity to sign an edited, looser, *actually effective* version later on. Peter doesn't need to sign because, frankly, he's not relevant to the plan yet. Sure, later on, (when he's no longer a minor) he'll sign an updated version, but why bother when he's not famous, not well known, not under international scrutiny, and not under constant threat of international/inter dimensional threat?

The kid works out of Brooklyn and is basically internationally irrelevant (or so Stark's lawyers would have you believe if ever questioned). The Accords are basically a first draft of a first draft. Combined... Why would he *ever* have the kid sign them?


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

[User] Baby birds are helpless and mostly drably coloured to blend in. However, chicks and ducklings are walking yellow highlighters. Is there some advantage to this colouration?

[Assistant] It has more to do with how they're raised. Ducks and chicks will often follow their mother at a young age, and being a bright color makes  it easier for their mother to find them. Wild birds, especially those that fly, usually stay in their nest until they're old enough to be on their own. Plus, yellow colors appear more often in domesticated birds. Wild chicks, especially ducks, are more drab colored.


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

[User]
ELI5: What would happen if all of the countries decided to forgive all outstanding debts with other countries?

I asked my government teacher, and she said that she had no idea. Any Economics people out there willing to share?

[Assistant]
Then the countries that owe more soverign (national government) debt than they are owed would have more money to spend, and those that owe less than they are owed would be screwed.

It's worth noting that **a lot** of government debt isn't owned by governments.