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

[User] ELI5: If you make a chicken soup lets say, and then boil it every night for like 10 minutes (or however long it takes to kill all the bacteria) could you keep it in your fridge indefinitely without it going bad??

[Assistant]
No. Unlike what the other poster said, though, it's not because of bacteria between boilings or (usually) toxins produced by them. Bacteria between boilings would simply be killed with the next round and with most bacteria we encounter, it's an infection of the live bacteria in our bodies, not the toxins they produce, that cause illness.

The problem is that your refrigerator isn't a sterile environment. Bacteria simply don't grow as quickly in there because it's cold. You might as well put the soup outside on a cold winter day. There are bacteria floating everywhere in the air and on every surface in your fridge. These will contaminate the soup.

If you could sterilize the soup and put it into a sterile container and store it under a nitrogen atmosphere it would remain sterile. This is how most packaged foods with a long expiration date are preserved.


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

[User]
[Detroit: Become Human] What is going on with the economy in this world?

The year is 2038. A hotel room costs $40. It ain't the Plaza, but it's perfectly acceptable. A whole-ass android that can cook and clean and raise your children and do anything else you need costs all of $799, less than an Android phone costs today -- and the android is also a phone anyway! You can even rent a fully functional sex robot that can pass a Turing test for $20 an hour. I can barely go to a movie for that price in 2021.

What is going on with this economy? How is everything so insanely cheap? How has there been no inflation for twenty years? I know unemployment is high but the world still seems to mostly function.

[Assistant]
I'd assume extreme automation- while more expensive to begin, keeping one robot manufactor going is much cheaper then paying 100 human workers- not to mention not needing toilets, cafeterias, break room and so forth.

That's why things are so cheap- manufacturing costs are very low, (it's also why unemployment is so high)


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

[User]
[Marvel & MCU] Why are so many countries and organizations trying to replicate the Super Soldier Serum?

It doesnt have a good record and super soldiers have largely been surpassed (in 616) by mutants  and other meta humans.

But in both 616 and McU, we see that so many different countries and organizations have attempted to replicate the super soldier serum. We know that super soldiers in the MCU can be surpassed by technology, magic, and other enhancements. Spider-Man has already been shown to be stronger than the Winter Soldier and could go toe-to-toe with Captain America. In 616, it would be more productive to hire equivalent mutants and magicians and in the MCU, it doesnt seem super soldiers are that useful outside of PR/propaganda situations and some very specific commando operations.

A lot of the successes with Captain America in WW2 and the Avengers seem to be based on the personality of Steve Rogers. The other attempts have largely been unsuccessful with horrible repercussions Centipede, Hulk, Abomination, the blonde cop in Jessica jones, and Isiah in the MCU and Omega Red and Weapon X in the 616.

Whats so special about the serum and Captain America that so many different groups want to replicate it?

[Assistant]
Meta Humans such as Spiderman are the result of very bizarre and unique circumstances that can not be (easily) reproduced. Governments don't know HOW people like Spider-Man got their powers.

But the Super Soldier syrum is different. If it could be replicated you could make an entire army of, well super soldiers. The only reason nobody has done it YET is because nobody has succeeded in producing a stable formula.

As for tech, we'll people like Tony tend to keep the BEST tech to themselves.


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

[User]
How do governments tell the difference between nuclear launches and peaceful space missions?

This has two parts:

1) Governments monitor the launch of nuclear missiles. But there are rockets being shot into space all the time. How do they know that those rockets aren't carrying nuclear weapons.

2) Satellites are shot into space regularly. How do we know that they aren't hiding nuclear weapons?

[Assistant]
1. They don't know. Any unscheduled launch is considered a potential ICBM launch. This is why such things are actually publicly announced, even if payloads are classified.
2. They don't know. Also there are some spacecraft with nuclear power sources (RTGs but also fission reactors). Still, there are literally handful of nations with such capability, and they're all bound by appropriate treaties.


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

[User]
Are there any equivalents to logical gates in the nervous system?

Maybe there doesn't need to be anything of the sort. I'm just wondering if there is anything like it, analog or digital or something else.

[Assistant]
Neurons  function similar way as logic gates in computers (in reality they are more complex).  A neuron receives  input signals through its dendrites, then integrates over them and fires if some threshold is reached. Synapses can be inhibitory, excitatory, weak or strong.

Some examples of neuron with two two excitatory Inputs:
Neuron with two strong excitatory inputs, needs signal from one of the dendrites to fire so it works as  logical or. Neuron with two weak inputs fires only if both inputs are active so it works as logical and.


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

[User] Do rubber soles on our shoes actually protect us from lightning strikes?

[Assistant]
No, it's very unlikely that they do.

Air has a dielectric strength of 3 MV/m. To travel 1 m, we need 3 million volts. To travel two meters, 6 million volts. And so on.

Rubber has ~15 MV/m. It seems a lot more insulating than air. This means that for electricity to travel through your 1 cm soles, we need a voltage of 0.01 m x 15 MV/m = 0.15 MV = 150000 V = 0.15 million volts.

Let's imagine that it's lightning that is going to strike somewhere and you're in the middle of the field. It starts in a cloud somewhere high above your head, and gets all the way to your feet. The difference of voltage between cloud and ground is likely several (hundreds) of million volts, so is very unlikely to stop there. But hey, may be you're lucky and the ligthning strike is short 0.1 million volts so it strikes on the grass next to you because the last cm of air is less insulating than your shoes?

Bad news: *you*'re a lot less insulating than air, so despite your insulating soles, you're doing the lightning a favour by being a salty solution that conducts electricity really well, so you spare the lightning roughly the last 2 m (6 million volts). 6 million volts for your soles? Not a chance.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do we know Lucy skeleton is 3 million years old?

i understand that carbon dating can only estimate, and the estimated age can only go back 50,000 years (am i wrong about this??). so what other form of dating is used to determine Lucy living over 3 million years ago?

[Assistant]
Carbon dating only goes back so far because eventually you run out of relatively short-lived carbon isotopes.

To accurately date older materials you can use longer-lived isotopes with much longer half-lives, and/or try to date the rock layer they were found in.

Lucy was dated by using argon isotope dating in the adjacent rock layer.


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

[User]
I need to understand servers well enough to explain the concept to my boss...

Hi wise reddit friends,

Let me start off by saying that, while I'm not a computer illiterate person, I don't work in the IT realm and I don't understand this concept as well as I would like.
Preamble: Imagine there are 3 sites, each with their own local database sitting on their own SQL server (which I'm also not entirely sure how to explain).
These sites will be uploading data to a joint server.
This is the part I don't quite get: I am told we need two servers: one to host the data itself and another server to host the website that will allow access to the first server.

Am I getting this right?
Why do you need two servers though? Can't you just use one?

Thanking you in advance.

[Assistant]
On the technical side, you *can* run the database management software and the web server on the same server. But it makes the database too accessible, so it's considered a pretty big security risk.

Speaking loosely, a web server is supposed to accept connections from everybody in the world.  A database server is *not*. Like *hell not*.

So it's really rare for anyone to recommend putting both on a single machine. Instead, you'll usually run the database management software on a separate machine--ideally, a machine that handles nothing but the database--behind a firewall, probably requiring encrypted connections, and probably configured to accept connections from only the web server. (Or from the web server and from other computers on the local area network--but not from just any random IP address.)

But . . .

If you have a computer that can run at least two virtual servers, you can run the web server on one virtual server, and run the dbms on the other virtual server. (Thanks, and a tip of the hat to macwiz1220 for the reminder.)

If you have to comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI)
Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), you can't run both the web site and the dbms on one server. But, again, if you have a computer that can run at least two virtual servers, you can run the web server on one virtual server, and run the dbms on the other virtual server. (This can make PCI DSS auditing and compliance more complicated, though.)


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

[User] ELI5: In bright light it hurts to open both my eyes fully, but if I close one eye, I can open the other eye much wider without pain. Why?

[Assistant]
You're not actually feeling the intensity of the light with your eyeballs. The brain triggers the pain/wincing reaction in response to an overall level of white light being processed by the cranial nerve. The amount of light being brought in through one eye doesn't trigger that response, but the amount from both eyes does.

It's still not a good idea to stare at bright lights with one eye, though. The intensity of the EM radiation will damage the cone cells in your eye, regardless of whether or not it makes you wince.


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

[User] [MCU] What is Hydra's endgame? What do they want? What's their motive?

[Assistant]
Honestly, there's no single endgame.

By design, Hydra is supposed to fragment, shift and evolve as needed to stay alive an effective. In the process of this, their actual agenda can shift quite severely, to the point of the different "heads" of Hydra coming into direct conflict. Hydra under Red Skull had an endgame of total global domination for it's own sake, while some of the Hydra factions around in the 21st century are more concerned with things beyond the Earth itself.

If you had to pick a bottom line, their overarching goal is the preservation and empowerment of Hydra. They all want to keep the outfit alive and accumulate more power under it's banner, because whatever their specific aim is requires an organization and resources. Whether they'll use that power to torch the American Atlantic Seaboard or play with a cool space rock is up to the people in charge.


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

[User] [Futurama] How did palm trees get chosen as the replacement as X-Mas trees after pine trees went the way of the poodle and modesty?

[Assistant]
Climate change and abundance.

As the climate regions shifted the palm tree became more suited for much of America. Following this palm trees became much cheaper to farm and cities also began planting them in public places instead of the mor expensive types. So with palm tree proliferation and then the subseuent world wars/invasions and such over the 1,000 years, what was originally grasped from past culture to continue on the tradition was the common and state sanctioned palm tree.

...yea. yep, that makes enough sense. there ya go.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it I eat a clove of garlic and it spews out of my pores for 2 days, killing those around--but if I eat a slice of apple pie I don't smell like a bakery?

I would like to smell like a bakery.

[Assistant]
A quick search shows something called allicin causes the smell, which then breaks down into four other compounds. Looks like the worst of them is allyl methyl sulfide, which can linger in your body for a long time. Also gets into your sweat and urine.

I assume that, while tasty, the apple pie doesn't have anything that stays in the body long enough to cause a smell. But someone should make some. Cinnamon and clove are pretty strong. Get on this, food scientists!


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Has the wizarding world actually left Earth?

Has the wizarding community been to the stars?  Can they?  Do they have the ability?  If they don't how do they view the moon landing?

[Assistant]
No. In many respects, the wizarding world is INCREDIBLY stagnant, mostly thanks to their small population and no real necessity to innovate and improve. If a magic spell fixes a broom every time it breaks, why make a stronger one? It's easier for them to make new spells than it is to make new items. And there's no need to go to the moon or other worlds/moons when everything they need is already close to home, or a teleport away.

Aside from that, the positions of the moon and stars is important to many magic spells and effects, so putting wizards there might interfere with fundamental aspects of their view of nature. It's arguably a huge taboo to them and they might be worried about muggles going there. If the moon is mined for minerals, or worse, used as a battlefield between belligerent muggles, the moon might be changed or even misaligned and change magic as they know it.


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

[User]
How to create a software development business that fundamentally doesn't have horrible chances of success?

I am a 9-5 smartphone app developer. Although this is an ok thing to do when working for somebody, it becomes a mission impossible when trying to run your own small business  by selling your apps in android market or app store. The number one issue is that there are about 2000 new apps being shited out every day from all over the world directly into these app stores,  which makes it nearly impossible for the app getting noticed, let alone  realistically competing with all those developers . Probably it's the same as one would want to open a restaurant in the district which already has 2000 restaurants, but in this case at least some people do know that you exist, while in smartphone markets your app just sinks and gets forgotten somewhere under the mountain of ever-growing shit. And finally, if investing more time in your restaurant to increase quality of ambient, food or whatever creates more value and consequentially drives more costumers to your place, investing more time in your app isn't that far away from  wasting your time due to high unpredictability. Example; some developer who created a fartsimulator in one night while he was smokin' joint, his app was financially more successful  than a spectral analyser app made in half of year by a team of geekheads.

[Assistant] Money for advertising, whether inside of the app store or not. Don't sell your own app, sell the base model to someone else and make it their problem. Or be ready to deal with the woes of marketing the app.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is Ebola more dangerous than other diseases?

[Assistant]
TL;DR It's not.

Ebola is contracted in poor African villages when people have to resort to eating dead animals (fruit-bats mainly) they've found in the rain forest. It then spreads through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids (blood, sperm, etc). These people can't afford the necessary healthcare and it tends to just wipe out a lot of people quite quickly (up to 90% fatality rate in central Africa according to WHO).

I think people fear it as the symptoms are quite violent, with extreme vomiting and diarrhea being the main case. The thing is, it's quite treatable in first world countries, and isn't really any more dangerous than a lot of diseases you could contract eating infected raw meat. The media has just blown it out of proportion like it always does with 'super' diseases.


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

[User] ELI5: How do we assure that there are enough key/keyhole combinations for doors to be safe?

[Assistant]
We don't, not really. Most of the doors in the USA can be picked with your average rake/tension wrench combo in under 5 seconds for anyone who has done it once or twice before. It's a really simple lock.

Car doors have more tension in them, so you need a slightly stronger tension wrench to counter act it, and you might need a specialized pick, but they come in the standard pick set.

Your various padlocks are also typically very insecure.

High-end locks are much, much more precise than these cheap, common locks. Laser etched grooves and all-that being so accurate that they're nearly impossible to pick or bump. You need the key that goes to the lock, otherwise you're generally not getting in without breaking it.


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

[User] ELI5: What is it about cellphones that causes speakers to do that morse code thing?

[Assistant]
The sound is sent to the speakers over wires as an electrical current with varying strength.

Almost all wires behaves as antennas to some degree and can send and receive radio signals, often unintentionally.

So what happens is that the radio signals from the phone antenna are picked up by the wires, and this changes the current that reaches the speaker (it can get stronger or weaker than it's supposed to be).

This leads to the noise you hear.


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

[User]
Why do a lot of numbing chemicals/medicines end in the word Caine?

Examples: lidocaine, novocaine, benzocaine, tetracaine ect.

[Assistant]
The 'caine' part is from cocaine.

Etymonline:

novocain (n.)

also novocaine, 1905, originally a trademark name for procaine (by Lucius & Brning, Hoechst am Main, Germany), from combining form of Latin novus "new" (see new) + -caine, abstracted from cocaine. As a local anaesthetic, it began as a substitute for cocaine.


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

[User] ELI5: The difference between melody and harmony.

[Assistant]
Melody is a sequence of notes.

Harmony is when multiple notes at the same time sound good together.

When you sing a song by yourself, you sing the melody.  When you have a choir singing along with you, you get harmony.


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

[User]
Why is the inverse square law so prominent in physics?

Almost every subject that my physics coursework covers has included an inverse square law (Newton's law of gravitational attraction, Coulomb's Law, Biot-Savart Law, intensity of radiation, etc). Is there something fundamental about an inverse square law, or is this all just purely coincidental?

[Assistant]
It has to do with the fact that our universe has three spatial dimensions*. When you have a field whose intensity is spread evenly over a surface (e.g. a gravitational field is the same everywhere at a fixed distance from a central mass), and the surface area of a sphere grows with the square of its radius, the field to remain evenly spread out must decrease with the square of distance.

*Trigger warning for string theorists.


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

[User]
[Vermintide 2] Is Kruber violating his oath as a grail knight by using grenades?

The whole no ranged weapons thing.

Side question, is there some form of ranged combat that a Bretonnian knight can engage in without violating their oath?

[Assistant]
The spirit of the knightly oaths is all about chivalry, about the nobility of honourable combat and disdain for the dishonourable.

Everything about the Skaven is the complete antithesis of honour, nobility, and chivalry. To them, cowardice is a virtue, honour a weakness, and chivalry a concept so alien that they would be unable to grasp it on a conceptual level. They are not foes to be faced, but vermin to be exterminated. If the Lady was here, she'd back me on this - you use whatever means are at your disposal.

Except crossbows, of course. Crossbows are blasphemous.

(Side note: While obviously no knight of Bretonnia would even consider fighting in battle other than with the noble lance (Questing Knights aside), the fact that they see no problems with bringing along peasant bowmen, and even trebuchets, suggests that these are acceptable tools to employ in battle. While they would never normally deign to soil their hands with the tools of the rabble, needs must as the Horned Rat drives)


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

[User]
[WH40k] How is the Emperor of Mankind still alive? I know he's sustained through sacrifices and the Golden Throne but what are the scientific/psionic principals behind his longevity? Nanomachines? Mental Upload to a computer?

I've seen images of the God Emperor of Mankind. At the risk of being submitted to inquisition, he's basically a skeleton or perhaps a mummy. There's nothing there to keep alive anymore.

How do we know he's even doing anything and the Golden Throne isn't just sustaining the Astronomican beacon by itself at this point through the energy dumped into it by the sacrificed psykers?

So what part of him is being kept alive? How? Is it nano-regeneration? Some kind of virtual reality his mind is uploaded and stored in? Straight up magic?

[Assistant]
Even before he was interred onto the Golden Throne, the Emperor was straight-up immortal. He had been alive for something in the neighborhood of 35,000 years before his altercation with Horus. So the potential and some of the groundwork for serious biological longevity was already present in his body before the mechanical assistance got involved.

The Golden Throne is absolutely a tool of psychic power. It's attached to a webway portal, and its only other occupant was another powerful psyker who got burnt out from exposure. So whatever is going on, in one way or another it's tied into super-strong psychic bullshit. The distinction between that and magic is academic.

We know the Emperor is alive because his will holds closed that demon portal that the Golden Throne is built on top of. If no one's powering it, then demons invade Terra (as they did during the Horus Heresy). The Golden Throne cannot do this itself, it is a conduit for the psychic power of the one who sits within it.


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

[User]
ELI5: as someone from the UK, I have no idea why obamacare has been getting so much hate. explain.

I really just have not clue.

[Assistant]
Obamacare mandates that you buy healthcare insurance, or apply for free coverage from the government if you're poor enough or old enough to qualify. It gives subsidies based on income.

Long story short, there are a lot of Americans who think that the free market is the best solution to all problems - healthcare included. They view Obamacare as evil for two reasons: 1) it forces you to purchase something against your will, and 2) it runs contrary to free market principles.

Many (most?) of these people also tend believe that healthcare in the US is significantly superior to that which exists in the UK/Canada/Switzerland/etc.. Thus, any move toward a European model is viewed as a degradation of current services.


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

[User] ELI5: How did Duck Hunt for the NES know where you were pointing the gun?

[Assistant] When you pull the trigger the screen goes completely black, and after a white box appears where the duck is. The light gun is just a light detector. It looks at the black screen and if it sees the white box after is registers it as a hit and the duck dies. This process happens in less than a second so you may not notice it without looking for it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are semi's not more streamlined?

Why is it when I see a semi 90%+ of them are very boxy? I feel like when hauling long distances, you'd want to be as aerodynamic as possible to save on fuel costs.

[Assistant]
In the US trucks used for long haul work usually are pretty streamlined.  They need that large flat grille to suck air into the radiator during the summer, but the rest of the cab angles back.  Some companies even put fins on the bottom and back of the trailers to disrupt vortex formation and lower drag.

Trucks that do more local hauling don't usually go fast enough to warrant any aerodynamic improvement, so other concerns like cost, maintenance accessibility, and length determine the shape.


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

[User]
Why does Euler's number appear in physics?

I understand that Euler's number is an infinite sum of 1/n!, but what I don't understand is why things like the decay and growth of nuclear radiation can be perfectly modeled by this number. I guess you can have this discussion with pi, but to me it is more obvious why pi comes up in physics, whenever the circumference of a circle is divided by its diameter, it's the nature of a circle, which come up often. But why do things in nature work by this infinite sum of reciprocal factorials?

[Assistant]
It all boils down to

d/dx ( e^x ) = e^x

e is the only base for which the above is true. e^x being invariant under differentiation means this function will be paramount to the solution of linear differential equations, which are the heart of physics. In fact, you can see that e in physics almost never appears as anything else than the base of an exponential.


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

[User] ELI5:The glass broke off of my microwave, but the faraday cage is still intact, why is it, or is it not, still safe to use?

[Assistant] The glass in the microwave might have small strands built in for a second layer Faraday cage. It is hard to say if it is still safe to use. It is better to be on the safe side. If you are worried you might try with a wet towel placed on the outside of the door and around the edges. It it gets hot in some areas then you should not have turned on the microwave. Also if you have problems connecting to the wifi when the microwave is on then it is not safe to use.


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

[User] What does Duhem mean when he says that no theory or hypothesis in physics is ever falsifiable?

[Assistant]
Here's what Duhem wrote in *The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory*:

> The prediction of the phenomenon, whose nonproduction is to cut off debate, does not derive from the proposition challenged if taken by itself, but from the proposition at issue joined to that whole group of theories; if the predicted phenomenon is not produced, not only is the proposition questioned at fault, but so is the whole theoretical scaffolding

This is an account of scientific discovery from observations, which invoke a modus tollens. Suppose the truth of a theory, P, implies the observation of some phenomenon, Q. However, if Q is not observed, then P can't be true:

P  Q
Q
 P

This means we have to reject P. However, Duhem's idea is that there is always one or more more auxiliary theories, a, in conjunction with P. This changes our result to:

(P & A)  Q
Q
 (P v A)

Where, A=(a1+a2++an).

Hence, there is no way of deciding from this logical schema whether P or A or both is the cause of Q. Q only implies that either P or A or both is at fault. According to Duhem, there is no way of isolating any P of auxiliaries and therefore it is in principle impossible to ever falsify any P beyond doubt.

As for Quine, i *think* this is pretty close to what he means by

> our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body

How should we then decide between two competing theories given that neither is strictly falsifiable? According to Duhem, the best we can hope for is that:

> The day arrives when good sense comes out so clearly in favour of one of two sides [of conflicting theories] that the other side gives up the struggle even though pure logic would not forbid its continuation.


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

[User] ELI5: To the baseball experts, why do some say that it's better for the first baseman to be lefthanded?

[Assistant]
Lefties wear their gloves on their right hand. When you're standing on first base facing home plate, your right hand is on the second base side, and your left hand is near the foul line.

If you're a lefty, that means any throw coming from the field is slightly quicker - because they don't have to throw quite as far to get it into your right hand. It's a matter of milliseconds, but sometimes that makes a difference in a close play at first.


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

[User]
[Marvel Comics] What does Norman Osborn/Green Goblin think of the other Spider-Men/Spider-Themed Heroes (Miles Morales, Ben Reilly, Miguel O'Hara, etc.)?

Recently rewatched "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker", and throughout the film Joker views Terry as an annoying wannabe punk, refusing to acknowledge him as Batman.

Considering Norman/The Goblin has an obssesion with Spider-Man on par with Joker's, does he have a similar mindset when it comes to other people who take the mantle of Spider-Man or a similar title? How does he treat them compared to Peter Parker?

[Assistant]
The Ultimate universe's Norman considered himself Miles's creator and felt entitled to his loyalty as a surrogate father. Miles, naturally, did not agree and fought him alongside a recently-returned Peter Parker.

Other Normans generally do not care about Miles.


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

[User]
Why do dogs stink?

I never bathe my cats, and they don't stink. But if Fido goes a month or two he smells awful. Even indoor, dainty dogs who would never deign to eat poop or roll in dead stuff, smell foul after a while, and dogs don't sweat, do they? So what gives? What causes that funky dog aroma?

[Assistant]
Hi there !

Dogs have natural odors used for animal recognition and for scent-marking territory. Actually all canids do (wolves, foxes, coyotes, etc..). They produce these odors through their nose, ears and paw pads.

They also produce unnatural odors and this may come from very diverse reasons :

* Breath (kidney failures or diabetes may cause a change in breath odor)
* Dental diseases and gums can also produce a foul odor
* Infected ears
* Flatulence
* Anal glands or Anal sacs. This is the more common cause of stinkyness. Dogs have 2 small anal sacs near the anus. They can become infected or impacted and they'll secrete a smelly oily substance on the surrounding fur causing very bad odor.

You need to be able to recognize an odd odor from your dog so that you can take him to the veterinarian, even if you're not sure.

*An ounce of prevention is definitely better than a pound of cure.*


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

[User] [Wrestling] I have no sense of smell. What is the Rock cooking?

[Assistant]
The Rock is an avatar of Strength and Destruction.

When he asks "Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?" there is no one particular scent, it is different for all of us... perhaps to some it is a pleasant scent meant to lull them into a sense of safety while others may inhale a rotten and vile odor meant only to signal  their inevitable defeat.


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

[User] [SUPEHEROES] Which is harder. Becoming a member of the Justice League or the Avengers?

[Assistant]
Avengers, easily.

The Justice League at one point had two teenagers with no powers and their dog as members. And they got replaced by the Wonder Twins who at least had powers, but were very very inexperienced.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the last minute on the washing machine always take several minutes?

I put on a wash, and it says 40 minutes to go.  I come back in about that time, and see there is 1 minute remaining so I stick around to transfer the clothes to the dryer or rack.  Several minutes later, there is still 1 minute remaining.  Why does the machine lose sense of time in the last minute?

[Assistant]
It's because the first half of the wash (the tumbling and the soap and the water part) is times. The second half is based on a state the machine is in. Once the timer finishes (it's set to finish with 1 minute remaining), it starts draining water and spinning hard to get most of the water out. This takes a couple of minutes, but it's not timed on the machine's clock.

(The above is an educated guess. All washing machines work differently.)


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

[User]
[Meta/40k] The Emperor discovers this sub/40k in the present and realizes it is a prophecy... what can he do with this knowledge?

Basically the title, The Big E discovers this sub/40k in general and through whatever act determines it is at least very likely the future that awaits him.

Can he use this information to change the future and avoid any disastrous scenarios to the Imperium's advantage? What would he do with this new found advantage?

By the Karma of Sanguinius!

The Emperor posts.

[Assistant]
Possibly. There are a few major things he could have done to avoid the heresy:

Make Sanguinus warmaster instead of Horus. Even Horus himself says the angel would have been a better choice.
Be less of a dick to Lorgar. The Emperor didn't like was Lorgar was doing, which was fine, but he could have shared it in a better way than sending the smurfs to glass the capitol city of Lorgar's favorite planet.
If the Emperor had *very* exact knowledge then he could do some even more targeted actions like rescuing Horus from the anathame or the just smothering Erebus as a baby.

The problem with foreknowledge though, is the moment you act on it the future changes and your knowledge is useless. Even if the Emperor had access to every piece of 40k fluff ever written, the moment he acted on it things would change and Chaos would find a new way to worm its way in.


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

[User] [Avengers: Age of Ultron] How did Strucker get his hands on Loki's sceptre?

[Assistant] Hydra has agents everywhere. It would be easy to have it fall off the back of a truck in transportation or have the wrong form filled out at shield and have it sent to the wrong facility for study. Not to mention at this point they are shield at least in part.


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

[User]
[Marvel] I'm a junior research assistant at a secret government facility and I'm wondering if I should request a transfer.

I'm a little worried because lately we've been testing the durability of vibranium which the senior staff won't even tell us where they got it. Anyways one test in particular is making me worried that I won't be going home to my family after doing it. The test involves using electromagnetic rails to propel two 1kg balls of vibranium into each other at high speeds. I think the method outlined 3 collision speeds test one at 300 two at 3000 and three at 10000 kilometers per hour. I'm afraid this test will be essentially a bomb that would destroy the collider facility. My supervisor said I don't need to worry but when I asked him how I'll be assisting he said that he'll be instructing me to perform the test from a remote location. I'm extremely worried. I can't tell my wife about what's going on but she and the kids can sense that work is troubling me. Am I worried about nothing or should I try to transfer to a different site?

[Assistant]
Don't be such a pansy, this is for *science*, man.  If they want to shoot vibranium balls at each other in order to generate mega-zeta waves or tear a hole in the fabric of reality with harmonic resonance cascades, or whatever, it's your *duty* to assist them.

And if you happen to forget your clipboard in the collision chamber and need to rush back in at the last second to get it before the experiment, don't hesitate. Go back in and get it.  Even if there's a lightning storm outside and the lights are flickering, even if you're taking unlicensed herbal products grown near the Fukushima reactor, and even if you're an orphan whose first and last name start with the same letter.

Dammit, man, humanity is counting on you!


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

[User]
[Star Trek: Prime Timeline] What happened to brands on Earth?

There are more than a few brand names that are centuries old as of now, but by the time of Kirk and company, there don't seem to be any at all. Even if you've got replicators, I'd still expect to hear someone order a Coke once in a while. Is Earl Grey tea the only consumable with a name left in the future?

[Assistant]
Much was lost during WWIII, and after that the world pretty much united after First Contact. The Federation is a socialist utopia (or dystopia depending on how you view it) so there's no such thing as private companies.

Generic soda may have fallen out of favor - we do see Quark serve root beer once, but most seem to prefer synthohol. As far as kids go, maybe they stick with healthier options?


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

[User]
[Mass Effect] How do Asari pay off their student loans?

Is that why so many maidens take up stripping and outlaw work?

[Assistant]
>Is that why so many maidens take up stripping and outlaw work?

No, they do it to satisfy a desire to meet people and experience adventure. The Maiden period of an Asari's life cycle is basically all about having fun, however they personally want to.

As for the main question... The same as everyone else. Eventually they grow up, get real jobs, and start paying bills.


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

[User] How does the cell synthesize all of the proteins of a protein complex at stoichiometric ratios/numbers? (eg synthesize all proteasome proteins at the appropriate ratios to which they are used)

[Assistant]
Hey, translation expert here. Translation is the key limiting step of the gene expression process and some complexes are built co-translationally to ensure stoichiometry.

It is called co-translational complex assembly. So basically mRNAs coding for proteins of the same complex are translated in cluster. The not fully made proteins of the complex start interacting between each other as soon as the nascent peptide chain goes out of the ribosome (so only after 50 amino acids have been assembled) while ribosomes continue translation. This is how some complexes are assembled.

Actually it is a really important process. Some proteins won't make a complex if the proteins are first fully made because they won't fold properly without interacting with their partner during translation. The partners play here the role of a chaperone. If they are not folded properly, they will be degraded so we only end with proteins assembled into complexes.

This is true for some complexes like the proteasome. However, many complexes don't follow that rule and their proteins are not in the same number in the cell.


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

[User]
[The Culture]Are the inhabitants of universes simulated by the Minds considered Culture citizens with all the rights and protections thereof?

I know very little about this universe, but I understand The Culture is supposed to be this benevolent utopia.  But I understand the Minds like to create simulated universes, and I wonder how this works if it would mean allowing the intelligent inhabitants of those universes to suffer.

[Assistant]
This is discussed at length in *Surface Detail* and to a lesser extent in *The Hydrogen Sonata*.

The short version is that it's very mixed, and left to the discretion of the individual minds performing the simulations.  The majority of minds consider simulated life to be at the same level of moral consideration as all other forms of intelligent life, and will elect to minimize suffering as much as possible, and will prefer to keep simulations they have created running indefinitely rather than all all of those simulated lives to die.

On the flip side, most biological denizens of the Culture do consider simulated life to be slightly lesser than biological life.  Surface Detail describes a war that is fought entirely by mind-copies in a simulated battlefield, with one character having at least a dozen copies of himself fighting side by side on the front lines.  This is considered to be preferable to a "hot war" because its entirely a simulation.  Although at least one character argues that this is preferable because everyone fighting has actively chosen to take part in the  hostilities, and there are no innocent bystander casualties, and not because simulated life is less worthy of moral consideration.

To add more to the mix, other non-culture civilizations who discover mind-uploading technology have decided to use it for imprisonment and punishment purposes.  A few religious civilizations have actually gone so far as to create virtual hells, and have uploaded the minds of criminals and heretics into hell so they'll suffer for eternity, just as the good book says.  The cause of the war in Surface Detail is that certain factions of the Culture find this to be so reprehensible they're willing to fight a war to force those civilizations to stop it.

>!The driving conflict of the story is that someone is attempting to drag the simulated war kicking and screaming into the real world, where the Culture would have much more of an advantage.!<


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How often do Sith go over to the Jedi way of life?

Obviously Darth Vader went good at the last minute. But how many other true sith ever went bad then switched over (going evil for an hour then realizing the error of your ways doesn't count).

I don't read much of the EU so I truly want to know how often this has happened.

[Assistant]
It happens very seldom. We hear about more Jedi going to the Dark Side, because they are more in the public eye. It is also easier to slip into Dark Side thoughts, as the Jedi hold themselves up to higher morals.

There are only a handful of Sith or Dark Jedi who have come back to the light, though. Zekk, Tahiri, and especially Vestara being the three most notable in the modern time.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Im a smuggler in the cantina in Mos Eisley when Obi Wan uses his lightsabre. Is the subsequent silence in anyway due to everyone being in shock at seeing an extinct jedi or just shock at seeing an old bald human attack a walrus with a weird laser sword?

I suppose the question is whether people in the outer rim knew about the history of the jedi/sith and the significance of Obi Wan publically using his lightsabre.

[Assistant]
Most people probably just went silent because someone just got de-limbed; there's a similar silence after Han Solo fries Greedo. Even for Mos Eisley, that kind of stuff draws attention, y'know?

But there probably were a few people in there who'd heard the legendary tales of Jedi, and put two and two together. Remember, Jedi were an absolutely minuscule fraction of the galactic population... but their impact was outsized for their numbers.


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

[User] [Elf] How did Buddy survive on an elf diet?

[Assistant]
While eating a lot of sugary foods can cause weight gain, Buddy seems to be extremely active and appears relatively fit. Diabetes is not actually caused by what you're eating so he should be okay in that regard.

His biggest issue would be cavities, but it appears that by the time Buddy was around Hermey had successfully instituted a good dental program at the North Pole.


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

[User]
[Scott Pilgrim vs the World] Just found out my Ex Girlfriend is dating again, good for her! But...

Yeah so, Gideon (Another one of her exs) is putting together a group of Evil Exes to make her yada yada yada. Their are 2 problems here, 1-I am not evil, and me and her left it on good terms, and 2- They gonna kill me if I don't help, and since I cant fight very well Scott Pilgrim would probably kill me too. How do I handle this?

[Assistant]
If you can, try to be the second to last encounter (last before Gideon). Show that you're extremely hesitant, and then tell Scott that you're not willing to fight as you ended things amicably. Instead, suggest you'll aid him against Gideon (even if it's just emotional support during the final fight).

Then you should be fine. Hopefully, unless Gideon kills you to prove how ruthless he is.


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

[User]
Why is it so hard to find an internship as a statistician?

Im currently an undergraduate student that is majoring in statistics, and entering my sophomore/junior year (on pace to graduate in 3 years). Every internship I see on LinkedIn, Indeed, etc requires 2+ years of experience, a Bachelors degree and to be in a Masters or PhD graduate degree. Where can I find internships for undergraduate degrees, so I can gain experience?

[Assistant]
Just a guess: most businesses or business units only need relatively low-level stats to solve their most obvious problems, whereas they need multiple software devs to implement/maintain the solution.

So you might as well just ask the software engineer to perform the basic stats, OR grab a contractor on a short engagement.


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

[User] What traits are considered "masculine" vs "feminine" (among humans) and how much does this change from culture to culture?

[Assistant]
Females are associated more with jobs that allow them to be in one (or very few) places throughout the course of the day. Not surprisingly, this has to do with child rearing. What they lack in mobility, however, they make up for typically in the variety of tasks that are assigned to them.

On the flip side, men tend to venture further away from the home base. This is seen in activities such as hunting, fishing (from boats) and even in the wage labor system (which is now becoming more blurred as a gender specific activity due to increasing industrialization). These activities that are "masculine" are also those that individuals tend to focus, or specialize in, because this situation opens up the potential for a more single minded focus than the situation of the typical female role does.

Gender roles do vary between cultures, but the basic idea of women being more constrained to the household because of child raising, while men (unconstrained) take on the jobs that require more travel. A good example of this would be Pacific islander men fishing for weeks at a time on the ocean from vessels, while the women of these cultures fish from shore as a sort of dietary supplement.

Some traditional farm based chores will vary from place to place as well. For example, who tends after small animals verses large animals, or who is associated with the different stages of the agricultural process.

edit: very to vary.


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

[User]
ELI5: in the military, what happens when a lower ranking officer has to arrest/detain a commanding officer?

You see it all the time in movies and video games - a high ranking officer turns out to be the bad guy and they eventually get found out and arrested. When the order is given for their arrest by a subordinate officer, the bad guy always says something along the lines of:

"I am your commanding officer, you can't arrest me!"

When (if) this happens in real life, say the US or UK military, how does this play out?

Sorry if my terminology is a bit off!

[Assistant]
This is a movie magic trope, not reality.

If some weird crazy thing happened where a senior officer was being arrested (probably for being accused of some major crime, like maybe they are accused of rape for example) the military police, would come in and arrest them. These are basically the same situation as any police force so rank doesn't matter, they're cops. It would not be his own unit, they aren't cops, the cops would do it.

If you're thinking some crazy scenario where a junior officer thinks their boss is doing something weird and has their troops detain him, thats movie magic.


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

[User]
eli5 what are Computer Drivers

After painstakingly installing printer drivers for a thermal printer at work I realized I still dont truly understand what I was installing. (Bonus points if you can cover video card drivers too cause idk what drivers are In that sense either)

[Assistant]
Drivers are the middle man between the Hardware and the Operating system. their job is to translate the OS's instructions into something the Hardware can interpret and then translate the output into something the OS can show you.

OS> Driver > Hardware

think of them like the " user manuals" the Operating system needs ot be able ot use the hardware, or if you want ot extend an analogy to us humans: picture it as you needing a manual for your brain to be able to command your limbs and understand the stimulus it receives from  them.

without drivers, software would need ot directly program the hardware and considering how many different models of any single device exist out there this  is impossible(or at least would be impactrical in terms of programming time)


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Was Princess Leia pregnant in Return of the Jedi?

So I was trying to find out when Kylo Ren was born, and from the info I could find, it said he was born in 5 ABY. When I looked up what year Return of the Jedi took place, it said 4 ABY. If this is correct, would that mean that Princess Leia couldve potentially been pregnant in Return of the Jedi?

[Assistant]
Short answer: No.

According to the Star Wars wiki:

> Ben Solo was born in 5 ABY in Hanna City, Chandrila on the day that the Galactic Concordance was signed between the New Republic and the Galactic Empire, formally ending the Galactic Civil War, one year and four days after the Battle of Endor

Immediately following the Battle of Endor, Leia and Han were busy mounting other resistance efforts so likely didn't have time to be intimate. Likely, he was born around the time his parents married.


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

[User]
Why is there a social stigma about living in your parents house in Western countries?

Im not sure if someone already asked this before but why is this a thing on western countries? (US/Canada) Im Asian M23, grew up in Asia and me and my family moved in Canada when I was 19. I made friends at school and work and Ive been asked few times where I live and every time I live in *redacted* with my parents theres always something wrong with their reaction about it. Back in my country its perfectly normal to live with your parents until 30 or even older. Some people even get married and live with their wife (if youre a male) in his parents house. I live with my parents here in Canada but I never asked them for money and anything. I give my share of utility payments, buy and cook my own food, pay my own car payments and credit card debts and student loans and I dont see anything wrong with that. Also, I dont think I can afford with my current financial situation. I earn around 3kCad$ per month and around 60-70% of those goes to those stuff mentioned above. Usual rent in my city is around 700-1000 even with a roommate. Im not lazy and Im not trying to sound rude and ignorant but these people who asked me that are living on their own lives literally cheque by  cheque and struggling to make ends meet. I dont see the point on moving out of your parents house when youre not financially stable and has some money saved up. Im not saying that im plannig to live with my parents forever but im going to wait to atleast have a decent paying job and money saved up. Atleast 2-3 years from now.

[Assistant] To follow up, is there much research on prestige hierarchies in general? If there's pressure woven into the psychosocial fabric to demonstrate an ability to pay for things that aren't necessities and to dress them up as if they are necessities to cover up the aforementioned fabric, would we ever find out about it? Are some things too ingrained for an experiment to tease out the contributing factors?


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

[User]
[ST:ID] The Borg find Khan's ship.

How do they react?

Do they assimilate it as standard, destroy it, or would they further examine the genetic engineering potential for use in drone development?

What about any of the other galactic powers?

[Assistant]
They would probably assimilate the crew like any other species, but you have to understand that even augmented humans were considered weak compared to some of the naturally larger alien species that the Borg have assimilated. The genetic engineering technology along with the technology of the ship is actually quite primitive (it was made during the 1990s), and the Borg generally use cybernetics and nanites to enhance assimilated captives.

The Klingons actually did uncover some augmented human embryos left over from the Eugenics Wars, but trying to replicate human genetic enhancement technology to fit Klingons caused a plague that didn't enhance the Klingon race, but made them look like humans.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes things transparent (glass, water, nylon, etc.)?

[Assistant]
Light comes in packets of energy of certain sizes, and when a packet hits an atom if it is of the same 'size' as that particular atom the light packet gets absorbed. If it is not the same 'size' (the atom is too 'big', for example) then the packet is allowed to carry on unhindered and pass out the other side.

Non-EL15: Energy is quantized, meaning it only comes in discrete quantities. When a photon strikes an atom if it has exactly enough energy to make an electron 'jump' up to the next energy level then the photon will be absorbed to do exactly this. In transparent materials like glass, the 'band gap' of the electrons in the material is simply too big for the photon to provide the energy to make an electron jump, so the light carries on straight through.


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

[User]
Photons are emitted and absorbed instantaneously from their perspective. What's happening to the photons at the edge of our expanding universe?

Perhaps I'm running into a cognitive block dealing with the infinity that seems to arise from the expansion of our universe and the photons at the edge that would never seem to be absorbed by anything. My understanding is that from a photons perspective time doesn't exist. Their entire existence lasts an instant. But in a seemingly ever expanding universe, what's happening with the photons at the edge with nothing to absorb them?

[Assistant]
Two things: first, it's not completely correct to say that time passes instantly for a photon. It's tempting to say that when you think about the limit of what it would look like for an object traveling closer and closer to the speed of light with respect to the rest of the stuff in the universe, but in fact it doesn't make sense to consider the perspective of a photon. In relativity photons do not have rest frames, and so they cannot have a perspective.

Second, it is a common misconception that when scientist talk about an expanding universe they're referring to a universe of finite size that's expanding outward in space from some central point. In fact, that's not how it works at all. The universe, as far as we know, is infinite in size (at least, we have no reason to believe it isn't infinite in size). Nevertheless, it's expanding. What is meant by the expansion of the universe is not that the total amount of space in it is getting larger but rather that the distances between objects on large scales like galaxies and clusters of galaxies are constantly increasing. In a sense, "new space" is being created in between everything. The point is that as far as we know there is no "edge" to the expanding universe.


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

[User] ELI5: How does one not become severely injured when jumping from extreme heights into a small amount of water?

[Assistant]
As the saying goes, it's not the fall that hurts, but the sudden stop at the end.

The trick, then, is to make the stop *less sudden.* If you fall onto something soft, rather than coming to a stop suddenly, you stop more gradually as the thing you're landing on deforms or displaces under you.

But water isn't all that great for this. Water is *incompressible,* meaning it doesn't squish like a pillow when you land on it. Instead it has to move out of your way, which it can only do so fast. So lowering your hand into a sink of water hardly feels like anything at all, but doing a belly flop into a pool stings like a mother.

That's why diving is hard. It's not just the fact that a well executed dive looks good and all that; it's that you *have* to enter the water in just the right way to keep from getting bruises or even broken bones.

So the short answer is that water *can* slow you down safely and effectively, but only if you use it just right. Use it wrong, and it's not that much better than plowing full-speed into concrete.


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

[User]
[SW/Mandolorian] Why are the Jedi suddenly so mysterious?

If I have any problem with this series so far it's the weird way they address stuff like the Force and the Jedi.

I mean, Luke knew who the Jedi were, the Republic was heavily dependent on them, and it's not like it was THAT long ago it fell, Mando remembers the Clone Wars. And yet when he asks the Armorer about it, she acts like this is an ancient legend and super mysterious.

IS it just not common knowledge to the hoi poloi? Mando is supposed to be pretty well informed, how is it that he's never heard of this super important group?

[Assistant]
Jedi *were* rare. Incredibly, extremely so. Like, not even a rounding error's worth of any major world's population. Ten thousand Jedi in a galaxy of hundreds of trillion citizens (even quadrillions), and millions of worlds means that most people wouldn't know anything about them, even on Republic worlds.

Mando also takes place after two decades of a concerted propaganda campaign set against them, not to mention three years where the public that *did* know about them grew weary of war and saw the war as the Jedi's fault.


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

[User]
ELI5: What EXACTLY is a 403 (b)

I am being offered a retirement plan for the first time ever in my working life. I know it would be a good thing to do but I have zero idea how it all actually works. What happens to the money after I put it in? How and when do I get it out? What happens if I switch jobs? TIA for your help!

[Assistant]
403(b) is just a 401(k) for nonprofit employers, so you can find a lot more about 401ks on the internet.

Your employer contributes money into an investment account, and you can contribute too by having the money deducted from your paycheck.  For a traditional 403b this money doesnt show up on your tax forms as income, so its tax-free going in.

When you retire you can pull out the money  plus the investment returns  to live on.  You do pay income tax on it when you pull it out, but since most people have a lower cost of living in retirement, the tax rate will be less.

At the very least dont pass up the employer contribution, thats free money, but usually it makes sense to max out the employee contribution if you can.

While the money is in there, you usually have a lot of freedom to decide how it gets invested, but youre stuck with the investment company your employer chose.

If you switch jobs, the 403b is still your money.  You can keep it in there, or roll it over into an IRA, an individual retirement account, which works basically the same way except its not tied to any employer.  Generally youll get a new 403b or 401k for each new employer, so if you switch jobs a lot the rollover IRA simplifies things and gives you the freedom to choose your own investment company if you like.


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

[User]
[DC] Are cosmic entities and higher (e.g. the Endless, The Presence] affected by universe reboots

For example, are the Endless and the Presence pre-Flashpoint the same beings as the post-Flashpoint ones?

[Assistant] Dream remembers when the dominant species on Earth was cats, so no. The presence shouldn't be affected at all seeing as he made the universe but then he left and then came back, and it gets a bit complicated.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Is there any restrictions a Jedi has on the color lightstaber they have depending on their rank?

[Assistant]
Lightsaber crystal colors mostly mean nothing. They especially mean nothing for "ranks."

A lightsaber's color is only meaningful insofar as when the user attunes to the crystal inside, it changes the color of the crystal - the most common colors are blue and green, but obviously those are not the only ones.

A dark side user gets their red crystals by forcing the crystal to bond with them, in essence the crystal is "bleeding" from this interaction.


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

[User]
CMV: I don't see the big deal about poetry.

I don't understand the importance of the subculture of poetry: readings/contests, memorizing it, and praising it.
Most of it is repetitive: hardship and love.

If you want something philosophical, I feel you should stick to essays.
If you want something artistic, I feel you should stick to art and other craft.
I feel poetry fails to combine these two elements diversely, and most of the poems that are praised only revolve around the two topics stated: love and hardship.
Yes, there are very nice and interesting poems that don't fall in between these two spectra, but they are not as well-known or as praised.

I have read some good poems, and I do have a few I like, but I don't see the big deal about it.
For instance, why do Russians rely heavily in poetry and teaching their kids to memorize them. What about poetry is so respected?

Edit: I got some really really wonderful and great responses here, and I thank you for the plentiful suggestions. I can't pinpoint exactly one individual of you whose 'changed my view', so I thank the wonderful lot of you. I will try to take time to thoroughly answer each one of you.

[Assistant]
It seems like your main problem with poetry is the repetition. It's true, most of poetry is about love and hardship. So are most paintings, so is most of literature, as is most of television, most of cinema, and most of life. They're two incredibly powerful, incredibly broad topics that are inextricably linked to humanity, so it makes sense that a lot of art would touch on these topics. It's not fair to single out poetry alone for going back to this (rather deep) well. What other topics do you feel get ignored in most poetry that are not ignored in most of any other medium?

Poetry can do in a few stanzas what it takes many essays pages to do. In many poems, the meaning is something that must be constructed by the reader, while essays are much more explicit about their meaning. When you synthesize your own interpretation of a poem, the message you take away from it ends up being much more personal, and because of this, often stronger. For example, the message of futility that you take away from Shelley's Ozymandias conveys in 14 lines what it takes some authors hundreds of pages to get across.

In terms of artistry, no form of prose can compare to poetry. In terms of use of language and rhythm, poetry blows all forms of prose out of the water. It is common to see that only very rare sections of prose compare favorably to similar sized samples of poems. Poetry is less diluted than prose. As far as the rest of art goes, words and pictures/sounds are non-overlapping magisteria. There are things you can express with music that you can't express as elegantly with words, but there are equally things that you can express with words in ways that you can't express as skillfully with music. If an artist wants to use words as their medium without filling hundreds of pages, poetry is a strong choice.

Poetry is something that is easy to write and iterate upon. If someone writes a novel, it takes ages to even finish the first draft, and ages beyond that to revise. A poem can be written in an afternoon and improved for the rest of eternity. It is easy to see in even some great novels parts that could have been improved or expanded by revision that there simply wasn't time for. The limited scope of poetry shrinks the time from draft to draft to the point where every syllable of the final work can be polished to perfection.

Since poetry is often the pinnacle of elegance of written language, it makes sense that it should be studied. It is incredibly helpful for students to see their language at its best. Memorizing poems can give students an appreciation for the flow and rhythm of language, which will help improve all of their writing. Poetry isn't just useful as an art form for the writer and as a dispensary of meaning for the reader, but also as a learning exercise for the student.


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

[User] ELI5: Why has no one crossed a dandelion with a carrot or parsnip, thus creating a nutritious vegetable that grows wild as a weed?

[Assistant]
A few things. First, dandelions *are* nutritious vegetables that you can eat lots of ways.

Second, a weed is just any unwanted plant - they typically grow more aggressively than cultivated plants because they are evolved specifically for the environment in which they are found and because they don't waste any energy producing something extra for humans. For example, there are wild carrots, they just don't produce as large and tasty a root as cultivated carrots. Cultivated carrots need more support, because we've bred them to be *inefficient* as plants in order to be efficient as food. It's hard to get the weedy-ness of a weed and the wasteful extravagance of cultivated plant.

(Also, it's typically only possible to cross plant varieties of the same species or at least the same genus. Otherwise you're crossing wildly different species - it's like trying to get a chicken and a pig to successfully mate. Maybe it would produce delicious bacon flavored wings, but too bad cuz it ain't gonna happen.)

You might be interested in heirloom plants varieties, though - these are older varieties of cultivated crops that typically offer a lot more variety than more modern versions and tend to be more adapted to specific areas.


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

[User]
CMV: Thank-you notes are outdated and unnecessary, and serve no real purpose except to signal "good raising".

The holiday season is a shit-show of obligation and expectations as it is, and then once all the festivities are over, we're all expected to sit down and write formulaic cards: "Dear Grandma, thank you for the lovely sweater. I will wear it often."

I assume, of course that thanks were given at the time of the gifting, and that proper appreciation was provided. Why on earth is yet another thanks required? What purpose does it serve, other than checking an arbitrary box in the manners checklist? I have received several thank you notes from my family since Christmas and haven't even gotten around to opening them; I know what they say, and it just feels hopelessly impersonal and staid.

A true gift should be freely given, and other than a thanks at the time of giving, should carry no additional obligation along with it.

[Assistant]
I feel bad dragging your point down to this level, but...  Isn't that the same with literally every social nicety in existence -- to signal your intentions/status/good upbringing/etc?

There's no point in saying thank you, or giving a thank you card, or doing literally anything in the world of communication with other people, except to show that you're a special person, and to get them to like you more.  No?


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

[User] What is the purpose of utilizing screws with a Phillips' head, flathead, Allen, hex, and so on rather than simply having one widespread screw compose?

[Assistant]
There are a lot of factors here.   Slotted screws are easy to damage if the screwdriver slips or doesnt fit perfectly.

Phillips head screws were designed to limit how much torque is applied by camming out in the factories before power tools were torque limited.

Now that power drivers are designed with torque limiting clutches the emphasis is on securely fitting the driver without slipping off.

Everything in engineering is a trade off and screw heads are a perfect example.


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

[User]
How do large scale shops/malls supply WiFi on such a big scale?

How do shopping malls and big supermarkets supply a (considering its size) stable WiFi connection across such a large area? Sent using a shopping centres WiFi with a solid 20mb download.

[Assistant]
This could be a very long reply basically involving a course in wifi engineering, however, in simple terms it looks like this.
1. They use multiple commercial grade access points which are all controlled by a central controller device. This keeps track of connected devices and ensures the device connects to the ap with the best signal as it roams.
2. AP placement is carefully calculated to provide consistent coverage as well as load balance number of devices per AP.
3. Radio channel space is carefully planned to prevent interference (CCI)
4. AP are all connected to central controller by a fast (at least GB) wired netowrk.
5. The entire netowrk is connected via 1 or more fast broadband/ethernet internet circuits

There is a lot more to it, but that is the basics.


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

[User]
Are conferences something you GET to do, or something you HAVE to do?

My colleagues generally seem to get really excited to go to conferences, but I don't really see what's appealing about them from a personal perspective. It just seems like its travelling a long ways and spending a lot of your employer's money so that you can spend 10 minutes talking about your work to people who are mainly just waiting for their turn to talk about their own work, fielding some narcissistic questions, and maybe getting a decent dinner as part of the deal.

I'd just as soon not bother with the whole exercise. But it's still early in my career, and I can't quite tell whether that would reflect badly on me. This is particularly the case since most of my colleagues talk about conferences as a fun thing, rather than something they do as a job obligation.

So what's the deal? Can I get away with not going to conferences? Or should I see it as another job duty?

[Assistant]
Conferences have several benefits for attendees:

* If you present, this is an opportunity for you to gain name recognition, both within your field but also at larger conferences outside of your immediate field.

* Attending other presentations informs you about the most recent work done in the field, which may not yet have been published.

* Collecting many experts in your field in one location provides an excellent opportunity to network with potential future employers or collaborators, depending on just how early in your career you are. Getting face time with these people goes a lot further than a simple email will. This includes both meeting people on the conference site, as well as socializing over meals or drinks (it is a long-running joke in academia that many proposals are written on the backs of bar napkins!).

* Many people treat conferences as a sort of vacation, skipping talks or sessions they find less interesting to spend the time sightseeing. Some academics will even bring their spouse along to enjoy time away from their children. For many, the business of an academic schedule affords little time for a "proper" vacation, so they will take whatever opportunity they get.

You *can* get away with not going to conferences, but it will more likely than not just make it more difficult to advance in your career. If you really dislike conferences, you can always attend for only a day or two, just enough to present your work, attend the most relevant talks by others, and perhaps meet with one or two key colleagues to discuss potential collaborations or job opportunities.


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

[User]
What happens after a failed suicide attempt?

What happens when someone is hospitalized after a failed suicide attempt? I've heard of "suicide watch". What exactly is it, and what goes on during it? How long does it usually last, say if someone tried to OD on pills? What happens afterwards? Outpatient care? Inpatient? How long is someone typically in the hospital after a suicide attempt, such as an overdose? Would it be different for a more violent/severe attempt?

edit: I mean in the United States, if that makes a difference.

Note: This is not a cry for help or any need to be concerned, it is curiosity. Also, I'm sorry if this is the wrong subreddit. I wasn't sure where to put this.

[Assistant]
Most states have laws that allow a police officer, a doctor, or a specially trained social worker or nurse to sign a form that allows someone to be held against their will for 72 hours, so that the person can be evaluated to see if they are sane enough to take care of themselves.

How it usually works in practice is this:  The person commits the act, and someone calls 911.  The police and paramedics show up, and take the person to the hospital. Someone along the way will sign the mental health evaluation form.  If the person is really sick (from a serious OD, for example), and requires an extended hospital stay, they will be treated for the condition in the hospital as usual, they just won't be allowed to leave and they will get psychiatric care while there.  If the person isn't that sick, they will be evaluated in the emergency room and transferred to a locked psychiatric facility for evaluation.  If you live in a large urban area, there is also a possibility that you will be held in the ER for those 72 hours simply because there isn't anyplace else that will take you, as psychiatric wards are not money makers, so there aren't enough to meet the needs of the communities.

In theory, a psychiatrist is supposed to evaluate the person's mental health within that first 72 hours, and determine if they are a threat to themselves or others.  If they are, they can hold the person until they are no longer immediately dangerous; if they are not, they release you.

Most people, even those who are seriously depressed, are so fucking sick of getting the hospital runaround by this point, that they are well past the idea that killing themselves is a good idea, so they get released once they are evaluated.


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

[User] ELI5 everyone knows theres a hurricane coming when Jim Cantore shows up in your city. But how did people brace for hurricanes before the Weather Channel and modern day hurricane prediction methods?

[Assistant]
Hurricanes start forming pretty far out in the Atlantic Ocean.  Ships would encounter the early storms and then report on them when they returned to port.   This caused the news about the formation of a storm, as well as its progress, to spread pretty rapidly throughout the Caribbean.  As you get closer to the year 1900, telegraph and radio stations were also setup to make this process faster.

Hurricanes also follow a predictable path in which they pass over the islands of the South Eastern Caribbean, then head west to Cuba, then either head north to the US or further west to Mexico.  When they first pass over the South Eastern Caribbean they aren't very strong and the gradually gain in strength as they progress.

This means that the areas that are most likely to be hit by them when they're at full strength are also the areas that get the most warning.  Conversely, they're usually not that powerful when they hit the areas that don't get much warning.


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

[User]
ELI5: Wouldnt the outcome of any random event generator (coin flip, dice toss, wheel spin, etc) depend on the starting conditions, therefore them not being completely random?

Ive just recently thought about this.

How can a random event generator truly be random, if they all depend on the starting conditions. Sure, you can flip a coin and make it so it flips 50.5 full rotations in the air but depending on whether the coin starts on Heads or Tails, its going to determine where it lands.

Same with drawing a random name out of a list, or a hat, or whatever. It all depends on how the order/placements of the entire pool of names is initially set.

How is anything ever truly random?

[Assistant]
Often, calling things random in real life is based on knowledge. Say there's a shuffled deck of cards in front of you. You peek at the top one and see that it's the 3 of diamonds. If someone else comes in and draws a card, for you, it's obviously not random. They're going to draw the 3 of diamonds. However, from their point of view, they have no information about the deck. There's nothing in their mind that suggests that any card is more likely than any other to be on top. So, it makes sense for the other person to call it random; they have no way to predict the card that would work more than pure chance.

Same thing with flipping a coin. Which face it lands on is going to be set once it's flipped, but it depends on the coin's position, velocity, shape, as well as the state of the air around it and where it lands. None of these can be precisely measured (or precisely controlled) if you're just flipping a coin by hand, so neither heads nor tails is more likely than the other from your point of view.

At a more fundamental level, we don't even know if events are always set by starting conditions, which is a concept called determinism. At a quantum mechanical level, physics seems to be truly random, with even apparently identical systems doing different things. It's possible that there are factors that we just haven't been able to measure that do make physics deterministic, but conceivably it might be nondeterministic.


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

[User]
CMV: There is no evidence for the existence of free will.

On a macroscopic level the universe appears deterministic, e.g. if you throw a ball and know the initial conditions you can predict where it will land.

Although I do not know the specifics, I am aware that there are some events on the quantum level which are truly random which would mean that determinism is not valid. However, randomness is not equivalent to choice. For example, if you roll a die to decide what to do you are not making the decision, hence no will is exerted.

From this premise, I would conclude there is no free will as everything which happens is the culmination of the causal chain started with the creation of the universe, with some events that occur being random in nature.

As such, while I do not believe that if we had perfect knowledge we could predict the future, there also does not seem to be any evidence for free will's existence in our current scientific understanding of the universe.

Therefore, any belief in in free will is unfounded and entirely faith based.

[Assistant]
Is "free will" as you mean it in your post a comprehensible and possible thing? Sometimes people imagine "free will" as something that's not logically possible, in which case this is like saying there's no "evidence" of four-sided triangles.

So, tell us a little bit about what Free Will is to you and what you imagine evidence for its existence could possibly look like.


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

[User]
Will Voyager 1 eventually crash into a star or a planet, or will it continue on forever?

I'm just interested in ball park probabilities here: if not found, is it more probable that it will eventually crash into something, or is it more probable that it will travel on forever (well, until it dissolves)?

[Assistant]
This is going to depend on what you mean by "eventually." All satellites are gravitationally bound to our galaxy, so it is necessarily going to fall into something at some point. Because assuming it doesn't hit anything before, it will have to pass through the core. There the gravity will be intense enough that it will get pulled into something, and even if it doesn't it will keep oscillating through the core until it hits something.

That being said, it will most likely sail for thousands of years before it even has a chance of hitting anything else. There's just not much around it right now. Its last big hurdle is the Oort cloud (which might not even exist!) but even that is so sparse the chance of it causing a problem is basically zero (don't believe the pictures you see of the asteroid belt, Kepler Belt and Oort cloud being dense- those are illustrations to show you they are there. However, if they were properly drawn, you'd never see anything there cause they are so small and sparse). After the Oort cloud it is basically in free space, and will be for thousands of years before it has a chance of getting close to something else.

**Edit:** Corrected spelling of "Ort" to "Oort"


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

[User] ELI5:Why do cars have displacements of, for example 2,997cc instead of just exactly 3,000cc?

[Assistant] There are several reasons.   The displacement of the motor is simply the swept volume of the cylinders.  The designer of the engine builds to a certain performance and size target, as well as maximize the use of off-the-shelf, common parts (like bearings and piston rings).  There is no advantage mechanically to hit an "nice even number".  However, in some cases, insurance for example, is impacted by engine size.   Your insurance policy may state over a certain size is more expensive...so designers build the maximum value just under that line.  Motorcycles are particularly impacted by this.   In motor racing, (e.g. F1 2015 limit is 1.6 l ) classes of cars are often limited to certain engine sizes.  Again, building to a maximum size *just under* a limit keeps you in spec.


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

[User] ELI5: Why has nobody rethought the idea of supersonic flight for transportation and designed a newer, better Concorde?

[Assistant]
You can't operate supersonic planes except over the open ocean, so they could only be used for trans-oceanic jumps.  Most notably trans-Atlantic runs since the Concorde didn't have the range for useful trans-Pacific runs (such as LA -> Tokyo).

Flying that fast burns enormous amounts of fuel, requiring a huge increase in the ticket price that traditionally people are unwilling to pay.

The 'value add' of the speed is relatively low.  Spending 6 hours gate-to-gate is not substantially better than spending 10 hours gate-to-gate when either trip effectively kills the day anyway.  Considering that this speed also comes at the expense of comfort, the type of wealthy passenger the Concorde requires would be just as likely to take first class at more conventional speeds.


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

[User]
[Legend of Korra] Does "Korra" truly exist?

Raava tells us that the Avatar exists because she merged with a human spirit and created Avatar Spirit. The Avatar Spirit is the thing that gets reincarnated with each death.

So what does that mean for individual identities? Is "Korra" really a true, individual person, or is it just an identity slapped onto the same consciousness that has existed for who knows how long? Are all the Avatars just repaints of the same consciousness? And what happens to the past Avatars when they die? Do they cease to exist until their present incarnation remembers them? Was Aang sentenced to an eternity behind Korra's eyes, doomed to never go to heaven with his friends?

[Assistant]
It's Wan's soul, reincarnated over and over again, but that doesn't mean Korra and Wan are the same *person*. A person is a soul tinted by their individual upbringing, life experiences, personality, etc. Wan's and Korra's essence is the same, but this core is coated differently. This coat is what characterizes a person.

What happens is that when the Avatar dies, the coat is removed but "stored" within Raava itself, which is what allows the different Avatars to exist as different entities that can talk to each other. When Raava was destroyed, all the coatsthat is to say, the information that is added onto Wan's soul to produce an individualwas lost forever.

---

As for previous Avatars being doomed to never go to heaven: as far as we know, there's no afterlife in the Avatar universe. There are no ghosts or mediums, nor any reference to an afterlife. Everyone seems to reincarnate, it's just that they don't have a coat rack Raava, so the information of their previous past lives is lost when they are reborn.


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

[User]
eli5: Why is the Kessler effect so dangerous? Won't the space junk eventually fall out of orbit or drift off into space?

I saw the opening of *Gravity* and it was pretty terrifying, but to quote Billy Bob Thornton in *Armageddon*, it's a big-ass sky.

[Assistant]
Yes, the space junk will eventually deorbit. But "eventually" is a long time and, before it does, it will take out most of our satellites.

It's so dangerous because it's an expontential growth problem...the likelyhood of a collision depends on how many bits of junk there already are, and each collision creates more junk. You can reach a tipping point where the frequency of collisions goes up very abruptly and the probability of any particular thing getting hit goes from effectively zero ("big-ass sky") to something meaningfully high. j

It's taken decades and tens to hundreds of billions of dollars (possibly trillions) to build our existing space infrastructure. A runaway Kessler effect could wipe all that out in months, far faster than we can replace it, and it would render low-earth orbit effectively unusable for years/decades. It would ruin our ability to do a lot of stuff that we currently take for granted without \*tons\* of effort and money.


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

[User]
[DC Comics] How does Bruce Wayne explain his proteges to the public?

If children were seen in public with the very single Bruce Wayne, how does Bruce explain this to them? More specifically, Jason, Tim, Damian, and Cassandra. I knew Dick was taken in by Bruce and acted as a surrogate father when his family died.

[Assistant]
Bruce's tragic past is so well known it's basically part of Gotham's identity. Even people who live far away from the city are at least aware of the fact that Bruce was made an orphan in a particularly horrific way.

Bruce has historically donated gigantic sums of money to orphanages and other youth programs meant to help children in situations just like his. Every so often, he'll find a child whose experiences particularly resonate with him, and he'll personally sponsor them. Some are supposedly sent off to an extremely private and ludicrously expensive private school where they mostly disappear from the public eye. Others are seen at his side in public, and it's assumed he's giving them some life advice. Or at the very least using his limitless bank account to buy them some good things after a lifetime of misery.

So with Bruce's well known past, as well as his history of helping children like him, no one bats an eye when he spends a little more money on one specific young person in order to improve their life. If there are people with any qualms, the majority of them would be upset that Bruce is OBVIOUSLY using them as a PR stunt to improve his public image after the last time he drunkenly crashed his Lambo into a public park after a week-long bender with an Egyptian supermodel.


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

[User]
CMV: everyone has a moral obligation to think critically, to the best of their ability

It is my strong belief that everyone has the moral and social obligation to think critically about the news, things they read and hear, and things happening around them, to the best of their intellectual, developmental, and educational ability.

I concede that children and people with certain disabilities (including but not limited to dementia) may have limited capacity for critical thinking, but their obligation is to do it to best of their ability.

I acknowledge that some people lack the time and education, but again, to the best of their ability.

 I'm very open to hearing divergent perspectives. CMV?

[Assistant]
The problem with crtical thinking so to speak, is that it's not a skill you simply possess, but rather is a skill that has to be learned.

To be able to think critically, you need to have inherent knowledge about the things you actually consume and are critical of. Anti-vaxers are an example of such an issue. Being critical of things you fundamentally don't understand, wheather it is politics, vaxinations, economics etc. Serves no one any good and will only lead to confusion. The sad truth is that "the best of ones abilities" often is not good enough when it comes to critical thinking, because it often leads to more harm than good imo.

I would personally have reframed the argument to "thinking critically of things you already have some degree of grasp of".


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

[User]
[40K] Is Chaos at all concerned with the Tyranid threat?

The forces of Chaos have certainly been making considerable gains recently in the Warhammer 40K universe, but as I understand the Tyranid threat is still present as ever. Beyond that, there's really no telling when more tendrils of the great devourer might encroach on the galaxy from any direction. So, as the title suggests, are the Chaos gods at all worried about the implications of this? What happens if Terra is not toppled by the ruinous powers, but rather a Tyranid swarm? Surely such an outcome is undesirable to Chaos. What will sustain them when all intelligent life is consumed by the mindless Tyranids? Bearing all this in mind, could we ever see a Chaos campaign against Tyranids?

[Assistant] While true that a Tyranid victory would mean the Chaos gods run out of food the Nids are a surprisingly difficult enemy to fight. They cant be possessed or corrupted so you cant pull a space bug version of the Horus Heresy on them. Demon flesh doesnt count as food for the bugs so they will actively avoid wasting energy fighting them. Throwing a horde of demons at them works but since the Gods cant feed off of Nid emotions any battle turns into a net negative. The Gods have had some victories though, KaBandha killed a moon full of Nids while the blood angels were being besieged by a hive fleet and Nurgle poisoned a planet so much that not even the Tyranids could out adapt it. No major campaigns that Im aware of though.


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

[User]
ELI5:What is the difference between regular soap and shampoo? Is that long list of chemicals actually doing a better job of cleaning my hair?

Thanks for all your comments! My hair and scalp shall be cleaned accordingly.

[Assistant]
Short answer? No. At the most basic level, soap and shampoo both do exactly the same job and can be used in place of each other - your hair will be equally clean using shampoo or hand soap. In fact, the first commercial shampoos were just shavings of soap that had been boiled up and had had herbs added, turning the bar of soap into a nice-smelling liquid.

Nowadays, the two products are chemically very different, but main active ingredient is still a "emulsifying surfactant" - a chemical that allows oil and grease to bond with water and wash away easily, taking any dirt with it.

However, your hair may not look very nice or feel very nice if you wash it with hand soap. Most of the extra chemicals are there for other purposes - to make the shampoo pearly-white and foam up, and to make your hair look glossy, feel smooth and smell nice.


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

[User]
[Every movie ever] Why would anyone put the keys on the fucking sun visor?

Like, leaving your car either unlocked, or locking your keys in your car so that you can more easily have your car stolen.

Not only that, youre surely invalidating your insurance for what doesnt even seem more convenient than keeping your keys in your pocket or in your house.

This is common enough for so many vagabond heroes to use it as their first port of call (including two separate terminators).

[Assistant]
A lot of those vehicles are company or community vehicles - fire trucks, work trucks, etc - and are stored in secured lots and are meant to be shared by multiple drivers. It's sufficiently secure.

Plus, many places exist where cars just don't get stolen. In many rural places, the chances of you forgetting or losing your keys are much higher than of your car getting stolen.


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

[User]
Why do viruses, such as smallpox, chickenpox, and monkeypox, cause random lesions and blisters?

Viruses like smallpox lead to blisters, rashes, and or lesions on the surface of the skin. How does the virus cause this an why do the 'pox' tend to appear randomly on the body. What decides the location of these marks and their density or cluster formation?

[Assistant] For chicken pox, you inhale the varicella zoster virus, and it replicates in your lungs. As your body fights back, T cells come into the tissue and become infected by the virus. These T cells then get reprogrammed by the virus to traffick to hair follicles, where they cause secondary infection, and spread in the skin layers there, causing the "pox". So each pox was an infected T cell that found that specific spot. Incidentally the virus then infects the nerves that innervate this region, trafficks back to the ganglia, and goes latent for years to decades. It can then come back to that same patch of skin(dermatome) when it reactivates as shingles.


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

[User]
When starting to read philosophical works, it is better to read the work, think about it, and turn to secondary sources, or it is better to start with secondary sources first?

As in the topic, I think. I'm quite new to philosophy and I want to read Descartes works. While I know the basic things about his philosophy, I wonder what is better in order to understand it better. Should I first go into secondary sources - primers about him, or just read the works and then turn to them for further explanation?

[Assistant] In most cases, primary first. You get better at philosophy by first forcing yourself to think about and try to understand the text in your own terms. Then, when you do come to the secondary text, you can also actually lay it beside what you thought in your head and see how it matches up.