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

[User]
CMV: Uncle Iroh from ATLA is the strongest firebender in the series, not Ozai.

It is stated on the show that Ozai is the most powerful firebender in the world. I've always thought this was total bullshit given the evidence we see in the show.

- Iroh invented the lightning redirection technique which is a HUGE GAME CHANGER against other firebenders. It's not just the invention of this technique that made him stronger. He then teaches it to Zuko who manages to one-up his much more powerful father in a 1v1 fight and escape. While Zuko doesn't outright win the fight, he clearly had the advantage when he redirected the lightning and made his escape. It's even possible Zuko could have killed Ozai then and there using ONLY IROH'S TECHNIQUE. So obviously, Iroh could kill Ozai in a 1v1 if his much weaker and less experienced student could have done it.

- A similar argument can be me made with Aang. But we can even take it a step further because of Combustion Man. Team Avatar is constantly on the run from CM in season 3. He quickly and easily pins down the world's strongest Airbender, one of the 2 strongest earthbenders in the world, and the granddaughter of the most powerful non-bloodbending water bender in the world. He does this regardless of whether it's day (when he's stronger) or night (when he's weaker). Let's compare that to Aang's fight with Ozai. During Sozin's Comet, which gives Ozai 10X HIS NATURAL POWER, Aang is able to quickly and fairly easily defeat Ozai using little more than dodging and Iroh's redirection technique but refuses to win by killing him. LITERALLY 10 OZAIS IS LESS OF A CHALLENGE FOR AANG TO HANDLE ALONE THAN 1 COMBUSTION MAN IS FOR HIM TO HANDLE WITH TEAM AVATAR TO HELP. This alone proves that CM was MORE THAN 10X more powerful than Ozai. As a side note, I'm aware Aang's firebending was also made 10X stronger, but Aang was still a novice firebender (intermediate at best) when this happened, so it's not like Aang became 10X stronger as a bender because of the comet.

As a secondary CMV, I'd say Combustion Man was the second strongest firebender in ATLA. Ozai can have third.

[Assistant]
* Does one technique make someone "stronger"? What if Ozai learns the lightning redirection technique? Or what if Ozai doesn't use lightning because he knows Iroh can redirect it? You could argue that Iroh is a "better" bender, but that doesn't necessarily mean Iroh is stronger than Ozai.
* As for Combustion Man, he has a power that none of team avatar had seen before and is easily the most accurate long distance technique we see in the series. Air or Water bending over that distance would be almost useless. He is like a sniper on a hill aiming at people with swords. It doesn't matter how good you are with a sword in that situation. Then in the end he is taken out by a boomerang, not even a bender.

Edit: Names are hard.


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

[User]
CMV: Suicide is a human right just as much as life is.

If humans have a right to life, it follows that they should also have the right to relinquish their life and it be treated as their own decision.
No matter what the health state of the person, if they deliberately choose to take their own life they should perhaps be made aware of tactics to improve their quality of life, but should never be prohibited to follow through with their decision if they deem it to be their own choice, i.e. being involuntarily committed.

What is wrong with allowing a human being to die on their own terms?

[Assistant]
Because waiting to die isn't a normal thought. Our very being is the result of billions of years of evolution dedicated to survival, both as an individual and as a species.

There are some cases where suicide is somewhat reasonable -when health is failing without hope of recovery and the person is in constant pain- but for the rest of the cases, it just denotes a mental health issue.

Now, like we would do for someone who wants to saw his crushed foot off for a quick relief from the pain, we are stopping depressive people from killing themselves because that's their distress guiding their actions.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why do animals go grey/lose follicle pigmentation around their mouths before other parts of their body?

Both humans and other animals seem to go grey around their mouths before other parts of their body, why is that?

[Assistant] Melanocytes, which produce pigment, are unevenly distributed in the body. As an organism ages, melanocytes become less effective and produce less and less pigment. Regions that have less melanocytes go grey first. In humans the area with the lowest number of melanocytes is around the temple,  in dogs the nose, and cats have more or less evenly distributed melanocytes and typically dont go grey but slowly fade in color over time.


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

[User] [Witcher] Why do Witchers have steel swords? Why not just Silver Swords all the time? Does the steel make it more effective against human's or does Silver get worn down?

[Assistant] Silver is very soft, and doesn't hold an edge practically at all. One or two swings against a guy in even basic armor would ruin it. The only reason it's used at all is because it's inherently damaging to monsters.


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

[User]
What is an unhealthy Debt to GDP

Thailand raised the cap to 70% which I think is still pretty safe. When does it get unsafe? If more complicated, how does the Thai situation look at the moment?

[Assistant]
It is more important what you finance with the debt than how much you have. Also if your debt is denominated in a currency you have control over. So if debt is in dollar and used to finance things that dont increase the growth rate sustainably, lower debt levels still are stable but you will hit a cap at some point where markets wont give you any money.

If instead you use the debt to finance reasonable investment that has returns higher than what you pay for debt and additionally its your currency than you shouldnt run into much problems independent of the debt level.


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

[User] ELI5: How does flash memory work?

[Assistant]
The actual science is pretty complex, but the concept is easy to understand.

Data is stored on a PC as a series of 1's and 0's. Lots of 1's and 0's,  literally billions on a common flash drive. 1 gigabyte is about 8 billion bits (a bit is a 1 or 0).

1's and 0's are stored on the flash drive by opening or closing "gates". A signal can be used to open or close the gate to "write" the data onto the drive. When reading, a current is passed through, and it knows which gates are opened or closed by whether the current can get through the circuit or not. It translates these open and closed gates into 1's and 0's, and when put together, you have a complete file.

There is a gate for each bit (a 1 or 0) stored. They are very small, and there are millions to billions of them in a chip. Multiple chips are used to make higher capacity storage. Making single chips with as many gates, without defects, is hard to do. Many small ones is much easier.


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

[User] ELI5: What's going in in Turkey, and why are the markets freaking out about it?

[Assistant]
There's been some concern about Turkey's economy for a while now, it's doing pretty well but there are some issue like lots of dollar-debt (ie debt that will not be reduced if the Lira goes down).

Erdogan is in trouble with the US right now over a political matter. The US has responded with sanctions. This is bad for the economy. Turkey has few allies, as there's tense relations with most powers in the area.

Then finally Erdogan basically said he didn't care about the economy, that Turkey's pride and non economic goals were more important. He also made pretty vain calls for Turkish to hold or buy Turkish currency, and called those that don't traitors.

All of that made the market decide that Erdogan just doesn't care about Turkey's economy enough, which is pretty concerning. This has led to the Lira dropping rapidly, both due to people wanting to move assets elsewhere and fear of the Lira dropping more. The Lira dropping sharply has a number of bad outcomes - everything's more expensive in Turkey, all those dollar-denominated loans are now much bigger in Lira terms, and it reflects general concern over Turkey's future.


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

[User] [ Xmen ] Why doesn't Cyclops' optic blast throw his glasses off of his face?

[Assistant]
The ruby quartz in the lenses resonates at a frequency matching him. They negate the energy before it has a chance to become forceful.

There is a focal point a few inches in front of his eyes where the beam actually formed (think of the focal point of a magnifying glass when focusing sunlight). This is why when he wears sunglasses, you don't see a firey beam behind them waiting to burst out.


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

[User]
[Batman] is the Joker bankrolled by anyone, or 100% self funded?

It seems like the Joker tends not to focus on money with his crimes, but at the same time his crimes are very expensive (military-grade explosives and dozens of goons don't come cheap).

Are there any entities who fund the Joker? Foreign governments, terror networks, corporations, etc?

[Assistant]
For the most part, no. Joker funds most of his own endeavors. Between bank heists, knowing a guy, and having a reputation bigger than you are really helps out. That and the occasional stealing from other crime lords/rogues would do it.

Most people are too afraid to work with Joker directly. A good example is in "Under the Red Hood" movie. Black Mask hires Joker and what happens...Joker ends up dong his own plan.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What's the difference between Boom Boom, Dazzler, and Jubilee?

They all seem to have the same powers on the surface: little explosions from their hands.

So what's the difference?

I'm only familiar with Ultimate Dazzler, X-Men Evolution Boom Boom, and Jubilee through osmosis.

[Assistant]
Jubilee could generate, at whim, small-level explosions of brightly colored "plasmoids."

Dazzler could convert sound vibrations into light. As in, literally light, rather than some form of energetic matter.

Boom Boom's ability is similar to Jubilee. She can create orbs of plasma which explode with concussive force. Jubilee seems to have more control or variation of these, while Boom Boom's are more powerful in terms of explosive power.


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

[User]
[Rick & Morty] What happens if you inject a regular pickle with anti-pickle serum?

So, obviously when Pickle Rick is injected with the anti-pickle serum it reverts him back to the Rick we all know and love. I could be wrong, but I think it reverts the pickle he uses to patch himself up back into normal Rick too, but that could just be an unrelated scar.

So what would happen if I took a regular pickle out of my fridge and pumped it full of anti-pickle serum? Would it evaporate into nothing, or turn into a lump of flesh? If it did turn into flesh, would it have Rick's DNA?

[Assistant]
[mild spoilers for a recent episode ahead]

We don't really know how much information the serum contains.  If Rick stored the biological programming required for the transformation in himself and the serum was only a catalyst, then using it on a normal pickle wouldn't create a human.  However, if the serum contains everything for the process--catalyst, fuel, programming--then it might create a mindless person out of a pickle.

It seems, though, that Rick made himself an uncommon pickle.  Pickle Rick had eyes, a mouth, and could think.  He could play Voltron with rat parts and himself and make himself ambulatory.  All this suggests that Pickle Rick had a lot going on internally that a normal pickle wouldn't have, and that a serum designed for him wouldn't work on a normal pickle.


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

[User] Can somebody give me a simple explanation of the difference between Cookies and sessions, I keep getting confused?

[Assistant]
A session is a bucket of information the server keeps in memory about what a user is currently doing.

A cookie is a ticket that the user gives the server to keep track of which bucket belongs to each user.


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

[User]
[Physics] Do fields actually exist?

Take the electromagnetic field, for instance. Photons are quantized, meaning that it takes a threshold energy level for the photon to even exist. On the other hand, photons are excitations of the electromagnetic field.

Putting these two ideas crudely together: if there's no photon, then that means *there's no excitation in the field*. So if that is true, then how could you distinguish the field from nothingness?

To put it differently, do fields exist independently from their particles?

[Assistant]
> To put it differently, do fields exist independently from their particles?

Yes, fields are much more fundamental. There are QFTs where there are no "particle-like" excitations, so even though there are excited field configurations there is nothing resembling a "particle" in these theories.

Also, there can exist field configurations which do not have particles in them even for electromagnetism. A static electric or magnetic field - like say a Coulomb field - does not have any photons in it, but it's a nontrivial configuration of the field.

In other words, particles are just particular kinds of excitations in fields, but they're not the only possible excitation.


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

[User]
[Starwars] Are AT-AT's a viable battlefield asset or are they more purely a weapon of intimidation?

Imperial Space Station over Kuat: ISS Dominance

Imperial Weapons Procurement and Distribution Conference

3 ABY

"Good morning Fleet Admiral, Field Marshal, Commandant and distinguished guests.

I would like to begin by saying AT-AT's are undeniably terrifying but is their utility on the battlefield comparable to their extreme cost and cumbersome operation a viable battlefield asset? It seems as though the AT-AT possesses some striking vulnerabilities that were discovered on the recent battle against the rebel base on Hoth.

Particularly the vulnerability of weapons strikes to the undercarriage which resulted in total system failure. And also the tendency to trip when ensnared by tow cables. But the biggest death knell is the AT-AT's slow speed, lack of maneuverability and desperate lack of point defense cannons to engage troops underneath its chassis and also behind the vehicle.

Repulsor tanks such as the 2-M Saber Class seem to be a much more efficient use of the Empire's tax funds when it comes to direct combat engagement, and also I propose a new production run of the Low Altitude Assault Transport. The LAAT provides the utility of a fast transport and also the firepower of a close air support gunship in a tried and true package. The return of the LAAT will allow battlefield commanders a faster, more versatile method of tactically inserting our troops into combat.

Thank you for your time and attention. I will now open the floor to questions and comments. "

[Assistant]
It will not redeem their ridiculously high profile, but since blasters are linear, direct-fire weapons, the extra height of an AT-AT's turbolaser dramatically increases its range and utility, allowing the Imperial Army to deploy a heavy-duty, warship-grade artillery gun effectively on the ground when navy assets such as Star Destroyer atmospheric bombardment are unavailable.  On a shorter platform, a turbolaser would have trouble hitting ground-level targets or the inside of trenches such as those used by the Rebels on Hoth.

Why the Army doesn't just use parabolic projectile artillery is another question altogether, though perhaps shells are bulky while turbolasers are more available.


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

[User]
[The Lorax] Why didn't the Once-ler plant the seed himself, rather than pass it on to someone else?

Today I heard a tale, one very old, of a once-rich man who didn't let any trees grow. His life was long and filled with regret, and he is haunted by the mistakes he wish he could forget. But one day he gave a child the last seed, but how did that had come to be? What spark of regret drove the Once-ler to save a seed before the trees were all dead? What drove him to save that little nut, rather than plant it and hope it was enough?

[Assistant] He didn't trust himself to be able to care for the seed, for he knew that he would be overcome with greed.  So, that old once-ler waited, with his breath abated, for a new generation to rise, and, upon seeing the one brave boy, he surmised...maybe he could trust this young one to let the seed grow?  And so, in honor of Frozen, he let the seed go.


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

[User] What were some major historical monetary policy errors?

[Assistant] The US govt raising the required reserves ratio during the beginnings of the Great Depression. The idea was to prevent more bank runs, what it did instead was contract the money supply during a recession, which spiraled the economy even further into catastrophe.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do I sweat when I eat something spicy? What use is this?

[Assistant]
There's no "use" for it. It's just your body's reaction to the irritants in the spicy food being interpreted as heat.

Chilies taste hot because the chemical in them, capsaicin, triggers your mouth's heat-detecting nerves. They say to your brain "Wow, it's really hot", so your brain tells your skin to start pumping out sweat in order to cool you down.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why were the military concerns for Yellowjacket never brought up about Iron Man or Falcon?

In Antman the military representative is not thrilled at the idea such a piece of tech could land in enemy hands. Yet Iron Man 2 has the military actively seeking to control an Iron Man suit.

[Assistant] They were concerned that Iron Man suit technology would fall into the wrong hands.  However, Tony showed them during the Senate subcommittee hearing that all the nations that they were concerned about getting the technology were not even close to getting it to work.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Amazon Prime end up being profitable for Amazon?

I have been using Amazon Prime for almost 2 years now and love it.  I just do not understand how they can be making money on it.  I often order small things, under $20 on a Wednesday and the two day obligation falls on a Saturday. So they FedEx Saturday deliver it, or just overnight it to get there on Friday, a day early. I also recently moved and ordered a washer and dryer from them and the prices were slightly cheaper than the department stores, and it was delivered free via a freight service (JB Hunt) . I realize they probably negotiate contracts with FedEx and UPS, but I still have not clue how this works out for them when they only get 80 bucks a year from me.

[Assistant] It encourages you to keep buying from them. Sure, they'll lose out on shipping costs, but in theory, you might be more prone to purchase from Amazon, so you feel like you're getting your money's worth from your membership.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the difference between Dopamine, Endorphins and Serotonin?

I've seen all three being regarded as responsible for happiness and pleasure. Only endorphins seem to be regarded as responsible for the feeling of "being in love".

Can anyone clear this up? What does each one do that the other doesn't? What do they have in common?

[Assistant]
Two of the three of these are neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers that relay information from one neuron to the next. The three you listed serve different purposes and complete different tasks.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is linked with your pleasure systems in the brain.

Serotonin is another neurotransmitter linked with your sleep, dreaming, and general arousal.

Endorphins are morphine like chemicals that act as the brain's natural painkillers.

I hope this answers your questions.


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

[User] How did the tongue evolve?

[Assistant]
Are you saying what is its evolutionary function (e.g., identifying nutritious foods from poisonous foods)?  Or are you arguing how a complex organ developed when its early purposes may have not been worthwhile?  Or do you just want like a history of earliest evolutionary ancestor species with proto-tongues?

(Standard disclaimer: Not an expert on biology; just trying to get clarification).


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

[User]
ELI5: Preloading

Okay. So a game is preloaded onto my system. How does the manufacturer ensure i cant play it before hand? How does the preloading work?

[Assistant]
Generally using a combination of two methods:

1. They download all of the game's assets (3D models, textures, videos, scripts etc.) and leave out the main executable, which is comparatively small.
2. Everything that is downloaded is encrypted, and the key is only provided on the release date. The game is then decrypted using the key.


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

[User]
[Dora] Why is Swiper pursuing a life of thievery if he can be stopped by a small child and a monkey simply telling him hes not allowed to steal from them?

Youre a fox, dude. Eat the monkey, tear the girls throat out, and steal what you want. You could make a killing off her sentient backpack and map.

[Assistant] He doesn't want to steal but has kleptomania. Dora telling him not to with that chant helps him with his affirmations, letting him hold himself back. Dora knows it's an illness and not malice so she doesn't try to hurt him.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is your brain so bad at using your non-dominant hand?

[Assistant]
You haven't practiced with it!

With a little bit of time and effort, you should be able to become nearly as proficient with your non-dominant hand... it's just not something most people do.

As an example, you learned to write with one hand... but if you really hammered away at learning to write with the other hand you would find that (eventually) you'll be nearly as good.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why the Nazi regime was so successful.

Why did it take so long for others to realize the threat to world peace? I know the country was in a time of despair and German citizens were willing to blame anybody, but why did other nation's ambassadors living in Berlin during the rise fail to speak up?

[Assistant]
1.  germany was in the worst depression the modern world has ever known.  their money was worth more as firewood than it was in purchasing power.  people were without jobs, secure homes, or basic *reliable* infrastructure.  this created a sense of desperation with the german people.

2.  germany was being forced to pay for WW1, further injuring their economic future.  they were unable to pay most of their bills to the other nations.

3. germany, and a large portion of the rest of europe was already anti-semetic.  hitler didn't introduce hatred or mistrust to his people, they already felt that way.  he just amplified it.

4.  as hitler improved germany, other european leaders were more concerned with rebuilding their own nations and preventing another war.  most of europe had thought WW1 was the war to end all wars, and thought if they gave hitler some appeasement, that he would just rebuild germany, make it an economic success, and leave everyone else alone.

5.  hitler's initial invasions were of countries that were historically parts of germany.  thus, lowering the "care" factor in other leaders.

6.  the united states made the decision to say "my name's paul, the shit's between ya'll" early in the european conflict.

7.  hitler's economic ideas were actually pretty fucking good.  weather or not they were sustainable is a different discussion, but for the time and place, they were outstanding, and there were many national socialist movements in other countries, and these movements actually had some clout.  the united states was one of those countries.

8. by the time all was said and done, and hitler had started another war, to much had been done, with to little intervention to stop it all without furthering another major war.

in essence, there was a horrible rainstorm (european socio-economic system collapse) and a single tent with everyone in it (efforts to fix the problems after the great depression of the late 20's and damaged european infrastructure) and a camel who wanted to just poke his head in the tent and out of the rain (hitler/third reich).  they let the camel put his head in the tent, but then they couldn't stop him from barging all the way in, and thus tearing the tent down as it was to small to house him.


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

[User]
If a cloned organ starts off as "old" as the original cells used for the cloning and with the same accumulated damage to the DNA and shortened telomeres, then shouldn't we be preserving our DNA as soon as possible?

Wouldn't that ensure the "youngest" possible cloned organs for ourselves when the technology becomes viable in the future to extend our lives in such ways?

In other words, let's say I am in my 20's now, wouldn't I want to preserve my DNA as soon as possible so that if the technology to clone your own organs becomes viable in the next 40 years, then when I'm 80 with liver failure I can have a "younger" liver regenerated using my 20-year-old DNA rather than an "older" liver regenerated using my then 80-year-old DNA?

Could stem cells help mitigate the above?

[Assistant]
Theoretically that would be ideal as your DNA will have accumulated less mutations. A mutation in a part of the genome that a tissue doesn't use has no effect but try using that DNA to recreate another tissue, you might run into a problem

Couple options would be to preserve when younger. Another would be to take a few samples of various tissue in respect to what you want cloned

As for telomeres, although we don't have the natural ability to regenerate our end strands, plants do. It's not farfetched to think you if you're able to clone a tissue, you can use plant enzyme/ insert the gene to add that function. It's one of the reason we age, while oxidative stress is another primary factor (plants are much better at neutralizing super oxides then we are)

These possibilities will come from more somatic stem cell research which faces it's own technical and funding problems vs embryonic stem cell research which is more of a ethical problem holding it back.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] It's been confirmed that Wizard ability is genetic. Could gene therapy be used allow a Squib (by stimulating recessive genes) or a Muggle (by inserting active Wizard genes) to use magic?

[Assistant] It's even easier than all that. Go to Saint Mungo's, get some hair from a lifer who can use magic, and make a polyjuice potion for your squib or muggle friend. The potion rewrites their DNA for the time of effect. Just make sure they always have a flask of it on hand.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Given tbe proliferationn of repulsorlift technology even on simple things, why have any wheeled or legged vehicles at all?

[Assistant]
Repulsorlifts require a lot more power, are more problematic to repair if they suffer faults in the field, and make the vehicles immobile (and even unstable) if they fail. Wheels, on the other hand, are pretty easy to repair (even we can do that pretty quickly) and *don't* leave the vehicle as deadweight if the power is cut. With a decent Force-user or two (or a few strong individuals), you can push a wheeled vehicle to a suitable repair location.

Legged vehicles can be quite good at climbing over some obstacles and terrains that wheels and repulsorlifts struggle with. In addition, legged vehicles tend to demoralise foes more than those with wheels or repulsorlifts. Would the AT-ATs be as daunting with wheels? Or if the central body just floated? If anything they'd look more ridiculous, although they could move faster.


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

[User] ELI5 Why do we consider electric cars "green" if we need fossil fuel to produce electricity ?

[Assistant]
There are other ways to produce electricity - solar, wind, hydro, nuclear.

Additionally, even fossil-fuel power plants are more efficient than an internal combustion engine, and they also produce less polluting gasses (relative to the amount of energy they produce).


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

[User]
So How Do you Build a Desktop Application?

I see so many tutorials and guides for making websites that it's easy to see the process, but I'm at a loss for how to make desktop applications. What languages can be used? Are there frameworks for desktop apps? Are there guides online? Do you just use the same stuff for web app design now? I have no idea ....

[Assistant]
For c# you can use old Windows Forms, or newer technology WPF.
Framework provides you with main form to which you can add controls (there are some predefined controls but for more complex requirements you can create your own).
It is actually very easy to start, you can create empty desktop app from project template, without writing single line of code.


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

[User] What do intelligent mammals like primates do with their dead?

[Assistant] Not much. Animals that live in groups will sometimes drag a body away from where the group is living, nature does the rest. Birds will pick a corpse clean in a few days, if dogs don't get to it first; insects will get whatever they miss.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why did the process of German reunification after 1990 prove to be so unexpectedly difficult?

Would similar difficulites be face by Korea today?

[Assistant]
Actually the process of German reunification while extremely costly and not without its problems did go relatively smoothly.

A Korean unification by comparison would be orders of magnitude harder.

The price of German unification is estimated to have been over 2 trillion Euro and still be costing a tidy sum each passing year a quarter of a century later.

However when Germany reunited conditions were almost optimal for it compared to Korea.

The people in West German outnumbered those in the east about 4  to 1, while currently North Korea has about half as many people as South Korea. It should be obvious that four guys pooling their resources to lift another guy up will have an easier time doing it than if there were just two of them trying the same thing.

Another thing that gets often forgotten is that while East Germany was poor compared to West Germany, they were still one of the richest countries of communist block, having relatively high standards of living. Looking back you often hear jokes about the state of the infrastructure and the lack of goods available in East Germany. How there were so few phones and how you had to wait years to get the car you wanted and how there were long lines everywhere.

On the other hand in North Korea peasants are literally starving. The state of the industry and infrastructure in North Korea is a joke compared to the one of East Germany a quarter of a century ago.

Lifting East Germany technologically up to the level of West Germany was a monumental task, but the gap between the two countries was small compared to the gap between North and South Korea.

Then there are the people. Germany was divided for a shorter time than Korea has been so far. When Germany reunited, families reunited. They had only been divided for a few decades and despite the travel restrictions many had never lost contact entirely. People knew each other. They remembered each other. There were plenty of people who remembered what it had been like before the division and people kept writing letters to their cousins and were even allowed to visit sometimes.

The result was that when reunification happened in Germany it was for many a personal thing. Older people reunited with family and young children were introduced to their cousins that they only had seen pictures of before.

By comparison Korea has been divided since 1948 and with conditions in North Korea (and for some time to a lesser degree in the south too) there aren't many left who remember the time before. They occasionally make this show about reuniting families under controlled circumstances, but if you look at the people involved you see that they get older and older. There aren't many people in a country that has to deal with starvation that make it to the age of 80.

Unlike Germany the two populations have been divided much more strongly. There is almost no contact by comparison and by the time a reunification might happen nobody will still be alive to remember family on the other side personally. The two Koreas have become strangers to one another.

And it is not just their attitude to one another. East Germans were well educated and if you didn't make the mistake of majoring in something politics related, chances were that your East German University degree would still count for something in a unified Germany. North Korea is falling behind however.

And then there is the propaganda. Of course you had propaganda in East Germany too, but it seems to be a lot worse in North Korea. It will be a lot harder to reintegrate someone from North Korea into polite society as they seem to have less of a clue about how the world actually works.

All in all reuniting North and South Korea would be a far more daunting tasks  than it was to reunificate Germany.

Germany is one of the richest country in the world and their tasks was much easier. South Korea while rather rich themselves would have a much harder time of it.

It seems impossible for reunite Korea without the financial help of the international community. It would be worth it for the stabilizing influence alone for most of the local and the worlds big players, but it would be a monumental task still that would take many, many trillions and many decades  to accomplish.

And of course first there must be an opportunity for it. A peaceful transition as happened in Germany is the best case scenario, but it seems unlikely that the North Korean regime would collapse peacefully into a people who actually want democracy and freedom and reunification.


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

[User]
If you are in a 300 AQI area for 5 hours vs a 150 AQI area for 10 hours, are they the same level of harm?

Mathematically, it makes sense that you'd be breathing in the same amount of particles given the two periods of time. I was wondering if this was similar to how the liver functions when responding to alcohol.

(There is less harm done if you were to drink 1 beer for a month vs if you drank a months worth of beer in 1 day.)

[Assistant]
No.

Your upper airway basically has a big filter.  It's capable of dealing with a certain amount of particulate in the air.  So, at lower concentrations, nearly all the particulate will be filtered out.  As particulate concentration increases, your "filter" gets overwhelmed, and the amount of particulate reaching the lower airways increases at a non-linear rate.

In other words, twice the particulate can be more than twice as bad.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why eyes roll back into the head as a pleasure reflex

Why do our eyes roll back in our heads when experiencing extreme pleasure?

[Assistant]
Contrary to the ~~above~~ below answer, here's the real one. (It's partially correct, as you'll see, but the mechanism is all wrong.)

When you faint, your body experiences a loss of muscle "tone," also known as continuous postural tension. Your eyes are naturally rolled up, and it's just the tone of the oculomotor muscles that keeps them down. Yes, this happens even while sleeping. (Same for your eyelids -- fully relaxed = 90% closed, not 100% closed. That's why syncope caused by drugs has the distinct half-lidded look rather than other forms of fainting, which reflexively tighten the eyelid muscles to keep them shut.)

Fainting and experiencing extreme pleasure activates similar pathways, as the body starts to ignore or shut down certain parts of the body to focus on  pleasurable sensation. Your eye muscles lose tension (since you don't need your eyes to orgasm), so your eye naturally rolls back.

Watch someone blink in slow motion when they're not focusing intensely on something. You'll notice their eyes roll back slightly as the oculumotor muscles relax during the blink. (Intense focusing can overcome this reflex.)

Sidenote: parasympathetic innervation is involved with sexual intercourse (it's nicknamed "feed and breed," after all) but it doesn't cause the eye roll reflex since it doesn't innervate the oculomotor muscles. The parasympathetic response is in full force on the initiation of coitus anyway...

**Edit:** change "above" to "below" since the other answer got downvoted below mine.


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

[User] At what point is a lake big enough to be classified as a sea?

[Assistant]
Lakes are inland and usually fresh water, seas are salt water and connected to the ocean. There is a lot of confusion as there are some lakes named sea and vice versa.

While lakes do tend to be much smaller, that is not their defining characteristic.

Edit: removed an inaccurate "usually" before "salt water"


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

[User]
At what point in your learning can you start looking for internships?

I am currently a college student majoring in computer science and I have so far taken a python and a basic CS class. This semester, I'll be working with Java, PL/SQL, assembly language and might also take some web development classes. Students my age seem to be getting internships already but I do not know if I have enough knowledge yet to do an internship. When do you think is a good point to actively start looking for internships or what skills should I learn before I start?

[Assistant] You can do an internship at any time. The purpose of an internship is to learn, so if you can find one then go for it. It's never too early to start looking, and the experience is way more valuable than any of your classes.


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

[User] If very loud noises can damage your hearing and very bright lights can damage your sight, can very strong odors damage your sense of smell?

[Assistant] Loud noises and bright lights are damaging because of the energy they carry; scents, on the other hand, are merely particles suspended in the air. Sure, many chemicals could do serious damage to your olfactory receptors if you inhaled them through your nose, but it would be because of their reactivity, not their pungency. In such a scenario, damage to your lungs would probably be your primary concern.


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

[User] ELI5: When I sleep on my arm then wake up with my arm so numb that I can't even move it, exactly what is going on inside my arm?

[Assistant] when you sleep on it you interrupt blood flow in that area because you compress the arteries; this causes a failure in the nerves of the arm to function properly, so they can't send any signal to the brain (that's why you lose your sensations and the ability to move the limb and the hand). Only when the circulation improves (when you wake up and you free the arm) the nerves start to function again and you gradually get back to normality.


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

[User] [Mass Effect] Do Turians bath with water or do they bath in sand?

[Assistant]
Okay, first off; what is the context of this question? Is it due to the fact that turians are an avian-like species or something, or because Palaven is naturally hot?

Honestly, I'd say "No", they do not use sand for bathing.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do plugged in chargers, which aren't connected to anything, still draw power?

e.g. If a phone charger is plugged into an outlet yet has no phone connected to be charged, why does it draw power?

[Assistant] The charger itself has circuitry that needs to be powered. It's very little, though. Mostly just to detect when something has been plugged in so it can turn on. Much like a TV needs to be on to read the "turn on" signal from the remote.


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

[User]
Which Cambridge Companions should I avoid?

I recall reading somewhere on this sub that there was a specific *Cambridge Companion* that was to be avoided and which received criticism from scholars working on that thinker. Does anyone recall which companion Im referring to? Have there been any controversies regarding specific ones?

[Assistant]
These are generally pretty good. They're not always earth-shattering, but in general the *Cambridge Companion* series is a good way to start thinking about a topic.

If you hear a specific warning about a particular volume, then of course take that to heart. But as a rule these are fine to trust.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does mold grow in black coffee?

If someone (not me, of course) leaves a cup of black coffee out for a few days mold starts to grow on the surface.  How does this happen?  What is the fungus attaching to? What in coffee is it's nourishment?

[Assistant] Well start with the fact that there is mold, or mold spores, in the coffee grounds before you start. And then youre adding moisture, which mold loves, and there is acidity, and nitrogen, and all those lovely coffee oils and nutrients.


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

[User] ELI5: why do certain US towns and cities ban outright drying out clothes on the open yard on line ? Why ban on doing something on a personal property ?

[Assistant]
To keep poor people out.

The idea is that hanging clothes on a clothes line is what poor people do because they can't afford an electric or gas-fired clothes dryer. Even though someone who bought a home presumably has the money for a clothes dryer and simply want to use a clothes line by choice rather than by necessity, many towns and homeowners associations ban clothes lines because of the connotations that only poor people use clothes lines. Their fear is that if people used clothes lines it would present a poor 'aesthetic': it would make the neighbourhood(s) *seem* poor by association, thus lowering everyone's property values.


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

[User] How can a phone tell the exact percentage of the battery?

[Assistant]
The real answer here is: it can't. The percentage you see is always an estimate. The exact capacity of your battery is heavily impacted by things like temperature, discharge rate, age, etc.

Your phone (or basically any device using a lithium battery) uses all methods described in other posts, but in the end the best it can do is an estimation. That's why you can sometimes run your phone several minutes while the battery is at 0%, and another time it drops dead at 5%.

Some electronics brands (like Apple) are even known to make the indicator non-linear on purpose. So your battery could be half empty while the indicator purposely shows it at 80% or something. Presumably to prevent you from getting "range-anxiety".


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

[User] ELI5: What happens when a person such as myself, who's MAYBE worth $18,000 on a good day, gets sued for $10 million?

[Assistant]
You retain an attorney and defend against the lawsuit. If you cannot afford an attorney, one may be willing to help you for free--there are legal aid societies dedicated to this, and American Bar Association asks all lawyers to donate some of their time each year. Defendants in highly publicized cases often receive donations from people who believe in their cause. You may be insured against (some kinds of) lawsuits, as found in many homeowner's insurance policies--if so, that'll come in handy now.

You could try to a settlement with the plaintiff. He is probably willing to slash his claim if it means he avoids the difficulty of a trial and the associated legal expenses for himself. Then, your payment is entirely according to your agreement with him. Let's say you believe yourself quite innocent, though, and go to trial--what if you lose, and are ordered to pay a large sum? (Not necessarily the amount the defendant originally asked for.)

You will typically establish a payment plan based on your ability to pay, slowly working to pay off that debt. If you do not pay as ordered, the plaintiff could ask for garnishment, meaning your employer would be required to withhold part of your wages. The court may transfer possession of your property to the defendant to help satisfy back payments, though state law protects a basic amount of property like your primary residence and retirement funds.

At the end of the day, though, perhaps you will never be able to satisfy the debt. People can cause a lot of damage and be liable for more than they expect to earn in a lifetime. Wise plaintiffs know this, and don't sue people who won't and can't pay--such people with no accessible assets or income to speak of are sometimes called "judgment proof." If there is an outstanding balance when you die, the plaintiff may recover it from your estate (the inheritance), potentially having access to assets that were legally protected during your lifetime. If the estate does not cover the bill, the plaintiff is out of luck and simply has to accept the loss of the remainder.


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

[User]
[Futurama] Why did Fry lose all the benefits when the worms left him?

The worms themselves claim that he did no more damage to himself than a bad night of drinking. But this was after getting more than twice as smart.

And he never damaged his muscles either, only his brain.

[Assistant]
Their positive effects were not yet permanent.

The brain tune-up was still incomplete and most of the results needed to be maintained for a while longer to take hold.

The muscles are similarly affected, and in addition, he was getting an equivalent of good workout from the worms. Once they were gone his muscles would quickly lose their strength.


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

[User] ELI5 How can the NYSE put a freeze on buying stocks but not on selling? Are there not 2 sides to every transaction?

[Assistant]
The NYSE doesn't put holds on one side of the transaction - as you suspect, for every buyer you must also have a seller.  They do sometimes flip the 'circuit breakers' and stop _all_ trading for a few minutes (to give a cool down and help prevent panic behavior).

Individual brokerages or clearing houses, however, can stop processing orders for specific transactions.  In the case of Robinhood, they stopped allowing people to buy, but still allowed sales.  The main market still allowed buying, which is why the sale orders placed by RH could still be processed.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the Queen in chess the most effective piece?

 I wouldn't have thought thought, given the age of the game, that women in that time period would be considered combat masters or respected so highly.

[Assistant]
The Queen piece was actually, originally, just a minister. The game slowly evolved to refer to the piece as a queen because it stood beside the king.

In some languages or cultures the queen is still referred to something similar to the minister; vizier in east cultures, and Hetman in Poland.


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

[User]
[Chrono Trigger] How big is Lavos?

In 65,000,000 BC it creates a crater from space and causes an ice age. In 1999 AD he appears to be the size of a large mountain range (comparing him to the continent). But at any point when you fight the shell he is about the size of a small house, and his head is barely large enough for you to walk into after you kill it. Then you go inside of him and it's like a huge underground base that you can walk around in?

[Assistant]
> In 1999 AD he appears to be the size of a large mountain range (comparing him to the continent).

On the overworld map, where houses are the size of towns and characters are the size of houses. The overworld isn't a literal depiction; it just shows the most important things Crono and & co experienced while traveling. The actual in-game level is a more accurate depiction.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Will casting "reparo" work if the repair requires specific parts I don't have?

[Assistant] Yes. The only things it cannot repair are powerful magical objects (like wands) or living creatures, or anything damaged by powerful dark magic like feindfyre. If you arent a particularly skilled caster, it may not be a perfect repair.


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

[User]
[The Wizard of Oz] If Tin Man didn't have a heart, wouldn't he have been a huge asshole the whole time?

I understand that he was thankful and willing to help Dorothy for reanimating him with the oil but overall he seemed very relaxed and empathetic to her situation.

[Assistant] His problem was not that he lacked the capacity for love, but only that he thought he did. In fact he's quite empathetic from the beginning. Similarly the Scarecrow is insightful and the Cowardly Lion displays great courage. In all three cases, what they really lacked was self esteem.


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

[User] Eli5: why havent we started considering or implementing large scale desalinization in response to our water shortages?

[Assistant] We have, it's just very difficult to implement. The city of San Diego spent $1 billion on making a desalination plant, but even that can only handle a small percentage of that city's water needs. Desalination is expensive because it requires a LOT of energy.


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

[User]
Eli5: If white surfaces reflect the most light, why are mirror backings silver?

I know from basic science class that white light is the combination of all the colors, but why wouldnt glass over a white surface reflect better images than glass over silver?

[Assistant] Because white surfaces don't just reflect light, but also scatter it. Light hitting them isn't going to reflect back at the same angle it came in from because on a microscopic level such surfaces are extremely bumpy. Mirrored surfaces, on the other hand, are made microscopically flat through any number of means, so all the light going in reflects out in the same direction.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How did Director Krennic find Galen Erso on Lah'mu?

What would attract Krennic if Erso wasn't emitting anything into space that would identify him or talking to anyone else?

[Assistant]
Time, money, and inside knowledge. Krennic had been friends with Galen for years and knew him better than almost anyone else. Erso was a brilliant man, and farming really was quite below his talents. It's quite possible that when they got supplies, he also would request reading material and the like to entertain him and keep his mind fresh. Krennic could have set up some sort of alert any time certain code words or topics were accessed from imperial sources, and looked for a pattern. It would be a little unusual if a certain library on a remote planet a few hops away from Lah'Mu kept downloading recent papers on high-energy physics or what not. Given enough time and resources, as well as scouts, they could have tracked him down.

And there were ways to narrow down the search. Erso would almost definitely avoid any larger populated planet or planet with a large imperial presence where he could be spotted, or planets with a large criminal contingent who would claim an inevitable bounty. Would also need to be habitable for humans, and not an overly harsh world since they were raising a young daughter. Still a lot of galaxy to look at, but that would likely narrow it down to planets similar to Lah'Mu. Outer rim planets with small populations, habitable to humans and with not much else.

He could also comb that with any possible details
he could glean from their escape. They escaped from Coruscant, and had accomplices who might be less hidden. Work that angle and try to get them to talk or to get them to at least slip up and give him a clue. Surveillance of any and all known associates.

The fact that Saw was able to respond to a message in just a day or so at most suggests he was at least somewhat local, and if he was known as a associate of Erso, would really help narrow things down if he was in the general area.

It still took him four years.


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

[User] [DC] If Barry said I forgive you to Eobard, what would his immediate reaction be?

[Assistant]
Rage, and a redoubling of his attempts to twist the knife.

Ive often wondered how Thawne would react if Barry shed tears of joy at the revelation that Thawne was responsible for his misery throughout life- because that would mean confirmation that it wasnt his fault.  Assuming Thawne couldnt go back in time to undo his big reveal it could cause a breakdown, especially if Barry started attributing things to him that he genuinely didnt do.


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

[User]
[MCU] What if Red Skull had met Hive?

If Hydra had won during WWII and managed to bring back Hive, what would Shmidt's reaction to him have been?  Now, I know that the Red Skull wasn't fully committed to Hydra's ancient goal of returning Hive.  He was in it for himself.  So, let's assume that with Hydra in power, a splinter faction takes advantage of being able to operate with relative impunity and brings Hive back.  Hive returns to Earth where the Red Skull is the undisputed ruler.  Shmidt isn't an Inhuman, but he's not fully human, either.  He's a massive prick and an elitist with the genius intellect and physical stats to back it up.  I can't see their meeting going over well.

[Assistant] the answer here isnt very clean cut. serving hive isnt the true end goal of hydra, at least not all of it. while the ancient org that became hydra does still have its remnants, most of hydra didnt even know about hive, hence ward first learning about it from powers boothe. hive lovers =/= red skull.


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

[User]
How did different species evolve to have different numbers of chromosomes?

Even different species of apes have different numbers of chromosomes. Since they are presumably descended from a common ancestor at some point, doesn't this mean that there have been multiple instances of breeding between two animals with different numbers of chromosomes that was successful?

My understanding is that if the chromosomes don't match up, the offspring will be sterile, mentally handicapped, or both.

[Assistant]
All great apes apart from man have 24 pairs of chromosomes. There is therefore a hypothesis that the common ancestor of all great apes had 24 pairs of chromosomes and that the fusion of two of the ancestor's chromosomes created chromosome 2 in humans. The evidence for this hypothesis is very strong.

The Evidence

Evidence for fusing of two ancestral chromosomes to create human chromosome 2 and where there has been no fusion in other Great Apes is:

1)  The analogous chromosomes (2p and 2q) in the non-human great apes can be shown, when laid end to end, to create an identical banding structure to the human chromosome 2.

2) The remains of the sequence that the chromosome has on its ends (the telomere) is found in the middle of human chromosome 2 where the ancestral chromosomes fused.

3) the detail of this region (pre-telomeric sequence, telomeric sequence, reversed telomeric sequence, pre-telomeric sequence) is exactly what we would expect from a fusion.

4) this telomeric region is exactly where one would expect to find it if a fusion had occurred in the middle of human chromosome 2.

5) the centromere of human chromosome 2 lines up with the chimp chromosome 2p chromosomal centromere.

6) At the place where we would expect it on the human chromosome we find the remnants of the chimp 2q centromere.

Not only is this strong evidence for a fusion event, but it is also strong evidence for common ancestry; in fact, it is hard to explain by any other mechanism.

I dare you to ask a christian that question.


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

[User]
How does the CPU know not to write into read only memory?

Or outside of the program, for that matter. Is there a check for what segment it is in in every read/write instruction? How does it work?

[Assistant]
It depends on the system, but typically yes, every write has to be translated into physical address space and posted to the memory system, and the access levels will be available in the translation buffer.

The check is very cheap.  It's an AND gate between read-only and write enable.


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

[User]
[Interstellar] Was the Cooper station at the end going to enter the wormhole and proceed to Edmund's planet?

Since Plan A supposedly was a go no that Cooper encoded the mising data for the equation that must mean the ultimate goal of populating one of the 3 planets was going to happen. So, are the inhabitants of Cooper station going to Edmund's planet to join up with Amelia, who also enacted Plan B?

Is the worm hole even still open? If there's no plan of going to the new planet then why even build a space station? Couldn't they just build a bunch of giant domes on Earth and re-create the utopia-like climate that we see on Cooper station? Isn't space MUCH more inhabitable than the current Earth we see?

[Assistant]
They were going to Edmund's planet. Murphy knew that Amelia was successfully enacting Plan B, which means that they knew on earth that the planet was inhabitable. It took several decades to get the station running and off the ground, but that makes sense given the time dilation; Amelia is, after all, only just starting to set up camp on Edmund's planet by the end.

The only reason Cooper Station is near Saturn (that's where Cooper was found floating after passing through the black hole) is so it can go through the wormhole to Edmund's planet. Remember that those planets are outside of our galaxy - the only way for humanity to get to them is through the wormhole.


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

[User]
Is there a correlation between psychosocial development and addiction?

Is there a correlation between psychosocial development and addiction? Have been looking for research on this topic to no avail. If you know of any please share the link.
Edit: Also trying to find a link between the failure to resolve developmental crisis like identity vs role confusion (Erick Erickson) and addiction.

[Assistant]
Think about what you're asking. Psychosocial development means not biological. So yes, 100% chance, people develop addicton for reasons other than biology.

You can figure out in one session why someone is addicted. Trying to figure out why EVERYONE does it seems to be a waste of time. The broad answer is we ain't happy and choose to escape than do the work. The specific answer is going to be why do people not get their needs met, leadibg to dissatisfaction.


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

[User]
I automate Electrical and Mechanical Engineering jobs, should I hide the code from them? Or give them access?

I work side by side with the end users of my programs.

Currently we compile our programs and keep the raw code away from the engineers. Our programs aren't perfect and we have bugs that need to be fixed, causing the programs to error out.

I often end up running the program with their data, finding the root cause of the error, and reporting back to them. I know many of these engineers have coded in college, so its not unheard of for them to code. Heck our group was started by one of these engineers. I imagine some can figure out the solution by themselves, half the time its an input error.

There are no security concerns as we are all on the same team, and there isnt any user/pass or sensitive data they don't already have access to. We have backups in git, so they can't mess with the data.

Can you see any problems with people having access to our code?

[Assistant] Assuming by "same team" you are all under the same employer that paid you to write the code in the first place, seems like it would be OK. As long as they couldn't directly commit or otherwise mess up the code base easily.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What is the best part of Star Wars history?

*(incl. Expanded universe,^legends)*

**The most interesting stories in tens of thousands years  detailed Star Wars history.**

[Assistant]
The life story of Mitth'raw'nuruodo:

* Started career in the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet, becoming the youngest Force Commander in the fleet's history.
* Wiped out a sizable Trade Federation task force (spearheaded by two Lucrehulks and about two to three thousand Vulture droids) sent to destroy the Outbound Flight project with three light cruisers and nine fighters.  Kept one Lucrehulk intact, re-programmed its Vulture droids, and then destroyed Outbound Flight (six Katana Dreadnoughts glued together) and crippled the entire Vagaari (nomadic barbarian/slaver assholes) fleet.
* Was exiled by his own people to a remote planet for being too much of a badass (and because he kept on launching preemptive strikes on enemies).  He was found after dismantling an Imperial landing party with some berries, a monowire (to down a TIE Fighter), a slingshot, and psychological warfare, and then hopping aboard their landing craft as they GTFO'd back to their Star Destroyer.
* Was so badass that Palpatine, despite running an Empire that went full Nazi Holocaust on non-humans, secretly took him in and eventually made him a Grand Admiral.
* Can tell Palpatine to fuck off when Palpatine gives him an impossible mission.  First time this happens he gets demoted, but after the guy sent in his place gets rekt he gets it back.
* While the Empire was getting shat on by a bunch of Rebel derps Thrawn was too busy pacifying the Unknown Regions, being one of the few in the Empire besides Palpatine to know of the Yuuzhan Vong.  Ends up creating a confederacy known as the "Empire of the Hand" instead which is basically like a nice, less racist version of the Empire.  The Empire of the Hand would later go on to create things like Star Destroyers without exposed superstructures where all the important people stand in, no doubt because Thrawn realized that that's a terrible idea.
* Whenever on vacation from his Unknown Region business, kicks Rebel ass.  Defeats rogue Grand Admiral Zaarin.
* After learning of Endor and finally defeating his arch-nemesis in the Unknown Regions, the pirate warlord ~~Moriarty~~ Nuso Esva, Thrawn decides that he has to go save the actual Empire.
* Takes command of the Imperial Remnant.  Finds a crazy dark Jedi and some cloning tanks on Wayland and goes all in.  Nearly roflstomps the New Republic despite starting out at a severe disadvantage because he's Freud/Clausewitz/Hannibal/Sun Tzu/Sherlock Holmes combined.  Is eventually backstabbed by his own Noghri bodyguard after a series of truly unfortunate events occurred, no doubt due to the will of the ~~plot~~ ~~author~~ Force.
* Ten years after his death, rumors of his return send panic across the New Republic.  While it turns out the whole thing was a fraud, Thrawn actually did have a clone of himself ready to go back on Nirauan, the heart of the Empire of the Hand.  Unfortunately, Luke and Mara Jade manage to find it by accident and destroy it...accidentally.  Kinda.  Sorta.  They didn't want to.
* Thrawn was undoubtedly rolling in his grave (in schadenfreude) when the Yuuzhan Vong arrived and tore the New Republic five new assholes.

Abilities include:

* Intimidating or disturbing everyone with glowing red eyes.
* Making Imperials of both sexes go "HNNNNNNNNGH" every time he opens his mouth or wins what should have been a lost battle.
* Being able to decipher opponents' character/psychology and predicting their actions simply by studying their art, whether it's the art of their species/culture/planet, the art of that they own, the art that they made...
* Being able to decipher opponents' character/psychology and predicting their actions without art anyways.
* Understanding things like "don't kill subordinates for no reason" and "carrot over stick" and "space is three-dimensional" and "retreat is not always a bad idea" and "don't underestimate Ewoks", which alone would already make him a better military leader than 99% of his peers.


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

[User]
Why can't you simply take blood out to ease high blood pressure?

~~Since the circulatory system is a closed circuit,~~ Edit:*The circulatory system is not a closed system*  why is it that when people have high blood pressure crisis doctors don't just simply take out some blood in order to quickly reduce the pressure?  When someone is injured and their pressure is dropping the usual procedure is to administer IV fluids to the patient, wouldn't the opposite be effective to lower pressure?

Also, if it were possible to have a pump attached to a major vein to draw and store blood in a reservoir outside the body will this also be an efficient method to control blood (pressure in people with HBP)?

[Assistant] Biological cardiovascular pressure is more complicated than simple fluid dynamics unfortunately.  Basically it is the contraction of the vessels themselves that results in the increased pressure and not anything to do with fluid volume.


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

[User]
Is there a gravitational "neutral zone" between the Earth and the Moon?

Basically what I'm asking is, is there a location between the Earth and the Moon where the gravitational pull would be equal? If you put a penny there, would it be pulled by both bodies and be stuck or locked?

[Assistant]
Yes, there are points where the gravitational pulls of Earth and the Moon are equal. These points are **not** the Lagrange points however, and a penny placed at such a point will not be stuck in any way. These points don't really have any practical significance.

The Lagrange points do have practical significance. You can place a penny, or a satellite, at one of them and have it stay there, but the gravitational pull of Earth and the Moon is not equal at those points.


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

[User]
The "Wikipedia game"- does it reflect something fundamental about human language and knowledge or is it simply an artifact of the structure of Wikipedia?

Take any random entry in Wikipedia and click the first link in the text for the entry. Continue doing this long enough, and you'll almost invariably end up at the entry for Philosophy (and often, awareness and perception).

I find this fascinating and wonder why this is- is it because of how humans approach knowledge and understanding, is it pointing at something fundamental about how humans perceive reality, or is it just because that's how Wikipedia is structured? Any thoughts?

[Assistant]
Normally the first sentence of a Wikipedia article is a very high-level description of the subject, which lends itself naturally to linking towards more abstract concepts rather than more concrete particulars.

So articles about places and people will link to the country they're in/from, then the countries' articles will say "X is a country" with a link to the definition of a country which leads you into law and political philosophy.

Articles about technical subject matter will start by naming the field they're within, which then links up to the definition of science or math or whatever, and from there into more abstract categories.

Articles about simple object nouns tend to start with the category of thing that it is... the article for which may then start with "X is a category", with a link to the notion of a category which feeds back into the abstract math cluster.

Just... always moving in the direction of the abstract. Which, apparently, naturally brings you to philosophy as the ur-abstraction.


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

[User]
What is the significance of the successful energy modeling of an H2 molecule by a quantum computer?

This was announced recently by what seems like the gauntlet of universities at the cutting edge of technology, but as someone in chemistry who knows little to nothing about computing I feel as though I'm seriously underestimating the importance of this finding.

What does this mean for quantum computing as a whole? Is this as momentous as it seems to a layman like myself?

[Assistant]
The theory of quantum computers is well understood, because just like a normal computer, given enough time, a person could do all the maths by hand.

The advantage of quantum computers is that they are really efficient at particular kinds of maths, like factorisation and stuff. They are also good at simulating quantum processes, as they *are* quantum processes.

With a little trickery, you can build 'quantum circuits' - chains of 'quantum logic gates' which do well defined maths on four dimensional matrices (a fancy kind of number that is used to represent quantum states). With these 'quantum circuits' you can do things like simulate things like H2 molecules. This has been known for a long time.

So why is it important? It turns out that circuits specially designed for working with matrices are widely available, and a regular computer can use these, or just work with them by themselves. So although we know that in theory we can simulate H2 with a quantum computer, we only know this because we have simulated quantum computers!

Actually building a quantum computer is important, as it shows three things:

1 - quantum computers are possible

2 - quantum computers behave as we think they do

3 - quantum *physics* behaves as we think it does

Successfully building a quantum computer to do various things show these three to be probably true.


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

[User] If unifying quantum physics and relativity is really hard, why are we getting good results smashing together particles at relativistic speeds?

[Assistant] The problem is not quantum mechanics and *special relativity*, those form a complete package as quantum field theory. The problem is a quantum description of gravity, as described by *general* relativity.


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

[User] How are the weight and volume of celestial bodies like stars or planets calculated?

[Assistant]
Well, volume is pretty easy.  Most of these bodies are roughly ellipsoid, so once you have a couple of basic dimensions, like major and minor radii, you can pretty easily calculate the volume.

Weight, on the other hand, is usually just a way to represent the mass of the object in terms easier for people to understand.  After all, these bodies are all in free fall, so their mass is the relevant metric.  This can be estimated by applying our general knowledge of the composition of celestial bodies, but it's also extremely common to measure the gravitational interactions between bodies to estimate their size - gravity is, after all, a product of mass.  When we describe a celestial body as "weighing" a certain amount, it's usually just what it would weigh in standard Earth gravity.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Wasn't anyone in the Republic bothered by the moral implications of creating a massive clone army of sentient beings strictly for the purpose of killing?

Can't help but feel someone must have been bothered by the fact that there are millions of people, being bred for the purpose of fighting in wars, what with all the emotional trauma that would go with that.

And yet Obi Wan just swans around the facility like it ain't no thang, what gives?

[Assistant]
Even if they were, there are a few things to consider.

* Droids have some AI and are conceptually very similar to incredibly obedient clones (to the point of directly changing tactics whatever happened; eg giving Kenobi a lightsaber and then turning to shoot him).

* In the face of a coming droid invasion, there were few options available.  The Jedi had no comparable army and this provided an easy solution.

* The clones had been produced at an enormous cost, and whether the jedi that commissioned them was dead or not (and whether or not they were to be used) they were going to be expensive.  Why not use them?

* Clones are probably unusually equipped to deal with emotional trauma from war.  There's no reason their breeders wouldn't see that as a weakness to eliminate.

* Conceptually, clones are a much more ethical solution than a conscript army.  The clones are not going to be as troubled by the situation, they have no relatives, and they expect to go to war.

* Once Kenobi is at the facility, it is difficult to imagine him leaving instantly (the matter is too important not to investigate), offending the breeders (the jedi way is one of diplomacy and avoiding violence at all costs), or shutting anything down (he has not got the authority, given the army was commissioned by jedi).  Therefore the only thing he can do is 'swan around', as you put it.


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

[User] eli5: why does glass absorb infrared and ultraviolet light, but not visible light?

[Assistant]
It has to do with how light interacts with matter.

To absorb light, you need to have things work just right.  You may have heard that light is quantized, what this means is that it only gets absorbed in specific chunks, one photon at a time.  And all the energy of that photon has to go somewhere.

It turns out there are a few different places for that energy to go, and since each color of light has different energy, those different absorption mechanisms affect the colors differently.

Ultraviolet has the highest energy, its absorbed into the electrons in a material, kicking them up in energy or ejecting them from the atoms entirely.  Infrared light is absorbed into the vibrations of the atoms and molecules in a material.  For glass, visible light isnt high enough energy to be absorbed by the electrons and too high to be absorbed as a vibration.  Remember, its all or nothing - you cant absorb half a photon.  It gets a bit more complicated since you also have to absorb the momentum of the photon, and not matching the quantized momentum kick will lead to the photon not getting absorbed either.

Different materials have different thresholds for these absorption methods,  and a huge difference is whether things are metals or not.  Metals have completely different architectures for their electrons, but the basic concepts of need to absorb a whole photon still apply.


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

[User]
Why does a computer need a cpu if gpu can perform floating point operations faster

I am reading that newish GPUs produce lots of bang for your buck for computing machine learning algorithms. What are the tasks that a cpu performs vs gpu, and why does the cpu need to be different in a way that makes it worse for AI?

[Assistant]
The demarcation between CPUs and GPUs have been getting fuzzier as the years go by, however there is still a distinct purpose for each one, and their hardware and abilities still demonstrate that.

**CPUs are good at:**

 - Generic programming. This means it devotes its circuitry in a balanced way, so that it does a decent job at executing anything that's thrown at it. It's never going to be as good at one specific task as hardware that's devoted to doing only that, but it's good enough at any task that it can take whatever you throw at it.
 - Linear execution. It can do many distinct steps chained together linearly, with each step being something different.
 - Branching. CPUs are designed to be quite good at Ifs, loops, conditionals, etc.

**CPUs are not good at:**

 - Doing a lot of things all at the same time. CPUs used to be single core, which means they couldn't even do it. Nowadays, of course, consumer CPUs are 6-12 cores, but even still, that's only 6-12 things at once. If you have an operation that can be done thousands of times at once, the CPU can't really take advantage of that in a big way. The best you'll get is a 6-12x speedup over doing it linearly.

**GPUs are good at:**

 - Parallelism. A specific form of it, where the same exact operation is happening many times to distinct data. You have a list of inputs, and you want to do the same exact relatively simple operation on every single input.
 - Floating point operations. Nearly everything a GPU does is dealing with floating point, so it devotes a lot of circuitry to being able to do it very quickly. This is combined with the first point, where it expects to be doing a large number of floating point operations all in parallel.

**GPUs are not good at:**

 - Branching. Any time you have to branch, the GPU is going to choke. The type of programming GPUs are good at involves as little conditionals as possible, and instead is just a series of the same transformations on large data sets. That's not to say that GPUs *can't* branch, but there is a very large cost to doing so.
 - Changing what they're working on. Every time you want to execute something different on the GPU, it causes what's called a pipeline stall, which has a large cost to it.

I hope this helps clarify things. GPUs are only good if you can transform your problem into doing the same small thing to a very large data set. AI used to be the prime example of what *not* to put on the GPU, because at its core, it is a bunch of decision making, which traditionally involves conditionals. However, certain specialized AIs like neural networks have been created which are actually just a bunch of mathematical operations on incoming data. In those cases, the GPU may be able to do a better job than the CPU.


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

[User]
[General superheroes] Why are superheroes worried about their secret identities being exposed, when alibis can be made up with shapeshifters, time travel etc.?

Seriously, if Clark were exposed as Superman, he shouldn't be worried -- just get Martian Manhunter to pose as either Superman or Clark Kent.

[Assistant] Because once the connection is made, it basically raises a level of suspicion that can't be taken back (except by weird universe-altering deals like Spidey with Mephisto). People will now notice every similarity they once completely overlooked. Conspiracy theorists will probably start to pry. Government agents may not be dissuaded by the imposter so easily.


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

[User] [WALL-E] Did any of the other Buy N Large starliners go back to Earth after the Axiom did? If not, what happened to the rest of the starliners and their passengers?

[Assistant]
Actually, the Axiom was the last.

Eve was hardly the first one to come back with proof of vegetation from Earth. After all, there were vast fields of the small plants just beyond the city. Similar robots had already returned positive, causing their respective starliners to divert course and come back to Earth. Yet because the Earth was not ready to support human life once again and because the occupants of each starliner were hardly in a state to support themselves, their missions ultimately failed.

The navigator of the Axiom knew this, and because its mission was to ensure the survival of the Axiom's occupants (who at this point represented the entire human race), it obstructed Eve and any attempts to return to Earth. In fact, Eve wasn't even the first robot from the Axiom to return positive. Others had before her, and this is why Eve's shuttle landed on top of the dessicated, salt-encrusted remains of the ocean near a large city where vegetation had no hope of growing without human or robotic help. The navigator was trying its best to ensure Eve's mission would always fail so that humanity could live.

That the Axiom eventually succeeded where others failed comes chiefly down to two factors. One, enough time had now passed where the Earth could again support human life. But two, the shining example of Wall-E and Eve, along with John, Mary, and the Captain, was an inspiration to all. Unlike the other ships that were simply checking off a list, the Axiom actually had to struggle to return to Earth, and it's that initial struggle that saved them.


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

[User] Would discovering that the universe was actually infinite or finite change anything regarding our understanding of physics?

[Assistant]
If a particle is confined to a finite volume its allowed energies become discrete and quantized.  However, if the size of that volume increases to infinity the gap between different allowed energies approaches zero and you get a continuum.  Thus, one can say that the physics of a confined particle and a free particle are very different.

However, this is only true if one is considering physics whose energy scale is much less than the energy gap associated with this confinement. For example, a system of particles at room temperature on Earth (~300 K) has ~0.025 eV (electronvolts, a unit of energy) of thermal kinetic energy. Thus, such a particle, like say an electron in a solid, will only behave "differently" than a free particle if you confine it so much that the discrete energy gaps become larger than 0.025 eV (which occurs for electrons in silicon if you confine it to a volume of less than ~10 nm, something that is happening in the trillions of transistors driving the computer you're using right now - electrons in MOSFET transistors exist in an effective 2D world because of this quantum confinement).  If you confine it to a larger box than ~10 nm, say so that energy gap is ~0.0001 eV (which is much smaller than the 0.025 eV of thermal energy) then it will behave like a free particle because the "fine detail" of its structure of allowed energy is hidden by the much larger fluctuations in energy brought about by the thermal motion; kind of like a microscope that isn't zoomed in enough so that a material we know is made of a complex structure of animal cells, just looks like skin.

So, coming back to your original question,  in an infinite universe "free" particles have continuous energy spectra, where in a finite universe (whether it be finite in the sense that it ends, or if it's periodic, where you loop back to where you start) energy spectra are discrete.  HOWEVER, this is only discernable if we consider phenomena whose energy scale is less than the discreteness. And the larger a finite universe is, the tinier this discretization detail is.

We have never observed "discreteness" of free particles, so either the universe is infinite, or it's at least big enough such that the discreteness is tinier than our ability to detect.  Which brings us to the pragmatic answer that if the discreteness ends up being tinier than an energy scale we could EVER, even in principle, be able to discern, then it pragmatically makes no difference.  Everything will effectively behave as if it were a continuum anyway.

Realistically, the universe that is currently observable is already far, far, far, far, far too big, such that even if there was magically an "end" just beyond it (or a periodic looping), the energy discretization would still be so outrageously tiny we'd never tell the difference.  So realistically: no, it won't matter to Earth physics.

However, it would tell us something crucial about its curvature and the type of cosmology that describes our universe.  Thus, it would tell us something about the fate of the universe.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How would Order 66 have gone if Palpatine failed to turn Anakin to the Dark Side?

In this scenario I am assuming that Anakin followed Mace Windu's orders and stayed at the Jedi Temple while he went to arrest Palpatine. Also assume that Palpatine still defeated Windu.

[Assistant]
The order would have still wiped out most of the Jedi, that was inevitable once the order was given by Palpatine.

But maybe Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda could have teamed up to stop Palpatine (assuming Anakin escaped the killing). Then there would be mass confusion throughout the Republic. Confusion about what to do when their entire military were suddenly outed as traitors/sleeper agents. It would likely leave them extremely vulnerable to the Separatists, assuming the remaining Seperatists could cohesively strategize an attack without Dooku. Grievous or Palpatine.


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

[User]
CMV: Fines should be scaled based on the financial situation of the guilty party

Having static penalties for legal offenses unfairly impacts the poor. For someone working a minimum wage job, a $100 speeding ticket might mean having to give up food for a few days because their credit was already maxed and their paycheck isn't due for a week. Conversely, for wealthy individuals and corporations, fines are often a joke, or factored into the cost of doing business. Who cares if a company has to pay out a $10 million settlement if they made a billion dollars that year?

This system would be complex, and probably screw up at times. But when determining financial penalties, the courts should consider the guilty party's income, assets, and debt. For people in poverty, or businesses that are on the brink of collapse, financial penalties should be minimized, or alternative sentences considered. On the other hand, major corporations found to have violated the law in a major way - especially if they did so to increase their profits - should end up posting losses that year. Big losses. The kind of losses where the corporation has to sell stock or other assets in order to pay them. The kind of losses where even if the executives avoid prison time, the shareholders will be screaming for their heads. That will provide a genuine deterrent.

[Assistant]
How would you fine a kid from a super rich family, but with no 'income' of their own?

This kid could either be fined basically nothing for his family, or on the other end of the spectrum if their family doesn't support them could be fined more than they could pay off.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do Venus Flytraps digest?

My only guess is they break food down with some secretion, but I really haven't a clue.

[Assistant] They secrete digestive enzymes. Interestingly enough, the digestive action of venus fly traps seem to have come from defenses against insects that were co-opted into carnivory. Jasmonic acid, which is used in other plants to activate defense mechanisms, is used by the venus fly trap to activate digestion.


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

[User]
[Jumanji] Is there any way to exploit Jumanjis natural resources for real world gains?

Would there be any way to exploit this dimensions natural resources for use in the real world? Any way to bring items over since we know their dimension can bleed over into ours?

[Assistant]
No, the game will eventually end at which point everything in the real world gets put back just like it was. You could try getting the game to play indefinitely, but so far no one has managed to make that happen, although decades long games are a thing.

Most likely the game pushes for an ending since it has always drawn in new players whenever the current players have gotten stuck. Starting a game and not ending it would most likely leave you hunted by whatever you already pulled out of the game anyways. You'd be living kind of like Captain Hook.


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

[User] ELI5: How can water evaporate normally in nature while having a 100C boiling point?

[Assistant]
The amount of energy that each molecule of water has is not equal, some have more and some have less than average.

If a molecule at the surface happens to have more energy than average it can fly off. This is evaporation. The hotter the liquid the more molecules will have enough energy to fly off, and so the greater the rate of evaporation.

When the water reaches its boiling point, so many molecules have lots of energy that they start to form a gas (water vapour) inside the liquid. Up to this point not enough molecules become gas, and so any bubbles that try to form get squeezed back into liquid.


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

[User]
[Watchmen] Why did Dr Manhattan become God instead of just dying?

When he was initially disintegrated, why did he become a god instead of just staying dead like those other people q he o got disintegrated?  Is there anything special about him?

Is it because he's a supergenius?  Does that mean any supergenius put through the machine would become a god too?

[Assistant]
He's smart, he had the scientific underpinnings of what happened to him, and he was trained in traditional watchmaking as a kid.  Somehow, he saw how every part of him was disintegrated in that moment, and his consciousness was then able to rebuild itself using the fundamental energy of the universe.

Chances are anyone else that would (and probably *was*) put through the same process just got killed.


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

[User] What do neighboring European countries think of Switzerland's gun policy?

[Assistant]
First of all you might want to ask what exactly Switzerland's gun policy is, and what effect it has on daily life in Switzerland.

There seems to be a misconception in some circles that Switzerland is in some way like the United States in its gun policy, and that gun rights there is somehow a big deal as it is in the United States with people driving around with gun racks in their pick ups, and ominous warnings about how often and with what caliber they will be shot if they try break into someone's house.  It is not like that at all.

The Swiss are a generally civilized people in a carefully regulated society with low crime rates and a competent police force.  Other European countries think of millions of things when they think of Switzerland, and guns are not one of them.  Cheese, mountains, banks, skiing, pocket knives... no guns.


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

[User]
ELI5:If you left a piece of steak by itself in space, would it rot?

In case the title is confusing: If placed in a vacuum, would raw meat turn bad or would it stay perfectly edible? What factors would play into this?

[Assistant]
Some bacteria need very little to live. Any of these bacteria already living in the meat would be able to decompose some of it, for a little while. However, the small percentage of these bacteria, coupled with the *extreme* coldness of space would make any such decomposition virtually unnoticeable. More importantly, the water in the meat would boil from the low pressure and the steak would essentially become freeze-dried.

Could you eat it? ... .... .... probably.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why are airport ceiling so high?

ELI5 Why can't airports just be standard or double maybe triple height, why do they have to be so big?

[Assistant]
I used to build airports, there are two main reasonshumans generate 500 BTU each of heat. There are smaller airports with plenums and oversized HVAC systems but youd have to localize the HVAC systems for each gate instead of just using chilled water systems before flights.

Taller ceilings help dissipate the heat around the entire building. Also, like someone else mentioned, airports are basically symbolic welcome mats to tourists & businesspeople alike so a great deal of expensive architecture goes into them. Some of the most expensive firms serve as the architects of record on them.


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

[User] ELI5:If people's first reaction to swelling is to try to lower it then why does our body find it beneficial when we are injured?

[Assistant]
The body doesn't actually find it beneficial to swell. When you get injured, fluid leaks into that area as a result of the injury (the injury basically causes holes in things such as blood vessels). This isn't actually helpful to fixing the problem, and it causes increased pain, and loss of mobility. Reducing the swelling means that excess fluid is drained quicker so you can get back on your feet faster, and with less pain.

Edit: With bites/infections, it's a different story altogether, and it's not beneficial to try and reduce the swelling.


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

[User] How fast does something have to move from one point to another for a human to no longer see even the slightest blur in-between?

[Assistant]
That depends on how bright the object is, how much contrast it has, how large it is, and so on.

There will always be light from that object hitting the eye from every place along its full path, but how much and how detectable that is depends on many parameters, not just the speed. Once the physics is fixed biologists can look at the response of the eye.


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

[User]
CMV: Fines should be proportional to a person's wealth

When someone gets, for example (but not exclusively) a parking fine, the amount they have to pay should change depending on how much money they earn. This is because the fine is not a payment for an item, it's supposed to be a punishment and a deterrent. If someone with no income has to pay a 50 fine, versus someone with millions in the bank, the amount of punishment they're experiencing will be vastly different, even though they've done the same thing. I think in this situation it makes more sense to balance the level of punishment, than to have the same arbitrary cash amount.

I'm sure I've just shown how little I understand the way the law and/or economics works, and I welcome anyone to fill me in.

Edit: I'd like to clarify on what sort of system I'm envisioning - although I'm sure this has a few thousand issues itself. I picture it working similarly to tax brackets, so there's a base fine of X, and as the brackets go up people have a proportionately higher fine to pay.

Edit2: I'd also like to thank everyone for commenting, this has been really, really interesting, and I have mostly changed my mind about this.

[Assistant]
The problem is that it's still unfair, even with fines being a proportion of your income.

What does a 5% fine matter to someone who makes 1 mil a month? Cool, they pay 50k now. That looks like a big number, but they still have 950k to work with, which means they don't lose ANY quality of life and don't even have to think about it.

Compare that to someone who only makes 1000 and has to pay 50 bucks. If you live paycheck to paycheck, 50 bucks of unexpected expenditure can FUCK you.

So even though the proportion is the same, the way that the fine affects these two people is still different. The rich person isn't inconvenienced by it even though he pays a lot. The poor person might not have enough money left to eat this month and the fine might be an existential threat.

That's the thing. Even proportional fines are only a fair punishment when everyone is financially stable and can afford to pay. As long as that isn't the case, they will always hurt the most vulnerable members of our society the most. You're right that making it proportional is a step in the right direction, but it still doesn't solve the problem.