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

[User]
ELI5: What happens to the cash my employer seized?

I work as a sales associate for a retailer that does not allow you to accept tips. If you do, and are caught, you will be immediately terminated. I was given a $50 tip by a customer who refused to take it back and would not accept no for an answer, even when I explained I couldn't keep it. I went to my general manager and explained the situation and he told me I needed to turn it in to him or be terminated on the spot.

What happens to that money? And who does it belong to legally? Thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
Assuming they aren't just pocketing it, the money just becomes revenue for the business, like any sale.

The basic legal principle is that you, as an employee, are an "agent" of the business. Any money you make as their agent is really theirs first, though eventually part of it becomes your salary. If they don't let you get tips, then the money is there's the same as if someone just decided to pay more than expected for some item.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are grocery store tabloid magazine allowed to slander celebrities on the cover nation wide without being sued?

It seems to me like it's the original "fake Facebook news" It shouldn't be allowed to just flat out lie on the cover of a magazine to millions of people everyday. I would hate to be the celebrity and see some random lie posted with my face on the cover.

[Assistant]
For it to be libel or slander it must:

1) Be known by the author to be false.

2) Malicious intent to harm one's reputation or career.

3) Actually cause some kind of harm to the celebrity, their reputation, career, emotional stability, etc.

All of these are very difficult to prove in court.  With the first one, the magazine can virtually always claim that they simply heard the story from a source and published it.  They'll usually put stuff into the story like "a source claims..." or here's an example from today's *Enquirer*:
> "**Insiders** told The National ENQUIRER that the actress  currently hiding out in LAs exclusive Hidden Hills with her six kids  is furious at how shes being painted as a wicked witch in the divorce!"

This way, the claim ISN'T even that Angelina Jolie is angry about the divorce.  The claim is that *insiders told them she was*.  Those insiders can be anybody, so as long as *someone* told them Angelina was upset about the divorce, it's NOT the Enquirer lying, it's the insiders!

For the second point, it is also difficult to prove.  The motivation of these magazines are to sell copies and catch people's eye at the impulse rack, not to harm celebrity reputations.

For the third point, it rarely happens.  Plenty of celebrities have stories in the tabloids.  No one cares.  Suing them or tweeting about it just draws MORE attention to the fake story, and if the celebrity is seen addressing some fake tabloid story.... well it makes it seem more real and less fake!  If it was so fake why would they give a shit?  Thus, the best thing for these celebrities is to just ignore tabloids altogether.  Done.


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

[User] [LotR] When Sauron lost the one-ring, he was wearing it and his fingers were cut off. Why wasnt he invisible?

[Assistant]
The Ring made its wearer invisible by shifting them mostly into the Unseen world. Gandalf told Frodo:

You were in gravest peril while you wore the Ring, for then you were half in the wraith-world yourself.
Gandalf also stated:

if [a mortal] often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings.
But Sauron already lived in that world as a Maia - his body was something deliberately constructed. Sauron was naturally pure spirit, not a hybrid like mortals or Elves and Dwarves. Since his presence in the mortal world was in effect a construct of his own, not him himself, it was not shifted into the Unseen world.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do Formula 1 drivers need to watch out for the condition of the car over multiple races?

I get that they can't drive how they want and destroy the engine and crash in the last lap.
But then the commentator said that Bottas needed to watch the car for next weeks race. Why can't they overheat (or overuse or whatever it is) their car to gain advantages in the last laps and have their car fixed until next week? Mercedes has enough money to build an entire new race car for next week.

[Assistant] The number of engines and other parts are limited by the regulations. This is exactly to limit the advantage richer teams like Mercedes have over poorer teams.  Its supposed to make for closer racing.


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

[User]
[MCU] In Civil War, when Tony uses his machine at MIT is he revisiting a specific memory or is it a simulation?

The title may be a poor explanation of my question, is what we see exactly how the event happened or is it the case that its a simulation, its just his mother says you know what happens next.

Edit
Could he change his actions and would he see a different outcome?

[Assistant]
It's an idealized version of what he wished happened.  His parents did say goodbye before leaving, but Tony probably said something flippant that he regrets or ignored them.  The simulation allowed him to get some closure and say the things he wanted to say.

His mom didn't say that for real. It was a prompt within the simulation for him to open up about his feelings.


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

[User]
What physically happens to a virus when your body destroys it?

Where does it end up? Does it leave your body or get consumed?

[Assistant] So as your blood pumps around your body, some of the plasma seeps out of your capillaries and into the surrounding cell structure, washing away any cellular garbage like dead cells and dis-RNAd proteins left over from the war on ~~drugs~~ diseases. This flows into the lymphatic system and is transported away to filtering and cleaning stations called lymph nodes and the waste eventually finds its way into the kidneys or intestines to be expelled along with the rest of the bodys waste.


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

[User]
I want to give a demonstration speech on philosophy for my class but unsure of topic. Here's one I thought of?

Basically for class (not philosophy) we need to give a "demonstration speech" about 10-20 minutes long, showing how to do something. For all the speeches I have done so far, I have done it on a philosophical topic and I don't want to break from it but philosophy is something that's hard to demonstrate.

What I thought of is, to demonstrate very basics of syllogism, illustrating various types of it  emphasizing "how to think logically" then after the explanation, I will probably try to debunk a controversial topic (not sure yet) using said techniques.

I feel like people will do something that's very physical like how to make a \_\_\_ or how to do \_\_\_\_\_ so I think my topic might be too nonphysical?

What I want to ask is though, is there better topics to demonstrate in philosophy rather than what I initially thought of? Can anyone suggest anything else? I only took few college courses so I am not very knowledgeable in philosophy but I really like learning it.

[Assistant] Here's what i do when i engage with someone and want them to become interested in philosophy, i pick a proposition that some philosopher holds and that seems ridiculous at first glace, then i offer them the reasons and show them the argument for why some philosophers have reached that conclusion, making the claim more plausible to them, when it first sounded ridiculous, will definitely peak their interest and will show them how philosophers reach their conclusions. For an example of a position that might seem ridiculous at first, i like to use the proposition that "Every mathematical statement is literally false", and show them the defense of this claim and why intelligent well reasoned philosophers can say such a claim that might at the beginning sound so ridiculous.


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

[User]
How does a CPU physically work?

I understand most of the concepts behind computing - the role of the kernel, how storage and RAM work, and I understand, to at least some degree, how an instruction set works, and the capacitors built into the chips representing 0s and 1s. I get it all on a theoretical level, but I cannot wrap my head around what is physically happening in the CPU that creates logic and results. I don't understand how the CPU knows what to do with the electrical signals it's receiving.

[Assistant]
Hi, Intel engineer here,
I just tried to type out a very simplistic example....and ended up getting longer and longer.  But to try and sum it up:  We have hardware (rtl - register-transfer level logic) and software in combination to tell the cpu what to do.  on a very simple scale, if a pin is logic high (1 or vcc for example), then do blah.  That blah coulde be an inverter, logical operator, etc.  So the cpu just follows all of the finite state machine and combinational logic that we have programmed it to and gives results based on input, default states, etc.  Its a hard question to answer simply without getting into detail.


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

[User] ELI5:Why are dresses and skirts traditionally considered feminine, while pants are traditionally considered masculine?

[Assistant]
Men began wearing pants regularly when horses and horse riding became one of the main methods of transportation, hunting and waging war.  It was rare that women would take on these roles, certain cultures and tribes notwithstanding.  What rose from necessity and practicality, eventually became the norm and the tradition for men and women.

From a woman's point of view, skirts and dresses were probably more convenient in some ways as well, especially for whenever women were having their courses or relieving themselves and for pregnancy and giving birth.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are wounds itchy when they are in the process of healing?

[Assistant]
We evolved a specific sense of touch for light pressure to detect anything landing or crawling on us. This makes us feel itchy so we have the reflex to scratch it, removing the possible bugs on us.

During wound healing a fiber net is built under the scab. This net acts as a scaffold for other cells to rebuild the injured area. In the later stages of wound healing, this net is slowly pulled tight to help close the wound.

This pulling by your own cells ends up triggering the nerves that respond to light touch. This unintentional response makes our healing wounds feel itchy!

You should avoid scratching the wound to let it heal fully. Pulling off the scab too early reopens the wound and can lead to scarring. Scratching around it or putting some pressure on it tends to relieve the itch.


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

[User]
[Spider-Man] If Spider-Man did get unmasked whats the likelihood of one of the rogues recognizing him and tracking him down if they Don't?

I mean if Spider-Man got unmasked by someone who isn't Osborn (for obvious reasons) or Octavius (Tried to marry his aunt and then switched bodies with him) would the person be able to recognize him or even be able to track him down?

Like for instance, Richard Fisk and Maxwell Dillon have absolutely zero connection to Peter Parker, if they somehow unmasked Spider-Man would they even be able to track down this unremarkable looking teenager?

[Assistant]
>Like for instance, Richard Fisk and Maxwell Dillon have absolutely zero connection to Peter Parker, if they somehow unmasked Spider-Man would they even be able to track down this unremarkable looking teenager?

Yes, because the universe hates Peter. Doesn't matter how unlikely it is, they'll just happen to have met him in his civilian identity the week before, or something similar.


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

[User]
CMV: Eating and generally learning about food from other cultures does virtually nothing to educate you or broaden your mind with respect to said cultures

It's almost impossible to have any kind of discussion about the culture of another land without talking about food. We all agree that travelling is an enriching experience, as is meeting people totally different from your self. The same is said of eating foreign food (especially when you're actually in the land).

When talking about immigration/multiculturalism, a lot is said about the different kinds of restaurants we benefit from, how we can try things we've never tried before. How greater choice is so enriching.

And I just don't get it. If you want culture, just pick up a book. Talk to somebody. Go online.

From an historical anthropological point of view, I know looking at food is a good jumping point in learning about religion, what tools were available at the time, what crops people had, what the main trade was etc. That's fine.

What I'm talking about is the modern day treatment like my immigration example (and please, no immigration debates). Dropping a lot of foreign-style restaurants into your city does practically zero in adding any real understanding or appreciation of a culture. Yes, people who live close to the sea have a lot of seafood - great. Some people use their hands instead of utensils - good to know. With art you can tell a story, show what people value, reveal facts. Food is just food.

I'm open to change because a lot of people seem to think otherwise and my passionless utilitarian view of food may be clouding my judgment. When it comes to social stuff I can sometimes miss the obvious.

[Assistant]
Say Bill and Bob visit India for the first time for work. Bill has never eaten Indian food in his entire life. He goes there and meets everyone. One of his new friends invites him over for dinner. Bill goes over. He sits down and is presented with a weird smelly bowl of something that looks like it's already passed through someone's digestive system. He feels really uncomfortable. He is polite about it, but everyone can tell he dislikes their food. He is uncomfortable trying new things, like most people are. His host is also polite, but sees it as a little bit of an insult after they spent the day preparing luxurious meal for their guest. The next day, Bill has intense gastrointestinal discomfort from eating a bunch of new spices and high fiber foods. He feels miserable and associates India with the feeling. He tells people back home in America about it. He doesn't make jokes, he just states the facts. But now all of his less well traveled friends and family associate India with diarrhea.

Now imagine Bob. Bob has gone to an Indian restaurant in the US. He thinks it's weird, but he tries Indian food that has been tailored to an American palate (more butter, meat, less piece, etc.) He gets used to it. Now when he goes to India, when he see the food for the first time, he doesn't see a bunch of weird slop. He sees authentic versions of some of his favorite dishes. Dishes he has already developed a taste for. His gut has already become accustomed to eating spices and fiber and he doesn't get any stomach problems. He devours everything put in front of him with a smile on his face. He is happy because he gets to eat great versions of food he loves, and his host is happy because he appreciates their cooking. When he returns back to the US, he talks about how good the food was and how much fun he had. All his friends and family develop a more positive image of India.

Familiarizing yourself with a country's food is a small thing, but it snowballs into a much bigger thing. Eating food is one of the most important activities in human life. It is an important communal experience, and is the center of many important cultural experiences.

The irony is that most food is very similar from country to country. Indian food is wheat, rice, beans, chicken, etc. That's the same basic stuff you'll find in China, America, Italy, etc. But because people don't bother to recognize the similarities, they focus on the differences, often in a negative light. Eating food is a reminder that all humans are pretty much the same with just a few small differences to keep things interesting.


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

[User] ELI5 why do our ears sometimes ring?

[Assistant]
Your cochlea(inner ear) is made up of very very tiny cells that can be easily damaged by loud sounds, illness, etc.  Your cochlea is then connected to your brain via the auditory nerve.  If either of these two parts gets damaged, your brain can misinterpret what is being heard(or not being heard).  As these cells get damaged over time (natural), your brain starts to think it is hearing a sound that isn't really there. Although you physically hear stuff with your ears, you can't hear it without the signals reaching your brain safely.

For example, let's say you have a computer speaker.  The speaker is kind of old and the wire is starting to break at the base of the speaker.  You play music but sometimes if you move the speaker around, you might hear some static.  That's because the old, frayed, broken wire is messing with the audio signal.  The old wire at the base of the speaker is like your cochlea, and the speaker is like your brain misinterpreting the audio coming from your computer(your ear).


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

[User] Why does my nose get all runny when it's cold outside?

[Assistant] Your nose serves two purposes: to warm and humidify the air.  When it is cold and dry outside, your nose works really hard to add moisture to the air coming in through your nose, however some times some of that fluid may start to run out of your nose.  Additionally, when breathing out through your nose, the warm and moist air from your body hits the cold air and causes the moisture to condense on the outside of your nose, further increasing the amount of fluid running out of your nose.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do banks no longer offer the interest rates on savings accounts as they did in the 80s and 90s? How do banks make money?

Why do banks no longer offer the interest rates on savings accounts as they did in the 80s and 90s? How do banks make money?

[Assistant]
As others have pointed out banks make their money by loaning (and charging interest) to other people. They get the money to loan by  borrow money from the feds(central bank), business and people who put money into accounts with them. When you put money into your savings account they take that money and loan it to others. They pay you a small amount of interest and then charge a higher amount to those they are loaning too. So in theory its a nice system for both the bank and you, but of course the bank is the one that really makes out.

As to why the interest you get back from personal savings accounts has dropped to around 1% or lower when it used to be around 5% or higher. The big reason for that is the that the prime interest rate set by the federal reserve (the US central bank) is extremely low right now. This is essentially the rate at which the federal reserve loans money to banks. It is used as a measure for other interest rates. So when its low then in theory all interest rates drop proportionally. They dropped it to very low back after the financial collapse in 08 in order to encourage people to borrow money and get the economy back on track. They just havent brought it back up. The up side of this is that pollen can get loans for things like homes for a much lower rate. The down sides is savings accounts and even things like CDs are basically useless. They will probably be forced to up the prime here soon as a means of fighting inflation but this also means that the days of 3% or lower home loans will be over.

Its obviously more complicated then that but thats the jest. This all applies to the US but pretty much every western nation is doing something similar with their central banks.


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

[User] ELI5: The different types of fats, trans fats, saturated/unsaturated, etc, and which ones are "good" or "bad"

[Assistant]
The other answers in this thread are right from an organic chemistry perspective, but you are asking about it from a medical/health perspective. Saturated and trans fats are bad, and unsaturated ones are good.

Imagine you eat a burger. it goes in your mouth, then to your stomach, then your pancreas releases a bunch of enzymes that break it down further and it gets absorbed in your small intestine. It crosses the border of your small intestine into your blood. Then the carbohydrate, fat, and protein filled blood goes to your liver. Then the liver does different things with it, but ultimately it converts all the excess protein, carbohydrates, and various types of fat into the standard type of fat that your body uses for storage. Then it sends it out to different parts of your body for storage (like your butt and thighs).

But now say that the liver wants to withdraw fat from the bank and use it for energy. It needs a molecule to go to the fat cells in your butt and withdraw the fat and bring it back. This molecule is called a high density lipoprotein (HDL or good cholesterol) and it is made out of unsaturated fat.

The worst thing about fat is not that it makes you look unhealthy. It's that it clogs up your arteries, which means your heart has to work harder to move blood around, which can result in heart failure. The chunks of fat can also break off and cause heart attacks and strokes. The best thing about HDL and the unsaturated fats they are made of is that HDL goes around and scrapes off the fat stuck in your arteries.

So monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, and omega fatty acids are considered good because they help make the molecule that removes fat from your body. The other kind of fats help deposit more fat in your body.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why Blind people cant have Eye Transplants from Dead people?

And Do you think it will EVER be possible?

[Assistant] The problem is that sometimes your eyes are perfectly fine. Its your brain that's broken. The best eyes in the world won't do you any good if your brain can't interpret the information they're sending.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] In the beginning when the cops are about to arrest Trinity, why didn't the agents just possess the cops already in the room?

Instead of just sauntering up there giving her time to escape.

[Assistant]
The Matrix is a delicately balanced system, it pays to have a light touch.
Basically, the potential fallout from possessing the cops in the room has a greater risk of causing damage to the Matrix than the risk of Trinity's escaping does.
In thinking about this risk/reward calculation it also bears mentioning that Trinity and the rest of that particular crew of free humans are currently involved in instantiating the current iteration of The One, which is a critical function of the Matrix.  Best if rank and file Agents don't muck about with that too much.


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

[User] ELI5: how does cancer actually kill people?

[Assistant] The cancerous cells require massive amounts of nutrients and energy to continue reproducing and building blood vessels to the newly formed cancer cells. The depletion of energy and nutrition from the rest of the body causes strain on other necessary processes and results in some of these processes shutting down or performing below standards required to support life. This effect gets snowballed until entire organs get damaged and destroyed.


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

[User]
How long could you survive at absolute zero temperature? (273.15C or 459.67F)

I'm guessing we're talking second(s) (or less). Or would you just be damaged enough instantly that you wouldn't be able to recover?

[Assistant] It's all in the rate of heat transfer. The vacuum of space (not near a star) is incredibly cold, but heat transfer only occurs through phase changes and radiation which would take some hours to kill you (assuming you had a pressure suit and air, but not proper insulation or HVAC). However, if we had a medium, like liquid helium with convective and conductive transfer at play you'd die very quickly within seconds.


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

[User]
[Portal] How did the outside of Aperture Science change from the end of Portal 1 to the end of Portal 2

In portal 1, when Chell ends up on the floor outside what appears to be the front gate entrance to Aperture Science facilities, and is obviously dragged back down into the labs by Glados, then at the end of Portal 2 when Glados lets Chell go, the door opens and it isn't anywhere near a city or a town like I assume the outside of the lab was at the end of Portal 1, now its in the middle of absolutely nowhere, in a wheat field. How did this happen...? this might be a silly question and be down to the fact that the facility underground could be so big that it stretched all the way into the countryside and into a wheat field, but I'm really stumped on this.

[Assistant] While we aren't given a specific size of the facility, we know the Enrichment Center was built in a mine that extends at least 2500 meters deep, and hundreds of meters in length, and we've no reason to assume it wasn't expanded upon by Aperture or Glados herself.


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

[User]
CMV: The media should stop reporting mass shootings

I think the way the news media currently treats mass shootings is unhelpful and causes more harm than good. Here's why.

The coverage doesn't do virtually any good. The only good thing I can think of that it ever caused is informing the friends and family of the victims. This way, they find out sooner than they would otherwise. But even this has a downside - scaring the hell out of everyone who knows anybody in the affected area.

But if we go by that logic and report a mass shooting with, say, 4 casualties, shouldn't we do the same if there's a large car accident or a small flood with the same number of victims? Statistically, yours friends and family are just as likely to be affected by either one.

On the other hand though, there seems to be real damage caused by this coverage. Individual shooters often want their name in the national spotlight. There's a real chance at least a few of them might not have even committed these acts if it weren't for the attention. And it's even worse with groups like ISIS which use these attacks as recruitment tools. In other words, reporting on a mass shooting, at least to a certain extent, seems to encourage the next one.

One thing that I expect to see in the comments is that not reporting mass shootings will normalize them. What I say to that is we just saw 2 mass shootings within 24 hours. And if you're like me, your reaction was probably something like reading the headline, saying "Ugh, again?" and moving on without even reading the article. Mass shootings already *are* normalized. Despite all our attention and all the articles and videos, they became normalized. Clearly more coverage isn't the way to stop that from happening.

Another thing I expect to see is that the media reports on what people care about. But I think those two go hand in hand - people shouldn't care as much and the media shouldn't talk about it as much. I know that might sound cold but there are tons of suffering in the world, mass shootings are just the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

So how should mass shootings be reported? In my opinion, probably based on the number of casualties - the same way you'd report on car accidents or frequently occurring natural disasters (small scale floods for example). If a hundred people die, yes, that absolutely deserves national attention but if the number is 3, it shouldn't be breaking news nationwide. I do realize that this might actually incentivize attackers to try to kill more people and "make it" onto the news. It's definitely not a perfect way to do it and I'm completely open to ideas about how to do it better. But that's not what this post is about. I'm saying that the current system is broken, not that I know how exactly is should be fixed.

[Assistant]
>Clearly more coverage isn't the way to stop that from happening.

Well yes but that's because we're not actually *doing* anything are we? But here's the thing: because of all the coverage we're aware that this is a problem and we **want** to do something. The more people we get onboard the closer we get to accomplishing something more than "thoughts and prayers".

I agree that copy cats are a problem but these shootings are well known globally, not just in the US, yet it's **just** the US that has this problem. So clearly just knowing about mass shootings isn't causing them.


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

[User]
[harry potter] if cedric hadn't told harry to take his body back ...

 if cedric hadn't told harry to take his body back, harry have returned alone, or would he still have taken the body back?

[Assistant]
"Putting his life at risk by doing stupid things on behalf of others" are Harry Potters middle name.

Going for Cedric's corpse before the portkey sounds like a very Harry thing to do, if he had throught of it.


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

[User]
How did people do literature reviews prior to the internet?

Can any 40+ yr old academics share their experiences with the literature review process prior to the internet? I can't even imagine what a cumbersome process that would be.

[Assistant]
Physically tracking down every reference from every paper you could find. (This was laborious but at least possible; what was essentially impossible was seeing who cited a certain paper. That's why that Google Scholar feature is a godsend.) Tons of photocopying. Help from librarians. Relying on the savvy of older colleagues in the field to suggest seminal work. Making friends with obsessive coworkers with huge filing cabinets who would save every paper they read.

You were furious if you tracked down a paper with a grandiose title and/or abstract that actually covered only a nuance of a subset of what it claimed to cover.


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

[User] ELI5: What really happens when everyone in a building flushes their toilets at the exact same time?

[Assistant]
We did this at our High School back a lonnnngggg time ago. After a few unsuccessful attempts due to lack of timing we initiated "Operation Royal Flush Phase IV".  At the bell all toilets were to be flushed, all taps turned on at the sinks. All tolled there were probably two or three hundred fixtures.

At the bell we all did our thing...I was in the B-200 wing Men's washroom...

Flush.......a slow gurgle.....the water down the trap then........nothing..........then....... a low rumble.....then.....you could feel it coming.......every toilet and sink literally exploded with regurgitated liquid.....hitting the fan......omg nothing so grand had ever been seen before it was a total success. Even more so as they had to close the school for a week to get it back in shape....


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

[User] [Futurama] How did Farnsworth procure a group of babies to mutate to compete against the Harlem Globetrotters?

[Assistant] He grew them himself from children purchased at the orphanarium. Using their DNA he bred test tube clones he could mutate and alter at his leisure and returned the template orphans for a full refund within the 7 day grace period.


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

[User] Does a photon have any space-filling properties?

[Assistant]
A photon is a boson (integer spin).  You can have as many bosons as you want in the same location.

Particles that comprise matter are fermions (half integer spin).  They stay in their assigned seats and keep their distance.


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

[User]
Why does the phenomenon of hazing happen?

Like in the military the phenomenon of Dedovshchina.

[Assistant] Johnathan Haidt sheds good light on this IMO. He talks basically it acts as a right of passage, which we see across most tribal cultures. Likely acts as a sort of way to prove worthiness and allegiance to the group.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do they serve pickles when you order a sandwich?

I think this is an American thing but I was just wondering why.

[Assistant]
Because they're awesome!

But speaking from a culinary standpoint, the vinegar and acidity from the pickle refreshes your palate between bites and brings some balance to the sandwich. Typically, American sandwiches are focused on combinations of meats and cheeses. All that fat can be balanced out with a bite of something acidic.

Sidenote: this is also why they almost always serve pickled ginger or daikon radish with sushi. Usually when you order sushi, you get a few different types with varying ingredients. You're supposed to eat some of the pickled garnish before trying each type so that your palate gets refreshed. That way you can fully taste the differences and delicate flavors of each different type of sushi as you progress through the meal.


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

[User]
Yuo're prboably albe to raed tihs setencne. Deos tihs wrok in non-alhabpet lanugaegs lkie Chneise?

It's well known that you can fairly easily read English when the letters are jumbled up, as long as the first and last letters are in the right place. But does this also work in languages that don't use true alphabets, like abjads (Arabic), syllabaries (Japanese and Korean) and logographs (Chinese and Japanese)?

[Assistant] I don't see how you could do the same in standard Chinese. You can do wordplays with sounds (like  instead of ) for example that can be understood in text messaging. You could also theoretically express a sentence by using the right characters with the wrong radical and people would probably be able to understand more or less but it wouldn't be fluid like we read your title's sentence in English.


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

[User] ELIF why do people with down syndrome look so similar?

[Assistant]
Well, every person out there has a unique set of "blueprints" for how they are put together.  We call these instructions "DNA".

For people with down's syndrome, they all have an "extra" section of DNA that isn't supposed to be there.  Imagine you're building a house, and there's an extra drawing that shows another roof.  If you build the house from these blueprints, it'd have two roofs and look a little different than a normal house.

Not only that, but if your neighbor made the same mistake and also had an extra drawing that shows another roof, then his house would have an extra roof too.  It'd look a lot like your house.  Then you would ask why everyone's house with two roofs look similar.  It's because the plans for all the houses all had the same type of mistake.

In people with Down's Syndrome, they all have the same bit of "Extra" DNA.


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

[User]
[MCU] What would happen if you wore the Infinity Gauntlet and snapped your fingers while thinking, I wish to be invincible?

Everyone that used the entire Infinity Gauntlet in the MCU was severely hurt by it. What would happen if your first wish was to be totally invincible to all harm?

Could you do that and then snap away as you pleased, making all the wishes you wanted with no consequences?

[Assistant]
The Infinity Gauntlet isn't a genie. It's not granting you wishes, it's channeling immense power through you that you have to shape. If you're too weak to shape that power without it killing you, you won't be able to do anything with it successfully, regardless of what it is.

Their issue with choosing who was going to undo the snap wasn't "who can do this and survive" it was "who can survive long enough to do it".


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

[User]
cmv: i don't think fat people are truly happy about being fat

fat people are not happy about being fat

People are all about "fat positivity" and yet they get all riled up about facts like obesity, body fat percentages, weight etc. If people were truly fat positive and happy about their bodies they'd be unashamed and proud to show their weight, body fat percentages, obese bmi. But no , they ignore it and say "numbers don't matter". to the point where people are actively fighting against being weighted by literal doctors.

in terms of looks:
The whole fat positivity movement doesn't realize how much they're showing their true colors, nearly all of them think being smaller and having no fat rolls is better.
A lot of fat positivity models use shape wear or clothes that conceal fat rolls instead of showing them off how can one claim to be happy/confident with how they look but proceed to wear outfit that hide what they claim they love.
They also wear clothes that make them look slimmer or more evenly hour glass shaped.

in terms of everyday life:
fat people are some of the most miserable people in terms of living their everyday life a fat person gets tired quicker than someone thinner, fat people cannot do basic tasks without sweating or getting exhausted.
due to the amount of rolls/fat they have fat people are more likely to smell and at a certain weight fat people literally cannot wipe themselves properly.
two fat people having sex is damn near impossible which is why you only see fat women/men date a partner who is on thin.

Deep down they all know they are not happy with their bodies. It's not healthy and it's not attractive. Fat positivity is a all a facade to hide the guilt they feel about being overweight.

i'm not saying all people should be skinny nor am i talking about medium/thick people i'm talking about *fat* people.

[Assistant] How, exactly, is someone supposed to argue against this? Your entire argument is 'people are lying'. The only thing we can say is 'no they're not', to which you can reply 'yes you are, you're lying again'.


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

[User] If there are 3 space dimensions and one time dimension, is it theoretically possible to have multiple time demensions and if so how would it work?

[Assistant]
Yes, we can consider spacetimes with any number of temporal or spatial dimensions. The theory is set up essentially the same. Spacetime is modeled as a smooth *n*-dimensional manifold with a pseudo-Riemannian metric, and the metric satisfies the Einstein field equations (Einstein tensor = stress tensor).

A pseudo-Riemannian tensor is characterized by its signature, i.e., the number of negative quadratic forms in its metric and the number of positive quadratic forms. The coordinates with negative forms correspond to temporal dimensions. (This is a convention that is fixed from the start.) In general relativity, spacetime is 4-dimensional, and the signature is (1,3), so there is 1 temporal dimension and 3 spatial dimensions.

Okay, so that's a lot of math, but it all basically means that, yes, it makes sense to ask questions like "what does a universe with 2 time dimensions and 3 spatial dimensions look like?" It turns out that spacetimes with more than 1 temporal dimension are very pathological. For one, initial value problems do not generally have unique solutions. There is also generally no canonical way to pick out 1 of the infinitely many solutions to the equations of physics. This means that predictability is impossible (e.g., how do you know which solution is the correct one?). Essentially, there is no meaningful physics in a spacetime with more than 1 temporal dimension.

(Ultimately, the problems comes from the fact that allowing more than 1 temporal dimension allows the existence of closed timelike curves, i.e., time travel, even in perfectly regular spacetimes, like those with a flat metric. Regular metrics with CTC's do exist in GR, e.g., the Godel metric, but these metrics with CTC's generally do not correspond to anything reasonably physical, *or* the CTC's are hidden behind the event horizon of a black hole.)


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

[User]
What are the odds of finding an exoplanet with a moon the perfect size as to create a solar eclipse like on Earth where the viewer can see the suns corona?

Earths moon just happens to be the perfect size for this in relation to the suns size in the sky. Sure, total or partial solar eclipses happen on every planet with a moon, but how rare is it that it would be like what we see on Earth?

[Assistant]
We can't give real numbers, because while we have observed a variety of exoplanets, we don't really have enough to give good statistics at the low mass end, and we only have a short list of *potential* exomoons. We do know that there is no other body in the solar system where the Sun's apparent radius is almost exactly the same as a moon's apparent radius. Other than that, we can only make educated guesses.

But the consensus is that it does seem like it should be extremely unusual, and it's an extraordinary coincidence that it's worked out that way on Earth.


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

[User]
[AskScienceFiction] There's a robot that looks like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle following me around. Should I be worried?

He keeps making absurd statements about thought crimes, and offering his services as a kind of ask jeeves robot.

Should I be worried? Can I kill it?

[Assistant] This thread is for posting Doylist comments, if you feel that some piece of real world information is vital to the conversation please post it here instead of in the main body of the thread. Remember citations are not doylist Thank you for your cooperation.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come you cannot carrier unlock a mobile phone without paying for a "code", even with custom firmware and root access?

Basically where do these codes come from and how do you (or the people that run websites that sell them) obtain them and why is there no way to get around using them to unlock your phone from a certain carrier?

[Assistant]
The cellular radio is controlled by a separate processor (often called a baseband processor) with completely separate firmware.

In order to bypass the lock, you either need to get that CPU to release the lock by giving it the code it wants, or you need to somehow hack into it.

The problem is that even if you can install custom firmware on the phone, that doesn't help. You still need somehow hack the baseband, and get it to release the lock.

Some early versions of the iPhone could be unlocked. If you installed a custom firmware on the phone, it was possible to run an app which would take advantage of a bug in the baseband firmware, and cause it to unlock until the next reboot. However, these were often very unstable, because the app was basically trying to glitch the baseband CPU and make it malfunction. Apple rapidly fixed this by pushing out new firmware for the baseband.

The difficulty with trying to root the baseband is that it runs a much simpler OS. Complex OSs like iOS, windows and android have a lot of code, so could have lots of bugs - you just need to find a bug that gives you root. The baseband runs a very stripped down OS, because all it needs to do is handle the calls and data. This means that there are fewer possible bugs, and bugs which might allow root access or cause a malfunction are super rare (assuming that they haven't all been fixed).


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

[User]
How dark is outer space?

If you got far enough into space, away from the sun or another star, would you still be able to see your hand in front of your face, or would it be too dark?

[Assistant] You don't even need to leave Earth for it to be that dark. On a moonless night in the wilderness, fifty miles from the nearest streetlights, you can only see your hand by the black hand-shaped void where it blocks out the stars.


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

[User]
[Morrowind] How does the Morag Tong work?

They're a legal assassin guild.. what stops all of Morrowind from erupting into anarchy with it being legal for someone to murder you if they can go through the proper channels?

[Assistant]
A few things:

The Grandmaster of the Morag Tong is the one who chooses which assassinations get executed. Not all writs of assassination are accepted.

Secondly, this service aint free. Depending on the target the cost of the writ will vary drastically.

In fact, its BECAUSE of a guild of assassins that Morrowind hasnt fallen into anarchy. If any of the leaders of the great houses get out of line, people can basically start a gofundme to get rid of them.


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

[User]
[Ben 10] How does the Omnitrix work for seemingly non-organic species?

Such as petrosapiens.

[Assistant]
So the Omnitrix is explained to Ben (and the audience) as working by copying the targets DNA and rewriting Bens. This almost certainly a simplification. DNA was just how the genetic code of organic species developed on Earth. Other species throughout the universe all certainly have genetic information that tells their bodies how to form, whether that is coded as a double-helix with the same  nucleotides seems unlikely.

The omnitrix copies the genetic information of a species whether that resembles DNA or is an entirely different form of code (as in Upgrades case it would almost certainly be literal computer code).


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

[User] [Marvel] Is Magnetic strong enough to manipulate Thors hammer or remove The Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos?

[Assistant]
Magneto can move them both. Magneto is nowhere near powerful enough to bypass Odin's enchantment, but it's technically magnetism that's moving the hammer, so not a being with a soul directly trying to move it. It just so happens that Magneto is manipulating the magnetism that's affecting Mjolnir.

However if Thor and Thanos are holding their respective items in their hands, Magneto has no chance of taking it away from them. Thor and Thanos' physical strength >>> Magnetism.

Also the Infinity Gauntlet isn't actually metal in the comics, it's kinda just a yellow glove.


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

[User]
What would the first living cells have been feeding on?

Could they have survived on dirt and air?

[Assistant]
Phosphates and hydrogen.

Well, chemicals in general, but since those two are still used to power our cells today it's quite likely it was, if not the first, then the most successful energy source.

Nitrates are popular, too, as is sulphur compounds found in deep sea volcanic vents. There are even bacteria that eats iron and poops rust (or at least a reddish iron oxide).

Beyond that the first living cells were powered by what's generally called chemosynthesis: taking chemicals in their environment and catalysing a reaction, gaining some usable energy in the process.


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

[User]
If Voyager 1 is travelling at a speed of 38,000mph, and if just a small piece of space debris collides with it, wouldn't the probe break or have a major alteration in its course because of the immense speed?

How do they avoid such collisions with so many space debris flying around? I'm sure even a tiny rock hitting you at a speed of 38,000mph could have significant damage to even the toughest materials found on earth. Could they?

[Assistant]
The interstellar medium has a very low density, ~10^-4 ions/cm^3, this (roughly) equates to 1cm^3 of matter per cube of space, with a side length of 10,000 km. And most of that material will be individual ions.

The chance of hitting anything out there is very remote.


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

[User]
Did we prove speed of light is constant then it was incorporated in theories or did theories predict speed of light would be constant than it was proved by experiments?

Which came first? The theory or the experiment that the speed of light is always constant?

[Assistant]
Excellent question, and as it turns out, the answer is maybe more interesting than you'd except.

At the end of the 19th century, people were still coming up with more and more accurate ways to measure the speed of light. At the time, we were already aware that if it wasn't constant, it was at least not varying much, this feeling being reinforced everytime we had a newer, more accurate experimental measurement.

But on the theoretical side of things, we were faced with an paradox : we were using the Galilean composition for speeds, and we also based our understanding of light on Maxwell's equations, where the propagation speed of the Electro-Magnetic field, denoted c, is assumed constant.

Most theorists were trying to reconcile those theory by assuming the existence of a medium, called the Ether, that light propagated into and that had a relatively slow motion with respect to the Earth, compared with c.

Einstein went the other way and assumed c was indeed a true constant, and would always amount the same no matter the motion of the observer. That's the fundamental assumption that gave birth to Special Relativity.

Experimenters tried to measure the motion of Earth relative to the Ether by measuring the speed of light in the direction of the Earth's rotation twice, with a 6month interval between the two so as them would be able to measure a difference between the two that would amont to twice the relative velocity of Earth in the Ether. They failed to measure anything relevant, giving that much more credit to Einstein's way to solve the problem, no matter how counter intuitive his idea was.

Tldr:
Both. It was up to Einstein first produce  a consistent theory that didn't involve an ad hoc hypothesis that nobody could figure out how to prove or disprove.


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

[User] ELI5: What happens to the empty space inside of your body after donating/removing an organ.

[Assistant] Honestly, as long as the surgeon did their job right, there wont be a pocket left over from the removal. Your organs are already pretty squished inside your body, so theyd just rearrange themselves a bit to fill the extra space.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] My muggle aunt found my Nimbus 2000 and swept our porch with it, and now the bristles are messed up. How will this affect its performance? I've got a match next Thursday.

[Assistant]
Uhhhh...just break out your Broomstick Servicing Kit and use the Tail-Twig Clippers to cut any bent or lose ends. Any broom rider worth his salt would have a kit nearby.

If not, that's unfortunate. If only there was some method of magically repairing the ends with the flick of a wrist. Golly where would we find someone who can do that?


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

[User] ELI5: If I thoroughly wash my hands with soap to get rid of grime and germs and oils, why does the fragrance remain?

[Assistant] When you wash your hands, some of the fragrance from the soap is absorbed in to your pores. So while you have removed grime and oils, through washing and rinsing, the soap smell lingers cause it was absorbed into your skin.


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

[User]
Eli5 why finding the same gas etc on another planet is potential for another life form

There was some gas found on Venus that penguins have in their gut, which scientists are excited about because it means there's potential for a life form. But in an environment that is SO different to ours, why is it that the scientists think that life forms will need the same form/nutrients/gas etc as us? Would it not be that life forms as known on Earth, and maybe Venus Mars, every other planet would be unique and completely different to other planets, bc how different each atmosphere and environment is?

Edit: Thanks heaps for all the comments! It's more fun than googling. And also thanks heaps for my first award!

[Assistant] There are certain molecules that only (or usually only) come into existence by certain processes. If we find a molecule that is only generated by biologic processes, then it's a good sign that something is living in there. We could be wrong, and that molecule ended up being generated in a non-biologic way, but that's why we need to investigate further.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come we name storms but not other natural phenomena like earthquakes or tornadoes?

 la Tropical Storm X, Winter Storm Y, Hurricane Z.

EDIT: Everyone's responses are essentially reflecting the same idea: that storms last longer and change locations so they receive names I still find it a touch bizarre that we don't name other occurrences despite the fact they cause problems that can even outlast storms, but I'm not a meteorologist so I have no say. Marked as answered.

[Assistant]
First of all, here's why we name storms.

Let's say we have 2 friends talking about a 3rd friend.
The first one says: "Did you hear that the kid with brown hair, white shirt, white shoes, and a green lunchbox had peanut butter today?"

The second one says: "Did you hear that Ronald had peanut butter today?"

It's much easier and quicker to listen to the second kid talking, because we know who he's talking about a lot quicker, and if you see Ronald a lot, using his name is much quicker. So that's why we name storms. But why not earthquakes or tornadoes?

Okay, let's say you're on the sidewalk, looking at cars. See that blue car? In a few seconds it will be gone, and we won't see it again. And that yellow car? If we call it "Jimmy", then in a few seconds it will be gone too. If we give names to all the cars, they'll go away too fast. Just like cars, earthquakes and tornadoes only stay around for a short period of time, so we don't have very much time to give them names, and an even shorter time to use those names.

In short, we name storms but not tornadoes because storms last longer.


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

[User]
Completely overwhelmed due to politics and arrogant academics

I am still within the first five years of my PhD in the social sciences, and trying to navigate my way through academia. Unfortunately the politics of the place I work is really getting to me. To make things worse, there are other early career academics who are arrogant and look down on my new area of research  interest, and the  people I want to align myself with (research wise).All this is making me feel extremely insecure, and stressed. How do I cope with all this?

[Assistant] If you're a grad student the best thing for you to do is not get involved in whatever department politics there are. Pick a project, write a dissertation, collect 3-4 letter writers, and get out. Little else matters.


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

[User]
[DCEU] How do the Old Gods live on through the SHAZAM if they were all killed by Ares?

In the movie Wonder Woman we learn that the Old Gods are killed by Ares and it is an important plot point that Diana has the last of the power of the Old Gods but in the movie SHAZAM we learn that the Wizard and later Billy Batson have the power of the Old Gods. How can this be if gods and their power was extinguished by Ares?

[Assistant]
Athena was the goddess of Wisdom, just because she was killed doesn't mean that Wisdom died.  Shazam embodies the concepts that those gods were associated with.

So the gods are dead, but SHAZAM still can call upon the power they represented.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can a seemingly simple app, like Pandora Radio for example, employ thousands of people and keep them busy for 40+ hours per week?

I know there's a fair amount of programming involved in the initial development and updates, but it seems like there wouldn't be that much to do. What am I missing?

[Assistant]
Unlike any other streaming music service, Pandora has actual people listen to every song in their catalog, multiple times, to identify the attributes that allow the system to select music for the listener. Other streaming services use software to do this, or use algorithms that rely on similar artists or other listeners' song lists.

The other big part of any business that lives on advertising revenue is the marketing department - which is not marketing to users, but rather to the advertisers that provide revenue (subscriptions are a very small part of their overall revenue). Pandora's customers are the advertisers, and they need salespeople and other staff to service those customers.


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

[User] ELI5: How come indigenous people have historically been affected by invaders diseases but the invaders weren't affected by some random disease that the natives had?

[Assistant]
It's not always one way. Syphilis was one example of a new world disease that was definitely problematic for Europeans.
But often times the larger populations of more developed nations meant that there were larger infection pools, over time only the most infectious of diseases would be able to propagate.
Also many of the Europeans at the time lived in close proximity to livestock, meaning they learned to live with more diseases that could jump species.


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

[User]
[Ant-Man] "Pym Particles" has the potential to change the world. Why is the Ant Man (any of them) using it to play superhero?

Size manipulation technology has endless possibilities. Imagine ending world hunger and garbage build-up, revolutionizing technology and stopping global warming. And yet, the best Ant-Man thought of is building a suit and punching bad people in the face?

[Assistant]
As easily as it could be used for good, it would be used for evil. Wanna assassinate a world leader? boom pym particles. Wanna steal secret government plans? bla-blam pym particles.

People just cant be trusted to use anything like that for only good.


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

[User] ELI5: What does it mean when the US accuses China of "manipulating its currency"

[Assistant]
One of the reasons everything is made in China is because it is cheap.  One of the reasons it is cheap is because China has a lot of people that need jobs so they accept low wages because the alternative is to have no job at all and starve.

As Chinese people start working they begin to earn money and want to buy things like cars and apartments and have families.  This means they need more money and they start to demand higher wages.  Higher wages mean things cost more and pretty soon making stuff in other countries makes more sense.

So China takes in all this cash from making iPods or whatever and this would normally cause the value of the Yuan to rise (again, making things more expensive).  So the Chinese print more Yuan at their treasuries and they buy things like US T-Bills.  The more Yuan there are on the market the less each one is worth to the rest of the world.

Therefore things stay cheap and China can keep people employed and not starving in the streets.


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

[User]
[DC, Comics] So exactly what the hell is S.T.A.R. labs?

they seem to have endless amounts of money to fund a frankly ridiculous amount of R&D including what can only be extremely situational devices that must cost in the millions to make. but they don't seem to sell anything or have any source of income at all but they can do all that and still hire the best of the best?(static shock for example)

[Assistant] Mostly military R&D contracts for theoretical and fringe research. Certain government agencies have noticed how more than one superhero can be traced back to their experiments, and that has kept the funding coming in year after year.


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

[User]
eli5: Why do your teeth feel so gross when you first wake up even though the last thing you did before sleeping was brush your teeth?

I assume it has something to do with the bacteria in your mouth thriving and replicating from the warm, moist, undisturbed  environment. But youre not eating at night to help form plaque so I dont get it.

[Assistant]
When you sleep at night, you don't produce as much saliva (spit) as when you are awake. Saliva helps protect and wash your teeth. The reduced production allows the bacteria inside your mouth to multiply overnight, causing the terrible taste and bad breath. If you sleep/breathe with your mouth open, your teeth dry even faster, worsening the effect.

This is also why you are more likely to drool when napping because your saliva production doesn't go down as much as when you are asleep at night.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it normally that the bigger the species, the longer the lifespan...but the bigger the animal within the species, the shorter the lifespan?

[Assistant] The average size of any given species is the largest it can be, without over stressing its vascular system. When an organism is of average size compared to overly large, its systems act in better equilibrium. Larger examples have overstressed vascular systems and typically have joint issues. Imagine that as a species you do jumping jacks and a different species does push ups, etc. Your joints are designed (evolutionarily) to withstand your body weight doing that specific action until your body can't go any more (death). Your vascular system is designed to keep your body at a peak level of performance until you expire. If you are larger, your joints which are designed for less weight, and your vascular system which is not designed to pump nutrients that far, will support you for a time, but will give out sooner. The star that burns twice as bright burns half as long in most cases.


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

[User]
I think legal paternal surrender (finacial abortion) should be legal for men. CMV

There is nothing forcing women to get pregnant. They have a plethora of contraceptive options, and if they fail, the morning after pill and abortion. And if she doesn't want those, safe havens.

Women have 100% of the decision making power here. The child lives or dies according to her wish. This means that she should also have the full responsibility. There is nothing forcing women to be a parent. Women choose to stay pregnant. That is important to note.

Men however have no say. How is that right?

Is it because he had sex? That is an argument of consequence. Just because I didn't lock my door, doesn't mean I deserve to have my house broken into.

Because it is in the best interest of the child? This is a double standard. When a woman wants an abortion, she is allowed. If she is unable or unwilling to take care of it, the state pays/accepts it for adoption. Why is it up to men to pay the price for a child they never consented to creating? The child doesn't even have the right to life yet, as exemplified by its mother's right to abort it.
Women have ways out every step of the way. Men have to pray the condom doesn't break.

Children don't have the kind of rights they'd need to have for that argument to make sense. They have no expectation of financial support from their parents except for this one unique situation where a custodial parent is demanding it and an easy target is available for collection. Two parents who remain married can both be unemployed on welfare without the state chasing one or the other for child support. They can put the child up for adoption and avoid the entirety of child rearing costs, and in many cases a mother can leave a baby at a fire station and make it the state's problem. The common theme here is that the wants of both parents, when aligned, by far outweigh any supposed rights we think children ought to have.

And even if everything I said above was somehow false. What about when the woman forgets her pill, or simply doesn't take it? Does fraud, or an accident on her part justify the man paying for something he didn't want for nearly two decades?

Anyways, I'm going long here. Thoughts?

[Assistant] Generally speaking, child support isn't really about either parent. If a woman keeps the baby, that baby is going to come into the world no matter what and it will need monetary support. If not from the father, it'd come from the state and everyone would still end up paying for it. Child support doesn't really care about what the mother or father are up to, it's just there to support the child who now exists and needs to be paid for.


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

[User]
When people get "butterflies" in their stomach, what is actually going on? And why does it only happen when they're nervous?

This happens to me on first dates, before a big presentation, etc. Why does my body want to throw up, as if that would help anything?

[Assistant] adrenaline and other stress hormones cause vasodilation in your leg muscles (and other muscles, but mostly leg), which causes blood to flow away from other organs into the muscles and liver. this means blood will leave the vessels near your stomach. the butterflies feeling is due to blood going away from the stomach.


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

[User] Can Maillard reaction happen by boiling food in conditions that raises water's boiling point (e.g. salted water or high atmospheric pressure)?

[Assistant] Maillard reaction occurs from 140-165 C. A high pressure cooker raises the temperature to 120 -ish C. So using current equipment the answer would be no. You could try using steam at high temperatures to see if you can create the Maillard reaction on food.


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

[User]
[General Horror] What happens to the kids?

e.g. *The Babadook*

How much ridiculous amounts of therapy do kids from horror films have to go through afterwards?

[Assistant] None, they just invent extreme coping mechanisms (drinking, writing fiction, comedy) until forced to return as adults to the setting in which their initial trauma occurred, so they can finish off their adversary for good while experiencing a massive therapeutic release by doing so.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do US Government Agencies have a "Use It Or Lose It" budget model? Why hasn't it been changed to something that stops waste?

[Assistant]
The idea of the system is to minimise waste.

If the government provides too much money to a particular agency, they won't spend it all which signals to the government that they need to provide less money in future years.

Of course the reality is that all agencies would like more funding, so will always work out a way to use up the funds they're given. But giving them all additional funding upfront won't suddenly make them spend the money more appropriately, so it doesn't really achieve much.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What can the average Joe do to help the Rebellion?

I hate the Empire, but I'm not quite brave enough to lay down my life on the battlefield. Is there anything I can do to assist the Rebels, preferably from the comfort of my home?

[Assistant]
If you you made contact with a cell, probably the there lots of stuff you can do with varying degrees of safety.

Simple stuff like dropping supplies, picking and dropping messages, acting as a safe house, lookout etc.

Edit:

Actually the rebellion needs a well regulated militia. As long as the population has access to blaster rifles, there's no way a tyrannical fascist coup could take over. All it needs is a few good men to stand against the AT-ATs!


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

[User]
Why can the sum of two cubes never be prime, but the sum of two squares can?

1 is the only number that gives you a prime from what I've found, because 1^3 + 1^3 = 2. Im pretty sure the sum of two numbers that are both to an odd power can never be prime, but im not sure. Is there a proof for this?

[Assistant]
Assuming positive integers

a^3 + b^3 = (a + b)(a^2 - ab + b^2 )

(a + b) will be a factor of the number, and for positive integers

2 <= (a + b) < (a^3 + b^3 )

Thus, whatever number you get will always at least have (a + b) as a factor that's not 1 or itself, with 2 as the exception.

**EDIT:** bad assumption, proof should be fine now.


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

[User]
CMV: Kill main villain and the rest of his army dies is always a terrible trope and cop out.

Weve all seen it. The protogonist(s) are up against a seemingly superior enemy force, how will they ever win you ask yourself? And then the writers primitive ingenuity save the day: Easy! They just kill the main bad guy, mothership, central core, throw the ring into the lava, etc.. and boom all other enemies magically die.

My claim is that this is always an idiotic and lazy way to solve the main conflict. It is never justified because it removes the main interest of an antagonist dominant conflict, which is finding out how will heroes overcome the enemy advantage

I will use what comic writer Stan Lee once said about conflicts with external antagonists. That in such stories (say your typical hero vs villain), the villain must ALWAYS be stronger than the hero in whatever head on fight they have. If its pure violence, villain must be overpowering. If it its sports, villain is superior athlete. And so on. The fun and good writing would then come with asking How will the heroes win?. And the only acceptable solution would be an unorthodox approach/strategy.

So when it comes to stories where large numbers of enemy forces, the question is how will heroes beat this enemy with superior numbers or fighting force? However, the trope of just killing one to kill all completely side steps the question! The heroes never actually resolved the main conflict, but made it a non issue by only focusing on a single entity. And it doesnt matter whether the reason makes sense or not (i.e., the robot army loses because its central computer is whipped out), it is still lazy writing.

Imagine if at the final contest in a sport story, the hero(s) win because the ref disqualified the enemy opponent/team. That would not be a satisfying resolution  regardless if the victory technically valid.

Therefore, anytime this trope is ever used in any sort of media it should be condemned and given poor reviews. It can never be good story telling because the very purpose of the story (resolve the conflict) is never really resolved but side steppedaka a cop out.

P.S. my argument is in context of external antagonist dominant stories. Basically when the main conflict is an external enemy. Stories that focus on more internal struggles or non antagonist conflicts maybe immune to my argument.

[Assistant] You don't want this. You don't want the end of Independence Day to be a credits roll explaining that the aliens were defeated through a year long systematic campaign. Sparing you from this isn't lazy writing, it's recognizing what the audience came to the film for.


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

[User]
How do accents develop?

Im trying to understand how accents develop. For example, why do people from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US all have different accents when certain regions in those countries were populated by people immigrating from the same region in the UK? (I.e. the west coast of Scotland.)

Edit: Thanks for all your replies. This is a really interesting topic!

[Assistant]
Ever heard of the game telephone?

Behavior is adaptive, language is a cultural adaption that is literally created on the fly as we use it. We are improvising like jazz musicians all day with each other.

As babies we learn and copy every aspect of being that we observe around us. Then we put on a show of what we learned for our babies in turn. As humans iterate through this process stylistic differences will arise.

Imagine the magnitude of organization and commitment required for those differences to not emerge through thousands of iterations.


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

[User] ELi5 - Why does breathing into a paper bag supposedly help someone having a panic attack?

[Assistant]
When you breathe too quickly (hyperventilate) you elimate CO2 faster than your body can produce it, causing CO2 levels in the blood to drop to unhealthy levels.

Breathing in and out of a paper bag helps put CO2 back in the body.


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

[User]
I hear people say they're "too tired to sleep" all the time. Is there any grain of truth in this phenomena?

Can you ever really be *too tired to sleep*?

[Assistant] It is not the actual tiredness that makes it hard to sleep, but rather that with sleep deprivation there is an increase in adrenaline and cortisol release, which disrupts sleep onset.  Furthermore, this phenomena may also have some explanation from the fact that a person who stays awake all night (studying for example) and then tries to sleep during the day, may have trouble with sleep onset due to their circadian rhythm.


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

[User] ELI5: How does the observable universe have a diameter of 93 billion light years if it is only 13.8 billion years old?

[Assistant]
The universe is expanding.

The vast empty spaces between galaxy clusters are expanding quickly enough to that the very farthest galaxies we can see are moving away from us *faster than the speed of light*.

The light we see was emitted from a very young galaxy 13 billion years ago, by now that same galaxy is 40+ billion light years away.


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

[User] Is the Crash Course Economics series a good way to learn economics?

[Assistant]
I would say yes, although it will primarily help you with understanding academic economics, in that it helps you pass your economics classes, specifically in regards to the non-math based side of economics. Its a good starting point, and they did a great job of teaching the basics while making it interesting and funny. They even do a good job of touching on political economy.

It doesnt necessarily delve into mathematics or equations relating to Econ, but there is a good bit of topics covered through an Econ lens that you can actually learn a lot. Go in with an open mind, and expand deeper with more college level discussion when youre ready! Good luck, and have fun.


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

[User]
[zelda OoT] why do the stalchilds in hyrule field not show up 7 years after Ganondof's ascent?

You would think they would be more common if anything.

[Assistant]
Maybe the stalchilds feared the power and darkness that Ganondorf possessed, so they fled Hyrule.

I am not aware of Stalchilds being inherently evil, just like the skullkids in the Lost Woods.

Evil things flocked to Castle Town when Ganondorf took over, as evidenced by the Poes that hang around the gate. The lack of stalchilds means that they have fled.


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

[User]
ELI5: Asia's Richest Person Lost $5 Billion in Market Turmoil. Where is that money now, physically?

Edit: Just want to correct that the headline says $3.6 billion now. Thanks for all the good answers!

[Assistant]
Nowhere. That money never physically existed.

Imagine you own a painting you think is very valuable. You even have it appraised, and the guy appraising it said 'yeah, this is worth a million dollars'.  Even though you do not have that money in your wallet, you consider yourself a wealthy man, cause hey, if you would sell your painting, you'd have a million bucks.

Except it then turns out that your painting wasn't so valuable after all. Maybe the last guy was wrong, maybe you spill coffee over it. Either way, the value suddenly drops to five bucks. Your overall wealth has gone down, because you no longer own a painting worth a million bucks, but no money has physically left your wallet.

That is the same thing that happened to that guy. He previously had investments valued at an insanely high amount. He never owned that money physically, nobody did, but if he would've sold his shares, he would've had that amount of money. Now in the market turmoil and the revaluation of things, his stock is now worth a lot less. His wealth has gone down, but nothing happened to his physical money.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do most predatory animals choose not to eat humans?

I know it happens, but the vast majority of animal / human attacks never end up in with the human actually being eaten unless there are some dire circumstances involved. I've seen and heard many examples of a person being attacked and then the attacking animal just leaves inexplicably. For example, many shark attacks are simply the shark "tasting" its "prey" when they realize its human they take off. Why is this? Do we taste bad? If so why? Or do animals just know that its a bad idea to attack the most awesome predator thats had ever lived on this planet?

[Assistant]
Through evolution, predators become specialized towards particular prey or categories of prey. They develop hunting patterns that take advantage of their prey's behavior patterns (e.g. stalking vs ambush vs pursuit), and learn to recognize certain types of animals as efficient sources of food. Most of this is pattern-matching instinct, built up over generations of trial-and-error selecting the most effective instincts. Animals that tend towards more-efficient prey succeed.

Predators that adapt to specialize towards humans, don't last very long. We counter-adapt on the order of years instead of generations so animals are always behind the curve in terms of efficiency. We also counter-hunt predators for our own safety, meaning that succeeding in predating humans is actually maladaptive, and will be selected against.

Most modern animal attacks are not specialized predation. Often they are self-defense, which means that the animal is not inclined to eat the remains. Hunting humans for food generally happens out of desperation. There are also some instincts that are not specialized towards prey, like the sharks nibbling--I assume that there's a second step where they specialize hunting behavior based on the first bite, and they have no developed response for us.


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

[User]
[WH40k] Who wins in a battle between Tyranids and Nurgle?

I mean, who ends up wining the most? do the absorbed plague marines disappear from the warp? does the ammount of death and virus/plague/things to rot make Nurgle stronger?
Do they work symmbiotically?

[Assistant]
We will assume for the sake of 40k  the Nids attack a series of plagued planets, as Nurgle is happy to let his gifts fester while the Nids dont hang around once the deed is done.

At first? Nurgle gets rolled. Like its not even funny  the first 2 months see his planets get eaten with little to no resistance. The Shadow in the Warp makes it hard for demons to get a grip on realspace and things go poorly. The basic poxes and plagues are mildly effective until immunities are evolved.

Fortunately Nurgle understands life and death and ebb and flow. Hes not cocky and wont be goaded into throwing forces at unwinnable engagements. The 3rd planet falls, but is defended heavily. The xenos arent entirely aware of it  but once the initial defenses were smashed the survivors seemed to offer themselves to the tyranids, however this was likely not noticed in the ensuing blood bath.

The fourth planet meets a similar fate  but the 5th things go differently. Bioweapons on the nids start failing  talons and pincers suddenly begin to rot off. Synapse creatures slow their advance and collapse  feral tyranids tear into eachother. The Norn Queen realizes the latent infection and begins sifting through the DNA  purging it and making healthy nids. The swarm is slowed but not broken. However down on the surface the plague nids are driven insane and lash out at anything (healthy nid and chaos forces alike) and the fighting devolves into a bloody free for all.

As the nids redeploy they are faced with cutting through their infected brethren to get to the chaos forces  which they do. While ferocious the plagued nids are crippled and slower. They last for days before their broken husks litter the ground and the newly minted nids charge forth once again. As the nids relentlessly advance the corpses of their infected brethren rise from the dirt and mire. Much slower now  their bodies barely held together  limbs dangling or missing entirely. While not nearly as ferocious they are Nurgles children now, and they serve but one purpose now  to protect their master. Each one shambles into the fray  clinging to whatever enemy forces are nearby and exploding in a shower of acid and puss. The virulent toxins infecting the healthy nids  while they can ignore it in life once felled they will rise up again as shambling suicide bombers eager to spread Nurgles gift.

The event perpetuates for weeks  until the losing battle is realized and the nid forces withdraw for fear of losing too much biomass.

Nurgle wins a narrow victory  and zombie suicide bomber plague nids terrify everyone. The hive fleet goes to eat an agri world or something.


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

[User]
ELI5:If China is a communist state, why are there so many multi billion dollar companies and free markets?

How communist can a country be when they are so wealthy, including many of its citizens?

[Assistant]
Modern China was founded with communist principles in mind. But after Deng Xiaoping took power, he decided to move China toward a more capitalistic economy. But the Communist Party still rules China and therefore they still are labelled "communist". Similarly, the US isn't completely capitalistic because there are government regulations and also government-owned businesses (such as the post office).

It's really a label more than anything else.

EDIT: Another thing to point out is that a lot of those "billion dollar companies" are actually owned/operated by the Chinese government. For example: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. They have branches in the US now too.


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

[User] ELI5: How do companies come up with their nutrition facts?

[Assistant]
Work at a bakery: The higher ups have a laptop and a program. The put in the overall ingredient list and the premixed - precooked nutritional facts get spitted out. Then they take some of the made bread and probe it. The program and machine then gives them an estimation. They then do several tests on site with various compounds and either confirm the product or rework.

It's seriously interesting to watch.


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

[User]
How long will light stay contained (?) inside a fiber optic cable once a closed loop is created?

We use fiber optic cable in vehicles for communication and have about a one foot strand that is looped, we were curious, please help.

[Assistant]
Even high quality optical fiber has some attenuation of light, and that attenuation will (in the absence of repeaters or similar amplification) absorb all the light faster than you can blink.

To put some numbers on it: attenuation in a decent optical fiber is on the order of 1dB per kilometer at the wavelengths it's optimized for. That's a phenomenal feat of technology ... but it means that half the photons are absorbed every 10km.

1 lumen is about 4 * 10^15 photons per second, so if you put a lumen of light into your pipe and somehow instantly closed it, you'd have about ( 4 * 10^15 / 2 * 10^9 ) = two million photons going round and round. Somewhere around the 210 kilometer mark in terms of distance traveled, the last photon would be absorbed. Since light travels at 300,000km/s, this would take slightly less than a millisecond.

Maybe with high quality fiber, bright light, and other chicanery you could bump the time above a millisecond. But not by much. The logarithmic mathematics of attenuation are working against you.

(edit: one minor oversight - the speed of light in a fiber optic cable is only around 200,000 km/s, so that buys you another fraction of a millisecond. But it's still all over very quickly.)


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

[User]
During the various eras in which dinosaurs existed, and any eras in which megafauna existed, did these eras have less specie diversification or is it more likely that less examples of species diversification was preserved via fossilisation?

My son recently asked me the above question (albeit as well as a 5 year old could articulate the question), as his teacher told him that we have discovered over 1,000 different species of dinasaurs from the various periods.

My son thought this number was very low and that how do we know there weren't 10x that and we just don't have proof?

Is it a case of survivorship bias, in that we only have evidence of those preserved, or is it that during megafauna periods, there are simply less species because food is abundant enough to not need to evolve?

[Assistant] There would have been much greater diversity than we know and there is "survivor bias". The latter is indicative that we associate great size with dinos. While many certainly were, it's important to remember that larger skeletons are more likely to persist and become fossils. Smaller animals are highly likely to be consumed, destroyed, or disappear.


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

[User]
A PhD Program posted the wrong deadline on their website. They won't consider my application after I missed the true deadline. Do I have options?

I'm applying to PhD programs. My top-choice program listed their application deadline on their department page as December 15. I planned my application season months ago and had everything ready to submit on time, and I could have submitted early if I needed to without any problems. However, when I went to submit my application on the day of the deadline, I discovered I had missed the deadline by one day.

After freaking out a bit, thinking I must have written down Dec. 15 instead of Dec. 14 in some kind of fit, I learned that the program's website had listed the date incorrectly. They had eventually updated it, but with very short notice and I (obviously!) didn't catch the change, as my application was already started at that point and I wasn't going back to their website to look up basic application information. I found evidence on the Internet Archive that their department website still showed the incorrect date as late as Nov 28, i.e. about 2 weeks before the deadline (and it's possible it was up even later, as Nov 28 was the most recent archiving). So I wrote a very reasoned and polite email, and sent it off immediately to the director and grad admissions people. I figured I couldn't have been the only person to have experienced this issue, and surely since it was their fault they'd be able to make some exception.

The director seemed to be on my side initially; she was the first to respond and apologized profusely and said she'd take care of it. (Specifically, she said in part:  "I've just left a message for our Director of Graduate Studies, \[REDACTED\], concerning this very pesky issue, and I am sure he will look into a solution at once. As the error is on our end, I am sure \[REDACTED\] will do all he can to ensure we can take your application. Stay tuned! Thank you so much for alerting us to this issue and apologies for any inconvenience and stress it has caused.")

The grad admissions people, however, don't care. They will not entertain an exception--in fact, they won't even admit the university's at fault. (I assume it's in their legal interest to do so.) They keep telling me to apply next year. They pointed to another place on the university website that listed the correct deadline, but that was on a completely different site (i.e. the general graduate college, rather than the program's department). I have pushed back with more evidence and more politeness, but they keep replying with (nearly) the same response. \*\*ETA: the program director has been included on all these emails, so she's aware of what's going on. She asked them for an exception over email, cc:'d me on it, and they also told her no.\*\*

So: do I just give up? Do I call up everyone and make a big stink about it? I'm not interested in legal action (don't have the money for it, and frankly I don't think this issue is important enough to warrant it) but it would be nice to know what my options here are, if anything.

(crossposted)

[Assistant] If they fuck up a simple deadline and are dicks about it now, how are they going to be when they fuck up a bigger deadline (Thesis submission date to graduate w/o paying for another semester, etc). I'd take it as a sign that this program isn't running well or doesn't care to run well.


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

[User]
[DCU] How is the Flash landing on the ground different from running up a wall?

I'm not particularly familiar with the comic lore, but I would like any answer to be based in the comic cannon (any of them). I'm a superhero newbie, only really having knowledge about some of the TV shows and movies, as well as some late night Googling to trying and piece things together.

Something that has always bothered me in the shows is when the Flash is shown to be in peril when free falling. I am aware in the comics that the Flash can achieve a soft landing by rotating his arms quickly to create mini tornadoes. I am also aware that he has been show to be able to control his movement in the air to a degree, even running on ice crystals in the stratosphere.

No, what I want to know is how the Flash having his momentum completely arrested in the downwards direction after a fall is any different from him coming to an instantaneous stop when running or his change in velocity when running into and then up a wall.

Thanks.

[Assistant] The innate human terror of falling is one of those kinds of things that's sufficiently deeply ingrained that it becomes difficult to consciously use the Speed Force to slow one's descent. Deliberately redirecting your momentum by changing direction is a little easier to wrap the ol' primitive monkey-brain around.


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

[User] Why is it that some thin plastics tear very easily once started but are very resistant to a tear starting?

[Assistant] A good example of this is in plastic grocery bags, which are made of low-density polyethylene (LDPE).  Normally, LDPE has a very low crystallinity; the polymer chains aren't aligned in any particular manner.  However, when you start to tear/stretch the plastic, you're sort of pulling some of the chains into alignment.  This results in some crystal formation, with two effects:  a) the LDPE turns increasingly opaque, since light scatters more at crystal boundaries, and b) the LDPE becomes harder to tear, because crystals are usually stronger than amorphous material.


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

[User]
Philosophers & Aesthetics

Does anyone have any works of philosophy that deal with Aesthetics? Im a student studying philosophy and literature and want my concentration to be in Aesthetics, besides Kants Critique of Judgement (which I need to read), is there any other outstanding/classic essays in Aesthetics. Secondary question, why do you think that Aesthetics is one of the least popular branches of philosophy? Art/Sublimity has always been a pretty big deal culturally and something I want to dedicate my life to, especially literature. No Sartre.

[Assistant]
Pythagoras: *Fragments*

Plato: *Symposium* and *Phaedrus*

Aristotle: *Poetics* and parts of *Metaphysics*

Longinus: *On the Sublime*

Plotinus: *On Beauty*

Pseudo-Dionysius: *The Divine Names*

St. Augustine: *On Music*

Boethius: *On Music*

Aquinas: parts of *Summa Theologica*

Ficino: *Commentary on Plato's Symposium*, also known as the 'De Amore'

Alberti: *Treatise on Painting*

Hume: *Of the Standard of Taste*

Hutcheson: *An Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue*

Burke: *A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful*

Baumgarten: *Aesthetica*

Lessing: *Laocon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry*

Schiller: *Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man* and *Naive and Sentimental Poetry*

Schlegel: *Dialogue on Poetry*

Schelling: *Philosophy of Art,* *Philosophy of Mythology*, *Philosophy of Revelation*

Hegel: *Lectures on Fine Art* and *Phenomenology of Spirit*

Nietzsche: *Birth of Tragedy*

Heidegger: *The Origin of the Work of Art*

Cassirer: *Philosophy of Symbolic Forms*

Gadamer: *Truth and Method*

Collingwood: *The Principles of Art* and *Outlines of a Philosophy of Art*


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

[User]
Why did it take so long to find Pluto's mass?

I've read that Pluto's mass was found only in 1978.

[Assistant]
The orbiting mass relay screwed up the calculations for a long time.

But seriously, the reason was that trying to determine mass from a solitary body that far away from the sun is very difficult, as it's doesn't have any other mass near it that it interacts with that would allow for proper use of Newton's and Kepler's laws. Basically astronomers only had Pluto's light and albedo to work off of.

That is until 1978, when Charon was discovered by James Christy. With one mass orbiting another, astronomers were able to figure out the masses of both by applying Newton's and Kepler's laws.


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

[User] ELI5: If i leave my charger plugged in and the switch is on without any device charging, does it 'waste' electricity? Why/why not?

[Assistant] Generally, yes, there will be a small amount of electricity flowing. However, it is so small that it amounts to pennies per year in cost. If you unplugged everything you werent using and only plugged it in to use it, there would be no notable reduction in your electricity bill. Most of your bill is major appliances and heating/air conditioning.


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

[User]
[DC] How much force would it take to kill a Kryptonian?

So, um, supposing someone were to, I don't know, kill a certain alien from Krypton, how much force would it take to do that? I know kryptonite or red sunlight could do the trick, but that shit's expensive. Not that I would know, I mean, It's not like I've tried or anything...

[Assistant]
Back in the day, Doomsday (before anyone knew much about the monster) hit Superman repeatedly. The power behind his punches wasn't accurately measured but for all intents and purposes he was a walking extinction level event.

The final blow, which laid the Man of Steel low, went off like a small bomb.... causing glass to shatter from buildings for blocks around the point of impact.

But, to be clear, this was not a healthy Kryptonian he'd struck... Superman stepped in after Doomsday took down the entire Justice League International (mostly with one hand bound behind his back), then everything Cadmus could throw at him, then DD splatted Matrix in her Supergirl form with a single no-leverage airborne punch.

Superman traded blows with him for a good thousand miles.

So I'd say... if you're going for pure force... you need a sustained assault of catastrophic energies.


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

[User]
eli5: what does a 'think tank' do?

How and why and what is a think tank...

[Assistant] Think tanks are companies that produce ideas. They employ, depending on their industry of focus some or all of the following: experts with industry experience, scientists, researchers, data analysts, consultants, marketers, writers, and PR people. Some exist to do genuine research and advance the intellectual state of their industry in good faith, for the greater good. Others are "legitimizers for hire", cherrypicking facts and data to back up an existing claim or agenda.