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

[User] The depths seem very crowded. Cthulhu, the Kaiju, Godzilla, and Clover are all doing their own thing beneath the sea. What are their interactions like? How do they all view each other?

[Assistant]
They'd actually interact rather minimally. Cthulhu is asleep in his abyssal citadel, Clover is likely asleep or generally inactive (Clover's shape suggests it wouldn't do too great in the open ocean - no particular swimming ability makes me think it sticks to shallower waters and preys on fish for the most part), the Kaiju aren't even in this dimension 99% of the time and only make appearances in accordance with a mathematical formula, and Godzilla, being a territorial beast, wouldn't stray far from Bikini Atoll where it was likely created.

All in all, none of the megabeasts would bother with each other all that much unless they encroached on each other's turf - the Kaiju would most likely ignore the others as they're not humans to devour. Further, you're forgetting just how *huge* the oceans are. Cthulhu is in the southern Pacific (not far from Antarctica), the Kaiju appear from the Challenger Deep near China, Godzilla has always been in the islands around Japan, and Clover is off somewhere in the Atlantic near the East Coast. No territories encroach each other.


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

[User]
[Dune] Why doesn't the Emperor just take control of Arrakis for himself?

Given that Arrakis is the most important planet in the Dune universe, as it's the only planet to contain Spice Melange, it seems rather risky for the Padishah Emperor to let it be governed as a fief by any of the other great houses. By doing this, he gives that particular house full control of the spice, which can be used to challenge the authority of the emperor himself.
Why doesn't the Emperor just use his dreaded Sardaukar legion to control Arrakis and directly govern the planet?

[Assistant]
He's not powerful enough to pull that off.

The emperor's wealth and military might is roughly on par with all great houses put together. That means he's only top dog if the great houses are divided and waging kanly on each other. If he seized Arrakis for himself, he'd piss off all the great houses at once, so much so they'd stop fighting and take him on. If he loses he's dead. If he wins, he's the emperor of nothing but ash and ruin. The only winning move is not to play.

 Plus, he's got hella CHOAM shares already, what's his motivation? Whereas, not taking direct control of Arrakis and outsourcing the work to one great house or another allows him to play politics and keep them divided under his rule. Which is precisely what he did when a certain Duke got too popular...


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

[User]
[The Matrix] How did the first person realize that reality was not, in fact, reality? And how were they able to escape into the real world?

Was it a lone human who had never been sent into the Matrix or a group and they infiltrated the Matrix and began bringing people out?

Or was it one of the failed One's who learned how to leave?

[Assistant]
The Architect is the creator of The Matrix, he first created a utopia for humanity, but apparently humans rejected this version and the whole thing just went to hell. He tried and failed once more before he turned to The Oracle.

The Oracle was a program that had studied human psyche and with her The Architect created a Matrix where humans were given choices. 99.9% (or it might have been 99%) accepted this version of The Matrix, and the remainder were apparently ejected from those pods they were kept in. Some survived and joined the humans remaining in Zion.

So they didn't really escape at all. They simply rejected The Matrix on an unconcious level and were ejected to prevent the system from crashing as it had before.


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

[User]
Is it possible to trap light inside a perfectly reflective sphere, which would then produce a visible flash if the sphere was opened?

This is all theoretical.  If you had a perfect sphere that was perfectly reflective on the inside, and then somehow lit up the inside, would the light stay as light until the sphere was reopened?

[Assistant] This happens during nuclear explosions.  It is why there is a double flash from them.  You get an initial flash from all the gammas during prompt fission, then the plasma begins to form.  At the plasmas critical density, the gamma rays are internally reflected.  The light cannot escape.  Once the plasma expands and the density changes, the plasma is no longer at the critical density to reflect the light.  The gamma rays can escape and there is a second flash of gammas.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a dynamic driver produce bass and treble frequencies at the same time?

[Assistant]
Say you're on a river ferry, and that ferry is constantly moving back and forth between the two banks of the river at 2 mph. We'll assume it takes 200 seconds for a round-trip.

Let's also say that while the ferry is in motion, you constantly run from the front of the ferry to the back at 10 mph, and we'll say you need 20 seconds for a round-trip.

You're going back and forth at 1/20 Hz on top of the ferry and the ferry itself is going back and forth at 1/200 Hz. So you're 'oscillating' at two different frequencies at the same time.

The membrane of a speaker can do the same thing. You can have a slow oscillation while playing a bass note and at the same time it can play a high note by adding a fast oscillation on top of that.


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

[User] Does drinking lots of water prevent the negative side effects of a high sodium diet (eg. increased blood pressure) ?

[Assistant]
A high sodium diet is dangerous for some individuals *because* of the resulting excess fluid intake. As you intake fluid to quench your resulting thirst, you increase the volume of fluid within your circulatory system. This increases your blood pressure.

Your kidneys respond by working harder to remove more of the fluid from your system. For a healthy individual, this is not really a problem. Your kidneys remove the excess water and salt from your body without issue.

For someone with kidney disease, their kidneys may not be able to compensate for this excess fluid load. This results in sustained hypertension, which in addition to a vast number of other issues, further damages the glomeruli (the filters of the kidney).

EDIT: As a caveat, even some healthy individuals are sodium-sensitive and may have resulting hypertension from excess sodium intake.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the meaning behind the "Horse and Sparrow theory?

I know its used synonymously for "trickle down" economics but what is the actual story involving the horse and sparrow?

[Assistant]
It's not so much as a synonym as a criticism. The "story" is that if you feed enough oats to a horse, it's crap will contain surplus oats (oats that passed through the horse's digestive track) and the sparrow can get its oats from the horse shit.

The criticism of trickle down economics is two-fold. First and foremost, it illustrates that this is a rather inefficient method of delivering oats to sparrows and, second, they still have to dig through shit to get them.


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

[User]
How did Marcus Aureliuss Stoic philosophy reconcile his living in the moment is the correct way of life beliefs with the inherent necessity of looking to the future to be a good emperor?

In Book 3 of the Meditations he reiterates how a good man does not want to control his future and how one should strive to accept ones daily lifes happenings yet he as an expansionist emperor must have had a vision and plan for the future of Rome, else hed feel all hes doing is for nought which his philosophy rejects.

[Assistant]
Stoic philosophy is about virtue ethics in the here and now. It places strong emphasis on playing the cards you have been dealt (the Romans didn't have cards, but Epictetus does use the equivalent example of a dice game at one point). So it doesn't exactly require a vision and plan for the future.

The main thing to bear in mind is that Marcus's reign had terrible waves of epidemic disease as well as troublesome border wars on the Danube. The _Meditations_ were written quite late in his life, the Antonine plaque had killed countless people including his co-emperor Verus, and probably killed many of Marcus' own children (Marcus lost maybe eight or nine children). So it's not a document about grand plans for the future, it's about him trying to make sense of the present, but from a certain Stoic cosmic point of view.


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

[User]
ELI5: What's the difference between reptiles and mammals that allows one to be warm blooded while the other can't create its own heat?

As far as I know all the major organs are roughly the same between cold and warm blooded creatures - lungs, hearts, brains. Do mammals have an extra organ that lets us produce our own heat?

[Assistant]
some cold blooded animals do generate their own heat by muscle action, but they do not maintain a specific, stable body temperature. At rest, cold blooded animals slow down heartrate, respiration, digestion,  etc

Active predatory fish like tuna have powerful muscles that make a lot of heat, and help the fish to move fast and swim hard to catch it's prey.

A snake at rest will stay cool, warming up in the sun when it wants to, but they can turn up the temperature metabolically when they are digesting a big meal.

Mammals basically "keep the heat on" all the time with a high metabolic rate *even at rest*, so just the action of digesting, breathing, growing, etc uses energy and produces heat as a byproduct of that energy use.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Are Star Wars ships limited to hyperspace lanes?

Looking for Canon sources: but are Star Wars ships only limited to hyperspace lanes? Or is it possible for a ship to travel to another planet without one?

[Assistant]
The "average Joe" is stuck with the hyperlanes, and most pros stick to the hyperlanes. They're the best charted and best studied paths around the galaxy, meaning your chance of mishap or misadventures greatly reduced. Unless you're trying to sneak around or terribly strapped for time, the risks of blazing your own trail don't measure up to the rewards.

And then there's this asshole *gestures broadly in Han Solo's direction*. This asshole is a barnstorming maniac perpetually on the outs with every power bloc in the galaxy, and he's willing to risk driving his shit across a black hole's event horizon in the name of dodging the Imps and shaving a few parsecs off his flight itinerary.


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

[User]
[1950s Superman TV] Why does Superman let bullets bounce off, but dodges a gun thrown at him?

In many episodes, the bad guy shoots Superman and he stands tall and proud. But when the bad guy runs out of bullets, they throw the gun and Superman ducks or dodges.

[Assistant]
He tanks the bullets because he prefers the bullets hit his body and not continue flying and potentially hurt someone or cause more damage.

He dodges the gun because its part reflex, part flex. Nothing unnerves a bad guy like a desperation move ***missing***.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How powerful is Luke? (Speculation)

He is parity. Where does everyone else fall out?

[Assistant]
It's difficult to create an absolute scale for power when it comes to force users.  Different expertise makes them effective in different ways.  Was Mace Windu a better dualist than Darth Sidious?  Well, he did win a 1:1 fight, and Yoda "lost" a 1:1 fight with Sidious.  Does that make Mace more powerful than Yoda?  Not by any measure of the imagination, Mace was just somewhat better at going toe to toe with a single opponent and beating him in a lightsaber fight.   The depth and breadth of Yoda and Palpatine's connection to the force was likely much greater than his.  Was Luke more "powerful" than Vader?  he did win a lightsaber duel with almost no formal training, against an opponent who had the better part of 3 decades of battlefield experience.  But Luke was committed to the victory, whereas Vader was still attempting to keep him alive.  A fight between two people where only one of them is trying to seriously hurt the other is by default an unequal one.
Kylo Ren probably has a great deal of natural talent despite limited training, but he loses to someone who has exactly zero formal training, who is doubtlessly much stronger in the force than him.
A connection to the force can give someone many different abilities, and some are more useful in specific contexts when compared to others.


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

[User] [MCU/Marvel]What/Where is the source of the Odinforce? Can it be damaged or destroyed at the source?

[Assistant]
Traditionally the source is Yggdrasil, the figurative world tree which holds each of the nine realms on its branches.

The tree in the Hall of Science, which loses its branches from Ragnarok, is only a manifestation of Yggdrasil rather than the actual world tree itself.

Yggdrasil is a cosmic nimbus, the fabric of reality itself. Tampering with it might be possible, but it would defintely be extremely dangerous to anyone within that reality.


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

[User]
[Star Trek/Mass Effect] What would Starfleet uniforms be like for Turians, Krogan, and Quarians?

Would the Quarian uniforms just be more streamlined cleansuits with Starfleet rank insignia?

[Assistant]
Probably. The Quarians' suits would also probably be designed to resemble the Starfleet duty uniform of the day because, well, looking like everyone else is  the whole point of having a uniform.

I'd expect Krogan and Turian members would also be required to regular wear duty uniforms adapted to their respective physiologies, just like everyone else.


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

[User]
What effect does a spinning object have on space time, if any?

A stationary object curves spacetime, but does the presence of angular momentum have any effect on that curvature?

[Assistant]
Yes, a spinning source of mass creates a *frame dragging* effect around it. For some objects, there may even be a so-called *ergosphere* around the object, which describes a region in which all particles must actually co-rotate with the gravitating mass. That is, there is no such thing as a stationary object in this region according to a faraway observer.

Black holes with non-zero angular momentum, for instance, exhibit these features, including an ergosphere.


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

[User] How fast can Humans go (Moving through space) and survive? Assuming we don't accelerate so fast it kills us? And how long would it take to get to light speed?

[Assistant]
Accelerating at a comfortable 1g - i.e. so that it feels just like the gravity of Earth - it actually only takes about a year to reach relativistic speeds close to the speed of light.

The only danger of moving at this speed (relative to the galaxy) is that the vacuum of space isn't a total vacuum, and you're ramming into those few sparse atoms at such a high speed that each one is like a bullet. So you'd need some sort of armour or shielding for your space-ship, to stop the particles from damaging your body too much.


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

[User]
Is it possible to crush an electron?

I am imagining an electron floating inside a metallic sphere. Then the sphere is charged so that the electron would experience a crushing force of some sort. What would happen to that electron? Would it collapse in on itself and form some sort of black hole analogue?

[Assistant]
An electron has no width that we know about, it's worked so far to simply treat it as a point.

Also, a sphere of charge would *not* crush objects within it, in fact it would have no effect at all! The forces in different directions perfectly cancel each other out on the inside of a uniformly charged spherical shell.

For crushing to occur you'd need very different forces on one side of the object than the other. Since most forces don't change sharply like that, it's very hard to crush a tiny object.


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

[User]
[Lion King] Why does the Savannah have a monarchy?

The whole kingdom seems to respect the monarchy, showing up for and bowing at the presentation of Simba, but what is the monarchy's propose? What are the king's duties and how much do the other animals have to obey him?

[Assistant]
The Lions are both the protectors of the Pride Lands and in charge of maintaining the Circle of Life.

Which means that they are enforcing a strict hunting code to ensure that the natural ecosystem is healthy.

Remember how the land was dying once Scar was put in charge? Some of it might be explained with the land rejecting him as it's king, but most of the damage came from his decision to allow the Hyenas to hunt as they please.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Sjogren's (an autoimmune disease) cause damage?

Sjogren's is an autoimmune disease.  The body attacks the saliva and tear glands, resulting in reduced secretions.

How does the damage happen?

[Assistant] The immune system is really very violent. All it is capable of doing is killing things, and it won't hesitate to kill other cells of the body if doing so will fight a perceived threat. In fact, its basic response to viral infections is just to kill every host cell that's been infected, which is the body's equivalent of treating a plague by nuking the city its in. The immune system causes damage to the body when it finds something that it incorrectly identifies as being hostile. Unfortunately, it's not currently known exactly what causes the immune cells to do that in Sjogren's disease. It seems to be thought so far that it happens when something about the glands prompts an inflammation response it shouldn't normally have, so a mutated protein somewhere in that extremely complicated chain of activity that breaks the message in some way, recruiting immune cells to the glands when they're not necessary or keeping them around long after an infection is over.


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

[User]
Why is there so much mystery shrouding the Oort Cloud? Do we know anything concrete about it's existence?

A quick google search shows there isn't much consensus on the topic and it seems as if we're not even sure it exists. Some articles talk about it with certainty while others vaguely mention there being controversy among experts.

What are the most up-to-date theories on the Oort Cloud and are there any interesting tidbits of information anyone can share?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
You're right, in that it's still only a hypothesis - we can't observe it yet, since it's thought to be made up of billions of small, cold, and VERY diffuse objects with maybe a few dozen Earth masses' worth of material.  Turning the Hubble Space Telescope outwards and hoping to find an Oort cloud object, for example, would be like trying to see individual electrons in front of you with the naked eye.

Still, the main reason why the Oort cloud is often considered fact is that it's one of the most logical explanations for the existence of long-period comets like Hale-Bopp, since their orbits show that they must have originated from a region beyond the Kuiper belt.  On top of that, many computer models of the Solar System's formation predict that the gas and ice giants would have scattered an enormous amount of icy planetesimals outwards in the system's early, debris-rich days.  This would have ejected most of them from the system, but some would have just remained attached to the Sun and fallen into orbits thousands of times more distant than those of the modern Kuiper belt, scattered disc, and detached/Sednoid objects (assuming that "detached objects" like Sedna aren't actually the closest members of the inner Oort cloud).  Most of those objects would have been ejected from the Solar System, but a small fraction (still comprising a numerous population) would have remained gravitationally bound to the Sun in the form of the Oort cloud.

As for why long-period comets are so close relative to other Oort cloud objects, it's thought to be the result of their orbits being gravitationally perturbed by passing stars.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do we mostly consume chicken eggs, cow's milk, grape wine, and wheat bread?

Why not horse's milk, duck eggs, strawberry wine, and barley bread?

Does it have to do with yield, or is it just Western tradition?

[Assistant]
It's largely to do with yield, yes. Cows make a huge amount of milk (especially those bred to do so), a laying hen can lay about an egg a day, a grapevine is much more prolific than a strawberry plant.

As for bread, wheat is high in gluten, which is important to getting that rise and texture. Even so, Ethiopians eat bread with a very different texture that's made from teff.


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

[User] ELI5: Whats happening inside a chicken egg that makes it float differently depending on how fresh it is?

[Assistant] There is an air bubble inside the egg, which is small when the egg is freshly laid. As the egg gets older and starts losing moisture, that air sac inscreases in size, until it is large enough to make the egg buoyant.


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

[User]
[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] Why do dolphins allow themselves to be hunted and slaughtered on Earth?

According to the book, dolphins are a more advanced race than humans. However humans still have had a long running track record of hunting and slaughtering them for food. Why don't dolphins prevent this or retaliate?

[Assistant]
> On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so muchthe wheel, New York, wars and so onwhilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than manfor precisely the same reasons.

To dolphins, life's too short to worry about stuff like some random human swooping down and grabbing you in a net.  There's frolicking to be had and water to be swum through, and since most dolphins will never see a human in their lives, much less be hunted by one, it seems rather pointless and pessimistic to be constantly on the lookout for a human out to eat them, much less organize some sort of collective prevention or retaliation strategy.  That's what a human would do.  Dolphins prefer to focus their attention on stuff that actually matters.


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

[User] ELI5: Are any negative consequences for judges (or courts) whose decisions get overturned frequently by higher courts?

[Assistant] You will get a better explanation from others, but simply put, the lower courts rule on basic interpretation of the law and use prior rulings as justification.  The judge may even agree that the ruling appears unjust but prior rulings dictate they must rule in that way.  So then it goes to appeal to a higher court that can seek more evidence and interpret the facts and circumstance with more authority and more interpretation that the lower courts can.  So to punish the lower courts for doing what they are supposed to do would not be appropriate.


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

[User]
Where do texts go when the recipient is in Airplane Mode?

If someone sends me a text whilst my phone is in Airplane Mode, I will receive it once I turn it off. My question is, where do the radio waves go in the meantime? Are they stored somewhere, or are they just bouncing around from tower to tower until they can finally be sent to the recipient?

I apologize if this is a stupid question.

[Assistant]
The radio waves themselves aren't stored, nor do they go anywhere.

Your phone is constantly pinging cell towers and communicating with your cell network. If your phone is not connected to the network, then the texts go into a holding queue on the towers/servers. Same as your voicemail notifications when you miss a call without signal.

Once your phone pings the network again, it will start running through that backlog of whatever was received.

It is only at that point that the radio waves, so to speak, would be sent out.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why did Qui-Gon Jinn advance through the laser shields when he had Obi-Wan behind him, backing him up?

[Assistant]
Obi-Wan was trying to run to catch up with them. Qui-Gon couldn't really see that, plus he was already fighting Darth Maul.

I've always wondered how Qui-Gon died from a puncture wound while Darth Maul got sliced in half and fell over 500 feet and survived. Like he lived through all of that? Maybe someone can answer that for me.


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

[User]
Would a comet in a binary star system have two tails?

It's my understanding that a comets tail is caused by solar winds, so I'm wondering if a comet interacting with solar winds from multiple stars would have multiple tails?

[Assistant]
The tails *are* caused by solar winds, but having two star would *not* cause there to be two tails.

When you have one star, the force acting on the comet's dust is basically in one direction (unless you go across vast distances), and grows weaker with distance.

When you have two stars, you just get two forces, you add them up to get the result, and the tail would fly in that direction with that push.


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

[User] ELI5:Why some Europeans countries like France or Spain are these big united countries while eastern Europe is full of all these small separate countries.

[Assistant]
In the past, language/culture wasn't of great important for an country because most common people had nothing to do with the government so they didn't care what language their leader was speaking. But in the 19-20th century this started to change drastically. More people were able to read and implicated in the political system of their country. At that point it become more important for people to have leaders that speak the same language as them.

So the difference is that some of these country were able to unify the culture/language/religion before the rise of nationalism and others didn't and that could happen for different reason.

In France for example, the monarchy was strong from early in their history. It was able to develop a big Domain (lang owned by the King) so it had enough money to keep control over the land for a long time. During that time, the seat of government was Paris and the language of Paris became French and spread as the official language throughout the country. France also had strong geographical defences with the Pyrenees in the South, the Alpes in the east and the Ocean on the West, the only big threat was the Germans in the North-East. So it was easier for the king to keep the country together.

Compare that to the West Slavs. Today we talk about Polish, Czech and Slovak. But we could be speaking about one unified country today spreading from Denmark to Belarus, from the Baltic Sea to the Hungarian plains. They are all culturally similar, at least more Similar than the Bretons, French and Occitan were in the past.

But the Czech were always isolated from the Northern plains with mountains ranges. It protected them from invaded, but it also made near impossible any unification of the Western Slavs. Poland did unified most others west Slavs in the region and it became a superpower in the middles ages. But if France and Bohemia (the czech republic in the past) had good geographical border, Poland never had. With Germans from the West and Russian from the East,   Poland was never able to keep control over their territory and if you can't keep control over your territory, then other culture become dominant over yours.


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

[User] [James Bond] Why does Bond prefer his martinis shaken rather than stirred?

[Assistant]
First of all, he's not making a normal Martini, which uses gin as its base ingredient. Gin is a more delicate alcoholic beverage in the sense that shaking it can damage the taste, due to the taste and unique scent being provided by the oils of the juniper berries and the oils are damaged by shaking, making the gin lose its taste.

But Bond is drinking Vodka Martinis and vodka doesn't have any unique taste profile so the shaking of ice won't negatively affect the taste. If anything, it will make the drink colder than if it were stirred.

But shaking also breaks off more of the ice which will water down the resulting drink. Bond is usually on the clock when he's ordering these drinks so as part of his cover, he has to appear drunker than he actually is.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't we see invisible ink? Why does it only become visible when black light is shone on it?

[Assistant]
There are actually several types of 'invisible ink':

1. Heat-activated
2. Chemically-activated
3. Light-activated

**Heat-activated**
'Inks' like these are based on a heat reaction. Generally speaking, these inks are made from some sort of acidic compound (such as lemon juice!). When heat is applied to these inks, the acidic components react and turn a darker colour -- usually a shade of brown

**Chemically-activated**
These inks are designed using specific two-chemical reactions. Basically, you take a chemical and apply it to some paper or whatever you want to write to. Then when you want to read the message, you apply the secondary chemical, and when those two chemicals come together, they react and turn a different colour. The colour can vary.

**Light-activated**
This is the one you mentioned in your question. These inks work by what is called "fluorescence". What this means is that the chemical used to write the message is a specifically chosen one - one that will 'fluoresce' when an ultraviolet light is applied to it. This is probably the hardest one to explain.
Basically, ultraviolet light is a light whose wavelength is shorter than what the human eye can normally see. The fluorescent chemical absorbs this ultraviolet light, and then re-emits it with a longer wavelength (light with less energy). Because it has a longer wavelength, human eyes can then see it!

It's worth noting that there are a few other types of invisible inks aswell, such as ones that physically modify the medium on which they have been written.


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

[User] [Blade Runner] So, why is a cop who hunts Replicants called a "Blade Runner", anyway?

[Assistant] Are you familiar with the biohazard symbol? The sort of spoked wheel? It's designer, Charles Baldwin was quoted as saying "We wanted to create something that was memorable but meaningless, so we could educate people as to what it means." It's likely that a similar convention was used to name the Blade Runners. On their own, the words are meaningless. But when used together in that context, everyone knows what they mean. It's not supposed to mean anything, but be universal in understanding.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why has heroin use suddenly exploded?

Why is there a "new heroin epidemic" in the past few years?  I understand it partly stems from pain pill abuse, such as oxycontin but how does that explain such a cheap supply?  Where is all the dope coming from? - Is it related to the Afghan conflict and the abundance of opium in that region?  Is something like Iran-Contra, but with heroin instead of cocaine suspected of going on?

Every day there's some story about heroin on the news: PSH, crocodil in Russia, etc.

[Assistant]
I heard a discussion of this on NPR a week or two ago.  The belief is that there are two major factors:

One is that there has been a big move in this country to reduce the amount of over-prescription of narcotic medicine - Oxycontin, Vicodin, etc.  So people who have become addicted to prescription pain pills are having a more difficult time getting them, and they cost more when they can be acquired.

In concert with that, heroin has become very cheap, mostly due to the turmoil in the Middle East. There aren't a lot of good government controls in many countries preventing its production and distribution, so the production has gone up, driving prices down.  And there's a belief that some terrorist organizations are funding their operations through opiate production.

The obvious choice for an opiate-seeker is therefore to switch to heroin. It is cheaper and more accessible.  Smart, huh?


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

[User]
ELI5 - Do your ears make adjustments to listen to sounds from different places nearby?

I was listening to a podcast when I started listening to a nearby conversation between people a few feet away from me without adjusting the volume in my earbuds. Every time I switched my focus its like the other voices just faded away, how does this work?

[Assistant]
It's not exactly your ears making adjustments, but your brain.

What exactly those adjustments are is complicated, but it probably involves:

Beam forming: by adding up the sound coming though your right and left ear with a slight delay, you can boost the signal to noise ratio of sounds coming from a given direction (though with only two ears it'll be a sort of conical donut shape).

Reverb analysis: your brain has been trained from birth to recognise how the shape of your ear (and the rest of your body for that matter) bounces around sounds coming from different directions and can use this to focus on sounds coming from a specific direction (or more often tell which direction sounds are coming from).

Frequency analysis: if you're listening to two (average, young) women talking to each other, you can ignore all the frequencies not related to human speech or too low for (most) women to use.

Pattern recognition: if you're listening to two people speaking a language you know, your brain can use your knowledge of that language to predict what's most likely to be said next given the context of the conversation so far, and pick whatever word fits most closely to the raw sound your ears are reporting.

At least those are the methods used by computers to do the same thing. Except for the reverb thing, that's still really hard to do for computers while the human brain is absolutely fantastic at it.


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

[User] ELI5: why does eating a mint make my drinking water feel colder?

[Assistant] I can answer this! So the human body has a family of receptors referred to as the TRP channel family. The most well known member is the TRPV1, or hot pepper receptor. This receptor is activated by both hot peppers and heat above 35-40 degrees Celsius. Another member of this family is the TRPM8 receptor which is activated by cold, and you guessed it, menthol present in mint. So when you eat mint, this activates the TRPM8 channel, and will give you the same sensation of cold as actual cold does. So this channel is active and it's resulting in positive voltage into primary sensory neurons which then send the message to the brain that there's cold. So when you drink water with or directly after mint, you are effectively tricking your brain into thinking the water is cold through coincident activation of the same receptor.


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

[User]
How deep is the magnetic North or South Pole?

I assume the magnetic North and South Pole aren't positioned at the exact surface of the planet, just like how the poles in a bar magnet aren't exactly at the very ends of the bar, but a bit more towards the middle. If that's correct, do we know how deep they are underneath the surface?

This question came to me as it was mentioned in Jules Verne's Journey to the center of the earth.

[Assistant] From electromagnetism, magnetic fields actually have no source, field lines are entirely closed loops. If you followed a compass north you would reach the north pole, where the compass will fully point down into the ground. Continue to follow, and youll eventually reach the south pole.


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

[User]
How did we get so much water on early earth, if water is so rare on other planets?

My understanding is that we went through a prebiotic soup and a primordial soup phase in which molecules were floating around getting ready, and subsequently hooking up to make macromolecules, preceding the advent of life. (Correct me if Im wrong on this! I just learned it today, really.)

If this is the case, then my question is - how did we end up with the water to make the soup to begin with?

It seems to me that with the sun being so hot due to the lack of an ozone layer, if water began to form, it would just evaporate, wouldnt it?

Im also wondering how our planet seems to have, perhaps somewhat unusually, developed copious amounts of water when other planets seem to have none. I roughly understand how planets are created - by compressing gases filled with elementsbut would that mean that our gas cloud just happened to have significantly more hydrogen? Or is it that our planets circumstances/context/mixture of elements helped it to either retain, produce, or excite reactions in hydrogen and oxygen more readily?

Nobody needs to go through the trouble of answering all of this, by the waywhatever small insights you can offer is very much appreciated! I dont want to be a time sink.

[Assistant]
We don't actually have that much water on earth, compared to the mass on the planet, water doesn't even make up a fraction of a percent of the total weight.

A strong theory is that earth got its water from impact collision, asteroids and plentoids carrying their own water.  Even without the ozone layer, we've pretty much always had an atmosphere.  An atmosphere of CO2 means the planet gets a lot hotter, but also considerably increases boiling temperature too, more than double.

It's why NASA is so focused on the Habitable or Goldilocks zone, close enough to the sun that water exists as a liquid, but not so close that it won't all burn off.

Because life on planet earth likely evolved deep in the oceans around a type of volcanic geyser, it is assumed all life needs water to begin, hence the habitable zone.

This zone is pretty small, Venus once looked like earth, but was too close and burned up, Mars our next nearest was too far away, and all the water is frozen. Out of 8 planets only one can support liquid water, so we can see why its so rare out there.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the cameraman not visible in mirror scenes in movies, how are those scenes shot?

[Assistant]
The actor can see the camera in the mirror, but because the camera is not directly in front of the mirror, it cannot see itself.

Find someone who is looking into a mirror.  Now stand to the side, so that you are no longer in front of the mirror.  You can see them, but you cannot see yourself.


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

[User]
[General Anime] Why is it whenever someone gets stronger, their hair grows in length?

Is it just apart of becoming stronger, or is there some deeper level connection between hair lengths and strength?

[Assistant] Most anime powers run off of some form of Chi/ki/qi/etc, all of which can be roughly defined as "Life Energy". When someone gets more powerful, this life energy starts flowing through all of their systems, enhancing them exponentially. Hair being one of the fastest growing things on your body already, goes even faster when the follicles have been supercharged.


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

[User]
[Dune] Why houses that have few thousands of soldiers and a hundred ships at best are presented as particularly powerful and influential in the galaxy?

Tywin Lannister (Game of Thrones) alone had 30 000 soldiers in his army. Clone army (Star Wars) had more than a milion

Small scale in Dune is especially visible in the main battle, visuals are great but it still looks like local skirmish more than battle of ruling houses of the empire. So to the actual question - is it because of the limitations of the genre and movie technology, or is there watsonian explanation based on lore?

[Assistant] FTL travel is monopolized by the Spacing Guild. Cargo space for soldiers and attack craft on a highliner is extremely costly. The Guild itself also has an interest in limiting the scope of conflicts on Arrakis so the spice will continue to flow regardless of who wins the fight. They don't want the mining equipment damaged by an unrestrained conflict.


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

[User]
Are Brain Damaged people cognizant of how much smarter/functional they used to be?

There are several ads about "Not texting while driving" currently going around online and tv. One features a young guy who shows he sent a text saying "yea" before flipping his car over and causing permanent brain damage to himself. He goes on to speak about how much harder everything is now.

And I wonder. Just how cognizant can he, or other people like him, be about their difference in brain function. I realize that trauma to the brain can be so many different levels.  But for someone like this young man who is functional, if not just slow and needs assistance. How much does he really grasp of how he used to function?  Is it kinda of like being trapped in your own body? You remember the past perfectly and now you just know your brain isn't the same? Or would it be more like his past self is a story that he read once, and he can't remember or connect to it anymore.  I understand its not a great question and kinda tricky to phrase. Hopefully someone out there can understand what I'm trying to ask.

[Assistant]
I am doctor of physical therapy who is a certified brain injury specialist and works in a brain injury rehabilitation facility.

The answer to your question is that some brain damaged people are very cognizant of how much more functional they used to be (I avoid using the word "smart" in most contexts, as it is too subjective), others are entirely unaware of how much function they've lost and will swear up and down there is nothing wrong with them, while they can't remember where they are, or what they did 30 seconds ago, or perhaps have no ability to walk due to a spinal cord injury received at the same time as the head injury, yet will swear they're choosing not to walk because they prefer sitting in the wheelchair.  There is no "one person is one way, and another is the other way," as brain injured individuals come on a continuum of function ranging from no function whatsoever to so functional nobody can tell they're injured except themselves, because they know things are not as easy for them as they once were.

The ones who are aware do know enough to compare how well they can remember things post-injury compared to how little effort was required to remember things or perform physically pre-injury.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does communism work? If everyone is equal, leaders couldn't exist.

Leaders couldn't exist and if people with more demanding jobs where paid equally to others, why should the bother? Also, they couldn't have bosses either 'cause everyone *has* to be equal.

[Assistant]
Communism implies that society evolves to a new stage.  In that stage people agree to make good decisions about their consumption and production without having to have someone tell them what to do and how to do it.  Essentially, it assumes a radical change in human nature is required to make it work.

Think about how things operate in your household.  You don't eat all the food, keep all the blankets, use all the gas in the car, monopolize the TV, etc.  Instead, you share those resources with the people you live with.  You don't use money to decide how these resources are allocated - you have a social compact.  When things need to be replaced you take some responsibility for replacing them.  When a resource is limited you work out an agreement for how to share it.  This is the ideal that Communism would enshrine as the daily lives for every person.

It is probably impossible without unlimited free energy.  But if there was unlimited free energy, you might get very Communistic social structures.  Star Trek, for example, is a Communist ideal.  People do what they want to be productive, consume what they need without being jerks, and a meritocracy determines the hierarchy of authority.  But they have limitless free energy and the wealth of entire solar systems to fund their lifestyles.  We just have energy that has a real cost and the resources of one overpopulated planet.


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

[User]
Why do probes get crushed by pressure, but fish don't?

Shouldn't it be easy to construct a fluid-filled probe or something? I'm thinking of either the Venera probes that were sent to Venus, or submarines / ROVs that go into deep trenches on Earth. Deep ocean life seems to have no problem, why should a machine?

[Assistant] A fish stays at (more-or-less) one pressure.  If you bring it to the surface, it would die.  You could easily make a probe with high internal pressure so that it's fine at high pressure, but when it's brought up, it'd explode.  The engineering trick would be to make a probe whose internal pressure could change from low (for the deck of the ship) to high (at depth).


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

[User]
[Star Wars] While the Emperor was in power, did he create anything that helped the Galaxy, or was his rule entirely harmful?

While the Emperor's rule was oppressive enough that a rebellion was created to overthrow it, was it equally harmful to all members of the Galaxy, or did some species or planets benefit from it?

[Assistant] Many worlds which supported the Empire did very well. They were provided with technology, healthcare, everything they needed to have a comfortable and happy life as a reward for their loyalty. Many of them were uh...rewarded even more when Operation Cinder came into effect.


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

[User]
Why is 98.6F perceived as hot externally when that is a human being's normal body temperature?

Almost seems that 98.6F externally should be a very comfortable temperature for us, but it is obviously quite warm.

[Assistant]
There is a significant amount of metabolic (heat generating) activity going on in your body. To keep your core at 98.6 while generating heat, you must lose heat to the environment; a cooler environment will make this easier without using tricks such as sweating. As a result, a "comfortable" temperature is one at which your heat flux to the environment is equal to your internal heat generation--generally much cooler than 98.

This is why "dry" heat and "wet" heat can feel so different even if the air temperature is the same.  Moisture in the air affects the rate of heat transfer as well as the rate of sweat evaporation, changing the rate of heat dissipation to the environment.


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

[User]
[MCU] Did the Red Skull share Nazi ideology on race?

His views on ethnic groups was never brought up in Captain America: The First Avenger. Was he just working with the Nazis (at first) to gain power, or was he a full Nazi bigot? I know his comics counterpart is, but what about the MCU version?

[Assistant]
A tie-in comic has him dismiss the whole obsession as "racist superstition masquerading as junk science". Though he is absolutely a believer in supremacy, he thinks it's him.

He tells Erskine the following when he forces him to work for him on the Super Soldier Serum:

"The superior man will not be born, Professor Erskine. He will not be a member of any master race. He will be a race unto himself. And you are going to help me make him".

Though he is absolutely willing to sign up with & help the Nazis (And does for years) because he agrees with them on other things and to use them to further his goals.

But ultimately his loyalty is only to himself. He doesn't seem to believe in nationalism either (Telling Cap the future will have no flags) & murders Nazis when he turns against them. They were a means to an end.

He doesn't think people are lesser because of their race. He thinks they're lesser because they aren't him. He's convinced he's special, that the serum let him leave humanity behind. That's why he's so furious at Cap when he says he's just a kid from Brooklyn despite also having the serum.


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

[User] Why does thinking take time?

[Assistant]
Thinking is a chemophysical reaction in your brain. Your brain neurons function through ionic potential. They use electricity, created by chemical reactions, to move information from one part of the brain to another, and eventually to your muscles (although it is not quite the same as electricity flowing down wires).

Simply put, the reactions are not instantaneous. Millions of nerves have to fire, and this results in a thought. Through the use of modern sensing technologies we can actually see brain activity, and time how long this takes.


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

[User] ELI5 : Stress is implicated in a great number of health problems today, things must of been pretty stressful for our early ancestors, why are our bodies still not able to deal with stress?

[Assistant] There's a big difference between acute stress and chronic stress. Life was not as stressful as you have been led to believe. Most anthropologists estimate that hunter-gatherers worked a lot less and had more leisure time than modern humans. The stress response is adaptive for dealing with short term threats in the moment, like a fight or a predator. It's not very helpful for "threats" that never go away, like debt.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] Are humans the only lifeforms populating the matrix?

What about apes or monkeys? Dogs and cats?

[Assistant] The machines were, at the end, made to protect and serve humans. Not apes. Not dogs. Not any other living being. Thus when the war came, and the Machines decided that protecting humanity meant putting them in the Matrix, other animals were not part of that plan.


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

[User]
[Marvel/MCU] Why don't T'Challa get creative and make a better ironman suit than ironman?

I'm going to see the movie tomorrow, so if the MCU answer is in a spoiler please tag it.

We have seen the tech of vibranium do stealth, energy projectiles, absorption and redirecting of energy. So why isn't Black Panther's suit a more physics hack version of ironman suit, with flying, stealth, and energy blasting tech, that can withstand way more punishment than any ironman suit?

I realize T'Challa likes stealth, and the whole warrior's way of fighting, so the regular BP suit coupled with vibranium handheld weapons suits him for that purpose.

However, much like the portable ironman suit from a suitcase isn't as full featured as the Hulk Buster suit; Shouldn't T'Challa have an a suit to go all out on just in case, some kind of all our war of Kree, Skrulls, chitauri invasion, or say some big names like Galactus or Thanos decides to show up at earth door?

[Assistant]
1.  Tradition.  In Wakanda tradition is important.  The Black Panther is supposed to act and fight in a certain way.  T'Challa is working to change some of Wakandans reliance on old practices but this is a fight he probably doesn't want to expend political capital on.

2.  He may not be able to.  MCU Black Panther doesn't seem to be as intelligent as his comic counterpart (though he is smart) and even Shuri while probably around as intelligent as Tony Stark, is younger and hasn't spent as much time inventing weapons.  With Wakandas technology and enough time she may eventually be able to build a better Iron Man suit but for right now Tony is by far the best weapon/suit maker Earth has.


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

[User]
CMV: That Alpha Male v. Beta Male concept in humans is bullshit.

There are entire industries that exploit the false idea of alphas and betas in human beings, but in reality it is a cheap scam.  The idea is overly vague and also sexist.

I argue that only the people (usually men) who watch videos about being alpha on the internet know very much about this concept because it is, in reality, not a good descriptor of the actual happenings between people in the real world.

The concept is also too vague. If you research the concept of alpha, what you will get is a myriad of men and women listing different, occasionally contradictory, and extremely vague concepts. This essentially amounts to being told to be confident.

The concept is sexist as well, as the concept depends on a rigid definition of what a man can be, and also assumes that women lack autonomy when around an alpha man.

There are many other reasons why this concept is wrong and harmful, but this is just a few of them.

EDIT: My position is that this concept does not describe interactions between humans in a meaningful way. And honestly, we should move on to more useful and accurate concepts.

[Assistant]
1) Evolutionary Psychology is a thing. There are people that believe that humans still retain elements of our more primal selves, and see currently living mammals as living examples of our former selves.

2) Many animals from the Lion to the Walrus have alpha and beta males.

So if you believe the first idea, and the second idea - you get the concept that alpha males and beta males exist in the human subconscious and impact our behavior - at least somewhat.

The reason it is vague and occasionally contradictory - is because it isn't conscious, its not intentional (usually), and just kinda happens when people aren't being mindful of their behaviors.

Entitlement exists. Jealousy exists. Whenever you hear alpha and beta - if you sub in entitlement and jealousy, you will usually be close to the intended meaning.


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

[User]
[Spider-Man 3] Is The Sandman immortal?

When Spidey and Sandman fight in the back of the money truck, Spidey punches straight thru Sandman's torso with no adverse affects to him. He was also able to manipulate sand that was not in the accident with him when he was mutated into Sandman.

This leads me to think that as long as he's got access to fresh* sand,  he can regenerate himself to the point of replacing aging inner organs.

Is this true? Am I way off?

*obviously, no sand is "new" but there is plenty he's never used and is new to him.

[Assistant] In the Spider-Man comics, Sandman's consciousness is preserved within a single grain of sand. As long as that grain remains intact, Sandman will not die. Spider-Man 3 seems to operate on the same logic as the comics.


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

[User] Why does metal have a smell?

[Assistant]
If you're referring to the metallic smell that is frequently associated with coins, it is actually the oxidation of oils and other components found on your skin that transfers to the metal. The metal acts as a catalyst in the oxidation of these components.

An experiment you can try yourself is to wash a bunch of coins with gloved hands and smell them afterwards, they won't have a scent. Only after you remove your gloves and handle them will you be able to smell them.


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

[User]
[Batman] What is Bruce Wayne's diet like?

Look, it's no secret that Batman/Bruce Wayne is a super soldier in nearly every way except name only. He's about as strong as one can get as a non-enhanced human, he's agile as a cat, flexible as one as well. Dude is a true absolute unit. He has to be in order to be as successful as he is in a universe full of gods and monsters.

Based off of what we know about real life supersoldiers, athletes, etc...a lot of them have to be very meticulous with their diet and lifestyle choices.

Now, the obvious answer is that humans work differently in comic book worlds, and they're able to get away with stuff like being a playboy billionaire with numerous injuries and still be in tremendous shape.

But, with that being said, do we get any sort of insight as to what Bruce eats and snacks on in order to not only keep up his musculature, but just to survive in general?

[Assistant]
In the comics we often see Bats forgetting to eat the great meals Alfred prepares because he's caught up in a case.

Realistically, Bruce would need a lot of calories to get through a day.

I always figured Bruce finishes his patrols around dawn, has a meal and then sleeps until around noon or later.  Heavy brunch and then a work out.  Gets to the office around 3pm to 7 pm, depending on the day.  May or may not have a working dinner with Fox, clients/employees.

Depending on the day, he might go to the opera/charity ball/ballet/theater around 8 pm, or hit the clubs later in the evening.

Patrol from midnight to dawn.

So there are plenty of opportunities for Bruce to grab a meal.  He's also know for downing high calorie smoothies and milk shakes.


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

[User]
Lesser-known philosophers/theorists?

I'm curious about some of the philosophers who aren't typically studied in university, or aren't commonly cited in the canon, or have fallen into obscurity. People, perhaps, like Susanne Langer, Hajime Tanabe, Ernest Becker, &c. Cult figures or personal favorites would suffice just as well.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Thanks to everyone for your answers - they have helped me get started on my independent research projects (graduating this May!). Many of these philosophers seem promising.

[Assistant] The first thing that comes to mind for me is Sidgwick. He's hardly unknown, and anyone who studies the history of utilitarianism encounters him pretty quickly, but his work is actually really ahead of its time in many ways: many people call Moore the first contemporary/analytic ethicist, but I'd actually say that it was Sidgwick. He's also a singular influence on such towering contemporary figures as Peter Singer and John Rawls.


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

[User] ELI5: why is there a minimum velocity to escape an object's gravity? Can't an object going at a steady 1 mile per hour escape earth's gravity?

[Assistant]
Escape Velocity is how fast an un-powered object needs to be moving.  If the object can generate thrust, there's no minimum speed.

Bear in mind that the gravity that you are trying to leave will be slowing you down.  So if you throw an object up at less than the escape velocity, it's speed will slow to zero, and then start to fall back.


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

[User]
[Final Fantasy] What did the Shinra Company ultimately want in Final Fantasy 7?

What was the main reason for the Shinra Company's actions and deeds? Why were they the main villain before Sephiroth became mad and took over the plot as main villain?

[Assistant]
Money and power at all costs. AVALANCHE threatened to upset that, both physically and ideologically, so Shinra made the bombings worse so that innocent people would be harmed, making others distrustful or outright fearful of AVALANCHE, especially the less militant cells.

You can somewhat empathise with someone who breaks into an animal testing lab and release the animals, but would you trust them if they levelled the block doing so?


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

[User]
Does drinking water with meals slow down digestion?

I was just wondering if there was an impact on the speed of digestion from drinking whilst eating. Does it dilute your stomach acid? What effect might that have?

[Assistant]
The more isotonic the solution in your stomach, the more quickly it will empty from your stomach into the duodenum of the small intestine, and in turn be absorbed.

Hypertonic solutions will hang out in the stomach longer, to allow for more digestion compared to an isotonic solution of the same size.

Dilution of stomach acid isn't really a concern when drinking water, your body will be able to produce plenty of stomach acid to digest your food.

This entire situation makes a lot of sense from a "density" perspective. If you have a 90% food 10% water bolus in the stomach, it will take longer to digest than a 50/50 food water bolus of the same mass.

So, if you are drinking water with your food, it will very likely speed up gastric emptying and digestion.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did the Empire feel the need to disguise the attack on a remote moisture farm to make it look like it was done by sand people?

They had just vaporized an entire city and captured a bunch of diplomatic vessels. It's not sublety was their standard operating procedure.

[Assistant]
They covered all of that up as well.  Jedha City was spun as a mining disaster, Scarif was a secret base anyway so that battle was unknown to the wider galaxy.  The Tantive IV had a false distress signal broadcast.
So, really, covering up the murder of the Lars family was true to form for the Empire at that point.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why are some Jedi allowed to wear somewhat revealing outfits such as (Ahsoka and Aayla) while a good majority of the Order where heavy robes and tunics?

[Assistant]
For the most part, Jedi are pretty free to pick their own gear, both out of a sense of personal style or to adjust for whatever they're up to right then. While a padawan's master could tell them not to wear or not wear something, unless the outfit is completely impractical (going to an ice planet with no protection but a denim jacket, a badly fitted suit that would restrict movement in a saber fight, etc.) they don't seem inclined to exercise that power.

The robe/tunic/trousers combo is traditional, but has an underpinning of practicality. It works well in many different environments, is comfortable, and doesn't restrict mobility. Many younglings and padawans adopt the outfit at the guidance of their instructors and masters, and find that it works very well. Some add their own style to the basic outfit (like Obi-Wan adding pieces of Clone Trooper armor), while others do their own thing entirely (the examples mentioned in the headline).


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the body of a 400-lb person able to carry around 200 lbs extra day after day, but a healthy 200-lb person who weight trains extensively would be exhausted carrying 200 lbs for an hour?

I know a man who weighs in at a little over 400 pounds.  He is at least 200 lbs overweight and has gained the weight over 4 years. He leads a pretty normal life.

On the other hand I know a guy who has weight-trained almost every day for 4 years. He could pick up a bar with 200 lbs of weight, but an hour of carrying it around would leave him absolutely exhausted.  In the same 4 years he could have gained 200 lbs like the other guy and be carrying the weight around every day.

What is going on in each person's body to cause the difference?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
A 400lb man's weight is centralized to his frame, spread throughout his entire body. There would probably be excess around his mid frame, which causes a lot of overweight men to have back problems.
because of this increase in mass, the overweight person has more blood with which to oxygenate his muscles, making it possible for him to heft his heavier body around.

I postulate that a 200lb man that is in peak physical condition could indeed carry 200lbs around with him all day if the weight was closely tied to his frame, such as with a weight vest. Because the weight would not throw off his center of balance, fatigue would be much lower.

Carrying around a 200lb backpack is not about the extra weight, but the rotational forces it places on your spine due to changing your center of gravity so much.


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

[User] [Marvel] If Gamma radiation experiments found emotions trigger various powers, what emotion would be connected to what kind of power?

[Assistant]
It seems that it would likely break down like this:

Anger/rage = physical strength.  Obviously anger and rage stifle mental might and manifest via physical acts of aggression.

Calm/serenity = clairvoyance.  Via calmness the mind would be more open to suggestion and interpretations.  This would allow for access to otherwise untapped mental powers that would become more accessible and powerful the calmer the person became.

Mirth/hilarity/joy = material manipulation.  The active imagination when tapped into whatever forces exist in the universe would likely be able to bend the physical bounds of reality closer to their will.  Maybe it would be defying gravity or walking through a wall or simply bending an otherwise solid object to change its shape...  The ability to not only imagine new things but draw pure happiness from their creation would be a powerful force for creation and manipulation of the physical realm.

Sadness/despair - Likely some sort of temporal manipulation that would not allow for full time travel and or possible teleportation.  Sadness is usually rooted in past experience or desire to be elsewhere and so there would likely be a strong desire to influence time and space like that but the rules of cause and effect of temporal manipulation would state that regardless their actions they would not be able to change whatever events took place to set them on their course.

Frisson - this one would actually be very dangerous.  Because frisson is any strong emotional reaction to a specific stimuli it would likely be a manifestation of the powers associated with the emotion closest to the source of frisson.  Impossible to predict or count on and likely enhanced by the use of drugs.

In fact under these conditions that emotions would trigger certain powers drugs like cannabis, heroin, lsd, cocaine, ecstasy and such would likely become trigger mechanisms for their respective powers if the appropriate stimuli was not available but the need was there.


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

[User]
Were there ever multiple oceans?

By multiple oceans I mean actually distinct oceans, i.e they are separated by land. Right now we have "5" oceans but they're actually all the same body of water.

I'd assume it would have to be something like one major ocean and then one contained within some ringlike structure of land.

Has this ever happened in earths history?

[Assistant] Technically the word "Ocean" means the continuous mass of salt water that flows around the world. Ancient separated salt water bodies are referred to as 'Seas'. The world's ocean is geographically divided into 'Oceans' by name, but is structurally one contiguous body of water.


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

[User] ELI5: what is the purpose of the horizontal shutters on green traffic lights?

[Assistant]
So you don't mistake a nearby traffic light that's green for the light that applies to you when there is one closer that's red. Around here they are common when there is a fire station just a few hundred feet from an intersection, the light in front of the fire station is [almost] always green, but there is a light at the corner of the fire station as well for an intersection. The blinds cover up the green light before you enter the intersection, so you can only see the light for the intersection when approaching it, when you enter the intersection and get near the fire station you can then see the green in front of the fire station.

The red and yellow never has blinds so you can always see if the light is red. Also sometimes they use lenses on the green instead of blinds (they have the same effect)


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

[User] Why does beta plus (+) decay happen in proton-proton chain reactions; why don't the two protons just form helium instead of deuterium?

[Assistant]
Helium-2 is unbound, so it decays on extremely short timescales. The only way to combine two protons into a bound system is to rely on the weak force to change one of the protons into a neutron, producing a deuteron.

This is not a beta decay, it's a nuclear reaction which involves the weak force. That's why the probability of it occurring is so small, and why it forms a bottleneck for the entire pp-chain.


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

[User]
What would happen if Gotham City instigated a Death Penalty?

Would it break the bat?

[Assistant] I would suspect that Bruce Wayne would come out against it, but Batman would be forced to stay neutral on the issue. Batman's job is to bring criminals to justice, but punishment is up to the courts. If Batman goes against the courts, then he will be no better then those he fights against. He may not agree with the punishment, but he cannot ignore it either.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] How physically capable is a single Space Marine?

Unarmored, as well as armoured. I just want to know how strong, fast, durable, skilled etc. a single *normal* Space Marine, from each Chapter, would be, compared to super soldiers from other universes ( say, Master Chief, Captain America, etc. )

[Assistant]
Well, an average Astartes is 7.5-8 feet tall, and built more like a Football Linebacker in full padding than a normal human. They can run at a full Sprint for hours without tiring, eat basically any organic material, and survive injuries that would literally kill a human from shock (there's an old story of one taking a Krak Missile to the chest, and continuing to fight with half his chest cavity open for the world to see).

In terms of general feats, they can crush a human skull in a bare hand. That's about twice the total force a normal human can muster with BOTH hands. If the same applies across the board, they'd be about 3-4x stronger than the strongest human alive.

Now, Captain America is hard to guage, because he's a comic book character... But he's supposed to be peak human potential. So, an Astartes would still be 3-4 times stronger than him.

Master Chief is solidly super Hunan, but still struggles at some heavier weights, and is known to be vulnerable to comparable injury to a normal human (a 30 foot fall would still cause internal injuries, even if it didn't break bones).

Speed wise, Master Chief is entirely outclassed. Astartes have millisecond reaction times, and can diflect low velocity roundse, subsonic with their bare hands. Chief needed AI assistance to deflect a missile moving a fraction of that.  Captain America is harder to judge, again, as hes shown to be able to dodge bullets, which is totally impossible if he is just Peak Potential.

*** Its important to note, Cap and Chief are still human. One is enhanced to their physical peak, the other cybernetically and chemically enhanced.

Astartes are no longer human. Their DNA has been rewritten, and they (often painfully, sometimes fatally) mutate into something else.


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

[User]
ELI5: how do pulleys make it possible to lift things with less effort?

I have seen it in action but it feels like witchcraft where you have a stone that is impossible to lift if you have a rope and one pulley.

If you add extra pulleys, the same stone is easier to lift. How does this work?

[Assistant]
You trade distance for force. If you have no pulleys, you pull the rope 1 meter and the other end raises 1 meter.

If you have a single pulley setup, you get a 2:1 "conversion". If you pull the rope 1 meter, the other end raises 0.5 meters, but with twice the force. Repeat as necessary with however many pulleys, so that even a child can lift a 2-ton weight, but they might have to run the length of a soccer pitch to lift it a meter off the ground.


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

[User]
ELI5: If cooking kills bacteria, why does it matter how long we leave meat out, or how often we thaw and refreeze it?

Just as the title says, I see a lot of food safety rules around heating/re-heating food, never re-freezing meat after the first freeze/thaw, etc.

Why does it matter if we cook the food in the end anyway?

(Assuming proper temperatures)

Edit:  Wow, quick answers!  Simple enough - noted!  Perhaps I'll be a bit more careful about raw meat.

[Assistant]
Cooking kills bacteria, but if the bacteria was alive long enough it could have left some pretty nasty stuff behind as waste. Cooking doesn't get rid of this waste and it can cause some serious health problems.

Freezing and thawing multiple times is just bad for the food as far as taste and texture goes, unless the thaw time is sufficient for stuff to grow on it, which brings us back to the first point.

Freezing stuff at a nice and low temperature well into the negatives will keep stuff safe to eat pretty much indefinitely, although the quality does tend to suffer after a few months as it will continue to crack and proteins still break down.


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

[User] ELI5: my Keurig coffee maker has a "strong" setting, what makes the coffee stronger if it's the same amount of coffee with the same amount of water?

[Assistant]
It allows the coffee to extract longer by increasing the time that the coffee is in the hot water physically.

By increasing the time that the coffee grounds sit in hot water, the stronger the water is flavoured with coffee.

A longer soak is a thicker bev.

The same principle works for socks and old ladies.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Why do humans have shorter lifespan than other races? Or in other words, why do other races live longer?

Elves I do kinda understand, but it seems that Dwarves and Hobbits also tend to live quite longer than humans as well.

[Assistant]
God's plan.

Elves are immortal. Their souls are bound to the Earth and will live as long as it exists.

This however is not something to be envied.

God gave Men the Gift. They can shape their lives outside of the Music of the Ainur and in the end the Die and depart the circles of the world.  Where they go is unknown but many speculate it is to be with God in the Timeless Halls. While Men sometimes call it the Doom rather than the Gift (Melkor instilled a fear of death in them) it is said that the Elves, and even the Valar, in time will envy Men and their fate.

Dwarves are mortal as well but their fate is unknown. Some believe they have their own place in the Halls of Mandos and wait for the the End.

Hobbits are a branch of Men and recieve the Gift.  They do tend to live a bit longer it seems (they don't come of age until 30) but not extremely so.

Note:  Aragorn lives very long for a Man (210).  However this is due to the gift of longer life granted to the Dunedain not because he has a distant Elvish ancestry as is commonly thought.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Is there just something about force choking?

Why do they always go for the throat like that? Seems like there are a lot of ways to fuck with someone using the force. They could pinch a nerve, or squeeze their brain, or something...

[Assistant]
Its an intimidation tactic, something clear, noticeable, and easily understood amidst a crowd.

>They could pinch a nerve, or squeeze their brain, or something...

These are all possible. In fact, you're referencing specific force powers like wound, kill, etc. You can even completely crush someone with the force, an act so violent, painful, and gross that it requires complete consumption by the dark side to accomplish (I'd assume even the average Sith would get a little queesy looking at that).


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

[User] ELI5: How is it legal for people to offer services as "future tellers"?

[Assistant]
Their services are classified under entertainment. They don't have to be true, just like a movie doesn't have to be true, just as long as they entertain you. If customer want to believe it is true, the authorities don't get involved just as they won't get involved if you think *Titanic* was a factual documentary. Just add the disclaimer 'for entertainment purposes only' and you are in the clear.

(Though there are places that have banned fortune telling. New York state has a ban on it among others. It only really gets reinforced though when you also have people defrauding other people for huge sums of money for fixing their cracked auras and shit like that)


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

[User]
ELI5: How do computer game AIs work?

I am mostly thinking of 'open' games (e.g. Starcraft), where you cannot just construct a graph of possible states.

[Assistant] Most of them aren't very sophisticated - definitely not what most people think of by "artificial intelligence".  They generally just pursue short term goals & follow a set of premade strategies.  Most game AIs are made stronger by giving them advantages over human players (ie - 'cheating' rather than being smarter)


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Can a Light Side Jedi kill a bug with the force?

I'm a light-side Jedi on a camping trip, and unfortunately there's a mosquito trapped in my tent.  My control isn't fine enough to use the force to open the tent door and sweep the bug out--will I move slightly towards the Dark Side if I use the force to squash him? What about if I slap him with my hand, unaided?

[Assistant]
Jedi have the capacity for mild mind control. A totally acceptable alternative would be to wave your hand and convince surrounding bugs to not bother you. You then open the tent, let the offending bug out, and sleep in comfort.

Technically, you could, as the Jedi code regarding the destruction of innocent life does not seem to extend to animals, but many Jedi do their best to keep from harming animals anyway, since all life is connected to the Force -- they view it as harming extended versions of themselves. So your buddy might be upset with you, but it probably wouldn't make you flirt with becoming a Sith.


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

[User]
Would heavy water turned to ice still float on normal water

I want to know deuterium in its solid form would still float like normal ice.  Also would it freeze in the same way that normal water would?
*Thanks for all the very complete answer!*

[Assistant] For those reading, he's referring to deuterium water, which is where the two hydrogen atoms in an H2O molecule have an additional neutron in their respective nuclei (normally the hydrogen atoms just consist of a proton and an electron). This alters the mass of the molecule, which affects many of its properties on a macroscopic level. The density of "normal" ice is about .92 g/cm^3, while the density of normal water is about 1.0 g/cm^3, which is why ice floats in water. The density of deuterium ice is about 1.02 g/cm^3, which is just slightly more than liquid (normal) water - so it would sink, just barely.


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

[User]
CMV: an undergraduate degree should not be required before applying for a professional school ( such as medicine, dentistry, law, physiotherapy)

In Canada and the United States, one must compete a 4-year bachelor undergraduate degree before applying for medical,veterinary, dental, or law school. But I do not think that is necessary, and if anything it's just a money-grab by the universities and a waste of time.

In other countries, you can apply to medical, dental, or law school right out of high school. I'm gonna use Poland as an example.

In Poland, you can apply to a 6-8 year medical school program (this does not count the time spent in residency, which varies based on specialty) and attend right after graduating high school. No undergrad needed. And their doctors as just as well prepared as north American doctors.

Same thing for dental school. In Poland, you can just apply to a 6-year dentistry program right after high school. And their dentists are just as well prepared for the job as North American dentists.

Meanwhile in the USA and Canada; one must compete an undergraduate degree before applying to medical school. Same thing for dentistry, veterinary medicine, law, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and pharmacy school.

An undergraduate degree should not be a requirement, and Canada and the United States should adapt a model similair to Poland's for future doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc. Because:

1. People would be in less debt. A 6-year dental school vs. 8 years years of school  (A 4-year bachelor's degree PLUS a 4 year dental school degree). More and more young people are drowning in school debt.

2. We would have professionals ready for the work force faster. This would especially benefit Canada, where there is a huge shortage of family doctors.

3. It takes away a little bit of stress from hopeful future professionals, as it takes away one hurdle. It's better to start a professional right out of high school than it is to have to waste your time in an unrelated degree program stressing over the next 4 years about whether you will get into the professional school of your choice or not.

[Assistant]
One good aspect about requiring a bachelor's before advancing to a more specialized school is that it gives the students a checkpoint.  When you get your bachelor's, you have to option to continue going right into grad school, or you can take some time off and work.  You could pay off your grad school with the work you do with your bachelor's.  If you take a six to eight year program to become a post-grad, then it will take no less than that time to profit from any education you received.

Also, it gives students a chance to re-examine their goal and decide if they want to go further.  Let's say person wants to be a doctor, but after barely getting through their first four years, they might realize that they don't have what it takes.  In that case, at least they still have a degree, and can pursue other avenues related to medicine.  If they go to medical school, but fail out after the first year, at least they still have something to fall back on.  After the first four years, you realize that you would prefer to work the business end of medicine.  Instead of going to med school, you could change course and take business courses instead.  If you go for a six to eight year doctor school, you have nothing to fall back on.  If you don't finish the full thing, you end up with nothing.  If you run out of money on your sixth year, or if you have to quit school for whatever reason, you are no better than a high school graduate.  If you realize half way through that you don't want to be a doctor, you either have to give up and lose the last four years of you life, or continue and get a degree you don't want.


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

[User]
[WH40K] Is Ork technology, in the smaller sense (shootaz or battlewagons) possible?

Let's say you were in a junkyard, scrap metal, electronics and parts from most household appliances and servicable parts from 1 of each type of car (SUV, 4-door, truck). Could you recreate Ork technology without the innate warp ability they have?

[Assistant]
Some aspects you could create fairly easily. Lots of junkers and home survivalists can make your typical Mad Max-esque combat vehicle, which is what most Ork trukks are. And I've seen more than one gallery of someone taking an old bulldozer and turning it into a tank.

Guns would be a bit harder. "Looting" weapons would be easy, but trying to build/upgrade them is mostly out of the question. Don't think you could build a tank gun for your bulldozer tank... maybe a flamer, though.

Red won't make this stuff go faster.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do places like New York City use a steam network to heat buildings where in other parts of the world use boilers and pipes?

[Assistant]
It is efficient to use the heat from a power plant to heat buildings. First the the steam is used to spin the turbines for electricity production. The steam is still hot but to  extract more heat from the steam  the turbine blades would have to be enormous. The pressure is below atmospheric pressure. To condense the steam cooling towers are used. Or the heat can be routed to warm buildings. The building have to be close.

The engineers have figured this all out. They are really smart and use a lot of math.


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

[User] [Tolkien] Did Melkor ever had a "non-evil" sphere of influence, like the Other Valar did?

[Assistant]
There's very little mentioned outside of his inclination towards extreme heat and cold - but we can make an educated guess by process of elimination.

There are three notable "elemental" Vala - that is, ones who primarily identify with certain areas or elements.

Manw - the sky, wind, birds, air

Ulmo - the sea, all waters, rivers and streams

Aule - the earth, minerals, jewelry, craft

So we have one notable missing classical element, obviously fire. Probably that would have been more like "natural forces", from volcanism, to blizzards, to earthquakes, as well as temperatures. Maybe he could've been an Apollo like sun deity, but travelling around Middle-Earth bringing light and heat to Yavanna's plants and wildlife.

We have the example of his work combining with that of the other Valar to make good things that he didn't intend - his extreme cold combined with Ulmo's waters created snow. In the end, like Eru states in the Ainulindale, everything Melkor would be turned into a new and sudden good thing by Eru, no matter what Melkor wanted in the end.


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

[User]
ELI5: If I enter a password wrong thrice, the system locks me out. How are hackers able to attempt millions of combinations of passwords without the system locking them out?

Edit: Thank you everyone whos taken out time to explain it to me. Ive learnt so much. Appreciate it.

Yes, I do use thrice in my conversation whenever required. Im glad it amused so many of you.

[Assistant]
* Modern passwords work by a process called "hashing".
* Hashing basically means:
   * you take some input, like the characters someone enters for a password, and you shove it through a machine.
   * That machine then spits out some new string of characters that doesn't seem like it has anything to do with what was shoved in to start with.
   * But the trick is that it does have some sort of connection.
   * The only way to get that specific output is to feed in that specific input.
* So when you sign up an account with a website, they take the password you made up, shove it through their hash-machine and then store the output.
* So even if they get hacked, the hacker will only get the hash, not the password.
* But when you go back to the website and enter in your password their hash-machine will spit out the correct "hash" and since it matches with the one linked to your user name, they let you in.
* However, if a hacker was able to steal a complete list of all the hashed passwords for a site, they could build their own hash-machine and just start trying every possible combination of inputs to see if one of them spits out a hash that was in the list.
* This would allow them to make as many attempts as they want without running into the rate limit on the website.
* This is typically not easy to do though.
* So most hackers actually just try to trick you into giving them your password.
* Like sending you a link on Facebook that looks like it leads to a login-page when really it's a fake website that just copies whatever you type in the password box.
* EDIT: Updated to more directly answer OP's question.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Who designed Vader's suit?

In Revenge of the Sith it seems that Anakin is put through the process of becoming Vader fairly soon after getting burnt to a crisp. Did Palpatine have the designs for the Vader suit to hand? What was Palpatine planning to use it for before it was used for Vader?

[Assistant]
I mean a lot of it is probably stuff that already existed like various prosthetics and life support systems. They werent likely all one unit, as most people who would be in need of artificial breathing, nutrient consumption, waste disposal, speech aid, skin graft, and 3 prosthetic limbs would be dead by the time they could operate.

So really they would only need to be assembling it all together into a suit, rather than designing it from scratch. He probably had the clones pull Anakins medical records from the temple and give it to the droids, and the droids prepped everything to be ready to go when he got there.

We see in both ROTS and Obi-Wan Kenobi that the suit is fairly modular.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How does the rebel fleet stack up against the Empire?

How do the rebel ships and the fleet as a whole stack up against their imperial counterparts?

[Assistant]
They don't have counterparts. Rebel and Imperial doctrines are extremely different. The Empire relies on Star Destroyer capital ships with fighter screens, while the Rebellion instead primarily fields attack fighters with below the line capitol ships as support.

That said, on a numerical basis the Empire totally outpaces the Rebellion. The entire Rebellion fleet is smaller than the Imperial garrisons on some planets.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the urge to vomit a common reaction when you smell something horrible?

[Assistant]
Vomiting is a reaction meant to expel something from your stomach that is hazardous. So if you taste something that your body believes is poisonous, it will trigger a vomiting reaction to protect you.

But smell and taste are closely linked (in fact, the process of tasting includes smell, which is why your taste sense is dulled when you have a cold or otherwise can't smell). Since these senses are so closely linked, the vomit trigger that is linked to taste can also be triggered by smell.


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

[User]
[Buffy] I get there's only one "chosen one" Slayer, but why doesn't she try to put the word out about, idk, demons?

I'm not saying she should scream it from the rooftops, but wouldn't it be a big help to recruit some burly guys or something to do most of the actual hunting?  I mean, there's a lot of stuff going down, like all the time, and she only really messes with the stuff she's lucky enough to stumble upon.

I just feel like an order of "Supernatural"-ish Hunters(I.E, trained marksman, lore masters, and seasoned alcoholics) would be a pretty big help, more so then a group of 3 high school kids anwyay.  It's not even a matter of belief at this point, whole packs of demons have attacked schools, clubs, and children's homes.

And really, what can a Slayer do that a squad of Mercs couldn't?  It seems like anybody can stake a vamp if they've got the know-how and skill, so it seems like her only advantage is being a natural.

There's obviously more people around the world doing this, evidenced by the foreign Watchers that sent Faith and that other girl who's name I forget to Sunnydale, so why aren't they training up a small militia and sending them to the Hell Mouth too?  Why do they all insist that the fate of the world must rest on a 16 year old, when I'm pretty sure any trained man or woman could do her job just as well?

_____________________________

And this is off topic(Well, that topic.), but if Crosses repel vampires then why doesn't Buffy's cross necklace?  They seem to still be able to grab her and whatnot, when you'd think it'd work like some kind of barrier.

[Assistant]
How far into the series have you gotten?  The Initiative is the demon hunting militia you are looking for.  It doesn't go too well for them.  The Watchers *are* also training demon hunters, and many are demon hunters themselves.  Also, every slayer tends to end up with her own Scooby Gang to help her.
Crosses don't repel vampires, they burn them on contact.  Vampires grab Buffy and don't touch her necklace.


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

[User] [Potion Seller] Why would Potion Seller make potions too strong for anyone to consume and not even sell them?

[Assistant] The potion seller was just saying his potions were too strong *to that adventurer*. He was likely well-known to the local adventurer supply guilds and had threatened legal action against other guild members when he felt that their wares had not helped him enough in battle. The guild's bylaws put certain restrictions on why a guild member could or could not refuse service, so the potion seller was telling him off with an invented reason just to get him out the door to avoid legal complications. (It's worth noting that the adventurer was likely aware of this, because at one point he said "enough of these games" before he repeated his request.)


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

[User]
It's normal to not imagine things as you read descriptions in a novel?

I was watching a youtube video earlier today and someone pointed out that their visualization of things while reading wasnt really good, after that everyone else said that they automatically imagine what the book is describing. The thing is that I dont really see a detailed picture and I dont imagine the situation clearly.

Im not looking for help or anything but I would really appreciate if you know if this has a name or where can I do some research about this topic.

Sorry if I have been redundant but hopefully I have been clear. thanks for reading.

[Assistant]
There is a wide range of ability to visualize.
Some people see things very vividly.  Some Dont. It's not really a condition but just a spectrum of ability.

Unless you lost the ability due to disease or injury. Then it's a disorder.


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

[User] When sending a probe to the sun, does the suns gravity assist in how fast the probe arrives?

[Assistant]
Everything that orbits the sun is falling towards it.  It just has so much lateral velocity that it keeps missing the surface of the sun.  The more lateral velocity there is, the further away it orbits.

Think of it this way.

If you throw a baseball hard enough it will miss the ground because the surface of the earth curves away from it faster than it's falling.  If you take away the atmospheric drag then it never slows down and will keep going around the earth in a circular orbit.  That's what the earth is doing with the sun.

To reach the sun, you have to first jump far enough away from the earth that you won't fall back towards it.  Basically, you have to get to the point where the sun has a larger effect on you than the earth does.  Then you have to slow down your lateral velocity that you picked up from starting your journey on the earth enough that you stop missing the surface of the sun.

As it turns out, this is an insane amount of velocity that you have to counteract.

If you're able to shed that velocity, then the suns gravity will assist you in getting the rest of the way there, because your baseball will have slowed enough to hit the ground.