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

[User]
ELI5 how super expensive lawyers can get people off from serious charges.

Do they just know more loopholes than a cheaper lawyer would?

[Assistant] They can spend more time on a case, for one. A public defender, for example, may have dozens of cases running at a time, but a law firm for a wealthy defendant may have multiple lawyers and clerks working on this single case. So, having more time, they can gather more information, research case law more thoroughly, and even do things like jury research (although there is little evidence that it helps). Information is power, the court is no exception.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does buffalos get so big while being herbivores?

I'm sorry for asking this. But I always wondered how come cows and buffaloes who only eat grass and stuff get so big? Here I am working out 5 days a week with my job and eating a lot of meat and getting normal results. Sorry again, I have no intention of annoying anyone.

[Assistant]
Your entire day (whole life, really) revolves around eating. Yeah, grass is low in calories, but when you are basically chewing from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep ,You can put down quite a few calories.

Also, there's only a couple of things that can eat them.


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

[User]
ELI5: In Canada, why are the Conservatives running constant attack ads on Trudeau, but none on the higher polling NDP?

What political advantage does it give to attack the party that is not expected to challenge for the majority, but ignore the one that is?

[Assistant] The goal of of the Conservatives is to divide the votes so both parties doesn't get enough votes to beat the conservative. They focus on the Liberals because historically, they are the main rival of the conservative. It also has the purpose to make the NDP looks like a 3rd party that is just there to divide the vote.


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

[User]
[WH40K]Could an extremely powerful Librarian assume the duties of the Emperor for any length of time?

Given that the Librarians are super-human and kinda sorta descendants of the Emperor, could an extremely potent one cover for the Emperor for any period of time? Say a few days or weeks, or at least hours?

[Assistant]
Malcador the Sigillite, The second most powerful psyker ever known could only inherit the Golden Throne for a small duration. Namely, the time the Emperor, blessed be his name, battled and killed the Arc-Heretic Horus.

After the duration he was reduced to nothing but dust, even for a man of Malcador's strength, the stress was too much.

Technically, you could have a Librarian success the Emperor on the Golden Throne, but the time is going to be short. As there probably is no Librarian who can meet up to Malcador the Sigillite's strength.


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

[User]
Could Scientists create a YY... being?

After thinking about what I learned in science class in school years ago, I started to wonder if a YY...being, could be created. Surely it could be created, but has it been? And what was the outcome?

[Assistant] No. The Y chromosomes are missing a lot of genes. That's fine for men, since they have spare copies in their X chromosomes, but if you had YY genes, you wouldn't have them. Some of those genes are going to matter.


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

[User] How do epidemiologists determine whether new Covid-19 cases are a just result of increased testing or actually a true increase in disease prevalence?

[Assistant]
One metric is the rate of positive tests. Lets say you tested 100 people last week and found 10 cases. This week you tested 1000 people and got 200 cases. 10% to 20% shows an increase. Thats especially the case because you can assume testing was triaged last week to only the people most likely to have it while this week was more permissive and yet still had a higher rate.

Another metric is hospitalizations which is less reliant on testing shortages because they get priority on the limited stock. If hospitalizations are going up, its likely that the real infection rate of the population is increasing.


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

[User] [Resident Evil] Why do zombies or other enemies enter the save room? I understand why they don't gameplay wise but do they ever give a lore explanation?

[Assistant] You mean *don't* enter? Well, they're generally very secure places that zombies and other enemies simply can't enter. They may specifically be built for the job as well - the locations we see in the earlier games are security rooms intended for people to hold up in (and Umbrella were the ones to set them up).


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

[User]
Is the expansion of the Universe considered a "force"?

I understand that there are fundamental forces governing the Universe, but what about the fact that it's expanding? How it that taken into account?

[Assistant]
No, it is not.

The whole "fundamental forces" notion is, to put it bluntly, a lie we tell children. It's not actually a very good description of reality.

To the extent that metric expansion is a consequence of anything one might be inclined to think of as a "fundamental force," it's gravity.


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

[User]
If humans evolved as omnivores, why are we so susceptable to disease caused by eating raw meat?

We all know that cooking meat makes it safe to eat, but from an evolutionary standpoint, why were we able to kill a mammoth and eat it right then and there,  whereas now we'd get sick and die?

[Assistant] In addition to these other good points, eating fresh raw meat usually isn't going to do anything bad to you, when it does do something bad to you, it probably wouldn't if you ate raw meat more frequently, and domesticated animals tend to live on factory farms where the bacteria in question can spread around unchecked.


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

[User]
[Batman] In which area of skill could I reliably beat Batman even if he has a year of prep and practice time? This could be anything from engineering to magic to figure skating to video games to cooking.

Of course let's rule out the smartass answers like "being mentally healthy" to keep things interesting.

To flesh it out further: we can first assume I'm a fairly average person- not particularly exceptional at anything, and perhaps above average at one or two things. Which would be the best for me to be above average at to win this? Then slowly dial up how remarkable of a person I am in that particular talent (hobbyist to state level champion, etc) or alternatively dial up my latent potential (i.e, make me smarter as a whole, or more hard working, etc) and then see what happens.

Am I always gonna lose to the bat unless I'm OP myself?

Edit: I suppose we may assume that I would also practice and improve my skill over that year, but I won't have the absurd dedication and willpower to hone it like Batman does.

[Assistant] Stand up comedy. At the core, Bruce Wayne is not a comedian. He can make jokes, he's not a robot, but he's a serious dude at heart, and making him compete in that regard isn't going to be something he'll excel at.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is strong wind able to sway and knock down a tree, but a human who weighs far less could easily wander through the same wind?

[Assistant] In addition to what people have said below, trees are also rooted to the ground, which means that when a really strong gust comes, they don't move with it (like humans do), but instead are forced to bend and break.


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

[User]
What would be the best argument for transgender athletes to be allowed to compete in sports, within the gender-division they identify as?

i.e. a trans-woman competing in the female division and a trans-man competing in the male division.

Edit: This post is concerned with admission into the competitive and professional levels of sport.

[Assistant]
Overwhelmingly, focus is placed on trans women competing with other women, and those calling for a ban on trans women competing in womens sports overwhelmingly focus on fairness as the primary reason. So, we might look at actual case studies of trans women competing in womens divisions in sports. And if we did that, we'd find that trans women tend to *under* perform compared to cis women (in that, cis women overwhelmingly represent the top of womens sports). Renee Richards is probably the most famous example; she competed in mens tennis before her transition, and kept competing in womens tennis following it, and her record was hardly astounding (not a diss to her, she was probably better at tennis than I'll ever be).

On the flip side, trans men, tending to be frequently and callously ignored in these discussions, also seem to be pretty average when competing in mens divisions. When forced to compete in *womens* divisions, however, well, look at Mack Beggs. He had to wrestle in the Texas womens division despite actively undergoing hormone treatment and explicitly expressing the desire to compete with other men. He won the girls championship in 2017 with a 52-0 record, and in 2018 with a 32-0 record.

If fairness is the goal (though, the goalposts seem to be moving all the time), then forcing trans athletes to compete in the division of their birth gender is plainly counterproductive to this end.


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

[User]
[D&D] Do followers of non-theistic religions go to the Wall of the Faithless?

It is said that in the Forgotten Realms setting, the souls of those with no god or who betrayed their god go to the Wall of the Faithless, where they are slowly and painfully reduced to nothingness.

But what about people who are GENUINELY faithful and pious but don't worship an actual divinity? Like, for example, people who thinks that a "superior" power to gods exist (to be fair, they're not wrong), or people who have a more "oriental" philosophy (akin to Buddhism)?
I mean... THOSE people are actually more faithful than regular worshippers of the gods (who usually only do what their god say to receive power and blessing, not to mention go to their god heaven).

[Assistant]
Yes, they do. This is just one more reason it sucks to be a mortal in the D&D multiverse.

The afterlife isn't about justice, it's about alignment and divine patronage. "The alignment chart is real, and must be expressed" is a common refrain in the Dungeon Master's guide, and a character's alignment will metaphysically draw them toward one afterlife plane or another.

Likewise, patronage of a deity will draw a soul away from the wall of the faithless. Without that patronage, the wall's pull is irresistable.


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

[User] [Pokemon] Why aren't the starter Pokemons found in the world ?

[Assistant] They are. They're just generally rarer, so you have to go to very specific places to find them. Bulbasaur, for instance, appears in the wild on Melemele island in Alola. During his travels there, Oak picked up a Bulbasaur and found it to be a reliable partner. So he started breeding them to give away as starter Pokemon to trainers in Kanto. Most starters have a similar story.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Are Resurgent Class Battle Cruisers just refurbished Star Destroyers?

The Empire was said to have had around 25,000 ISDs in total. It is stated in tne Aftermath trilogy that thousands of ISDs went into the unkown regions to join the First Order. Then 25ish years later the First Order has a giant fleet of Star Destroyer-like cruisers. Is it possible they just built more onto old ISDs? I think it would explain all the empty space inside them.

[Assistant] The *Resurgent* is an entirely different class, and nearly twice the size of the *Imperial-I* and *II* classes (2900 meter length compared to 1600 meters) and required twice the crew. Not sure where you're getting the idea that there's a lot of empty space within them.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why is there a 'j' sound when you pronounce the word 'module'?

As a native English speaker I'm confused by this.  Why isn't it pronounced 'MAH-due-lo'?  Are there other words like 'modular', 'modulo', etc. that have a j sound?

[Assistant]
It's called diachronic palatalization and it's a common process in development of languages over time. When two sounds are adjacent, the first is transformed over time to some other more "palatal" sound. That means, first the form is /modu/, but then over time it becomes /modju/ ("modyu") and eventually /modu/ ("modzhu"). Diachronic means the forms /modu/ and /modju/ are alternatives of the same, not different words with a different meaning, so you'd say they appear at different times (dia-chron) in history.

(Synchronic palatalization would be if /modu/ and /modju/ had different, unrelated meanings; this happens in some languages like Hungarian but not in English. They happen at the same time (syn-chron). East Finnish is funny because it first lost synchronic palatalization but then gained diachronic palatalization.)

All "mechanical" explanations in this thread are wrong, because you don't *have to have* diachronic palatalization. Sometimes the speakers of a language just do it. It's missing from standard Finnish, for example. There are remnants of older diachronic palatalization patterns, calcified in rules like "kte-" vs "ksi", but it's not currently in effect in any context.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it important for websites to verify that you're not a robot?

[Assistant]
Spam bots are a common method of malicious online robot. They spam message boards or other internet sites with repeated advertisements (at best, more malicious things at worst). they also participate in phishing scams (where they try to steal your password/information).

Those verification steps help cut down on those bad actors.


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

[User]
CMV: Louis CK did not commit sexual assault, not even close.

I think calling Louis CK a rapist or a sex offender is problematic, firstly because it asserts that louie's behaviour is on the same level with sexual offenders who non consensually preyed on the weakness of their victims. Also this is a smack in the face to people who are actual victims of sexual assault. What Louie did was not great but he asked for consent and was granted them and masturbated in front of these women. This leads me to my second point, which is that it suggests that women are powerless to say no in given situations. Hypothetically, if a women were enamored with a celebrity or working with them, then they do not have the power to say no, and will oblige for fear of losing their job or reputation.  This is simply untrue and is in direct conflict with feminism. True Feminism asserts that women have power over their body and can decide when to say no to sex and can turn down men, or have sex if they want by asking. To imply that these women are powerless kind of suggests that women are completely helpless.

[Assistant]
Sure, they could have said no to him, but theyd likely be fired from their job and blacklisted from ever working in that industry again. Imagine working for years, building a career for yourself, and then having to choose between watching him or having to find a whole new career while bills are still due.

You can say they had a choice, but they didnt.


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

[User]
[The Boys TV Show] Why did Hughie try to help A-Train when he collapsed?

In the Season 1 finale of The Boys, when A-Train attacked Hughie and Starlight, he collapsed on the ground from abusing Compound-V. When this happens, Hughie of all people tries to give A-Train CPR and tell Starlight to get help. Why? Hughie's motive throughout the story was exacting revenge on A-Train for killing Robin, so why try to save the man he's made it his mission to destroy?

[Assistant]
Because Hughie ISN'T Billy.

For all the hate and anger he had, for all the parallels to their situation, he isn't him. He doesn't want to kill or even let someone die. Look at how he felt after killing Translucent. That was his taste of what he could do to A-Train. And he doesn't want to keep doing that. Which is why he starts leaving into Starlight more as he wants justice and not revenge.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] "The king is tired, send him to his chambers" What power did Tywin have over Joffrey?

Tywin is the hand of the king and Joffrey is the king for all intents and purposes.  If Joffrey felt like it, what would have stopped him from killing or punishing Tywin if he wanted to?   Tywin seems pretty confident in bossing him around and manipulating him.  Why is this?

[Assistant]
Honestly, Joffrey *did* have the authority to kill Tywin... in theory, but in fact Tywin had the political clout to prevent Joffrey from betraying him. If he did so then Tywin's allies would definitely kill him.

Also, Joffrey is terrified of Tywin.


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

[User]
[Mass Effect] Why did the previous cycle only have one civilization while this one has about a dozen?

The Protheans are never mentioned to have contemporaries, despite being more spread out than current galactic civilization. The current cycle, meanwhile, has humans, turians, asari, salarians, krogans, quarians, batarians, vorcha, elcor, volus, hanar, and drell, and probably a few more I'm forgetting.

Is one of these a fluke? What's the norm?

Edit: I've played all 3 games, but without all the expansions (so I haven't talked to Javik).

[Assistant] I think in ME3 Javik sort of explained it by saying that the Protheans were extremely imperialistic. Therefore, they fought, conquered, and assimilated other races into their empire, and 'Prothean'  became the catch-all designation for their civilization, including the ones they conquered.


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

[User]
ELI5:why does spending time in the sun make me feel tired?

I find that I am often zonked after spending time in the sun....even if I don't do much exercise?  I wonder why?

[Assistant]
If you're not dehydrated (which can happen) or suffering from heat exhaustion (which can also happen), it can be due to temperature regulation. Your body has to stay pretty near 98.6 degrees F.

When you're too warm or too cold for a long time, your body has to regulate your temperature that whole time and that takes real energy, just like exercise (but unlike exercise your heart doesn't get any real benefits...)


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

[User]
Eli5: What determines whether an object can bounce or not?

Is the material an object is made out of more important? Or also what material the ball comes into contact with also important? (throwing a ball down on concrete vs throwing it on grass)

[Assistant] Elasticity.  The material has to deform to convert the kinetic energy of its movement into potential energy in the deformation (like a spring) and then give the energy back to push the object back up.  A high elasticity means that more of the energy that is absorbed by the object deforming comes back out as kinetic energy.  Low elasticity means more of the energy is converted to another form like heat or breaking the internal structure of the object.


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

[User]
CMV: Trump undercutting the USPS in right before an election with majority mail in ballots is election fraud.

Here is me reasoning as to why I hold this opinion:

1) Trump has repeated several times that he is only underfunding and getting in the way of the USPS doing their job is because he wants better chances of winning, which he believes is only possible if he circumvents the USPS.

2) Trump has never showed any interest before in cutting funds to the USPS, but as soon as we transitioned into using mail in ballots for this election, he suddenly threatened to cut funds.

3) The man who Trump appointed as the Postmaster General of the United States, Louis DeJoy, is a mega donator to campaigns of politicians who are a member of the Republican Party, including Trump and several GOP Senators. DeJoy relentlessly has worked to limit what the USPS can do in terms of sorting mail in ballots, delaying sending ballots to voters, etc.

Based on all of this, it has become clear in my opinion that there is a concerted effort by President Donald J. Trump as Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and possibly other individuals to commit election fraud so that the Republican Party wins the 2020 Presidential and Congressional Elections.

[Assistant] Im confused how this will impact voting. Are they being underfunded so badly that they wont even be able to deliver the mail in ballots? Wouldnt they have to be completely shut down for that to happen?


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

[User] ELI5 whats happening when a sneeze gets stuck then just burns your nose and makes your eyes water.

[Assistant]
Sneezes are a protective response to alert you to less than ideal breathing conditions and remove irritants/allergens from your nose. Theyre triggered by the presence of irritants, but only a certain concentration, which is mediated by multiple nerve endings that generate spikes when theyre irritated. Once the number of spikes passes a certain threshold, you sneeze.

Sometimes your nose will be irritated to the point of feeling like you have to sneeze, but there isnt quite enough to push you over the threshold. So you get stuck.


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

[User]
ELI5: What exactly is a headache and what causes it?

1. What causes them?
2. How do they go away?
3. My head is killing me....

[Assistant]
1. There are many different headaches caused by many different things. The good news is, it's probably not a tumah. The brain itself can't feel anything. If you have a headache it is most likely caused by tension of the blood vessels in the head or tension of the muscles supporting your neck and head.

2. Excedrin for big kids like you. The combination of acetominophen and caffeine really is the best over the counter option. If it's a tension headache, anything containing ibuprofen will also do in a pinch. However, the quickest non medical home remedy is to lightly grasp a  good amount of hair from both sides of your head near your temples and pull outward. Lightly at first and increasing until the pain subsides somewhat.

3. Life is pain.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] At what point in time did Voldemort start looking like that?

It seems like there are a couple possibilities for how he started to go from being a handsome young man to a bald, white, noseless snake-monster-man. Was it when his body was rebuilt in GoF? Like prior to that, was he just a guy but then he got a new body and it looked like a monster?

Or did he slowly turn into a snake man over time? Perhaps as his soul got splintered?

Or did he alter his appearance himself to look more intimidating?

[Assistant]
Use of dark magic seems to have something to do with it, and there is little doubt something as perverted as creating multiple horcruxes would contribute to this.

Dumbledore noted his appearance seems to have been altered by some extent by the time he applied for the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position, which was after his decade or so of traveling (Dumbledore also suspected that Voldemort cared little for the job simply used the opportunity to hide a Horcrux in Hogwarts). Nothing is mentioned of a snakelike appearance while he worked at Borgin and Burkes preceding his disappearance, and in fact he is still described as handsome at the time.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How far does the Statute of Secrecys familial exemption go?

There appears to be an exemption to the Statute of Secrecy for the families of muggle-born wizards. What I am wondering is how far the muggle-born is allowed to push this exemption before they start getting sanctioned/their family starts getting mind-wiped by the Obliviators? Immediate family such as parents and siblings are ok, and it seems that the immediate families of those individuals are ok given that Harry stayed in contact with Dudley/his family, but how far would they be allowed to push it?

[Assistant] If you are within close proximity of a familial wizard or witch on a regular basis is how it likely works. Like if your third cousin, twice removed was living with you and wasn't a magical person, it's most likely that they would get to be inside the loop because the magical world would be interacting with the household through letters, owls, so on. The familial exception is likely there so people living with the witch or wizard in question can understand what is going on with their relative and their innate gifts with magic.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does the U.S. debt really matter?

It seems like every country is in debt and no one seems to be concerned with a 19 trillion dollar debt that seems almost impossible to pay off. Does the debt really even matter?

[Assistant]
No, it really doesn't matter, at least in the way you'd worry about personal debt.

Firstly, the debt is not structured like the loans you take from a bank. Most of it is in Treasury Bonds. These are bought; you too can buy treasury bonds. It's actually an excellent save investment, as it won't make you much profit but it's stable as fuck.

So it's not like the US is begging China for money. Rather, they, believing in the stability of the US economy, decide to purchase US Treasury Bonds. This incidentally gives the U.S power--the countries who buy bonds have a vested interest in the success of our economy.

You also can't "call in" your Treasury Bonds. They give out set amounts of payment (with interest) at set times. The US government was never, ever failed a payment, and as such we pay an absolutely tiny interest on the debts. In fact, sometimes our inflation is higher than the interest, and on those years we *make* money from the debt.

You can into more of how the debt is useful. For one, it's what makes up most of currency, as Treasury Bonds are the most common collateral on dollars.

As long as the debt grows at a similar rate to our GDP, it's not a problem. And so far our debt is well within acceptable limits. But too much debt isn't necessarily good either; for one, it can cause runaway inflation like Venezuela.

edit: Oh, yes, and an interest tidbit is that the vast majority of our debt is owned by the United States, roughly 60% of it. Most of it is owned by Social Security!


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

[User]
What happens to the kinetic energy of two annihilating antiparticles?

So in a module I'm taking at the moment, the answer sheet states that the energy of the two photons emitted by annihilating anti/electrons is *always* 511KeV each, and presumably this equals the mass-energy of each particle, but what happens if the annihilating particles have higher every in the form of kinetic energy? What if the annihilation is relativistic?

Is this answer simply wrong, or assuming the kinetic energy is significantly less than 511KeV?

[Assistant]
That answer probably assumes that the electrons are non-relativistic (kinetic energy much less tha 511KeV). They don't do a good job if they don't precise this and it's indeed confusing.
Anyway, this answer is clearly not involving relativity since the energy of an individual photon is reference frame dependent, so 511KeV cannot always be the answer. It's only valid in the center of mass reference frame, with non-relativistic electron.

In general, indeed the kinetic energy would be transferred to the photon pair on top of the energy associated to the electron mass. In the center of mass of the system, each photon would get an energy equal to half the total incoming energy, which would be 511KeV+kinetic energy of the electron (which is the same as the kinetic energy of the positron).


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

[User] ELI5: Why does a rug feel warmer than a tile floor when they are at the same temperature?

[Assistant]
Because the rug (and especially all the gaps of air inside of it) transfer heat much slower than the ceramic tile does. The result is that when you are standing on the tile the heat quickly leeches out of your foot and spread out into the whole tile. On the other hand when you stand on the rug your body can quickly warm up the particular bit of rug you are standing on (since the heat cant spread out as fast through all the air/fabric pockets) so it feels warmer.

This also works the other way too, and is why a hot piece of fabric out of the dryer can be comforting, but a piece of metal at the same temperature can be painful to touch.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] how does a planet wide city, such as Coruscant, have the resources to sustain its 2 trillion + inhabitants? Is everything (including food and water) imported?

According to some sources, Coruscant has 2 trillion mouths to feed. Theres no land or water... no trees to even produce oxygen.

Everything needs to be shipped into that planet, and with shipment, comes taxes...

How is this viable? I can sorta understand the upper echelon being able to afford the cost of living associated with living there; but the majority of that planet lives in the lower levels of the city.

[Assistant]
Considering the logistics - there has to be both a massive amount of imported food, and on site (within blocks) food production.  Food produced in the city would likely be hydroponic, Algae, Fungi or yeast based.   High density, genetically modified to be high value nutrition and low cost per square foot.   These would then get processed to create more palatable food for the residents, and likely the sole food consumed by lower income.   It is likely they have some form of lab grown meat.

The sheer number of inhabitants would dictate that there would be atmospheric cleaning and replenishment units located all over to maintain a steady supply of breathable air.   The units would have to be distributed throughout, and disguised as housing or maintenance units to discourage being targets.


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

[User]
Why bad HDMI connection causes pink lines on a screen?

So when you use a bad/broken HDMI cable there are sometimes pink lines or some colour get replaced by pink flicker. Why is that? (from a technical standpoint)

[Assistant]
It depends on the equipment used, specifically the TV. In general the answer is that images are usually transmitted in so-called YUV color space, instead of RGB. This has to do with chroma subsampling - essentially your eyes are not as sensitive to color differences as they are to brightness, so the YUV signal allows for less bits to be spent on color information, which saves bandwidth (and therefore allows for higher frame rates and resolution).

Depending on the system used, a bad connection will result in missing or corrupt digital data. If you replace YUV data with all 0's, the resulting color is a forest green. If you replace it with all 1's, the resulting color is a bright pink. So the system you were looking at apparently used 1's.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did C-3P0 lie to Luke about the identity of Princess Leia?

When R2 first played the message to Obi-Wan in front of Luke, 3P0 says that he has no idea who the woman was, however not long before that, on the Tantive IV, he speaks to R2 about Leia and her mission. It is unlikely that the received a memory wipe as Owen tells Luke to clear their memories, besides 3P0 was still able to recall experiences with the Rebels.

Did he purposefully lie to protect the Rebelion?

[Assistant]
Because even though C-3PO and R2-D2 were nigh inseparable, C-3PO's memory was wiped fairly frequently were R2-D2's was not. It was never wiped, actually.

In the EU, c. 25-30ABY(After the Battle of Yavin), R2 actually had a recording of Padm that he showed to Luke.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter/Wizarding World] If a muggle born wizard or witch has a close family member (i.e. parent, sibling, etc.) with a medical condition that muggle doctors can't treat, would they be able to seek help from a magic healer like those who work with St. Mungo's or otherwise?

We see numerous times in the WW that physical, non-magic related injuries and sicknesses are of almost no issue for magical medicine, and I would imagine that a magic healer would have the same sense of duty to care for the injured, muggle or not.

[Assistant] It might not be possible to give certain magical remedies to muggles as they may effect their physiology differently. Not to mention wizards are more resistant to physical injuries so this might also apply to normal illnesses so they might not even have a cure for certain things that wizards are naturally immune to. A muggle would probably need to go to a specialist who would charge more than whatever presumably free healthcare system they have in Wizarding England. Also there are a lot of normal ailments that even magic can't treat. Vision is one of them as evidence by people still needing glasses.


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

[User] [Horror] What would be the step by step events of a zombie apocalypse in 2017?

[Assistant]
It'd start in a state or country, and almost immediately be wiped out/contained. The biggest reason diseases tend to spread like wildfire is the lack of awareness Yet with media coverage at an all time high, pretty much all over the world, anything trying to pop up in humans that pose a serious threat will be spotted quicker than you can say "hey, remember when Ebola was a thing?"

I'd say at best it'd take a  majority of a more poor country, like Somalia, but it wouldn't last more than a week in a more wealthy country like England.


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

[User]
ELI5: If black holes are just stars with a higher density which prevent light from escaping then, why aren't they referred to as a subcategory of star but instead a fundamentally different object?

Also, can black holes be formed from star collisions such as a binary star system not orbiting correctly? Or is it only possibly during supernova?

EDIT: Seems that for whatever reason I was under the impression that simply adding matter into a regular star would cause its "edge" to become its event horizon (although this makes no sense by itself) and that fusion would still occur within this. For some reason I could not think of a black hole as a singularity with a event horizon proportional to its mass, and was instead thinking that it was purely its size; I didn't take into account that even as a star, more density would have to occur for it to become a black hole, not just adding mass. Also the point that black holes aren't filled with hydrogen anymore and that if anything they would be composed of heavy elements, although even that wouldn't be the correct way of saying it.

Thank you to everyone, first time posting on this subreddit.

[Assistant]
If you're going to assume that, then you have to assume everything in space is basically the same. Asteroids are just smaller planets, planets are smaller stars, stars are smaller black holes...

At some point, some things just fundamentally ARE different.


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

[User] [Marvel] A creature equal to the MCU Hulk in the berserk African scene appears at 9am in real-world Philadelphia, attacking everything in sight 24x7. How long does it take us to kill it and what is the final death tally?

[Assistant]
This depends on whether or not your name is Michael Bay or Joss Whedon  or you have pondered the tactical requirements of neutralising the Hulk for more than five minutes altogether.

The Hulk is *extremely* powerful and *ridiculously* resilient

In the scene in question, the Hulk withstands momentary acceleration forces (jerk forces) that would tear the limbs off a normal human, and reduce their brains to a thin grey slurry against the interior of their cranium.

Setting aside that (and the unexplained swapout of mass when the Hulk changes from Banner, and back)

Consistently, throughout the depictions of the Hulk, his extreme power is dependent on Newton's Third Law: *For every action, there is an equal  and opposite  re-action*.

If we accept that it is possible to *levitate* the Hulk (through technology or magic), *away from anything he can pull or push*, he's neutralised.

If, on the other hand, the hypothetical "we" are bound by the current real-world technological state-of-the-art

How long does it take to fly Scarlett Johannson to the East Coast?


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

[User]
CMV: If you are opposed to mask mandates but not seatbelt laws then you are a hypocrite or misinformed

I dont like wearing a mask that covers my face. It makes talking to people more difficult, sneezing in them is nasty until you can change it out. Its not hard to understand not liking them. I dont like wearing a seatbelt. Its not as comfortable as not having one on. However, the laws that dictate I wear a mask and a seatbelt in certain situations exist to keep me and the people around me from dying or ending up in the ICU. So when appropriate I wear them. Seatbelts are not perfect in preventing injuries from a car crash, but they clearly help. Masks are not perfect for preventing COVID spread, but they clearly help. But at present, in the USA, more people are dying from COVID every day than are from car accidents. If you have a patriotic or sympathetic bone if your body you should be ok with wearing a mask in indoor public spaces when required. Just like how anyone with common sense should be ok with wearing a seatbelt in a moving car, and having their passengers wear one too. If you are opposed to mask mandates but not laws requiring that someone driving a car wear a seatbelt please explain how you reconcile these views. I fully understand that seatbelts are mostly for the wearers protection, while masks are mostly for reducing your ability to transmit COVID.

[Assistant] It doesnt follow that because you support legally mandating one safety precaution that you therefore must support mandating all safety precautions. People are can evaluate the relative risks and benefits of some mandate without being hypocritical.


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

[User]
ELI5 If light is the fastest thing know to man, how do we know anything we observe is still out there?

From what I believe I understand, light is the fastest thing in the universe. Everything we see and observe has already happened millions and billions of years ago but the light has only just reached us. So is it possible that nothing is out there in today's time? Or that maybe the universe looks vastly different today, maybe even unrecognizable compared to what we see when we look at the stars?

[Assistant]
Essentially, we don't. If our sun disappeared right now, we wouldn't know for 8 minutes. One of the struggles of the search for alien life is that if if we spot it, we could be looking at a civilization that died out already.

If an alien in the Orion's belt was looking at us through a telescope right now, he'd see the Earth as it was in about 522AD.


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

[User]
Is there a difference between euthanasia and cessation of treatment?

I am currently writing a paper about this topic and have had a lot of trouble deciding if there is a difference between euthanasia and cessation of treatment.  I am leaning towards that there is no difference between euthanasia and cessation of treatment, because although the actions are different, both actions cause the same result in taking the life of another.
I am completely open to change my opinion on this topic, I just wanted to see how others felt in regards to this topic.

[Assistant]
There is a difference in practice. This is why what you call euthanasia is referred to as active euthanasia and what you called "cessation of treatment" is referred to as passive euthanasia. The difference is just in what the physician does. In active euthanasia, the physician actively brings about the death of the patient whereas in passive euthanasia the physician just allows it to happen. Two actions, even if they have the same consequences, aren't necessarily the same.

Whether there is a morally relevant difference is another thing entirely.


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

[User]
Why does glass appear transparent?

It's made from solid matter and even when very thick appears clear. What's the transparent property? And do other animals also see it as transparent?

[Assistant]
Glass is transparent to visible light. Matter will be opaque when it is made up of atoms or molecules that scatter light or absorb light. Rough glass will scatter light, this is why sand isn't transparent. Glass used in windows or other things is made smooth by letting it cool from a molten state.

And glass simply doesn't absorb visible light. The electrons in a glass molecule are bound too tightly to be excited by visible light.


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

[User]
[The Boys] What are Homelander's major weaknesses?

Besides being a maladjusted, egomaniacal, attention-craving man-child, of course.

[Assistant] Aside from his mental flaws hes extremely durable but not invulnerable. High explosive armor piercing rounds can harm him but do take awhile to add up. Other original members of the seven like queen Maeve and black noir can harm him in a fight though only comics black noir is it an even fight. He also suffers from having biological needs so starvation and suffocation are possible but his body is far more resilient and may take hours to days to suffocate with starvation taking years.


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

[User]
CMV: There is nothing wrong with other cultures eating animals we domesticate. E.g. asia eating dogs.

Obligatory, For the purposes of this post I will predominantly use the example of dogs being eaten in asia because It is subjectively the most widespread and emotional example.

In the same way that we breed and hold livestock in pens to be slaughtered and eaten on a mass scale there is nothing wrong with the same thing being done to cats or dogs. I see this come up a lot, the notion that chinese culture is ethically skewed because they eat dogs. This is fundamentally no different to you eating a cow. If you're disgruntled by the notion then it is an internal issue with yourself and your ethics more so then it is with another culture.

In this case I believe that it is wrong to superimposed our western ethics on other cultures.

I believe that it is taboo because we have, as a culture bread and domesticated Canis for agriculture, hunting and companionship. Likewise other religions may have developed sacred connections to pigs, cows etc. They have no right to infringe on what we believe and nor do we them.

I do not know the popularity of this perspective, wit I welcome criticism, healthy debate and hope to reach a common understanding.

EDIT 1:
I feel compelled to make this clear, not everyone in asia actively participates in the example I have used, in fact in recent years it has become far more taboo. However like I stated this is the most emotive example of cultural differences between the east and west and subsequently the most effective in initiating debate.

EDIT 2:
My opinion had been skewed, I appreciate the effort and time you all have put into your comments.
The rationalisation is that dogs, like cats are working animals, they have been bred to work and provide companionship, and therefore to eat them, would be inefficient. I think that is the route for the argument againsed eating dogs, at least in this isolated example I can appriciate that logic. However I do not believe that it is fundamentally too dissimilar to eating any other animal, if the argument is purely one of efficiency then we would only farm and eat genetically engineered lumps of muscle. We dont. We have an entire pallet of meats and foods, and therefore upon that basis I do not believe that the west can claim any sort of moral high ground.
Subsequently, my opinion on the matter had been expertly debated, but still holds.

I'm not debating wether eating meat is right or wrong, I'm debating wether eating meats in the west is any different to the meats in the east.

[Assistant]
(I am arguing through the utilitarian/harm-reduction axiom: the most ethical action will most greatly increase net happiness and decrease net suffering)

In Indian culture, an even more restrictive set of axioms exists. Beef consumption and cow slaughter are (rightfully) taboo, and other meat consumption and animal slaughter are (rightfully) discouraged. So it's not even universally acceptable to eat beef.

>In the same way that we breed and hold livestock in pens to be slaughtered and eaten on a mass scale there is nothing wrong with the same thing being done to cats or dogs.

Sure, eating cats or dogs is no *worse* than eating Western livestock, but it is still an unethical act. You use a false premise (depending on your axioms): it is ethical to slaughter and consume sentient animals. This is unethical as the total happiness gained from slaughtering and consuming another sentient animal will not exceed the total suffering as a result, except for life-death situation, food shortage, etc. (which is highly uncommon in a modern context).

Western cultural norms do not justify the slaughter of Western livestock (especially in current factory farm environments), therefore they do not justify the slaughter of other sentient animals.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are RAW images and how do they differ from normal images?

Ive listened to many tech reviewers and photo editors saying that RAW images are better and have been intrigued by it. Also what are its merits and demerits?

[Assistant]
RAW images = what your camera sensor sees, normal images = what your screen shows.

There are a few differences: A sensor doesn't really record colored pixels. Color is achieved by placing a filter in front of it - so some pixels will record only red light, some only green and some only blue. While your monitor does works in a similar way, generally there those "subpixels" are grouped together to full-color pixel units. This translation has to be done before an image can be shown.

And there are other things that have to be done in between the sensor recoding an image and a monitor displaying it. A camera would typically remove image noise, correct white balance (basically, remove any tinting that the lighting of your scene might have), and a lot of other different things. RAW images don't include all of that and are taken directly from the sensor data, including more details about some over- or underexposed areas, that would just appear "completely black" or "completely white" in a processed image.

That means that RAW images aren't really "better", in fact they themselves are much worse pictures than a processed JPEG. They just allow you the freedom of doing those processing steps yourself (and adjusting the parameters to your liking) to get an even better end result - assuming you and your software are more capable than your camera (which might make some wrong guesses about how you want your photo to look).


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

[User]
How has complexity been able to form despite entropy?

Isn't increased complexity representative of disorder to order? Is the Second Law of Thermodynamics a probability, so order can appear in nature on occasion?

[Assistant] As the Sun has been burning down its hydrogen into helium, its entropy has been increasing far more than the entropy of Earth has been decreasing with the appearance and proliferation of life, humanity and human technology.  The entropy of the Solar System as a whole increases whatever happens on the third rocky planet.


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

[User] Eli5: How is thirst satisfied almost instantly after drinking something, even though it takes the body some time to absorb the liquid?

[Assistant]
It takes very little time to absorb water.   You absorb it right from the time it hits your stomach, unlike a lot of food which has to pass through to the small intestine before you can start to absorb it.  Its also very easy to absorb it.   You have special holes in your stomach and small intestine for water to just mosey through, unlike most things which need to be frog-marched through by an escort.   This makes water absorption very, very fast.

As soon as you start absorbing water, your blood volume increases because that is where water goes.  Increasing your blood volume increases your blood pressure.  Increasing your blood pressure tells special sensors in your blood vessels that you are no longer dehydrated.  This message gets sent to your brain neurologically, and your brain stops releasing the you are thirsty hormone.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are birds the only animals that can talk or mimic humans voices?

Is there an evalutional advantage?

[Assistant]
They aren't.  There are lots of cases of other animals trying to mimic what they hear a human say.  You can easily youtube dogs trying to talk or mimic a noise they hear.  Goats too are a good example.

As for why certain birds do it so often.  Well birds rely on sound to locate each other, remember they are some of the most agile and small creatures so they need help finding each other, so its no wonder they make so much noise.  Some birds mimic not just human noises but other birds or random noises of urban life, like car alarms.  It has to do with the way that their syrinx (the avian version of the humans larynx or 'voice box') is set up.  It isn't to different from humans so it isn't difficult to imitate noises.


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

[User] [Gremlins] A Gremlin in dumped into the middle of the Atlantic. Assuming all new Gremlins make it to shore, how screwed is the world?

[Assistant]
Depends on how magical their powers are.

If magical enough, water equals reproduction, we screwed.

If they obey the laws of nature, there is only as much reproduced as the original gremlin has protein strains to split off. In this scenario, they become a blob of flesh.


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

[User] [Marvel] If the Carnage symbiote was permanently bonded to Peter Parker forever, would Peter eventually make the symbiote good, or would the Car age Symbiote make Peter Parker bad?

[Assistant]
The Axis event literally outright confirms there is more good in Peter Parker than bad in Cletus Cassidy, and the Maximum Carnage climax implied that Carnage literally cannot handle goodness.

It would be rough for Peter for a while, but he would wear down the Carnage symbiote simply because Peter would too good for it.


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

[User]
[Hulk]Who *would* I like when they're angry?

I find most people not very enjoyable to be around when they're angry. Quite frankly this even includes people like my wife and my own mother.

So saying "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry" doesn't seem to be saying much.

So in contrast, who *would* I like when they're angry?

[Assistant]
That depends largely on whether or not they're on your side.

For example, the Doctor often gets angry immediately before annihilating alien invasion forces. So you probably wouldn't like them while they're angry if you were a Dalek, Cyberman, or weird blobby thing made out of spray-painted bubble wrap, but you would be a very big fan of an angry Doctor if you were standing behind them.


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

[User]
[Superheroes] I have an alliterative first and last name with an obvious reference to an animal with strong mythological ties/themes. Am I doomed to a life of vigilantism and/or supervillainy?

For the record, my name is Robert Ravens and I'm about to head off to college in NYC to study accounting. I've managed to avoid several chemical spills, car accidents, attempted muggings and a run in with a pair of talking crows, but I'm concerned my dreams of a quiet and peaceful life will be dashed at some point despite my best efforts.

[Assistant]
Destiny is a funny thing. Often times the choices we make to avoid it set us on an irreversible path to fulfilling it. Your choice to avoid significant others, wise elderly role models, and your insistence that all you want is to be left alone have doomed you to the role of misunderstood villain. Your best bet is to find someone with similar "obvious main character" syndrome and befriend them. When they come after you later (as the hero, destined to stop your rambunctious ranks of ravenous ravens) they will have an emotional moment recognizing you as their old college buddy, and decide not to kill you.

It's really the best you can hope for.


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

[User] [Lovecraft] Why does the Yith take over the insectoid species that would rule Earth after humanity but not humans themself(at least not as a whole species)?

[Assistant]
Humans basically suck as a species in Lovecraft - literally evolved from pond scum left behind by colonists.
Stupid/weak/prone to insanity.  The list goes on and on fromt he Yith perspective.
Bugs much better.


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

[User]
How is energy distributed around the body?

I eat a bowl of porridge and go for a run, how does my body distribute this energy that it has received.

Is it evenly spread to improve the function of all organs to allow me to exercise or would it be concentrated to a specific area of my body.

[Assistant]
Your body doesn't have to actively decide. Energy usage works like a sinkhole: energy goes where it is needed. Say there is a particular cell in the body that is really active.

Take for example, your brain when you are studying hard. It needs a lot of glucose (because glucose is it's primary source of energy), so it will use all the glucose it has in the cell. Rather quickly it's intracellular glucose will decrease so it will get glucose from the bloodstream. How does it know to get glucose? Chemical gradients. There is less glucose in the brain cell, so glucose will use transporters to enter the brain cell until it reaches equilibrium. If the brain is continuously working, there will be a continuous influx of glucose in the brain cells from the blood.

You are going to get a decrease in blood glucose levels which will automatically trigger glucagon and a little epinephrine to be released in the body. This will trigger glycogen stores in the liver and muscles to be degraded and sent into the bloodstream. The blood will carry all this glucose throughout the body, but only the areas that are using glucose a lot will take in more glucose because of the chemical gradients.

It's a truly brilliant feature of the body. Things go where they are needed because of chemical gradients and sinkholes. This phenomena is present for many molecules in the body. How does FSH and LH know to go to the gonads? It doesn't, but the gonads are one of the few areas of the body that will bind these hormones. This automatically makes the hormones go there.

Edit: side note: the food you eat will be broken down into monomers and polymers in the small intestine and then sent to the liver through the blood stream. Then it will be stored in the liver and muscles as glucagon.


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

[User]
[Battlestar Galactica (reboot)] How would the attack on the colonies have gone differently if Gaius Baltar had learned about it earlier and given the military 24 hours advance warning? What about only 12 hours, or two?

Assume that Six had let the plan slip a little bit earlier, and instead of dithering, Gaius had gone straight to warning his military contacts. Baltar knows about the dangers of the Cylon remote ship hacking virus, and that Cylons can look like humans.

[Assistant]
The War drags out longer... the Colonies still get nuked, but the Colonial military can fight back and potentially win.

Look how effective two battlestars were against the Cylons... now imagine how effective a hundred of them would be?


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

[User]
[Marvel] When Bor died, did he pass "Bor Force" onto Odin, or did Odin always have the Odin Force?

And did Bor even have any kind of force?

[Assistant]
What we call the Odinforce is really just the well of power that exists in all Asgardians. We see this when Doctor Doom is able to withdraw a fraction of it by vivisecting several Asgardians. However, while all Asgardians have a flicker of what is termed the Odinforce, it's just that. Their own, personal life forces. Some of them have more, and focus it in unique ways such as magic, elemental control, teleportation, and the like.

However, they don't call what they have the Odinforce because any individual's power is like a candle compared to a star. It just doesn't compare. They have their life force, and then Odin has the Odinforce.

Odin is extraordinarily powerful. Naturally so. His body holds more power than almost any other Asgardian is capable of, the Odinforce. He is essentially a well of life energy, and his vast reserves of it are far greater than most. These reserves are why his power is of such a level that it gains its own title. If you added the life force of every other Asgardian who follows Odin, it wouldn't equal his own. That is why it is the Odinforce.

...Now. Bor. Bor Burison was more powerful than Odin. Plain and simple. And Buri/Tiwaz, who created the entire Asgardian race, was essentially supreme. The earlier you go in their generations, the more powerful you found the family.

However, only Odin and Thor referred to their power as the Odinforce/Thorforce. Buri and Bor seemed to view their power as simply... power. They didn't pass it on, the way Odin did to Thor. They didn't really seem to even focus on it that much in their, admittedly few, appearances.


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

[User] [SCP] How powerful is the full composite SCP Foundation? What feats can they accomplish?

[Assistant] They have managed to keep the paranormal secret in what is essentially a high fantasy setting. They can wipe the memories of entire major urban centers. They've prevented hundreds or, more likely, thousands of world ending disasters without hardly anybody even realizing it happened. They're literally able to clone billions of people to rebuild and repopulate the entire planet in an apocalyptic scenario, and have probably done this many times. Suffice it to say their resources and power are near unlimited. When they fail it's either because of stuff slipping through the cracks due to the sheer beaurocracy of keeping this machine afloat, or because they're dealing with something they don't yet understand (or perhaps cannot understand).


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

[User]
ELI5: Why I can't eat just multivitamins and something filling like bread and stay healthy?

Thank you for the very informative read, especially to FreakyBloodHound... that's a pretty scary awesome concept that we don't know why but we kinda of know what works.

Thanks ELI5 I think I learned something.

[Assistant]
There are a couple of reasons:

1)  Nutrient bioavailability matters.  If your body can't absorb the nutrition in the pill, it doesn't do you any good.  In this sense, a lot of multivitamins just give you very expensive pee.

2)  You need macronutrients as well as micronutrients.  So carbs, fats, and proteins (especially the latter two) are important for a source of energy and for your body to build and repair things.  You'd have to swallow a ton of pills to get your 2000 calories a day, defeating the purpose.

3)  We still don't really know how nutrition works.  You require a fairly delicate synthesis of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and coenzymes.  There is a high probability that a multivitamin is missing something essential that hasn't even been discovered yet, or that isn't recognized as essential.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Is there another level of education available to magic-users?

Hogwarts seems to act as a middle-school through high-school level. Is there some sort of collegiate program available, or is the magical community at a high-school graduate level?

[Assistant]
Auror training was a three-year long school that was known to be extremely difficult. Other careers had similar trade schools available, and there are specialized schools for early education as well.

All of them had pretty strict entry requirements.

After finishing these programs the wizards would usually look for someone to further refine their skills and training.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why wasn't Leia a Jedi by the time of The Force Awakens?

[Assistant] She opted to pursue a political and military career over becoming a Jedi. We don't really know her reasoning for this yet, but we do know that becoming a Jedi is friggin hard, and takes a lot of time. And maybe she wasn't cut out to be a Jedi anyway. She's force sensitive, but who knows if she's *that* force sensitive.


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

[User]
Why are do most medications have HCl in it?

For example:

Tramadol HCl, Sertraline HCl, Oxycodone HCl

Does the HCl stabilize the medication?

[Assistant]
First of all, many chemicals used as drugs contain a nitrogen atom.  Not all nitrogen-containing chemicals are basic, but many are.  Specifically molecules which contain the *amine* functionality are basic.  Such molecules are prone to oxidize when exposed to air.  In addition, some suffer from poor solubility in water, which is generally a problem -- good water solubility generally translates into better drug absorbtion.

For molecules containing the amine functionality, one solution to either or both these problems is to react the basic molecule with an acidic molecule, to make a salt.  The acidic molecule is often (but not always) HCl, or hydrochloric acid.  So, if you take one molecule of oxydocdone and one molecule of HCl, you form the oxycodone-HCl salt.  The electron deficient H+ from the HCl is strongly attracted to the electron-rich nitrogen, and forms a positively charged portion of the molecule.  The Cl- hangs around to balance the charge, so there is no net charge. (Of course, a bottle of positive charges or negative charges is generally called a battery, and you don't want to swallow that for a medication, so you want the Cl- to be there as well!)

The resulting molecule is less prone to air oxidation (more stable) and is also more water soluble, since it is more polar (and polar things tend to dissolve in water better than non-polar ones)...and makes a better medicine.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we use XLR input for microphones instead of a 6.3mm jack like we do with guitars?

[Assistant]
XLR (which, technically is only a connector standard) provides a *balanced* signal path.   Balanced lines allow better signal quality because they are less susceptible to interference.  Microphones tend to have much longer cables than guitars and so tend to be more affected by noise/interference.   XLR also allows "phantom power", which allows you to send power to microphones that require it.    Why not guitars?  Guitars (almost always) have high-impedance , high-output pickups and neither of these make a balanced line reasonable. And short cable runs.  Mics also plug into a board, where as you plug your guitar into an amp...so you'd need XLR inputs there, too.

Final point:  You can run balanced lines on XLR or 1/4" (6.3mm) but the connectors for 1/4" are 3 conductor, not 2.


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

[User] ELI5-Why to grocery stores have refrigerated aisles of food without enclosures? Wouldn't it be more economic to retain the cool air and save money?

[Assistant] The fridges use a set of nozzles to create laminar flows of cold and hot air to separate the air inside the refrigerator from the rest of the shop without any physical barriers. It is a pretty cool system and can be quite efficient. Although not as efficient as an actual physical barrier. A shop may install transparent doors or flaps to save energy. And during night they often cover the refrigerators to make them more efficient.


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

[User] ELI5 How does laser tattoo removal work? How does light remove ink from the skin?

[Assistant]
Tldr version is that it accelerates the process your body uses to fade them.

The reason tattoos fade over time is that the particles of ink get recognized as foreign by the immune system and taken up by macrophages to be destroyed. This process stops or slows way down at a certain point because some of the ink particles are just too damn big.

What the laser does is it zaps the pigments with a specific wavelength that they absorb, causing them to heat up very quickly and explode, breaking them into smaller pieces that the body's immune cells can process and get rid of.


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

[User]
[Terminator] Why doesn't skynet use chemical and or biological warfare against humans?

I haven't watched the Terminator:Genesis , if they do use that against them then I'll have to watch it. If they didn't use it then why don't they? Why don't they engineer a superbug that resist all medications and kill all humans. Why kill them with machine guns and laser guns when you can just sprinkle them with virus and whatnot?

[Assistant] Those methods work less effectively when the population is scattered and scarce. You need humans moving between places to effectively transmit a disease between populations and the remaining humans may not be traveling between clusters enough to make it worth while. Any survivors would have immunity as well. Itd be much easier to just contaminate/destroy water sources or use radiation than biological agents.


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

[User]
What has been/will be the eventual fate of all our space probes?

This includes probes both in space or on planets/moons themselves.

[Assistant]
Either they will collide with a celestial object or they will evaporate.

Probes in orbits around other planets are, wherever possible, deliberately crashed at end of life. We just did this to the MESSENGER probe at Mercury.

This has the dual benefit of only contaminating the planets we want contaminated, and gives us some extra science - we can learn from the composition of the stuff it kicks up at impact.

Interstellar probes (Pioneers and Voyagers) will either enter another system and collide with something, or over a period of trillions of years, will evaporate.

There are lots of high-energy (ultraviolet and higher) photons in space. Occasionally one of these will knock an entire atom off a spacecraft. In the very, very long timescale this will evaporate the spacecraft.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] If all the Q are named Q, how do they distinguish each other?

Leave aside the conceit of even bothering with having a name in the first place. If a Q says, "Q found out what Q said to Q about Q," how is it known which beings are referred to?

If the answer is "the Q are omniscient so of course they'd know," what about contexts where a Q is interacting with beings outside the continuum?

Forgive me if this has been discussed but "Q" is kinda hard to search on.

[Assistant]
They don't experience consciousness the same way we do. They're all "Q" because names don't really mean anything to them.

It's like the way many eusocial insects identify via chemical receptors--they have a metaphysical perspective that allows them to communicate and differentiate differently than us corporeal creatures.

Their experience of identity might more closely resemble Changelings.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why does Hux hate the rebellion?

Hux is constantly put down by Snoke and Kylo, Hux doesn't seem to like either of them, but for some reason he is very passionate about the First Order. Why? Is the First Order all he has left to call family or does he some some beef with rebellion?

[Assistant]
As mentioned, his father was an Imperial Commandant and took him and others out to the Unknown Regions to join the fledgling First Order after the Battle of Jakku.

If he seems like he's an Imperial hardliner, that's because he is. The First Order leadership is all either former Imperials who were so gung-ho about the Empire they made the rest say "chill out, dude," or their children.


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

[User]
How can light be always at a constant speed but still be influenced by gravity?

Lets take a black hole for example. The gravitational pull is so large that not even the speed of light is a sufficient escape velocity. But wouldnt that mean that light escaping from gravitational pulls is slowed down? That in theory a gravitational body with the same escape velocity as the speed of light would make light "stand still"?

[Assistant]
This is a pretty subtle question. Light travels at a constant speed in the sense that if you perform measurements *locally*, in a box small enough that you can ignore the effects of gravity, then you'll measure the same speed of light no matter where you are or how you're moving.

When you look *globally* at a larger patch of spacetime, where gravity is significant - i.e., where the patch is large enough that you notice the curvature of spacetime, which is equivalent to gravity - you can't even really define a single notion of what speed is. Think of spacetime like the surface of the Earth - if you restrict yourself to small regions where the curvature of the Earth isn't noticeable, everything looks flat, and you can use standard Euclidean geometry to measure distances. But if you consider a really big region where the Earth's curvature comes into play, then some of those tools are no longer applicable.

So if you consider a small patch of spacetime around a black hole, locally you'll find a constant speed of light, but as you string all those local patches together, you'll find light behaving in non-trivial ways. For example, the fact that light can't escape the event horizon is due to the fact that, inside the horizon, time and distance exchange roles. If you look at some local patch inside the horizon, you'll see light moving in a straight line at a constant speed, but when you connect your local picture (or coordinates) to the global picture, you'll find that what looks to you like light moving forward in time becomes, in the global picture, light moving inwards in radius. And since every physical object moves forward in time (by definition), within the horizon everything moves inexorably towards the center.


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

[User]
[Zootopia] What about other classes of animals?

Like, what happened to the birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, etc, in the Zootopia world? Did they evolve as well and have their own cities, or are they the way they are IRL?

[Assistant]
It seems that only mammals are "evolved". (Don't really like that term, since every living thing is evolved, but it's the one they use in the movie.)

The popular fan theory that different classes of animal have their own cities (that is to say, one city for mammals, one for birds, one for reptiles etc) never made much sense to me.


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

[User]
Can a person with the flu vaccine still spread the flu?

I was just wondering if you are vaccinated and you are exposed to one of the strains of virus the vaccine covers, and your body fights it off, is it possible in the period of time that your body is fighting it off for you to spread the virus to others?

So I guess Im wondering at what point you become contagious?

i know viruses hijack your cells and eventually lyse your cells once they have used its machinery to replicate, is it at this point at which you become contagious? Once the viruses reach a certain dosage from replication within your body?

[Assistant]
The flu is spread airborne by being in the bodily fluids you expel eg. suspended in your sneeze-water. The entire time you have the virus there is SOME in your bodily fluids, but what makes it contagious is your body facilitating spreading that fluid (there is also a threshold point of viral load in fluid, where there is enough virus in that fluid for it to be an effective contagion in a new body, but that is a hard thing to pin point down and depends on a lot of factors in the environment and the new body it enters).

The vaccine does not make your body block the virus at the door, it just keeps it in an alert state so that its really quick to fight the virus off. What this means *ideally* is that its so quick you fight it off without really reaching that state of spreading viral fluid around. What it more likely means is you fight it off fairly quickly, and so the time the virus is transmittable from you is significantly diminished (ie you are briefly contagious, which significantly *reduces* you spreading it).


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

[User] Does Russel's "A History of Western Philosophy" build a good foundation for philosophy?

[Assistant] Russell is a deeply biased reporter on other people's positions, and often just fundamentally misunderstands them. On the other hand, he is a talented writer and has an astute, analytic mind. So you're getting a pretty mixed bag with his *History*. It's certainly got its merits, though one has to take its account of philosophers' views with a considerable grain of salt.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do things seem so much funnier when we're "over-tired"?

[Assistant] Your brain releases bursts of dopamine when it's sleep deprived. This causes euphoria, but can also cause reckless decision making. The euphoria is why you get so giggly and delirious, basically your brain is getting a bath in happy chemicals.


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

[User] [ELI5] Why do most software programs (web browsers, for example) display an error code that you have to look up instead of just telling you the error?

[Assistant]
The use of error codes is considered a good practice in programming, because it allows different errors to be strictly defined and distinguished from one another. The name and explanation of that error can then be easily localized.

For example, HTTP error "404" has a detailed specification indicating when it should be issued. It happens to be called "Not Found," but a web site may choose to return a page with a different name and an easy-to-understand explanation if it wants to. Or a browser can choose to provide that information, even translate it based on the user's language. Either way, behind the scenes the web server and browser both understand just what is meant by "404."


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

[User]
What would you see in the middle of a ring of mirrors?

If you were to have a giant ring of mirrors set up, so that there were no corners between them (so effectively a giant ring shaped mirror), and then stand in the middle of it, what would you see? I can't my head around this and I can't figure out if you would see one reflection of yourself, or a reflection of yourself everywhere. If it's the second option, what would that even look like?

[Assistant]
Lighting design engineer here. We work with parabolic reflectors all the time. They try to focus light (information) from a source and put it into a specific direction. All parabolic surfaces, however, have a focus at which point rays of information will converge. With a perfectly circular surface concentric with its focal point, essentially every "plane" on the reflector is normal to the direction of the beam going to or coming from the focus.

So imagine it this way: If you have an octagonal ring of mirrors, you can look in 8 different directions from the center and see specifically one reflection in each direction. If you bump that up to a dodecagon, you'll see ~~20~~ 12 distinct reflections. As the planes get thinner and thinner, you begin to lose surface area that can reflect the whole image back to the focus. Eventually, in the case of the ring, the surfaces get infinitesimally thin and you're left with a sliver of a reflection in every direction you look in. The result is an amorphous, but continuous, smear of color, almost as if someone covered you with some sort of transfer material and rolled and dragged you around the interior surface of the ringed mirror.

A lightbulb at the center of such a reflector would see nothing but a band of continuous light all the way around, but it would be very different for any person observing from a point not at the center.


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

[User] [The Rocky Horror Picture Show]"Your mission is a failure, your lifestyle's too extreme. I'm your new commander, you now are my prisoner." 1. What was Dr. Frankenfurter's mission? 2. Were Riff-Raff and Magenta's actions approved by the authorities of Transexual, or were they staging a coup?

[Assistant]
Frank was always an outsider, problematically aspirational for a Transylvanian.

But he was tolerated (often enough even adored) by a certain fringe and his ways were never entirely anathema to the pleasure seeking culture of his home world.  Many found a perverted pleasure in his fetishistic pursuit of the perfect partner.

Love with one was deliciously taboo. Frank escaped broader condemnation as not once was he satisfied. Many partners from home had known Frank's boredom which inevitably followed his dizzying attention, not to mention Columbia and Eddie on earth. And of course there was his promiscuity which bordered on insatiable even by intergalactic standards.

His mission on Earth was never authorised, though never explicitly prohibited.

Riff Raff and Magenta played both hands.  They attended with Frank both as open double agents (nothing was ever expected to be a secret from Frank) and as his loyal servants.  They would share in his successes but they never intended to leave good Transexual society forever.  Frank knew all of this but his vanity... He didn't expect their mutiny to come so readily.

His ultimate undoing was his new creation.  With Rocky, Brad and Janet he had tasted the flesh and glimpsed domestic love. He did not yet fully understand it but Frank was well on the path to Stepford Wife bliss (or as close to it as someone of his persuasion could ever reach).

This could not be allowed. Such domesticity threatened the fabric of Transylvanian morals.


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

[User] ELI5: How can three-wheeled vehicles such as Spyders be accredited as road-safe when 3-wheeled ATVs were discontinued for safety concerns?

[Assistant] Because a Spyder has different weight distribution that creates a low center of gravity and makes it considerably more stable, and Spyders (and the other similar 3-wheeled vehicles) are not designed for "all terrain" (ie, off-road, on rough ground, rocks, deep mud, etc) use, they're designed for highway use on proper roads. The problem with 3-wheeled ATVs was weight distribution that resulted in a high and easily overbalanced center of gravity, combined with their usage on all kids of rough and/or unstable terrain.


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

[User]
[MCU] If Loki wasn't meant to escape in the 2012 timeline then what happens to Captain America in the original timeline?

So when Loki escapes in the 2012 timeline with the tesseract, that forces Tony and Steve to go back in time to the 1970's to get the tesseract there instead. But if they had received it in 2012 and immediately returned to 2023, What would have Steve done after the Battle with Thanos?

Does he still go back in time to Peggy? To me it seems that Steve decided to go back in time once he saw his own picture on her desk and Peggy herself through the window. But would he still go travel back if that moment in the 1970's never happened?

[Assistant]
The misleading thing about the Sacred Timeline is that it is not about what is supposed to happen, it is about what is *not* supposed to happen.  The thing that isn't supposed to happen is the rise of an alternate version of Kang the Conquerer in the far future.

For whatever reason, Loki's individual contributions to the timeline tend to cause events to unfold in a way that allows a new Kang to be born and discover the multiverse.

Cap can go back in time and live with Peggy if he wants to.  Or he might never get the chance to do that, it's largely irrelevant.


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

[User] [Star Wars: TFA] Why doesn't Anakin/Vader just go force ghost and tell Kylo to chill the fuck out?

[Assistant]
In Legends, at least, the ghosts of Jedi couldn't stick around forever. Obi-Wan's ghost told Luke he had to move on after only about a decade and a half.

In canon, we haven't seen how long they can last - we have the disembodied voice/spirit of Qui-Gon lasting to the end of the Clone Wars, thirteen years after his death, but that's the longest-lasting spirit we have as of now.

But - there is one thing we do know. Anakin redeemed himself on the second Death Star. He wasn't a Sith anymore. And Sith can't become Force ghosts anyway.


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

[User]
ELI5:Solar panel losing its efficiency

I read that solar panels loses efficiency eventually. But I can not wrap my head on why it does, considering that there is no moving parts.

[Assistant]
Hey, Ph.D here working on light induced degradation (LID) in solar cells.

Essentially, you need to think of the efficiency of a solar cell as its ability to generate but also collect electrons as useful energy. Now in the body of the solar cell, which we call the bulk, you can get many things that will steal that electron and stop it from being collected. These include metallic impurities (Iron, chromium, copper...etc.), crystallographic defects and usually anything that has a charge that can capture an electron or a hole (which we call charge carriers). The more of these defects you have the lower your effective efficiency.

So what happens out in the field over time? There are many things that can happen that can cause a module to degrade. On the macro level, standard deterioration from corrosion, UV exposure, humidity, etc as mentioned by others in this thread. We also have a few such as PID (potential induced degradation) and LID (Light Induced Degradation). LID for example in monocrystalline solar cells is largely known to be due to the Boron-Oxygen defects. Under sunlight, boron and oxygen can combine together to form a B-O complex, which likes to steal charge carriers and usually results in a drop in efficiency within the first 48 hours. Now this problem has largely been solved. There are a few other known elements that can cause degradation under sunlight, i.e copper (which can form precipitates) and Hydrogen, etc etc..


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

[User]
Can Bats Catch the Latest Variants of COVID-19?

My understanding is the COVID-19 originally jumped from bats to humans. Is it possible for the latest variants, like delta or lambda, to be transmitted to bats?

[Assistant]
Bats can absolutely be infected with viruses like Covid-19. They do have ACE2-Receptors used by SARS-CoV-2 to dock on.

Bats are much more immune to consequences of most in humans highly pathological viruses tho. So, yes, they can host the virus, but they are not likely to get anywhere, or at all, as sick as humans would.

Coronaviruses, also SARS-like ones, in bats are very common.


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

[User]
Will binaries compiled on the destination machine run more efficiently?

If I recompiled every binary on my machine, for my machine, would it be faster than getting it from common repositories/sources as it has been made specifically for my hardware?

[Assistant]
A compiler should produce the same output regardless of where it is run.  So as long as you're using the same compiler (and it doesn't choose different default options based on where it is running) the resulting binary should be *identical*.   Even if you "cross compile", where the machine you're compiling on can't even run the binary you are producing.

TL;DR: No.

Please note, though, that you can produce binaries that are faster than the ones you download by allowing the compiler to use specific features of your CPU that it might not otherwise utilize for portability reasons.  But that is all about the CPU the compiler is targeting, not the one it is running on.


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

[User] ELI5: Why sheep are symbol of innocence, while goats are symbol of the devil?

[Assistant]
Sheep are a metaphor for good men that follow God.  They're cute, harmless & generally do what they're told but they occasionally do something stupid, get themselves into trouble & need help.  They're safe as long as they stay under the watch of the shepard.

Goats, OTOH, are obstinate, uncontrollable & do what they damned well feel like - even if that means eating tin cans.  They reject all authority and insist on going their own way, regardless of what's good for them.  This, as a counterpoint to the sheep, nicely ties into the story of how Satan rebelled against God.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do you always look bad in photographs, is that what you really look like?

This is confounding.

[Assistant] I read a neat article about this.  There's actually a reason you think you look bad.  It turns out, that a photograph is a reverse image of yourself.  As opposed to a mirror, which is not.  The photograph looks odd to you, because it is backwards.  It's almost impossible to notice that one side of you is just a bit different... but when you see yourself one way for your entire life, and then see yourself in a photograph the other way, it's a bit off-putting, isn't it?


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

[User]
Is Mars more like a "baby/early" Earth, or a dead Earth?

By dead Earth I mean, millions of years from now, what Earth would look like.

[Assistant]
There are a couple differences. Earth has large amounts of liquid water. Mars has some water, but it's mostly frozen at the polar caps. Also, Mars has no magnetosphere to protect it from solar wind which caused most of its atmosphere to be stripped away. It's less than %1 as dense as our atmosphere on Earth.

There is evidence that Mars did at one time have a thicker atmosphere lots of liquid water, and a magnetosphere. For some as yet unknown reason, the liquid metallic core of mars stopped turning and this lack of a dynamo effect caused the magnetosphere to decay and mostly disappear.

If we knew what happened to Mars we'd be able say if the same fate awaits Earth. It's possible that whatever stopped the dynamo of Mars's core could also happen here. After billions of years of no magnetosphere for protection Earth could end up looking just as barren as Mars.


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

[User]
CMV: Victim impact statements should not be part of sentencing

To give some context, I've always struggled to understand why the impact to victims in a criminal case is relevant to sentencing. Lets say for example you have someone who is charged with murder, obviously if they are found guilty they should face the appropriate punishment for their crime. But I don't see why having statements read by  family members or friends should impact the severity of the sentence.

I think this is especially true of crimes where ill-intent was not present, and the emotional impact of a grieving family gets in the way of the suspect getting a fair sentencing hearing. In no way do I want to belittle or disregard what victims and their families go through, but sometimes it may be difficult for them to see beyond their emotions and think of the big picture. Perhaps the cause of my view is because I would like to consider the utility of a criminal sentence, not the justice aspect of it. It is very difficult for me to put myself in the shoes of a victim of a crime, but if I saw the perpetrator did not harm me or a family member on purpose, and only due to negligence, I would struggle to give a statement that could further increase the severity of the sentence. If I lost a loved one due to a drunk driving accident or something similar, I don't see how sending the perpetrator to prison would make me feel better in any way at all. In fact, even if I was very angry at that person at the time, within a few months I would likely start to feel sorry for them and even feel guilty about giving a victim impact statement.

In summary, I guess I've always felt its smarter to be rational when it comes to sentencing and not allow emotions to get in the way. I just think that decisions, especially those that affect possibly decades of someone's life, should not be impacted by someone's reaction to the event.

All this being said, I feel someone impacted by a crime should be allowed to be somehow paid back for the impact that the crime has had on them. I just don't see how sending someone to prison could possibly bring them any joy. I definitely feel that the impacts of crime on their victims more so belong in civil cases than they do in criminal cases. In civil cases, I 100% agree with suing for pain and suffering and other impacts, financially or otherwise.

[Assistant]
Lets say you have someone being sentenced for assault . He gets into a fight at his high school, punches a guy right in the face, the resource officer sees it and presses charges . The guy he punched knew he deserved it because he had been harassing dudes girlfriend all day and didnt want to press charges. They go to sentencing, the resource officer reads the victim statement with the rest of the findings and sentencing occurs .

Scenario 2... same thing but the victim instead is someone defenseless and unsuspecting and it has completely rocked his world .

Why *shouldnt* the sentence be different in these two scenarios ?

Thats why theres minimum and maximum sentences because they operate on a spectrum where the victim impact statement is absolutely relevant .


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

[User] [Fairly Odd Parents] Timmy was able to lend his fairies to Tootie of a day cause according to Da Rules, you can only loan your fairies to kids more miserable than you. If thats the case, why wasnt Tootie given a fairy in the first place?

[Assistant] When he was given the fairies, he was far more miserable than Tootsie. When he gifted them to her, she was more miserable than him at that moment, but not as miserable as when Timmy got the parents (ie: not miserable enough to get her own fairies).


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

[User] ELI5: Why do treadmills and elliptical machines have that 5 minute cool down time after a programmed workout. Is it necessary?

[Assistant] Short answer - intense exercise causes changes to your circulatory system, especially in your legs. A rapid and sudden STOP in intense exercise can cause a sudden problem with things like dizziness or loss of consciousness. Since treadmills are typically in places where a person who drops unconscious might get hurt and start a lawsuit. they incorporate a cooldown to help prevent this, and they can always blame you for misusing the machine if you ignore it.


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

[User] [Ferris Buellers Day Off] why did Jeanie shout I knew it! when finding the dummy in the bed when Ferris revealed to her at the beginning he was faking (by winking)?

[Assistant]
The wink wasnt a confirmation of his faking sick... it was a taunt more than anything.

Regardless, Ferris' antics about the city and not actually staying at home might be more the 'AH-HA!" moment she was wanting to confirm.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can the Hubble Space Telescope take pictures of Pluto that look like crap, but can take jaw-dropping photos of distant galaxies and stars?

[Assistant]
This is like asking why your camera phone can take awesome pictures of the clouds or mountains several miles away, but can't take good pictures of a grain of sand from 10 feet away.

Galaxies and stars are bigger.


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

[User]
CMV: Coffee tables are a worthless piece of furniture.

I have never understood the utility of coffee tables, but maybe somebody can change my mind. For one, it seems like nobody ever uses them for drinks. Nowadays, most people that drink coffee or tea put it in a mug and take it with them to work, buy it on the way to work, or make it at work. It also seems extremely inconvenient to lean forward and bend down to keep picking up and setting down a drink, or doing anything for that matter. Side tables are much more space saving and easier to use for everything I could think of doing. Some people just end up using them as footrests, which is gross and far less comfortable than an ottoman. They also seem to always become dedicated as a collect-all for junk, especially if you have kids. If you don't have kids, you are probably getting too old to keep bending over to use a coffee table.

[Assistant] Coffee tables are lower than most tables - they serve to put something down but keep it out of immediate view, such as when talking to someone sitting opposite of you or when watching something. They are also made to be accessible while siting, so you don't really have to bend over as much while you sit.


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

[User] ELI5: what exactly is the Chinese housing bubble and how did it happen?

[Assistant] The Chinese government has outlawed many investments, but not housing.  So, it's the only game in town, increasing sales demand.  High demand drives up prices, making it look like a good investment.  Some day, when everybody owns a home and two investment homes, there can be a crash, because in the long run hosing is only valuable to people who want to live there: