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

[User] ELI5: What does it mean when it says music is "Remastered"?

[Assistant]
TLDR: Processing an original audio recording to make it sound better.

A master is the original recording used for an album, usually on Analog tape.

Armed with the knowledge that the technology and techniques used in the audio industry have improved over time it's often obvious how to improve a recording.

Remastering an album involves cleaning up the audio of the original. Digitizing the analog tape and then  applying filters, removing hiss and popping noises from the recording, changing the volumes of the various tracks in the mix and audio channels. You can even fix mistakes in the editing and instrument playing in the recording, although sometimes this is considered taboo when messing with older recordings.

Tracks are recorded and mixed to optimize the qualify on formats of the day like Vinyl or Tapes. Remastering a recording can help make it sound better in modern formats like Digital, CD's etc, and through headphones instead of speakers. Modern recordings also tend to be a lot louder sounding than older ones.

It really depends on what the studio is trying to accomplish.


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

[User] [LOTR] How bad would things have to get on middle earth before ol Eru himself got involved?

[Assistant]
The only time he's done so in the past was the Numenor debacle (basically Atlantis. Tolkien hated thinking of it as Atlantis but it's obviously Atlantis).

The king of Numenor, Ar-Pharazon, had managed to capture Sauron himself, and was feeling pretty good about himself, but OF COURSE Sauron just used the opportunity to whisper poison honey in the king's ears, and told him he and his followers could be immortal if they invaded Valinor (the home of the gods). Pretty soon Numenor, which used to be a nice place, was full of little cults popping up to Sauron, and Ar-Pharazon decided to go ahead and invade Valinor.

Long story short, the Valar (gods) felt a little unsure of what to do so they phoned Eru (big God). Eru utterly wrecked the invaders' shit, and affected the world so hard that Numenor got totally wiped out. To make sure no humans ever tried that again he changed the shape of the Earth, and now Valinor isn't in the west anymore, but some other dimension or something (not the words the author used, but good enough)


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

[User] ELI5: What do EDM Artists (Skrillex, Deadmau5, etc.) actually do on stage at their concerts? Aren't they essentially just pressing play on certain pre-recorded tracks?

[Assistant]
That's a bit like saying "aren't baseball players essentially standing around?" At a glance, yes. Statistically, yes, most of the time is standing around. It's what happens when they're not standing around that separates the amateurs from the pros.

The set is not pre-recorded, although the songs may be. Songs are chosen by the DJ, mixed in/out, and modified in real time to be unique. Many DJ's engage the crowd and add a whole lot to their performances.

Quite a few are known for having separate vocal and music tracks and mixing them live. Some are known for performing on the mic.

Some artists even create the music live. The sample, mix, and compose live on stage. Atom and his Package springs to mind as an example.


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

[User] Are there animals that tend to, or protective of, their grandchildren?

[Assistant] Yes, there are. Herd animals that form tribes or multigenerational herds. Wolves and elephants come to mind. And higher apes (chimps) are specifically protective of their own grandchildren, that is elder females help their daughters with child rearing or just baby sitting the kids when their moms are busy foraging and such.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are people hating on XBOX One and PS4?

I'm not a gamer at all, im just curious.

[Assistant]
Imagine if nothing you paid for belonged to you, anymore. Imagine if you needed to pass a security check before you could use it, and there were rules about how you could lend it to a friend.

Now imagine that everything you bought was more expensive than it needed to be. Imagine if the only reason that Microsoft was doing all of this was to squeeze as much profits out of you as possible, while ignoring criticisms from Japan and Europe - setting their console up for failure outside of America.

Are we having fun yet?

Someone else will need to explain what's wrong with the PS4.


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

[User] [Pacific Rim] Why did no one calculate the kaiju strength would easily destroy the wall?

[Assistant]
What's often overlooked in the world of Pacific Rim is that the same sorts of problems that plague government projects today plague them still.

Waste, corruption, backroom deals, officials giving contacts to companies they own stock in rather than the best or cheapest bidder..

Wall construction involved far more run of the mill construction companies then the specialized companies who could build Jaegers. Furthermore, with suspensions of OSHA like rules and a complete lack of labor rights, it was far more profitable with fewer risks of the workforce figuring things out and unionizing.

Simply put, the wall was never intended to stop the Kaiju, it did what it was supposed to do, it lined pockets.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do small animals run away from me even though I'm no threat but bugs constantly land on me and I frequently kill them?

Every time I see a small lizard or chipmunk they seem terrified and run from me, even though I pose no threat, but whenever bugs land on me I either swat them or crush them and they just keep on coming at me. And  I am not talking mosquitoes either I'm talking like small flies and moths and such.

[Assistant] They don't know that you pose a threat and they have no need to take the risk. Bugs, can bite and some need to feed on you. The flies can fly quite fast and your movements are too slow for them. So, they can safely take the chance. The moths usually land on when you stay still.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why didn't ownership of the Elder Wand transfer to Voldemort after he killed Harry?

This seems like a bit of a plot hole to me and has been bothering me for the last while.

_______

Let's take a look first at those who have owned the wand and how they lost it.

- **Antioch Peverall:** Either acquired the wand from death or created it. Had his throat slit in his sleep, transferring ownership of the wand.
- **Emeric the Evil:** Was slaughtered in a duel by Egbert the Egregious, transferring the wand.
- **Egbert the Egregious:** Unknown.
- **Godelot:** Died after being locked in a cellar by his son, Hereward, transferring the wand.
- **Hereward:** Unknown.
- **Barnabas Deverill** Was murdered by Loxias, transferring the wand.
- **Loxias:** Was killed by either Arcus or Livius, transferring the wand.
- **Arcus/Livius:** Unknown.
- **Mykew Gregorovitch:** Was stunned by Gellert Grindelwald, transferring the wand.
- **Gellert Grindelwald:** Was defeated in a duel by Albus Dumbledore, transferring the wand.
- **Albus Dumbledore:** Was disarmed by Draco Malfoy, transferring the wand.
- **Draco Malfoy:** Was disarmed of another wand by Harry Potter, transferring the wand.

_________

So it seems that the wand can be transferred via non-magical killings (Peverall), killing curses/death by magic (Emeric, Barnabas, Loxias), indirect killings (Godelot), disarming (Dumbledore), stunning (Gregorovitch), and by disarming someone of another wand (Malfoy).

So why would Voldemort casting the killing curse, and killing/defeating Harry, not transfer ownership of the wand to him?

[Assistant]
You've got the first bit already: The Elder Wand doesn't change allegiances when its owner is killed, its allegiance is to power; Whoever overpowers the master gets the wand. Harry walked into the forest and let Voldemort kill him. There was no struggle, no magical confrontation. And even more importantly, Harry wanted Voldemort to kill him. This is also what triggered protection over all those still fighting at Hogwarts. Voldemort was so obsessed with death, he failed to see the kinds of magic against which death is meaningless.

Harry actually got this plan from Dumbledore. Dumbledore wanted Snape to be the one to kill him, to die at the hand of his most loyal man, the only one who would obey the order to take Dumbledore's life. Dumbledore theorized that if his plan worked, the wand's power would "die" with him, its loyalty to a dead master meaning it could never be won again. Of course, Malfoy sidestepped Dumbledore's plan at the last minute. The best laid plans of wizards and nifflers, and all that.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between a director, executive producer, and producer? And how can people like Jerry Bruckheimer produce a seemingly infinite number of shows?

[Assistant]
**Executive Producers** are usually people who provide funding or other support to a movie, but aren't directly involved in the day-to-day production of the movie. They may pay for things or they may use their connections to secure ideal locations or actors/talent to boost the quality of the movie.

**Producers** are the actual overall project managers of the movie process. They bring together the needs of the director/s, budget folks, and acting talent to ensure the movie can get made/produced.

**Associate/Assistant** Producers are the younger/less experienced subordinates that work for the producer. They do the "busy work" associated with producing a movie, such as managing documentation or supervising filming and set work at off-site locations or at odd filming times.

**Production Assistants** are the gofers of the production set. "Go fer a coffee run" etc. They usually work very long days (12-16 hours) for little/no pay and are usually college-level or recent college graduates.


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

[User]
[Classic horror movies] Were there any circumstances where a killer would just kind of pass by a person without attempting to kill them?

Like say if Jason was going around town and was seen by someone who was not a Crystal Lake employee and also wasn't scared of him. Just situations like that.

[Assistant]
When Jason took Manhattan, Jason generally ignored the New Yorkers in favor of chasing the kids from Crystal Lake. He only really attacked others when engaged or insulted, and even then he opted to just freak some punks out by taking his mask off rather than murdering them.

Michael Myers spared Harold, that weird clown guy who knew all sorts of serial killer trivia in the mental asylum, even handing him Myers' slightly used knife. It is unclear whether Mike was trying to frame Harold or just giving a gift to a fan.

Neither of them will harm children for the most part.

Freddy Krueger doesn't really spare people, he's a dick.


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

[User]
[Leon:The Professional] Leon's boss, Tony, was tricking Leon and never paying him for the jobs he did.

Tony never had any money saved for him and was absolutely never paying him for his jobs, but my friend over here says that Tony was.

[Assistant] He was running a ponzi scheme on him. Leon does a job for say 50k. Tony gives Leon 5k to pay rent and groceries and bills and keeps the other 45 for safe keeping. Leon can't stockpile the money himself and can't take it to a bank so he's kinda stuck there. He has to trust that tony is keeping the money safe and is more afraid Leon will kill him if he rips him off. So long as Leon never asks for a large sum of it tony is free to keep the lions share on Leon's trust and do with it as he sees fit. Unless Leon keeps a running tally of the cash he has banked it's unlikely he will ever even know how much tony has stolen and how much is simply held up by whatever security measures tony has to protect it.


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

[User] [DC] Exactly what was Batman's "Contingency Plan" for defeating the lesser known JL members, like the Question?

[Assistant] Batman's plan for defeating Question is probably "punch him in the face". This is probably the same plan for Green Arrow, Peacemaker, Vigilante, and a whole bunch of other members who are just people with cool outfits and some fighting skills.


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

[User] [BSG]Suppose that the Cylons wipe out mankind, or they simply escape and are never found. What do the Cylons spend the rest of eternity doing? What do they do next?

[Assistant]
The human models go back to the Colonies and rebuild civilization. After many years, they learn to reproduce and lose the ability to resurrect. Eventually, the enslavement of the Centurions and Raiders gets worse and worse until the mechanical Cylons rebel. There's a war, the mechanical Cylons wipe out most of the organic Cylons and pursue a small group of survivors. Eventually, organic and mechanical Cylons go their separate ways, forming new Colonies.

All of this has happened before, and it will happen again. And again, and again, and again...


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

[User]
Does inflation increase nominal GDP of a country?

Sorry, if this is a stupid question. I was just wondering that if for example, country A and country B both have a nominal GDP of USD 100. Country A has an inflation rate of 8% for a particular year whereas country B has an inflation rate of 2%. The real GDP growth of country A is 2% whereas for country B, it is 6%. I know that inflation rate usually has an impact on the exchange rate but let's say that country A's currency is the dominant world reserve currency (like USD) and so the exchange rate remains more or less the same due to high demand of its currency. So as far as I understand, country A would have a nominal GDP of USD 110 whereas country B would have a nominal GDP of only USD 108. This doesn't really make sense to me as country B had higher real GDP growth but just because country A had higher inflation, it's nominal GDP became higher. Just want to know if I am missing something or is this how nominal GDP works.

[Assistant] Your understanding is basically correct. Nominal GDP does not account for inflation, so it can rise even without real GDP growth. That is why in *most* situations real GDP will be preferreda common exception is when youre comparing GDP to another nominal variable.


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

[User] [Revenge of the Sith] Why does Palpatine continue to shoot force lightning at Mace Windu, even after Windu deflects it back at Palpatine?

[Assistant]
No Jedi alive has really contended with Force Lightning. Certainly not to the extent of successfully countering it. So seeing Windu blocking it *barely* suggests that Windu can be overpowered by it. It's evident too, as Windu screams that he's unable to hold it back. As Palpatine *definitely* isn't short on Force Lightning, he feels he can overpower Mace eventually. As an added bonus, he needs to seem like he's extremely powerful *but* at severe risk of dying. Why? Two reasons.

Firstly, he needs Mace to still question whether Palpatine should be left alive or not. If he gives up immediately and Windu can sense that it's a charade (as he's still *bursting* full of Force energy), he might straight up kill him. If he overdoes it, Windu might find an opening and kill Palpatine in self-defence.

Secondly (and most importantly), Palpatine *needs* Anakin to see his vast power *but also* that he is using it out of desperation, that he's about to die at Windu's hand and take all his Sith knowledge of how to prevent death (like Padme's) with him to the grave. He needs Anakin to realise how critical things are and that it won't be resolved through discussion. To bolster this, if he keeps attacking Mace, Mace is more likely to react aggressively and tell Anakin Palpatine needs to die. This would prompt Anakin to intervene, just as Palpatine predicted.


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

[User] ELI5: why do different road surfaces resonate differently through the car, with some being extremely quiet to others being very loud?

[Assistant]
Most road noise has to do with the air your car is pushing out of the way underneath it's tires. As your tires roll forward not all the air can get out of the way and it stacks up on itself  creating an area of high pressure. When that area of high pressure is pushed into a crack or crevice in the road as well as your tires it has nowhere to go but out the sides or released from under the tires when it rolls off creating that "woosh" sound.

Newly paved roads are smooth with very little in the way of defects and cracks leaving very few places for the air to be trapped. This means the air is just pushed out of the way and produces less road noise. Though it will still produce some because of the air trapped in the tire tread.Older roads or roads with more porous material (for drainage usually) will trap more air and make more road noise.

Rougher roads also cause tiny vibrations in your tire and car creating just a little bit more noise, but not as much in comparison to the air interacting with your car and the road at high speeds. Also a bridge can make road noise louder since the ground isn't there to absorb the vibrations in the road, that translates to more noise surrounding the bridge.


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

[User] [Spongebob] How does a seabear circle work? If a line is made with tangental circles, could a sea bear cross it?

[Assistant] Presumably it's an aspect of how the sea bear's mind works, rather than a mathematical law- it just has some aversion to the shape of a circle. Perhaps it's an ancient, now-extinct predator. Maybe it's a territorial marking. Maybe it's just a byproduct of the way it's bizarre mind works. If you tranquilized a sea bear there'd be no issue carrying one over a circle. It wouldn't go near a line made of tangential circles only as long as the circles are still there. If you erase the circles and leave the line, the sea bear sees no circles and feel comfortable crossing it.


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

[User] [General Fantasy] Magic users are generally regarded as physically weak so they compensate for it with magic. Is there anything stopping one from hitting the gym and learning how to swing a sword without losing proficiency in magic?

[Assistant] Time. Training in combat and training in magic are both VERY time-consuming. Imagine asking a marine in basic training to ALSO maintain a 4.0 GPA in particle physics. There just aren't enough hours in the day. Add that to the differences in natural ability people have and you can see why specialization occurs.


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

[User]
Why aren't ordinary citizens allowed to borrow from the federal reserve?

Seems weird that with all the technology available that we even need middlemen to access loans? Wouldn't the economy be better off if we didn't have a system of banking that didn't have unnecessary middlemen taxing the system.

[Assistant]
Banks arguable aren't just a middleman. The bank is what allocates capital efficiently.

The bank manages the credit risk. Without them. What is stopping me going to the central bank and asking for a billion pound, dollar, euro loan? Would the central bank have to decide who is likely to pay? And how would they model it, because defaulting on the central bank wouldn't matter so there's a real moral hazard there.


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

[User] How specific are "ballistic reports"? Could every gun that's manufactured be fired once so its ballistic report could be documented and saved to match against future crimes?

[Assistant]
Maryland did this - required all firearms sold in the state to have a round fired and entered into the state database.  After several years and $2.6 million dollars, it finally contributed to a single murder conviction.

There are likely a number of reasons for this - the "fingerprints" change over time (or more accurately rounds fired), can vary surprisingly for different types of ammunition, the vast majority of guns used in crimes are stolen anyway, etc.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How do you quantify the durability of Star Wars spaceships?

I've recently noticed a pretty big inconsistency when it comes to the durability of star ships in the Star Wars franchise. See, there have been many, many times when these ships have crash landed on planets and survived relatively intact. This is all well and good until you realize that they would need to be withstanding several kilotons of force to survive such an impact, when only moments before they had likely been shot down by a laser or missile that obviously does not pack that kind of punch. So, what gives? How durable are these ships?

[Assistant]
Really depends on the size, outfitting, construction and type of ship.

Stuff like TIEs are paper flimsy, they have no shields and little to no armor-rock collisions or heavy man portable weaponry can be take one out in one hit. More advanced TIEs (like the TIE Advanced or Defender or First Order TIEs) have both shielding and slightly heavier armor. The Advanced can survive being struck by another TIE without destroying the ship, but first order TIEs are still weak to collision damage.

Something like an X-Wing or B-Wing packs beefier shields, more armor and is a bit more survivable. A T-65 X-Wing can survive a crash landing into a swamp without much damage (likely with shields up) but a T-70 can be disabled and destroyed with heavy arms fire.

Going up a class or two is when you get the tankier ships. Weve seen ships like the Millennium Falcon and the Ghost take on damage that would obliterate smaller ships. The Falcon is presumably still eventually flight worthy after a crash landing, and can take a fair amount of small arms fire without much issue (but things like E-WEB blasters do seem to pose a threat). Hits that would likely destroy a TIE (such as losing the radar dish in RotJ) are survivable, and we can see in VII that it can handle a rough takeoff and crash landing without much issue now-the upgrades Han made to the Falcon seem to have helped a ton.

At the higher scale we have capital ships, which are much much much stronger. Invisible Hand is able to still function to an extent with half a ship, and even manages a survivable atmospheric landing. A Star Destroyer can shrug off the impact of a Hammerhead corvette(?) colliding into it even with shields down, but of course cant survive a collision with another destroyer. Other ISDs are shown to be able to shrug off the impact of a few asteroids near Hoth, but one is taken out by a large enough impact. The Executor is even more resistant. Although the kamikaze A-Wing took out the primary bridge when shields were down, the rest of the ship was fine-it was just very close to a large body, and the time it took to get the backup bridge up and running wasnt enough to stop it from colliding with the Death Star. And at the extreme edge, you have the First Order Mega Class Star Destroyer. Although it was split in half by another capital ship accelerating at light speed, a large portion of the ship was still partially functional.

TL;DR, bigger ships more likely to have better armor and shielding.


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

[User]
[Alien] How are Xenomorph queens made?

What makes a chestburster grow up into a queen instead of a normal Xenomorph? Is the facehugger egg different or does the development pathway divergence occur after bursting out of the chest? What signals are responsible for choosing between the two development pathways?

[Assistant]
Queens are created in 3 different ways. The first and most common way is an elderly or dying queen will lay a specific clone egg of herself. This royal facehugger will ne able to implant both a queen chestbuster and a drone one in a second host to aid the infant queen. If laid in an established hive the hive will nurture the new queen without hesitation.

The second most common method is that in the absence of a queen the hive will choose it's oldest and strongest member to undergo a hormonal conversion that results in them molting into a new queen. Lone members of the hive can undergo a similar process as well.

And the least common method is that the xenomorphs will ovomorph a captive host into a royal egg. It's a slow process that's rarely used because of the risk involved to the hive. These new eggs need a host to develop into a queen and are completely vulnerable to harm while gestating and growing. Usually ovomorphing is only used by drones unable to go through the hormonal changes to become a queen themselves or unable to hide and molt safely themselves. Ovomorphing a host and protecting it is easier than hiding and molting for a lone drone.


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

[User]
Is veganism necessarily more ethical that being vegetarian

For instance : is it better to not eat eggs than eating free range eggs that didn't bring suffering to animals. Same thing for milk.

[Assistant] Generally "free range" eggs bring plenty of suffering to animals, as does milk. So, yes, veganism is more ethical. If it were the case that eggs and milk didn't bring any suffering to animals, we might think the situation would be different, but that's not how things work.


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

[User]
ELI5: If you are in space and all velocity is relative to your frame of reference, how can there be a max velocity of c?

If Im at rest relative to the solar system such that my point in it never changes, there is still the velocity of the solar system moving through space as part of the Galaxy. So my max velocity would be c-galactic v? Also, when measuring the velocity of earth through space as part of our solar system and galaxy moving through space, what is the frame of reference being used?

[Assistant] You have stumbled across the premise of relativity. Essentially, you always think yourself to be stationary. The result is that even when moving near the speed of light, you feel like you keep getting faster.


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

[User]
How can we be sure of the precision and accuracy of modern measurement tools?

Suppose I have defined a 'redditmeter' [rm] in some acceptable way (that is - I can always know that this 'thing' that I measure is indeed rm units in size). After a few months, a new way was invented to measure 0.5rm, so on so forth - we get to the smallest scales.

I logically conclude that this process is a very crude way of what happened in the way we humans measure things like length, weight  etc.

But how can we be sure that the scales we measure today are actually accurate? if we can measure 0.5rm with 99% accuracy, then measuring 0.25rm might have even less accuracy, going all the way to 1*10^-[integer] rm.

How can we know that our measurement tools are actually acceptably precise?

Or to put it in another words - How do we check our most modern and precise measurement tools?

*Edit*

Thank you for your current attempts of answering, but my question wasn't how can we be sure that a kilogram is a kilogram.
To clarify furthermore - How can we be sure that the most modern measurement device actually measures with a good enough precision and not with it's measurement fault being 50% of accuracy (50% of times or 50% of given value).

[Assistant]
Currently, most units of measurements are derived from fundamental physical properties. For example, the meter is defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299792458 seconds. There is no ambiguity or inaccuracy in this definition, because it's defined relative to an unchanging constant of the universe.

If you look up various other units, you'll see that they are defined in this same sort of way. This was done to avoid any confusion as to the accuracy or measurement issues with picking a set of units.


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

[User]
[Physics] What if a railgun barely missed you?

I tried this over at AskScience, and it seems it was a little too hypothetical for their taste.

Basically, if a naval railgun (coilgun, gauss cannon, I understand they're all different mechanisms for the same effect, but don't remember which is which. You get the point, the thing that magnetically flings heavy shit crazy fast.) fired a projectile near you, in that it just blew right past you, what would the effects on you be?

I've heard people say that you'd be torn asunder by the force, but I don't know if I buy it. I've seen videos of humans in windtunnels that get up in the 500 mph range (800 kph ish) right on a dude's face and his skin is holding together just fine. With a round from a railgun flying past you, wouldn't it just be expanding air? I mean at most it would knock you over, and not much else right?

This is all assuming the impact of the shot itself happens far away from you. Just going past you very closely. Thanks for any help with my curiosity.

[Assistant] It wouldn't be any worse than a near miss from conventional weapons or artillery.  Modern railguns don't fire the relativistic projectiles you read about in scifi, they fire rounds that are similar to conventional artillery shells, or bullets.


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

[User] ELI5:how can babies scream and shout so long without damaging their vocal chords etc.?

[Assistant]
Evolution.

The babies who didn't cry when they were hungry or cold or in pain, or were unable to cry long enough to get help died and their weak vocal chords died with them.  It's also why a baby crying is one of the most annoying sounds imaginable - a baby whose cries were soothing would not wake its parents and it would not get the help it needs.


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

[User] ELI5: What changes are made to a male's vocal cords during puberty ?

[Assistant]
The larynx expands outward (back to front), which lengthens the vocal cords and expands the volume of space where the voice can resonate.

The sinuses also expand as a person's skull grows (and there are changes in the shape of skulls of both men and women as well that come with hormones), which also expands the hollow spaces where a person's voice resonates.

Longer cords + more space for resonance = deeper voice.


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

[User] [Star Trek/DC Comics]The Borg have caught Superman while he's weakened, whether by a red sun/simulated red sun radiation, or Kryptonite, and assimilated him. What is the best case and worst case scenario we can expect?

[Assistant]
Best case, Superman's Kryptonian physiology rejects the Borg tech when he's re-powered and he wipes the floor with them.

Worst case, Superman becomes repowered with the Borg tech in him and still part of the collective.  The Borg manage to determine how Superman's powers work and disseminate this data across the collective, leading to more Super-drones.  At first, Kryptonite and red sun radiation keeps a lid on this, but the Borg quickly adapt defenses to these.

After that, it's all over as these new Superborg overrun worlds in hours.


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

[User] Is there any credence to the idea that our universe could be microscopic in relationship to a much larger universe?

[Assistant]
This is an idea looking for evidence.

The evidence we have indicates no.

You could likely twist the data into saying its possible, with an internally consistent model that can't be immediately disproven, however that's more an exercise in the cleverness of the thinker than the likelihood of it being reality.

You can produce evidence to support *any* idea, if you work hard enough at it. The trick is looking at the evidence and seeing what it supports, not looking at the evidence for what you support.


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

[User]
Given that many universities are facing financial hardship what should we expect the higher-ed landscape to look like in the future?

Hampshire College is now considering a merger to stay afloat.

Are partnerships going to become a common practice?

[Assistant] We should expect things that absorb resources but dont contribute to the bottom line to be excised, and not just academic departments. Youll know things have gotten really really bad when its been a decade or so without any new sports facilities being built or majorly renovated.


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

[User]
[Superman] How cold or hot does the temperature/environment have to be so not even Superman can withstand it?

Like hotter than the sun and colder than deep space, for example.

[Assistant]
The sun is a bad example, because he solar radiation powers him up faster than the heat (or radiation) can damage him.

He has tanked nuclear explosions, but that seems to be close to his top-level durability, at least in most iterations. A nuclear explosion reaches a temperature of around 100,000,000 Celsius, or 180,000,000 Fahrenheit. It is probable, however, that radiation plays at least as much a role in damaging Kal El as the heat.

It's probably not possible to damage Superman with cold, as his body would be able to use stored solar radiation to warm himself. Cold, therefore, wouldn't harm him until his stores of energy were depleted, at which point he could be damaged like any human; frostbite sets in at around 0 Celsius / 32 Fahrenheit.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are tennis balls made fuzzy?

[Assistant] It adds drag to the ball, meaning the air and ground slow it down more in flight. It's intended to dampen the speed that the ball travels at by increasing its friction with the air and other surfaces.


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

[User] ELI5: How does counting cards work in blackjack?

[Assistant]
You assign point values to each card.

* 2, 3, 4, 5, 6  +1
* Cards 7, 8, 9  0
* Cards 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace  -1

After each card is played, add the points of the count to the running total.  The lower the count is, the more likely it is that you'll receive a lower card.

The higher the count is, the more likely it is that you'll receive a high card.

Counting cards does not guarantee you to win over the casino.  Generally if the cameras catch you, you'll be thrown out and to truly have an advantage, you need to be really good.  Even then, you need to have a lot of chips, because the odds are so slim, that you'll only truly make money in the long run.  It is statistically likely that you'll lose because you'll wind up on a bad streak and the casino can outlast you because they have more money.


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

[User] Why can we still see the cosmic microwave background radiation? If it travels at the speed of light shouldn't that radiation have already passed us and that part of the sky be dark now?

[Assistant] The Big Bang didn't happen at a place, it happened everywhere uniformly in a - as far as we know - infinite universe. For any CMB light just hitting us from a certain corner of the sky, there'll be more arriving in the next second originating from a place along the same direction just one lightsecond farther away and so on.


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

[User] ELI5: How do astronomers identify galaxies that are light years away from us?

[Assistant]
It depends what you mean by identify.

If you mean "How do we tell that they are galaxies", we tell using telescopes that are big enough to make out tiny details. The size of the telescope and the color of the light you're looking at determine whether or not the galaxy looks like a dot or a blob or a galaxy; this is one of the reasons why we like to build bigger and bigger telescopes, to be able to make out smaller details. The other reason is that big telescopes can collect more light, so you can see dimmer things. Galaxies are really faint, because they're so far away!

We can also tell that they're galaxies by looking at a spectrum of the light they emit. Galaxies don't look like anything else: they're stars and dust and black hole emission all added together. So even if it just looks like a dot, you can still tell if its a star or a galaxy because galaxies emit a different combination of colors than stars do.

If you mean "How do we tell how far away they are", there are a few ways to do this. One is by using "standard candles". Basically there are some objects (certain types of supernovae and variable stars) in other galaxies that we know exactly how bright they are, and since brightness drops off with distance in a known way, we can measure the distance just by measuring how bright it looks to us. Another way is using redshift. The universe is expanding uniformly, so the farther away something is, the faster its moving away from us. This makes light "stretch out" as space stretches out, and when light stretches out it gets redder. So you can look at the light of the galaxy and compare it to other galaxies you know about, or chemical signatures from a lab, and determine how far away it is that way. This has some errors because galaxies also move pretty fast, so their actual motion can throw a wrench in that calculation, especially if the galaxy is close by so the redshift from the expansion of space isn't a huge effect.

Lastly, if you mean "tell if its the same galaxy we saw before" i.e. how do we name galaxies; usually just by where they are on the sky. The sky has a coordinate system, and there are WAY too many galaxies to give them all a unique name (though some are named from previous conventions from early surveys). So we say "in this coordinate system, this galaxy is at this coordinates". Andromeda's name, in this context, is J00424433+4116074. Which is to say, we name galaxies by pointing to where they're at on the sky and saying "that one right there"


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

[User] Why are there no natural proton emissions in radioactive decay?

[Assistant]
There are nuclides which decay by simply emitting protons, but generally only when the outermost proton(s) are not really bound to the rest of the nucleus. Those nuclides tend to be very proton-rich and have half-lives of fractions of a second, so they're not found in any meaningful amount in nature.

As for less exotic nuclides where the protons are all in bound states, it's just not a competitive decay mode with beta/electron capture or alpha.

For really heavy nuclides, they would prefer to emit alpha particles because alpha particles are very tightly-bound systems, so that's an energetically favorable way to decay.

And for intermediate-mass, proton-rich nuclides, they can just undergo a weak decay (beta-plus or electron capture) over a timescale that's much shorter than waiting for a bound proton to tunnel out.


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

[User] ELI5: why are humans the only ones that require cooked food/water when most other species can eat/drink and be merry?

[Assistant] Cooked food preprocesses it for our digestive system allowing more of the nutrients to be extracted, thereby reducing the amount we have to eat and getting more benefit from what we do eat. Its likely this contributed to the increased size of human brains vs what existed prior to cooking. This likely started over a million years ago. You could say cooking food was required for humans to evolve to what we are now.


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

[User]
eli5 What exactly happens to you when you smoke marijuana? What is it that causes you to feel high?

Just like the title says Im wondering what is happening to you when you get high on marijuana.

[Assistant] Imagine there is slots in your brain (called cannabinoid receptors or Endocannabinoid System). These slots tend to be empty but when filled up, these transmit information to areas of your brain that helps it feel relaxed, happy, hungry, etc. When you smoke marijuana those slots in your brain get filled with cannabinoids and depending on which cannabinoid its filling the gap, the effects differ.


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

[User] [MCU] Can you go to the other side of universe using Sling Ring, and if yes then what's the point of Space Stone?

[Assistant]
The space stone also allows warping of space that sling rings won't, such as absorbing Iron Man's explosions on Titan and turning them back at him as a beam, collapsing the mirror dimension wall Dr. Strange threw at him and generally allowing the other stones to affect space more generally rather than only their location.

It's unclear whether a skilled user of a Sling Ring could do other feats (like pulling pieces of Titans moon though a portal to throw at someone) but it would certainly take some skill, and may be beyond anyone but the Sorcerer Supreme.


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

[User] Eli5: Why do cigarettes have to contain all the nasty carcinogens, toxic chemicals, and poisons that they do? Why can't people just smoke tobacco like they would marijuana?

[Assistant] You can smoke tobacco like marijuana. Marijuana smoke is also chock full of nasty carcinogens and shit. That's what happens when you burn things. Wood smoke is just as bad, but hopefully you're not taking straight puffs of *that* on the daily.


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

[User]
Is Biodegradable Glitter really biodegradable?

I ordered glitter that was labeled as biodegradable (but didnt list the ingredients). It arrived, and it contains: Plant fiber membrane, Polyurethane 33, and Aluminium. Will this actually break down? If the answer is technically yes, how long would it take?

[Assistant]
Biodegradable is a rubbish term from the 90s, where landfill space was the primary concern.

Aluminium is not biodegradable.

Polyurethane is biodegradable in UV light but breaks down into microplastics which are a bigger concern.

The plant fibre is likely biodegradable.


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

[User]
More perspectives wanted: Choosing postdocs and balancing a dual-career/two body problem

**Background:** I am a new ST**E**M Ph.D. who is in a relationship with another new **S**TEM Ph.D., Partner (they/them/their pronouns). I defended this semester; Partner defended last. I am a mildly successful scientific researcher more known for my STEM education and diversity initiatives. My partner is an extremely successful early career researcher in their field who has successfully landed a great 2yr industry postdoc that fulfills all of their short term goals (professional development, supportive environment, indication of being able to stay on post-contract, a regular work schedule, etc.).
I have a definite wish for a faculty-academic position whereas partner values stability and tentatively likes the industry environment so far (all of 1 week in), though definitely enjoys teaching. We're currently working on the assumption that after 2-4 years here (depending on how jobs work out) my career will take precedence, moving where needed for me to secure a faculty position as long as it's anywhere my partner could find a position in their rather flexible industry.

Partner's job is in a geographical location where me finding a position is not difficult, but it may not necessarily be the absolute ideal. I am currently evaluating 3 types of positions and would appreciate it if any STEM faculty members could provide insight into what might make one type of position better on a CV (and for what type of institution) over another. Or if any of the positions would be definitely detrimental even if I followed-up with a second postdoc. And for those who have navigated the two-body problem, what your opinions are at all.

**Position A:** A postdoc at the local R1 working for a PI in a field that is doing work I find mildly interesting, but would not necessarily fit my current research agenda. Opportunities posted now but also possibly open in the future as well. Distance from Partner: none

**Position B:** A 1-year postdoc in an R1's Center for Teaching focused on STEM education and Teaching, which provides opportunities to be instructor of record on classes (not a current skillset) and do formal education research, which I attempted independently as a graduate student. Distance from Partner: 1hr commute, but able to live at "home."

**Position C:** Absolute research "dream" postdoc directly in my field at an amazing institution. Fellowship is also limited to 1 year. Distance from Partner: 9hrs.
Similar research-intensive positions are possible but also between 2.5-9hrs away and vary in reputation.

Note: I'm my entire committee's, and advisor's, first Ph.D. graduate. In hindsight I would have chosen at least one person with experience to help me navigate this process but at the same time I would never replace their support and mentoring. Therefore I turn to you. You might hear from me frequently in the next month or two.

**TL;DR: I am in a two-body relationship where my partner has secured an excellent position. I'm trying to figure out if any of the positions I am looking at will have unforeseen (or larger than foreseen) consequences on my hopeful career as a faculty member or my highly valued relationship.**

[Assistant]
The problem with picking 1 or 2 is that in 2- 4 years when it's your turn to choose, your CV will be weaker for it and your choices more limited. In theory, it sounds good to put your career on the back burner to support your partner and so you can live with them. In practice, your CV will be compared to your peers who did take the dream option 3 and have the cutting edge research, in line with their PhD research, publications and recommendations from well known professors to bolster their applications. And your partner will be up for promotion in his current position. Maybe you've bought a really nice house. And suddenly it's never really a good time for your career to take precedence.

I say take option 3 because you already know that professionally, it is the best route to take.


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

[User] ELI5: If the sun is a big nuclear reactor, why does it not explode like a massive nuclear bomb?

[Assistant] It basically _is_ exploding like a massive nuclear bomb, endlessly and repeatedly in one giant reaction. What keeps it together, so that it can _keep_ exploding, is its massive gravitational field. Nuclear bombs don't have that, so they go in one big burst and then the reaction stops.


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

[User]
So Nihon in Japanese means "Japan" but why does it have/need a definition in the first place? And why don't we call Japan "Nihon"?

I suppose the same could be asked of countries like Germany as well but I just find it odd that the name for a country in its native tongue can mean something else in another, like why doesn't Nihon just mean Nihon?

[Assistant]
Your premise is...weirdly worded.

In the Japanese language, "Nihon" (or ", if your computer can read kanji), refers to the country English-speakers call "Japan." "Nihon" doesn't *mean* "Japan," it refers to the country English speakers call "Japan."

Your question isn't about *meaning* it's simply about naming and etymology. Wikipedia says: "The English word for Japan came to the West via early trade routes. The early Mandarin or possibly Wu Chinese () pronunciation of Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. In modern Shanghainese, a Wu dialect, the pronunciation of characters  'Japan' is Zeppen [zpn]. The old Malay word for Japan, Jepang, was borrowed from a southern coastal Chinese dialect, probably Fukienese or Ningpo,[16] and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Malacca in the 16th century. Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe.[17] It was first recorded in English in a 1565 letter, spelled Giapan"

tl;dr: White people's interpretation of Chinese pronunciations, likely changing slightly over time.


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

[User]
What determines absorbency? How come bread absorbs water, but not metal?

My guess is it just has to do with surface tension, pockets of empty space in the material, maybe having to do with if the solid reacts to the substance to create a single mushy material. Bread and towels don't "absorb" the same way, I realize, because I can get towels dry again and they're the same as before. Can't just "dry out" bread.

[Assistant]
Absorption is one part the amount of room available and one part the strength of the interaction between water and the object.

Bread for instance has many small cavities for compounds to enter and bind to which gives it the ability to absorb fairly large amounts of water, but this is only part of the equation.

Most metals actually do absorb water, but it just doesn't have the same amount of space to absorb large amounts of water.  For instance water can form a weak chemical bond with platinum on the order of 45 kJ/mol.  This is fairly close to the amount of energy two hydrogen bonds give.  The thing is as soon as platinum forms a water mono-layer there isn't much room for extra water to bind to the surface and it instead beings forming a droplet, but this droplet will still be very "stretched" compared to other surfaces.

You can actually see how much water likes to bind to an object by how much it beads up.  For instance put a water drop on your hand (Try to pick the flattest area possible for best results) and observe the shape of the droplet. Try to keep your hand steady.  You'll notice it spreads out a little, not much, but enough to notice.   Now try taking a little Vaseline and spread it across your hand and repeat the experiment.  You'll notice the droplet now beads up on top of the Vaseline.  Lastly take a droplet and place it on to a flat metal surface.  You'll notice the water spreads out even more so than on your hand.

This is because for surfaces which water has a strong interaction water prefers to maximize the surface interaction while for surfaces that water doesn't like it prefers to minimize the interaction.

In the case of absorption this plays a role.

In fact did you know if you have a crystal of table salt there is often a layer of water on the surface of the salt?


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

[User]
CMV: Hashtags or slogans like #bigisbeautiful or #fatisbeautiful are pointless

Firstly, let's assume for argument sake that society preferring skinny/fit people over fat people is a social construct. Even if that were the case, you're not going to change what people find attractive by telling them what is attractive. People were never told to find fit people attractive, we weren't told to find big boobs attractive, we weren't told to find certain hairstyles attractive. These things just kind of happen on their own. How these social constructs happen are incredibly complex. It's certainly not just a matter of telling us what to like or dislike.

Secondly, what's the end goal here? To make fat desirable? Do they want people to *want* to get fat? Because that would be the logical conclusion here. If fat is beautiful, and people want to be beautiful, then logically they should try to get fat. Should we really be encouraging obesity?

If the goal is instead to make fat people also feel beautiful in their own bodies, then sure that sounds noble. But you're lying to them. I get that we all deserve to feel good about ourselves, but at the same time, words like "beautiful" or "brilliant" or "strong" are meant to highlight the exceptional. If you see someone lifting 5 lb dumbbells, you're not going to think "oh my god look how strong he is". If any amount of effort is considered "strong", then "strong" loses its meaning. The same is true for words like "brilliant", "amazing", or in this case, "beautiful".

Suppose you manage to convince people that some fat people are beautiful. You might point to a fat girl with beautiful eyes, flawless skin, great hair, and a pretty face and say "she's fat and beautiful". Great, but only because of all the other pretty features she has. She's still not beautiful *because* she's fat, she's beautiful in spite of it. Does that make it any less shallow? What about fat girls who don't have pretty eyes, flawless skin, and a pretty face? Don't they also deserve to feel good about themselves? Are we going to start #acneisbeautiful or #lazyeyesarebeautiful until everyone qualifies as beautiful? Because at that point, if everyone is beautiful, no one is. We might as well just scrap the word. The whole point of the word is to highlight that someone is exceptionally aesthetic.

Instead, what people should be doing is convincing the world that there's more to a person than beauty. So instead of telling us how beautiful fat people are, why not try to convince us that beauty is less important? I'm far more likely to take you seriously if you try to convince me that a particular fat person is smart or funny or witty, but telling me they're beautiful is just a flat out lie. Sure, some people are into that. But the majority of people do not find obesity attractive. Telling us it is isn't doing anything to change that.

[Assistant]
The *real* message is "being fat doesn't preclude you from being beautiful", but that's *way* too long for a hashtag.

I think you're reading *way* too much into a pithy saying.

Connotation, not denotation... and language uses metaphors all the time.

You're also *way* overstating the "superlativeness" of "beautiful"... it's just a garden variety compliment, it doesn't mean you're a 10.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the Portugal drug policy work?

I have been recently reading up on this subject and I don't understand how decriminalizing drug use resulted in its massive reduction. It sounds counter-productive.

[Assistant]
Its not that the drug usage rates dropped (the Cato paper actually showed that they didnt), its that the rates of the harmful side effects (STD transmission through shared needles, related deaths, etc.) dropped. This is because its easier for you to, say, get clean needles if you dont need to hide the fact that you are buying a bunch of needles, or not having to hide the fact that you are using drugs by shooting up alone.

On top of that its much easier to seek treatment for drug-caused problems when you dont need to worry about the police picking you up the instant you walk out of the clinic.


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

[User]
[Beauty and the Beast (Disney)] Is Gaston the owner of the tavern?

After all he has a special chair by the fire and he actively decorates the place with antlers.

Alternatively: is Gaston a decorator?

[Assistant]
I really doubt it. Gaston is just the town's hero and a local celebrity who basically has permission to do whatever he wants so long as he keeps the town safe from monsters, does copious amounts of hunting, and charms the people with his looks. He really wouldn't have the time or inclination to do something as boring as sign a contract to own a tavern, and he certainly wouldn't care to keep up with its upkeep. The actual owner of the tavern has just acquiesced to let Gaston have his own private section of the building that he can do whatever he wants with, since saying "no" to him is likely to get someone shunned or kicked out of most social circles. You know, like Belle is.

>Alternatively: is Gaston a decorator?

Yes. If you like antlers.


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

[User] [Up] How does Carl Fredricksen, senior citizen who is only able to walk using cane and unable to go down the stairs, sprint and jump from large distances later in the movie?

[Assistant]
Psychosomatic old age weariness. He acted so much like the grumpy, tired old man, that it impacted him physically - He walked slowly and used a cane, because he was convinced that's how an old man should walk.

Once he successfully threw away his grumpy old man image, he was much more physically capable, because he was using his body as it was, not as he thought it should be.


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

[User]
[Mulan] Why does she feel the need to prove herself when she gets thrown out?

I just realized, if Mulan's whole reason for going to war is to save her father, why does she feel the need to prove herself when she gets thrown out? She already accomplished her goal of keeping him safe. Hell, why was her father going to war even a problem if he eventually would've just been thrown out for being physically unable?

[Assistant] Protecting her father was only part of the reason Mulan joined the army. She had demonstrated time and time again that she was a complete failure in the traditional rule of a woman. She was trying to figure out who she really was and where she fit in.


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

[User] If you shoot a bullet downwards, does the gravity increases the velocity until the terminal velocity or the drag caused by the air decreases its speed?

[Assistant]
Air resistance will decrease it's speed.  The muzzle velocity of almost all projectiles is much higher than their terminal velocity.

For example, a .30 caliber bullet has a terminal velocity of ~300 ft/s, but a typical .30-06 round has a muzzle velocity of 2500-3000 ft/s.


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

[User]
A good companion to the Philosophical Investigations?

I'm doing a reading group on the Investigations, and am somewhat lost as to what companion would be best suited to use? I'm looking for something that is somewhat technical and has a smooth and lucid narrative flowing through it.

And advice appreciated.

[Assistant]
>	somewhat technical

P M S Hacker.

Also, Cavells paper The Availability of Wittgensteins later philosophy is good to read early on, as it dispels a lot of tempting but overly simple readings of whats going on.


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

[User]
CMV: Adding an "Easy Mode" in games that are difficult by design (e.g. Dark Souls) would be a good thing.

Let me preface this by saying that I've played (not necessarily finished) a fair share of relatively difficult games in my life. I've also played through lots of easier, or relaxing, games - and while I vastly prefer the latter, I don't mind dabbing into the former every now and then. What I'm ultimately advocating for is for game developers to provide the players with an option to tailor the experience of the game to suit their preferences better.

As someone who likes a good story and lore, I love immersing myself into the worldbuilding and the events of whatever game I'm currently playing; Especially if it's a story with certain themes and a deeper meaning, which is presented at the end - something to draw reflections from the player. Blocking off the access to that story by difficult and/or specific gameplay elements, which require a decent amount of skill to progress through, seems like a waste and a way to drive people away, effectively causing their game to reach much fewer players than they could have otherwise.

Story is, of course, not the only element of the game that isn't related to difficulty level - at least in the majority of cases it isn't (examples of the opposite would be hiding bonus story elements for completing the game on a certain difficulty or collecting all collectibles on a certain level). Atmosphere, music, lore, characters are all elements of the game that will always be the same, regardless of how difficult that game is. It's difficult to appreciate these elements when you cannot even progress through one of the initial areas because a boss is wrecking your shit.

These are the reasons why I believe games should have some way of adjusting player difficulty. It doesn't even have to be a straightforward "select your difficulty" slider. Taking an example from the title of this post, Dark Souls games could utilise a simple saving system which would allow players to save anywhere they'd like. Using this system in game (selected at the start of the game and not changeable for the rest of the playthrough) would get rid of standard bonfires functionality, but would put a single "pocket bonfire" of sorts in their inventory, which they could use at any point they'd want.

It's just an idea, of course, but what I'm trying to say here is - give players options. Don't even make them equal - nothing stops the developers from plainly saying "the game was not designed around this option and may impact player experience". By doing this, the developers can still project their game however they wish, but also leave a net of safety for those who simply cannot "git gud"; players will be fully aware of the fact that the way they're playing through the game may not be the "full experience", but they can still go with it if they want to. It sounds like an absolute win-win situation for everyone involved.

The only problem I can actually see with my take is that programming in additional options means taking away dev time, which would cost money and effort. However, I believe the wider reach of the game would make up for that additional effort the studio would have to go through.

I'll gladly see what others have to say. Maybe there's a point I'm not seeing here?

[Assistant]
> Atmosphere, music, lore, characters are all elements of the game that will always be the same, regardless of how difficult that game is.

What if a part of the game's atmosphere that the developers want to get across is how difficult or unforgiving the game is?

There exist relaxing games, where losing might not even be a mechanic, and where the goal of the game is to give something relaxing for the person to accomplish. For some of these games, adding difficult/unforgiving mechanics might not even be feasible, and even if it were, even giving the option would tarnish the game's intended reputation of making the gamer feel relaxed.

And just the same, there exist difficult/unforgiving games, where respawning might not even be a mechanic, and where the goal of the game is to give something difficult/challenging for the person to accomplish. Even giving the option to make the game more easy would tarnish the game's intended reputation of making the gamer feel challenged.

Imagine a game so challenging that saying "I killed that boss" is seen as a badge of honour. Giving that boss an easy mode would make it more accessible, yes, but it would also remove the honour from that badge.


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

[User]
CMV: Ukraine should surrender to Russia instead of preparing to fight

At this rate, I'm not sure if NATO is in it to win it if Ukraine is invaded by Russia. It seems like they're up to sanctions, sending supplies and beyond that it seems like they're saying "you're on your own here"

The US seems to be in the same boat as well.

So, why waste human blood and resources trying to win a war you probably won't win when you can surrender and avoid all the bloodshed and destruction? Is Russia really that authoritarian of a country where its worth fighting to the death to make sure you don't get drawn into the system. I'm not too sure that if Russia decides to invade Ukraine that Ukraine can beat them.

Unless NATO commits to sending troops to Ukraine, I don't see Ukraine winning in a war against Russia.

Could Ukraine actually win against Russia if they were invaded? I'm doubtful about that...

[Assistant]
If someone comes to your house and says it's theirs now and no one will help you defend it would you still defend it?

Why waste blood and resources if you can't win?

Are the people taking over your home really that bad?

Keep in mind, it wasn't too long ago that they were all the same country.


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

[User]
[Warrhammer 40K] What is a call to tech support really like for people living in the upper class of a hive world

Yes Hi, my astropath is having trouble placing my call to Macragge, we have tried appeasing the machine spirit with WD-40 incense and prayers from the book of Haynes chapters 302-404. I'm thinking of calling IT, what can I expect from the interaction?

[Assistant]
Well, for starters, you'll be put on hold for four decades.

Also, the Astropath is not a machine. It's a very odd guy. In case of significant anomalies, apply bullet to brain *before* calling tech support.


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

[User]
[Naruto] If Might Guy were to die while in Eight Gates and be resurrected using Impure World Reincarnation, would he forever stay in Eight Gates?

Wouldn't that be hilariously overpowered? He cannot die since he's dead, unlimited chakra, no fatigue? Or are there limitations?

[Assistant]
He wouldn't stay in Eight Gate mode, but he will be able to activate it as a zombie. In which case he will presumably have the same amount of time before his body burns itself to a crisp, and then reforms since he can't die again.

Which while powerful, is not as invincible as you would think. He's still helpless for a period of time after Eight Gates wears off, and anyone still around can easily seal him. So any enemy that can survive eight gate release can also defeat revenant Gai.


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

[User]
Why is leather considered more ethical than fur?

is it just because we use the meat too?

[Assistant]
It's because leather serves an important purpose, and would be difficult to replace as a material.  Leather is used as a strong, very flexible protective material in gloves, boots, jackets, pants, anything you wear really.  It resists tears very well but it's still possible to cut into manageable pieces.  It's thin, but it still holds heat very well.  It's entirely waterproof, as well as resistant to most corrosive chemicals.  And, it's cheap to boot.  We're slaughtering all these cows anyway, why not tan their hides.

Fur on the other hand, is very expensive, very difficult to make, and doesn't even do it's supposed job (keeping you warm) better then other more "ethical" materials like cotton or wool.

Though leather is much more useful, it's probably mainly that leather is made from cows that we're slaughtering anyway, but one fur coat is made from a dozen wild foxes (or whatever)


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

[User]
If a gene (eg SOX2 and PAX6) is "repressed" by a histone mark like H3K27me3, then is it consistently suppressed by that histone mark in all cells, or only in some cells?

(and does it mean that the gene is consistently next to histone H3 inall cells?)

\[and bivalency/multivalency means that that multiple histone marks canbe next to the gene, right?\] I wonder how much steric hindrance is aconsideration for higher orders of multivalency?

ALSO.. Also, how many histone H3 proteins does a cell have? What if a cell has  60% of its H3K27 methylated, and 40% of them unmethylated? What would  then be the raw effect on a repressed gene like SOX2?

[Assistant]
Strictly speaking, no, it doesn't have to be suppressed in all cells. It just needs to be in enough cells to decrease transcription of that gene. In the context of something like brain development, h3k27me3 is deposited in certain parts of the brain at specific stages of development to regulate transcription of the developmental genes. Tri-methylation appears everywhere at different points.
You are right on bivalency and multivalency, these genes are poised to go in either 'direction' (silenced or activated).
I've never really thought about steric hindrance, but I've also never heard of more than 3 histone marks on a gene? Hope that helps!


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

[User] [Star Wars] if Anikin was concieved with midi-chlorians, could a force user get themselves or another person pregnant using the force?

[Assistant] That's actually what Plagueis and Sidious were essentially trying to do: create life with the Force. They failed rather spectacularly, and the wave that caused in the Force as a sort of backlash is what cause Anakin Skywalker to be conceived within the womb of a random slave woman on a backwater nowhere planet. Whether that was *actually* random is questionable; it's impossible to know the extent to which the Force itself guides events.


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

[User] [Vampires] If vampires are not affected by moonlight because it is weakened as it is reflected sunlight, would re-magnifying the moonlight thru a magnifying glass make it dangerous again?

[Assistant]
Depends on the vampirism in question.

Curse? The curse prevents them from living in the sunlight because the Sun is representative of God's love/light which they are cut off from, so reflecting moonlight won't do anything.

Pathogen? Intense UV radiation is deadly to the vampire pathogen and therefore any sufficiently amplified source of UV radiation will do the trick, regardless of where it comes from.


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

[User]
[Marvel/DC] Why don't nonlethal but brutal heroes break bones more often?

I understand heroes like Batman or Daredevil not wanting to kill, and I understand heroes like Spider-man or Superman don't want to go overboard in their brutality, but why do the heroes who are okay with breaking bones not do so more on villains to prevent further harm? Why aren't Joker's legs constantly shattered, why aren't Bullseye's fingers always backwards? They already break bones of random mooks, surely keeping actual villains from physically being able to do as much harm would be better than just punching them into submission?

[Assistant] like permanently disabling them? theres all kinds of insane technology in both the Marvel and DC universe that would render it pointless. Oracle just got herself a cool new spine that lets her fight as batgirl again, for example.


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

[User]
[MCU] Can I use the Mind Stone to compel everyone to pick up all the trash?

I am just sick of all the plastic people throw on the gound. Can I just find the Mind Stone and use it to compel everyone to always properly dispose of trash?

[Assistant]
Do you have the will, nay the nobility, to command the Mind Stone?

If so, then yes, you can compel people to pick up trash. You could also compel them to make slightly better life choices in general, like not being antivaxx during a worldwide pandemic. Or just not being antivaxx at all.


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

[User]
[eli5] Why is it we generally tend to want certain foods at certain times during the day?

Are we just conditioned to have cereal/porridge/toast etc for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and, for example, a hot meal for dinner?

[Assistant]
Part of it has to do with you specifically; people grow up and get used to certain things, and so the body starts to expect those things along with your brain.

The rest has to do with what your body needs at that moment. If youre craving milk really really bad, you may be low on calcium, or if steak seems like the best idea it might be iron. Your body uses a lot of nutrients and calories throughout the day, and cravings are usually how the body and brain tells you what you need.


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

[User] ELI5 why chocolate is bad for Dogs?

[Assistant]
The main poisonous thing to dogs in chocolate is a chemical called Theobromine.  The chemical is actually poisonous to humans as well, but in addition to the fact that we weigh quite a bit more than dogs, we also break down the chemical much faster than dogs do, so it doesn't have as much time to build up in our systems.  Also of note is that the more "Cacao Solids", sometimes written on bars as the percentage of cocoa, the more theobromine; so white chocolate is relatively harmless to dogs, moving up to milk chocolate, then dark chocolate, and finally baking chocolate as the most dangerous, as it is almost entirely cacao solids.

If you're curious as to how the chemical is harmful; it is very similar to caffeine and causes similar adverse effects: nausea, increased urination, irregular heartbeats, and if large enough amounts are consumed, even internal bleeding, heart attacks and death.  Hope that helps.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes it so difficult to intercept ICBMs compared to other types of missiles?

[Assistant] They're going really high and really fast. They basically travel up into space, around the Earth, and then come back down at a very high speed. Also if there's an all-out nuclear war, there's going to be hundreds (maybe thousands) in flight at once, likely overwhelming your missile defense system.


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

[User]
[Futurama] Why can robots vote?

In the episode "A Head in the Polls" Nixon gets elected because of the robot vote. However in the episode "Free Will Hunting" its stated that no robots have free will, couldn't someone (like Mom) just manufacture a ton of robots to vote for themselves?

[Assistant]
This gets into the murky question of what free will actually means.  The robots are clearly capable of independent decision-making, but presumably their decision-making is ultimately deterministic, even though it's unpredictable and only controllable in very limited ways.

I've always had the theory that AI in Futurama is emergent rather than programmed.  Generally when we see a programmed action such as Bender's patriotism chip, it's something that goes against the robot's mind rather than something that's a part of it.

I believe that AIs are somehow "grown" rather than engineered.  The most programmers can do is input powerful "suggestions", which are analogous to the way that extreme hunger "suggests" a human eat something even if they don't consciously want to.

EDIT:  Also, let's not forget that Futurama is a crapsack world.  Momcorp could have lobbied to give robots the vote with exactly the plan you describe in mind.


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

[User]
ELI5:How can the Iranian nuclear program be "limited" in such a way that reactor grade uranium can be produced but weapons grade cannot?

The current strategy for dealing with Iran is finding a compromise that lets them continue their research programs but limiting it to nuclear energy production(not weapons). If nuclear enrichment is just increasing the concentration of fissile U235, then I would expect the way they do it is by running a centrifuge to separate the isotopes. But it seems to me that if you can get to 85% or whatever the reactor grade is by that method, you could also get to 99% or whatever weapons grade is by simply doing the same thing, but longer/faster. What exactly can be done that would allow the production of nuclear fuel but stop production of WMDs?

[Assistant]
Commercial Reactor grade is 5%, weapons grade is 80% plus, though pretty much every warhead rests in the 90% plus range.

Plausible suggestions to allow Iran to continue the production of nuclear fuel without limiting the program are :

a) Continual IAEA observation to ensure they don't enrich further

b) Limiting the total amount of centrifuges they can have.

The problem for option 1 is that most of the enrichment works like a pyramid. Ie, the higher the enrichment is, the less material you need to process and the faster the process goes. Allowing them to enrich as much as they want to a lower enrichment means that they can already lay down the base, where most work needs to be done.

For example, processing 1 ton of feed natural uranium to reactor grade costs 800-900 Swu*, while going to reactor grade only costs 1200. (20%, used for research reactors, lies at 1100). Thus, allowing them to have a stockpile of lightly enriched uranium is a significant asset if they want to break out.

Limiting the total amount of centrifuges also isn't going to work, because a simple 1 GW reactor requires about 140 000 Swu per year. A bomb meanwhile, requires about 4000.

Thus, there are no inherent technical solutions. Any effort and solution will need to be diplomatic.

*Separative Work unit : Basically a unit of how much effort your centrifuges do. Iran's first Gen centrifuges do 1 SWU/year in optimal conditions, Second generation is about ten times as efficient.

A modern, Western Centrifuge ranges somewhere between 40-60 IIRC.

Addendum :

I forgot to list 2 additional options. One being to limit the amount of nuclear material they can have, which wouldn't really work because nuclear reactors use so much more material than bombs.

The other is to force them to immediately convert material to fuel elements, which can't be further enriched. However, this relies on them not secretly building a deconversion plant.

All in all, all the restrictions are only going to buy you time, perhaps 2 years at most, till they have enough nuclear material to build a bomb. Whether they have the knowledge to do so, and what they're going to do with 1 bomb is the question.


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

[User] ELI5: Why doesn't the body use up its fat reserves before it gets hungry and dizzy?

[Assistant] Historically, fat was meant for emergencies only.  A last-ditch reserve to maintain life when food is scarce.  The hunger motivates you to eat so you don't have to dip into this emergency reserve.  The dizziness is because you take as little energy out of your reserves as is needed to maintain life.  Having low energy makes you feel dizzy and faint.  Your body doesn't know whether you're going a few hours without food or a few days, so it plans on the worst case scenario.


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

[User] ELI5: The Koch brothers and their influence on politics.

[Assistant]
The government was worried about people donating lots of money to candidates allowing them to buy more commercials, and pay more people to help them get elected.  They were worried that If people could do that the politicians would do lots of things to help out their friends who helped them get elected.

So the government passed a laws that said you couldn't give a politician more than $2500 for an election.  Some people didn't like this law, they thought that money was the same thing as speech, so they asked the supreme court to look at the laws the government had made.  The supreme court agreed with them, and said that you could spend all the money you want on a politician's election as long as you don't give it to the politician.

Now people with a lot of money like the Koch brothers can go and find candidates they like and buy all the ads they want telling people to vote for their candidates, and no one can do anything about it.


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

[User]
Why is gravity able to accelerate an object with high static inertia (heavy object) at the same rate as an object with low static innertia (light object)?

e.g. A 100 ton ball will be accelerated at the same rate as a 1 pound ball. One would think that the 100 ton ball has much more static inertia than the 1 pound ball yet its acceleration and velocity is exactly the same as the 1 pound ball. How does gravity achieve this?

[Assistant]
Inertia is the resistance to change in velocity, which we measure in kilograms.

Force is what is required to change the velocity of an object (accelerate) it. A force that accelerates one kilogram by one meter per second per second is one Newton. Newtons are how we measure force.

The weight of an object is the effect of gravity on the mass of that object, and the force of gravity is directly proportional to the mass of the object. On earth gravity exerts a force of 9.8 Newtons per kilogram.

If we know that acceleration=force/mass then we can solve for acceleration for any object with mass x knowing that the force applied by gravity is 9.8Nx(the mass of the object). Using x for the mass in kilograms that gives acceleration=(9.8Nxkg)/xkg. The xs cancel leaving us with acceleration=9.8m/s^2 for any mass (disregarding air resistance).

TL:DR Heavier objects have a greater force acting on them but it requires a greater force to accelerate them as well, so it all balances out.


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

[User] What is the best coding site to take your skills from beginning to advanced?

[Assistant]
Experience.

Build stuff.

Create Experiments projects, open them up on GitHub as a namespaced and dated project. (e.g. jdoe/experiments-sorting-stuff-rxjs-201811)

So that you can see your progress.

Also, there's HackerRank.

But, really, experience is better than just grinding levels without actually implementing useful stuff.


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

[User]
Are things what they are made from or are they different?

For instance is a proton just the two up quarks and a down quark (sorry if that is wrong or if I am not meant to say quark after up and down) or is it different from those quarks just being in the same place? What makes a proton different from its building blocks?

[Assistant]
A full answer to this question requires a somewhat detailed knowledge of quantum field theory, and there is certainly some use in thinking of composite particles as being made up of smaller constituents, but let me try to point out one specific scenario that indicates the shortcomings in thinking of an object as being equivalent to its constituents.

Perhaps the most dramatic example to indicate that a composite object is not simply a shorthand description of its constituents arises in Bose-Einstein condensation.  Fermions satisfy the Pauli exclusion principle and so cannot form Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC), because no two identical fermions can be in the same quantum state.  But BECs have been made out of ordinary atoms (e.g., rubidium, sodium), and we also see Bose-Einstein condensation effects in the formation of superfluid He-4 or in the behavior of Cooper pairs (pairs of electrons) in superconductors.  Yet all these objects that form BECs are ones that we would describe as made of fermions: protons, neutrons, electrons.   But protons neutrons, and electrons cannot undergo Bose-Einstein condensation.

So this tells us that viewing the composite particle simply as the sum of its consituents does not provide a complete description.

To understand the formation of these BECs, you need to understand a little bit about fermions (half-integer spin, obey the exclusion principle) and bosons (integer spin, not restricted by the exclusion principle).  Take an even number of fermions, add up their spins, and you get an integer.  This means in the examples above, we have composite particles with integer spin "made up of" fermions, and the formation of the BEC tells you their behavior is governed by the composite particle's identity, not that of its constituents.

The bigger picture lies in understanding the distinction between the fields you use to formulate a theory and the physical states that emerge in that theory.  While sometimes there is a relatively close correspondence between these, ultimately the physical states have an identity that is independent of the particular field theory formulation used to describe them.


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

[User]
The known Universe is over 72 billion light years across. How is this possible if the big bang was only 14 billion years ago?

Is it possible that we are seeing remnants of a universe older than ours? Is it another universe co-existing with ours, meaning that this is a multi-verse? Or is it from another big bang that has happened extremely far away from us, creating another universe, meaning that this is a multi-verse?

[Assistant]
It's because of the expansion of space itself. It's quite difficult to explain because it isn't like any traditional form of motion you're used to. When space expands, the objects themselves don't need to be moving, but the relative distance between them increases.

As an analogy, imagine we are two dimensional beings stationary and equally seperated around the rubber membrane of a balloon. When the balloon is inflated (representing the metric expansion of space), our two-dimensional selves get further apart from each-other. But we didn't actually move at all, it's just the fabric of our universe (in this case the rubber) was stretched.

This is by no means a perfect analogy but hopefully it helps.


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

[User] [General Superheroes] I'm a rookie supervillain who generates and manipulates water, active predominately in California. But everyone just applauds and cheers whenever I appear!? How do I make this stop? How do I make these people afraid of me?

[Assistant]
What's wrong with being a fan-favorite villain?

Good public opinion has many benefits. Superheroes are less likely to go after you, because they don't want to be publicly hated after they put a well liked person in jail. It is easier to get loyal minions. Some fans may protect or hide you.


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

[User] [Stargate/Torchwood] What would happen if a Wraith fed on Captain Jack Harkness?

[Assistant]
More or less what happens with anyone else, just much slower.

Jack still ages, but very slowly. He only aged about 3 years in the span of a century (not counting when he was stuck underground constantly dying/reviving, since his biological functions wouldn't be operating long enough to really count) give or take.  That comes out to about one year every 30ish.

Assuming the Face of Bo thing is true, then we know he *can* die of old age, but it'll take so incredibly long that pretty much half the species could feed on him a few times and he'd still be alive.

Really, it's an incredible food source, except for two things: first, the Wraith don't share well.  And second, Jack would be less than thrilled at this turn of events and would likely break out, causing mayhem, destruction and random pregnancies along the way.


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

[User]
[General Sci-Fi] On planets with diverse alien populations, does the culture allow for the development of legendary creatures (think cryptids) or would random weird sightings always be written off as just a species you havent met yet?

And dont say the residents would all be too advanced to believe in Bigfoot because weve landed on the moon and I know people irl who think the earth is flat.

[Assistant]
Not exactly the same thing as being on a planet, but this reminds me of Anakin's line in Phantom Menace about how space pilots reported seeing "angels." Begging the question of whether this was an actual species or just spacer rumors.

I think in any area with large enough unexplored or sparsely populated regions, legends of cryptids could spring up. For instance if you lived on a big planet with diverse cities but people rarely ventured into the swamps, sightings of creatures in said swamps would be suspicious. But if you lived on, say, Coruscant, where the entire planet has been urbanized, and you start talking about this strange thing you saw outside of a bar one time, people would probably think you were either babbling nonsense or talking about a normal species you haven't met yet.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Why can't the United Federation of Planets not completely bulldoze other powers such as the Romulans or Klingons in a war?

[Assistant]
In the TOS era, there was rough parity between Alpha Quadrant powers, with the Romulans probably being fewer in number but more tactically effective craft (plasma torpedos and cloaks), the Fed (mostly due to the Tellurian, Vulcan and Andorian presence) in the middle of the numbers vs. tactical quality and the Klingons with the largest forces. Gorn were medium threats with greater sophistication and genetically modified warriors. Major conflicts during this period were likely to stalemate, so the Fed can't just bully them while Pike and Kirk were around.

By TNG period, the Fed is enormous in volume and population but very spread out. At this point, non Warship Fed vessels were equivalent to warships of equivalent size, and peer conflicts would go the Fed's way as long as there was sufficient ramp up time for a wartime economy. The only real threat among peer or near peer adversaries was the Dominion, a civilization that occupied and controlled the greater part of a whole Quadrant. While costly, active wars with any of the major powers would end in the Fed's favor, but the Fed is decentralized and inherently non aggressive in its expansion and hegemony\*.

This is because, as Quark points out in DS9, the Fed does not need to be aggressive in its expansion. It incudes large volumes of undeveloped space, internal and external frontiers of expansion, positive population growth, increasing incorporation of neutrally aligned worlds, positive trade balances with other powers, and increasingly advanced technology as a product of both its science/exploration focus and the greater cooperation between its member states. The only real time we see and existential threat it's from the Borg (see the Farming Theory for more), the Dominion and through time shenanigan's the Klingon's in Yesterday's Enterprise.

So there's a practical reason they don't (it's unnecessary) and a political/philosophical one I'll briefly expand on here: The Fed considers it's reputation for impartiality and neutrality an asset. Rather than shoot first, they have calculated that the peaceful stance gains them more, in a fundamental strategic sense, than the types of geopolitics we see from other powers (and here on earth in Great Power struggles). To them, the benefits internally and externally from being a responsible power outweigh the potential for them to militarily expand their territory.

\*The Fed *greatly* expanded compared to other AQ powers from TOS through to the end of VOY; there approach not only seems to work, it only fails when the Fed ossifies in the 30th century, there's a vicious Time War *and* theres some weird shit with a kid in a solid dilithium asteroid.

tl;dr- The Fed *is* steamrolling the rest of the major powers in the setting, but they're doing so through largely cultural and economic methods and prefer to exercise soft power whenever possible because there strategic stance is such that they benefit more from being moral. Given the presence of several long lived species in the core Fed polity (Vulcans and Andorians) this long term strategy seems to work for them.


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

[User] ELI5: Why did cloaks go out of favor?

[Assistant] They were well suited to wearing on horseback, and to a lesser degree sitting in an open carriage. They are not well suited to wearing inside a car or train, where the seats are low and the air is heated.


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

[User]
[Starcraft] Why have the terrans never attempted to utilize protoss shielding technology?

Even lowly robotic protoss probes have shielding tech, and they are plentiful in number. Why have the terrans not attempted to capture, reverse engineer and utilize shields for themselves? The tactical benefits of having essentially doubled survivability  and regerating durability would certainly be useful.

[Assistant]
In sc2 you could do research on a nugget of protoss crystal, the ubiquitous basis of a lot of their technology. This simple material (to protoss engineers) totally blew the humans away, it could do things they didn't even know were possible, and they had no idea how it was doing it.

They're not employing protoss tech not as an oversight, but because they've no idea how to.

Imagine a faction in medieval Europe got a hold of some digital technology, maybe a server stack, what could they do with it? They couldn't even power it correctly let alone benefit from it's function.

Terrans are medieval compared to the protoss, so don't yet have the foundations required to use their shizzle.


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

[User]
[X-Men] What happens to any bits of Mystique that get amputated?

For example in the first X-Men film she fights Wolverine while in his form and he chops her claws off. Did those bits stay on the ground looking like silver claws? Melt into some kind of amorphous blob of Mystique-flesh?  How her abilities work in terms of clothing as well is interesting but I'm not sure there's any reasonable explanation for that, e.g. could she take off a pair of glasses?

[Assistant]
Mystique's entire body can mould into the form of any human or animal she wishes. She creates objects (such as clothes, or claws) out her own mutant cells.

She can create glasses, but taking them off would mean physically removing them from her body. She must have a physical connection to morphed objects if she is to maintain the camouflage.

If a piece of her body was removed or amputated, then if would assume a piece of her natural form. For example: if she was wearing morphed glasses, and someone cut them from her face, they would revert back to a piece of flesh from where she produced them. In this case, she would end up with cuts on either side of her eyes.

However, as Mystique's cells are unique in that they don't age, and have an improved healing factor, such minor injuries would be superficial.


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

[User]
Is it good / bad programming language design if imports were at the bottom instead of the top?

From a readability point of view, I don't see it very valuable that imports are the first thing I see when I open a file. They give me little information about what the file / module does. They supplement the information given to us by the rest of the file.

Would you say it is a good language design if the imports were all the way at the bottom? This way, you're met with the module's logic first, and can reference the import list when needed. Obviously this would require automatically hoisting the variable assignments for the imports.

Anyone has any thoughts about this? Is there any (readability or other) benefit for top of file imports that I'm missing?

[Assistant]
> They give me little information about what the file / module does.

To me, it sets the context for everything else in the file.

> Would you say it is a good language design if the imports were all the way at the bottom?

I don't see a readability benefit. Seems like change for the sake of change.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Daredevil Butt smells

So like Daredevil has advanced smell. I got to thinking.... After people shit I'm sure there is a little bit of leftover smell, smear until shower time (not countint wet wipes and such).

So does he just know everyone who pooped for the day and how well they wiped? Cause that's gross.

Sorry for this.

[Assistant] I'd say that given the intensity of his abilities, he's smell-blind entirely unless he chooses to focus. Human beings smell like old sweat, bad breath, feces, urine, menstrual blood at all times, and there are millions of them in close proximity in New York City. I'd imagine that the "standard" smells are just background noise to him.


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

[User] ELI5: Where does the light from a fire come from?

[Assistant] Particles of carbon soot become incandescent (they glow) because they are so hot. They form the flames. As the temperature of the fire rises (due to oxygen intake for example), the particles burn up and the yellow flames go away.