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

[User]
[General] In the worlds of Science Fiction, What would be classified as SiFi to them?

In the worlds of science fiction we imagine what our world and universe would be like in the near or distant future. But lets take a minute to imagine ourselves in a future similar to our beloved SiFi stories and think what would be considered SiFi to them? Because that possible future has cybernetics, alien life, terra-forming etc. (Basically everything we see in Cyberpunk stories and SiFi galaxy's), what do you think they people in that time would consider SiFi, like how we consider their everyday lives to be SiFi?

[Assistant]
Anything they don't have.  If they have interplanetary travel then their scifi would be interstellar travel, FTL ships, wormholes, teleportation, and so on.

With the exception of Dr. Who and Star Trek, few fictional universes have *everything*.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can we see stars and the Milky Way during night, but pictures of Earth from space have no stars?

[Assistant] Because the Earth is really really bright when the sun is shining on it, and stars are really really faint. If you wanted to see the stars, you'd have to overexpose the Earth, and the picture is much less attractive with a big bright smeary blob of light in the middle.


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

[User] ELI5: How do you make fire works have shapes, such as hearts and shapes.

[Assistant]
Even though the cartridges you see probably all look ball shaped, what's inside isn't.
 If you take a fire cracker, and put it in a metal bowl, the explosion will be contained on the sides, and be pushed out the top of the bowl.
This shape charge effect is what all sorts of explosives use, and the same is with fireworks.

If you have 2 explosives in close proximity to eachother, they will act on eachother to change the shape. Try taking a pool of water, and putting your fingers in 2 different places at the same time, see how the ripples interact with eachother. This interaction also happens in fireworks.

Also timing helps. Try putting your finger in water, then a second later, put your finger in another part of the water. The stronger ripples will have a bigger effect than the smaller ripples, but the smaller ripples will still have some effect.

The fireworks manufacturer has spent a lot of time and money researching the correct way to pack the charge so that it comes out the way they want. Hope this helps, and hope you enjoyed your fourth.


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

[User]
Is a Single Measurement Precise?

I just got back my science midterm and one of the questions I got wrong was bothering me. This was the question (not word for word of course, but same idea).

The actual mass of object A is 56.8842 grams. Which of the following is the most accurate measurement of object A ___? Which is the most precise ___?

A) 55.937 grams
B) 57 grams
C) 56.299104324 grams

I wrote in B for being the most accurate (it's the closest to 56.8842).

However for the second part I simply wrote "none" because I remember learning that precision comes from having multiple consistent measurements, and we were being asked about a single measurement. I was confident that I caught a trick question, since my teacher has done trick questions on previous tests, but they marked me wrong. They said answer C was correct because precision comes from having the most significant digits.

Am I wrong? I feel like the way this question was asked is a bit confusing, so please explain in detail whether or not I'm missing something or outright wrong.

[Assistant]
A measurement is actually a combination of a value and an uncertainty. (Well, technically it's a probability distribution, but in most cases representing it as a value and uncertainty is good enough.) Precision is about how large the uncertainty is; a measurement with smaller uncertainty is more precise.

There are various ways to come up with the uncertainty of a measurement. If the measurement is determined by averaging a set of several observations, then the uncertainty is related to the spread of those individual observations. That's what you probably remembered. But you can also come up with an uncertainty for a single measurement, perhaps by using some feature of the measuring device. It doesn't really matter where the uncertainty comes from, when you're comparing the precision of different measurements (of the same quantity); all that matters is which measurement has the smallest uncertainty.

And when quantities are written out using the rules for significant digits, more significant digits means more precision. Therefore, assuming the significant figure rules are being followed in the answer choices (and given the context, it's a safe bet that they are), C is in fact the most precise of these measurements.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does a saltwater rinse help wounds in the mouth heal faster?

Shouldn't the salt irritate the wound, causing it to heal slower or get re-injured from swelling?

[Assistant]
Salt water works in three ways. First, it dehydrates the bacteria due to osmosis -  that is, the water in the bacteria gets "sucked" across the cell membrane into your salt solution due to the concentration differences of the solutions to the point where the bacteria is no longer functional, effectively killing it.
Second, it serves to physically remove any of the bacteria from the wound, and is able to penetrate deep (giggity) into the wound to get any bacteria that may be lurking below the surface.
Third, it also dehydrates your cells in the wound, effectively killing off the surface cells that have been damaged by the bacteria, and washes them away so that the cells underneath can be regenerated and heal more effectively.
Any irritation that is caused simply causes inflammation to redirect the healing processes of your body towards the wound, which also contributes to the healing process.


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

[User]
[Spectacular Spider-Man] Why doesn't Sandman just leave New York?

Time and time again, Marko has shown zero intrest in getting back on Spider-Man, even after immediately getting his powers he thinks revenge is a waste of time, he only wants a decent score so he can retire. So why doesn't he just move?

Spider-Man is more or less bound to New York, Its not like he can stop Sandman when the guy is robbing in Los Angeles or Chicago. Sandman isn't like the smartest guy, but he should be bright enough to figure out that the Wall Crawler is localized to the big apple and  just to leave.

[Assistant] Sandman's daughter is in New York.  She's basically the only person Flint Marko actually cares about.  Flint doesn't want to separate her from her mother nor does he want her to have to live a life growing up on the run.


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

[User] [Star Trek] How does Klingon society look upon doctors or engineers or teachers or any other occupation that isn't combat related?

[Assistant]
Almost all of the Klingons we see are from the upper castes of nobility and warriors, both of which are typically hereditary. Some, such as Martok, can rise to be accepted in the upper castes, but this is rare. This gives us an extremely distorted view of Klingon society.

For example, we also see Klingon lawyers, one of whom argues that his battlefield was the courtroom (DS9 *Rules of Engagement*). We must clearly also have scientists, engineers, famers, plumbers, and every other occupation necessary for a society to function. Some of these tasks are likely relegated to the subjugated species of the Empire--dilithium mining seems to be a good example of this--but since we don't see aliens integrated into Klingon society as laborers, nor the use of robots, we can assume that we see all sorts on Klingon worlds.


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

[User] ELI5: If we had 10 years notice of an impending meteoroid strike, could we deploy thousands of nukes in its trajectory and use the shockwaves to stop it?

[Assistant]
Yup.

But...

* they'd have to change international non-nuclear-weapons-in-space treaties first

* those nukes would have to be lifted in orbit and placed and kept on the right trajectory. That would be a shuttle-load of money.

* the nukes would pretty much have to detonate in contact with the asteroid (because there's no shock-transmitting air in space), and the object would have to be solid enough for the nukes to "nudge" it so you wouldn't just transform it into a cloud of sand still aimed at us.

* It couldn't be so big that nukes couldn't effectively move it (say, if Jupiter was inbound).

A better and safer solution, given the time and the interest, might be to build a low-thrust engine on it instead.


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

[User] ELI5: when you get a cut internally, for example from an operation, what happens to it? Does it scab up like on your skin or does something else happen?

[Assistant] Surgeon here. The same process that happens on the outside happens on the inside: Platelets and proteins in the blood cause clots which help to "seal' the area, and other cells come in over time to heal the wound. It doesn't take the same form as scabs due to the environment (basically it's wet), and the body breaks it down and absorbs it over time. The body also often forms adhesions (bands of tissue sticking nearby structures to each other)


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

[User] ELI5: What is the big investigation with Russia attempting to find? And if they find wrong doing by the president what can really be done?

[Assistant] They are trying to find out if the Trump campaign violated the foreign policy laws.  If they did, as the Nixon campaign violated burglary laws, the President could be impeached by the House.  He would then be tried in the Senate, and if he lost he would be removed from office.  This would "really do" something.


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

[User]
ELI5: how are mouth ulcers different to cuts?

If you bite your tongue/lip, then it turns into an ulcer. If you cut your hand or something then its just a standard cut.
Why is it different when in the mouth?

[Assistant]
See cut is just like any sharp or blunt object cutting the continuous layer of epidermis.

If the cut get infected by bacteria or any pathogens it'll become an ulcer.

In mouth there are commensals bacteria and other bacteria too if not hygienic so it'll turn into ulcer.

If the cut is too small even in mouth it'll heal because the discontinued layer is approximated so they heal faster.

Even in outside body if the cut is disinfected and approximated (sutured) it won't cause ulcer.
But if we leave the cut to dust and soil it'll turn into an ulcer.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are movie stars able to be frequently recast in many roles, but the careers of the stars of popular TV shows often seem to fizzle out when the shows end or are cancelled?

[Assistant] Movies are  short and don't allow much time to form a bond with the characters. In television shows, there is plenty of room for character growth and viewers to get attached. Part of the issue with TV stars is that we build this attachment to a character to a point where that actor IS that character.


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

[User]
[Spoilers Endgame] Time Heist - Jarvis?

During the time heist for the infinity stone, we see Tony sneak around inside Stark Tower and witness the OG gang right after capturing Loki.  At this point in time, Jarvis' AI is pretty much running everything tech related and definitely runs the tower; it must have sensors everywhere.  There's no way it would have not detected that there were **two** Tony Starks present (not to mention Captain America).  What is going on?

[Assistant] Tony likely has authentication protocols built into all of his technology that allows it all to handshake and interconnect whenever it's on a mutual network. Probably as soon as they arrived in 2012, the local instance of Friday running in Tony's suit connected to Stark Tower, executed a handshake with Jarvis, and was good to go. It's possible that Friday explained everything to Jarvis (who then deleted or sequestered that data when the time travelers have left), or it may be that the nature of the protocol just has Jarvis ignoring the fact that there are multiple Tonys because they are both authenticated.


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

[User]
Sartre's Nausea

I recently got Sartre's Being and Nothingness from the library and after reading a few pages, I realized it's probably too complicated at the moment. I thought Nausea might be easier to understand as it's fiction. Is it easier, or is it as difficult as B+N?

[Assistant] *Being and Nothingness* is likely more difficult, as it draws on Heidegger's philosophy. If you want a straightforward statement of Sartre's existentialism, you should probably look to *Existentialism Is a Humanism*.


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

[User]
[Avatar The Last airbender& Korra] metalbending avatars

When Korra was in Zaofu, she learned metalbending from Su and she congratulated her as being the first metalbending avatar but why didn't Aang learn from Toph in the years he was in Republic City. Toph knew metalbending and also had an academy for that so why did Aang not learn it.

[Assistant]
The two biggest reasons are likely that Aaang couldn't metalbend and Aang didn't have the time to learn to metalbend.

Aang doesn't seem like a metalbender, he already heavily struggled with learning Earthbending as it is. His more airbender personality doesn't suit itself to metal and we know that personality and temperament has an enormous effect on learning bending and disciplines of bending. Korra on the other hand has a natural stubborn metalbender personality which is why she picked it up naturally.

The other reason is that Aang didn't have the time to explore the sub disciplines of bending at his leisure. For all that Aang is deeply spiritual and more suited to learning, study and meditation, his time as Avatar was marked with a heavy focus on the material world. Between reintegrating the Fire Nation, restoring balance and peace, founding Republic City, rebuilding the Air Nation temples and Air Nation culture and in general fixing up the world after 100 years of war, Aang didn't have the free time to master other bending arts.


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

[User]
How much radiation did the Demon Core put out when not shielded with Beryllium?

Louis Sloten received around 1,000 rads of radiation when the screwdriver slipped on the top beryllium sphere causing the core to go prompt critical.

I am having a hard time finding information about how much radiation the core was putting out by itself when neutrons were not being reflected back into the core. Scientists were apparently handling the core often so my guess is that it wasn't *that* lethal by itself but I can't find any documentation on how much radiation the core put out normally.

[Assistant]
It's hard to give a single number for a multiplying system, because it depends on the surroundings of the object as well as what materials it contains.

If you have a ~ few kilogram sphere of plutonium completely on its own with no moderating/reflecting material nearby, it maybe produces a dose rate on the order of ~100 mrem/hr on contact each for neutrons and gamma rays.

But as soon as you pick it up with your hands, or even stand near it, you're introducing moderating material to the system (your body, which contains a lot of water), and the dose rate increases.

As long as it's kept subcritical, you can hold it in your hands for minutes or hours without accruing too much of a dose.

But if the multiplication k*_eff_* is brought above 1, then you have an exponentially increasing neutron population until thermal effects expand the sphere enough to bring it back to sub-criticality. But the total dose received by anybody nearby during that criticality excursion can be fatal, and *was* in the case of the demon core.


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

[User] ELI5: What is happening differently in a person's body that sings very well versus a person who is a horrible singer?

[Assistant]
There are different aspects of singing well. The most important are timbre and audiation. If someone is singing in tune, but it still sounds bad, that's a timbre problem. They probably need to relax and breathe more consistently.

At another level, the way your voice sounds is also determined by the arrangement of your larynx and the bones in your head.

The other perhaps more common problem is a failure to audiate well. Audiation is to music, what thinking is to language. To sing in tune you have to exert the effort to THINK the sounds you want. It's not difficult to practice but it can be mentally exhausting.

Any musician who improvises well is audiating, as is anyone who composes music straight to a score without playing it.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between generic and name brand drugs and how are generic drugs so much cheaper?

[Assistant]
So drug company A spends 7 years and $1,000,000,000 dollars to develop Gropax. They apply for a patent, and receive a 20 year patent. For 20 years, they are the only people allowed to manufacture Gropax. They sell it at a price high enough to make back all of the money that they spent developing it.

After the 20 years is up, any one is free to make the drug. They can use the formula and sell it under any name except Gropax. So company 2 comes in and begins making the drug. Because manufacturing pharmaceuticals is very cheap, they can sell the generic drugs very cheaply.


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

[User] Can someone explain Aristotle's process of how we become virtuous? Do we use reason to determine what is virtuous, and then through habituation exercise those virtues?

[Assistant] Indeed, but it's important to remark that this habituation involves applying the same principle to different situations, which results in different correct courses of actions. Sometimes the corageous thing to do is retreat; others, to march forward. Hence why the rational determination of the principles of virtue does not collapse into deontology, much less consequentialism.


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

[User]
[DC] Realistically how much tougher would Batman's life be if his identify is known to the world?

Tony Stark is able to live a public life with Ironman known to the world, as do other heroes such as Dr. Strange, Fantasic Four.

Can Batman not live a life without concealing identity?

[Assistant] The difference between those other heros and Batman is that their actions are technically legal or at least excusable by the nation they are operating in. No Middle Eastern country is going to complain when Iron Man shows up to fight off another terrorist group, The Fantastic Four's actions tend to be done in the name of protecting members of the general public, and Dr Strange operates on levels human laws don't tend to cover. Batman meanwhile operates on US soil where the general level of peace makes vigilantism a much bigger issue and a lot of his enemies tend to have at least some influence over the law that they could use to turn the police against Batman. On top of his vigilantism charges, he also has to deal with his relationship with Wayne Enterprises. The Iron Man suits are  Stark's own creations, whereas the various bat-tools are manufactured by Wayne Enterprises using illegally allocated funds. While the GCPD may not have an issue with Batman doing what he does under the command of Jim Gordon, government agencies are going to have a much bigger issue with Bruce Wayne embezzling funds from Wayne Enterprises to build illegal weaponry and vehicles to be used in vigilante attacks. So yeah, keeping Batman's identity secret is a much bigger deal for him than other heros.


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

[User] ELI5: How do activated carbon filters work?

[Assistant] Basically the carbon has tiny tiny pores that pull things out of water/air/etc via what's called the van der waals force. Different base materials (coconut, wood, animal bone) result in different size pores which are used in different applications depending on the medium and what you're trying to filter out.


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

[User]
[DC/Superman] What is Superman's pain/general feel tolerance?

If he gets shot, does it feel like a rapidly moving piece of metal hitting him? His genitals are apparently sensitive enough to conceive a child with a human woman, so he must have a sense of feeling. Maybe his genitals are more sensitive, but that doesn't make a lot of sense. Based on his child-creating relations, he must be able to feel every shot, punch, flame, laser, etc. that hits him, so does he just have the mental fortitude to shrug the attacks off because he knows it's not causing damage? I would assume his near-impenetrable skin would result in a huge margin of actual pain mitigation, so how does a lighter touch register with him? Does he feel when someone gently places a hand on his shoulder, or his cape flapping? In summary, Superman came, so he must feel bullets to a more significant degree than someone punching him.

[Assistant]
Pain is a neurological response telling you that your body will sustain damage and / or injury if you continue your current course.  The idea is to force you to stop whatever it is youre doing thats causing the pain so that the body isnt damaged, let some damaged beyond its capacity to repair.

Bullets, flames, punches, and lasers dont elicit a pain response in Kryptonians because none of those are capable of harming him.


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

[User]
[Spider Man] When Spider Man webs up criminals to streetlamps/bridges/high up walls/the sides of buildings etc, how much does it cost the NYPD to get them down?

What I mean by this is who is responsible for removing the criminals, how much do they need to be paid (if at all), what is the process for detangling/dissolving the webbing, and how much labor/man hours does it take to complete the job?

[Assistant]
Criminals!?  Citizens of New York you mean.  What evidence is provided by thishero that these men and women broke the law?  When has Spider-Man ever testified in a court-of-law that he saw a crime take place?  Never!

These good people get strung up and inconvenienced by that wall-crawler.  What are the police supposed to do?  Arrest them for what?  Charge them with what?  Any two-bit lawyer will get any one of them to walk free if the judge doesnt throw the case out first.  Hero?  Hes a menace!


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

[User] What would happen if someone swallowed super glue?

[Assistant]
If already set: nothing serious; you'll likely poop it out like chewing gum.

If fresh: Nothing good, but very luck dependant.  It will irritate mucous membranes as it polymerised rapidly in the moist environment.  The worst case would be lodgement in the trachea, which could block up solid, leading to suffocation.
The best case would be sliding down a well lubricated esophagus without much interaction, then landing in a stomach partially filled with food to bind with.  This outcome would lead to large, difficult to pass bowel movements, perhaps serving as a reminder to not swallow superglue.
The actual term, superglue, can refer to any mixture of a family of rapidly polymerizing monomers called cyanoacrylates.  These vary in toxicity, however the most commonly used have very low toxicity, and mostly won't be able to reach the bloodstream via the scenario you described, as they cannot cross membranes in polymer form and there isn't a biological mechanism for breaking Carbon-Carbon single covalent bonds in the digestive tract.  Some cyanoacrylates are relatively volatile and can be absorbed in the respiratory system, where toxicity concerns become more relevant.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Does the dark side have a corrupting "will" to the extent that it makes a good person start to do evil things? Or does being able to shoot a dude with lightning just tend to make people power-mad and think "if I can shoot lightning, I can probably take over the galaxy!, etc"

[Assistant]
It's sort of the other way around. It's an evil nature that leads you to the dark side. You wouldn't have a Darth Bob Ross for example.

The Dark Side literally feeds on feelings like anger, and it amplifies them in a sort of feedback loop with a little ambition (and without a little ambition you wouldn't have heard of them really).

Basically you have to be a little evil to join the dark side in the first place.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does money laundering work?

I get that it's used to legitimize ill-gotten gains, but how and why?

[Assistant]
How: You make a lemonade stand. You sell lemonade for $1 per cup. But say you also sell drugs on the streets at night and you made $100 there. You then put the $100 in the lemonade stand and tell the government you sold 100 cups of lemonade. Now the money is cleaned.

Why: You do it so that you can have it in your bank account.


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

[User] ELI5: What are "depleted" uranium rounds and why are they so bad?

[Assistant]
Uranium comes in two forms, U235, which is the fissile kind that runs power plants and explodes under the right conditions; and U238 which is far less energetic.

Depleted uranium is mostly the 238 form, which has different useful characteristics:  uranium metal is an extremely hard, dense, and non-malleable substance.

The kind of substance that, if you put a whole lot of kinetic energy into throwing it at a target, will blast through even the thickest pieces of armor without shattering or deforming (which reduce the kinetic energy it has).

So, a lot of depleted uranium is used in armor-piercing bullets and other projectiles, and a lot of them get fired during war.

Those bullets and warheads end up in the ground, or laying around, or embedded in the sides of people's houses, and in rivers and lakes and other watersources.  It's not just the entire intact projectile; they do chip and melt and break apart under some circumstances.

Now, just because they're "delepleted" doesn't mean they stop being uranium -- they're far less likely to cause radiation sickness and other problems, but they still experience some radioactive decay, which can potentially cause health problems for the people around where depleted uranium ammunition has been used.  Plus, since it's a heavy metal, it can have bad affects on humans like lead and mercury does.


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

[User] [MCU]What happened to all of the puppers and kitties of people who lived alone after the Snappening? Did the pet superheroes save them or did they mostly starve to death, trapped inside their homes?

[Assistant]
Legally they go to the next of kin who is still living and after that the state. However the snap is a giant cluster fuck in legal terms. In addition to pets, abandoned houses and property, all the people without wills and lack of people to adjudicate what wills there are or deal with the aftermath.

As most people cover in high school history the Black Death which is thought to have killed a third of Europe changed the culture and helped issue in the Renaissance. It left lasting cultural memes like nursery rhymes. But it happened over several years and took 200 years for populations to recover.  This is worse. Many cultures will never recover. Societal collapse will be imminent even in the developed world, who is going to bring in food now that half the truck drivers are dead? No one is going to care about the pets other than how to catch them and eat them.


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

[User] [MCU] Did Thanos exempt himself from "The Snap", or did he just win the coin toss?

[Assistant] I believe the Russo brothers mentioned in an interview that Thanos was not exempt from the Snap.  They mention that as being why Thanos looks slightly surprised before he zips away through his portal.


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

[User]
Can someone please explain the economic recession that is going on in the US right now like I'm five?

Thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
It pretty much boils down to debt and jobs.

Houses cost a lot of money--more than most people could ever afford to just save up and pay cash.  So most of the time, somebody borrows all that money from a bank so they can live in the house and pays the bank every month over 30 years or so plus interest.

The bank wants to be sure it's going to get its money back, so they ask for a lot of paperwork from the person asking for a loan so they can prove they have a good job, make enough money, and are responsible enough to pay their bills on time and will take care of the house.

But eventually, things started to fall apart.  The bank you got a loan from didn't really want to wait 30 years to get their money back, so they sold your loan to somebody else.  Your bill still has your bank's logo on it, they still handle the paperwork, but your monthly payments are now going to somebody else.

After a while, this meant that banks weren't as careful when lending money as they used to be--if you can't make your house payments, it's not their problem anymore.  They make their money off of you in the beginning, and sell off the loan.  You're someone else's problem now.

So it gets easier and easier to get a mortgage.  People go nuts, buying houses left and right.  People start to make piles of money, selling a house they bought for $100,000 five years ago to somebody for $200,000.  And then they go buy another house and figure some new paint and a bit of yardwork will make them even more money.  Heck!  Let's buy two houses!

House prices keep going up up up up up.  Banks aren't just selling mortgages to other institutions now, they're making deals on top of them too, selling "insurance" to other big bankers in case somebody stops paying their bills.

Eventually, people couldn't pay their bills, and the whole mess came tumbling down.  Banks failed, others couldn't afford to lend any more money so other businesses had to shut down because they couldn't get loans any more.  So people lose their jobs, and now even more people can't pay their bills.  Many of these people are stuck in houses they "bought" for $300,000 but it was never really worth more than $100,000.

House prices go down, down, down.

And now that so many people are broke, they can't afford to buy toys and gadgets and cars like they used to . . . so the companies making those things start to go under or have to shrink and cut more jobs . . . which makes more people broke and unable to afford stuff . . . so more jobs cut . . . on and on and on.  That's where we are right now.


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

[User]
I don't understand: "Explain why a computer cannot solve a problem for which there is no solution outside the computer"

I've been trying this phrase:  Explain why a computer cannot solve a problem for which there is no solution outside the computer. It's an assignment by my prof, but I can't even begin to understand it. Does "outside the computer" mean that if humans for example (who are outside of a computer) doesn't have a solution, then the computer wouldn't be able to have a solution? Does it mean that a computer needs to have all the tools and processes available to it in order to solve the problem at hand?

 I see on YouTube that there situations in which a computer cannot give an answer about whether a program will have a stopping point or if it will keep going in an infinite loop..Is that what this question is asking? Someone please give me some insight.

[Assistant]
I would interpret it in one of two ways: Either there is no solution, as in there has not been a way discovered (An algorithm) to figure it out. In that case, a computer can also not figure it out, as it requires humans to write algorithms to solve the specific problem.
The second case is how you interpret it: There are some problems that are just not computable. As an example the famous Halting problem. Read up on that. Those are problems for which we humans have no algorithm, as it is literally mathematically impossible for one to exist.

These would be the two ways i interpret it.


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

[User] Is the breathable liquid in "The Abyss" possible?

[Assistant]
Not only is it real, but that scene with the rat actually happened. Real rat, real breathable fluid. The actual fluid itself is clear, but they dyed it pinkish for the movie.  Apparently the scene is shorter than they'd have liked, because the rats kept panicking and defecating in the fluid.   Apparently after some antibiotic treatments the rats were fine.
(source: DVD commentary from Abyss)


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

[User]
How does light exist if it has no mass?

So, in my Chemistry class today we were discussing light as both a particle and as a wave. And so my teacher goes on and says that light, as a particle has no mass. I then inquired to figure out how something with no mass can still exist, to which she stated that energy has no mass so that is how it exists. My brain is full of confusion so i'm wondering if you could unscramble the mess about light.

[Assistant]
The full energy equation is:

E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4

If you set mass to zero, you can still have objects that carry momentum and energy without mass. Such an object would always have to propagate at the speed of light.

Light isn't really well defined in words, since we don't have anything from our daily existence to compare it to, but we do know all the necessarily math to describe its behavior.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why are surface to space planetary defenses not used?

Homeworlds have been attacked repeatedly, yet homeworlds seem to be remarkably lightly defended. Even the Dominion only had orbital defenses around Cardassia Prime. Legions of soldiers on the ground, but no surface to space weapon emplacements.

Earth is nearly entirely undefended as well. Earth has been repeatedly attacked. Attacks on Earth should almost be expected at this point, yet Earth still has no defenses to speak of. Going purely from memory, Earth has been attacked by the Xindi, by the Borg (at least twice), by a Whale Probe, and by the Breen.

The Xindi were building a planet-killer. Earth was attacked by the prototype, scaled down version, and then the full scale version was defeated only moments before firing. Later on, Earth was attacked by the Whale Probe in one timeline, and Nero's ship in the other timeline. Both were planet-killers. Yet in both cases, these ships were able to enter orbit entirely unopposed.

Has no one installed surface to space weapons? Shield generators and phaser banks located on the surface could tap into the entire planet's power grid. A homeworld, such as Earth, generates far more power than a starship. Probably more power than a whole fleet of starships. All of that power could be diverted to immense shield generators and phaser banks. Equipment on a starship has to be small and light enough to be portable. It has to fit on a ship. Planetary defense installations do not have those limitations. There is no limit as to how big, heavy, and powerful these weapons can be.

Or at very least, what about surface to space torpedo launchers? Tens of thousands of torpedoes could be fired, enough to rapidly overwhelm and destroy any attacker nearby.

Why are homeworlds so lightly defended even when homeworlds are attacked on a regular basis?

[Assistant]
The first reason is resources. It takes a massive amount of power and facilities to protect an entire planet with a shield of any notable strength. Doing so for even one planet would be a massive undertaking and would not ensure its safety from attack.

The second reason is that a planet with a shield and/or surface weapons is a huge sitting military target. Star Trek ships can target, fire, and maneuver at FTL speeds. A planet can't actually move, maneuver a better firing solution, or even safely fire from all areas within its airspace. So while planetary weapons would more or less invite ships to shoot at the planet (causing massive amounts of destruction once any applicable shields fail) it doesn't actually give them a very good opportunity to fire back to defend themselves.

Sure, you could flood the entire sky with torpedoes, but your target can also just fly away from them, or fly back around at such an angle the shots start crashing into things you're trying to defend.

Weapon stations mounted to the surface of the planet don't even have to be hit directly to be rendered useless or explode either. A ship can just attack the general area until the ground becomes unstable enough to topple the facilities.

The third reason is that no one wants that kind of building in their back yard. It might sound silly when you're talking about the safety of the entire planet, but people are rarely interested in living next to a power plant, let alone a photon torpedo array carrying enough firepower to reduce the planet itself to space dust. The people of Earth in particular are pretty happy to have their lovely forests and happy little federation cities instead.

The fourth reason is that if someone surprises you the shield won't be able to be raised quickly enough to actually prevent them from knocking it out. Planetary shield generators and other defenses aren't difficult to locate and map during peace time and a shield can't be maintained 24/7 because it will trap everyone on the planet. All it takes are a few seconds to drop a cloak and toss everything you have at a ground target.

Heck, depending on the construction you might be able to just use a shuttle craft or planted explosives to knock one out.


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

[User] ELI5: In car engines, why is better to have multiple smaller diameter pistons rather than a single (or two) large diameter piston(s)?

[Assistant]
Smoothness.

A standard 4-stroke piston engine only produces power during 1 stroke (actually just a fraction of that stroke).  Power production comes in pulses. Many cylinders means each pulse is smaller and occurs more often. It therefore makes for a smoother operation and does not require as large of a flywheel to dampen the pulses.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are dogs' ears all floppy when they're puppies but stiffen up when they're adults?

[Assistant]
The reason why ears are floppy in pups and erect as adults (in those prick eared breeds) is because the ear cartilage is soft and not fully formed. The cartilage doesn't start to harden or set until 16 weeks or so which is why their ears can be up one day or opposite ears over a few days etc.
Now as for those that are cropped, the minor surgery is performed no younger than 8 weeks and no older than 16 weeks as it needs to be soft in order to get the ideal shape and they be fully erect by the time they finish teething.


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

[User]
ELI5: The Treaty of Tripoli and the laws around church and state

Did the text in the treaty actually mean anything from a legal point of view? What is considered "acceptable" in terms of religion in public?

[Assistant]
The treaty of Tripoli is normally pointed to by some as evidence that the original founders didn't intend The US to be a "Christian nation".  Most laws or legal rulings regarding church and state relationship is based off of the 1st Amendment, which states:

> **Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof**; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In general, you are free to exercise your religious freedom however you'd like in public (assuming you don't break other laws, like harming people).

In general, the government cannot endorse religion, which is why schools aren't allowed to institute moments of prayer.


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

[User]
Can I kill dust mites with my mass?

Can I crush microscopic dust mites by walking/lying on them for example by walking on carpet or getting into bed? If so how many, and if not, why not?

[Assistant]
In a bed or on carpet the dust mite would simply be pushed into that material as is deformed around them. Tiny creatures with exoskeletons are incredibly difficult to crush because you need to be very precise. If a dust mite were to be sitting on a slab of marble with no imperfections on the surface, it could be crushed by you if you were wearing something equally as smooth and perfectly surfaced on your feet.

So basically, dust mites and other microscopic creatures are too durable and too tiny to realistically be crushed by you. Fabrics and human skin are too soft to crush them.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it so difficult to turn sea water in to drinkable water?

[Assistant]
It is not difficult, reverse osmosis works exceptionally well.

But.... it takes a lot of energy to run the pumps, and it takes water to back-flush system.

Energy = $$$$. Most desalination plants are conveniently located near power plants for this reason.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] why develop a Death Star when destroyers can wipe out a planet like Taris?

This is the only instance of orbital bombardment I can think of, and maybe its more difficult than we see, but its damn effective. Saul Karath implies that billions on the surface will die. News of Taris destruction is spread across the galaxy, so the tactic of fear is still really effective, even if the planet itself is intact.

[Assistant]
So there's 3 answers to this.

The canon answer is the death star serves as both a mobile throne for Palpatine and it's time efficient to use. It destroys a planet in one shot and in minutes whereas a fleet takes hours or even days to scour a planet. Not to mention how long it takes to amass that many ships.

The legends answer is the death star was built to fight the yuuzan vong. Palps needed a powerful weapon capable of quickly decimating fleets and creating a fire line of scorched earth planets to deny the vong a foothold in the galaxy. The death star could fill this purpose along with it's more refined successors in the eclipse and world devastators.

The infinites answer is Palpatine wanted multiple death stars to be able to threaten every system in the galaxy with nigh unkillable stations that could erase their planets. The imperial navy still had a purpose but would be the patrol force of his empire to the death stars' threat deterrents.

And taris was unique in that it's city was stacked upon itself. Causing enough destruction on the surface would cause a collapse of lower levels as supports would fail. The city would crumble under it's own weight leading to further destruction and the resulting damages would trap most of the population under billions of tons of rubble to die from starvation and suffocating as relief efforts would have to unearth them. It's easier to destroy a planet from the surface if it's all one big house of cards than to destroy spread out settlements and cities like Alderaan had.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What is the Galactic Wall?

What is beyond it? How did the Yuuzhan Vong breach it? Has there ever been an attempt to explore/colonize beyond it?

[Assistant]
The Yuuzhan Vong breached the Wall via a weakness in the wall in an area known as Vector Prime in the Dalonbian sector.

AFAIK, the Old Republic launched an expedition to breach the edge of the galaxy, but as it was carrying Jedi a not-yet-Chancellor Senator Palpatine had the expedition obliterated by a young Chiss whom the galaxy would later come to fear: Thrawn.


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

[User]
CMV: Amazon's advocacy for a $15 national minimum wage is a cynical ploy to destroy their competition by increasing costs on small business retailers so they cannot compete.

Several media outlets are celebrating Amazon's decision to raise their worker's pay to at least $15/hour across the country.  This is a great thing for a private company to decide to do in order to gain a competitive advantage over other private companies that are looking to hire the best people.  However, I believe that Amazon took it a step too far when they also announced that they would be lobbying the Government to increase the Federal Minimum Wage to $15/hour.  This is a transparent attempt to use the Government to crush their competition and do to the Mom & Pop retailer what Amazon has already done to the Mom & Pop Bookstore.  Meanwhile, Amazon is investing Billions of dollars in robots and automation technology so that they won't have to pay a high minimum wage in the long run.

This has very little consequences to small retailers in large cities like Atlanta, Dallas, New York and Seattle, because they can just raise prices without completely going out of business.  But for small cities like Marfa, Tx., Park City, UT., and Oxford, MS.; a $15/hour minimum wage might as well be $50/hour.  The plan is clearly to run these small retailers out of business, using the Federal Government, and then force the residence of these towns to buy most of their goods from Amazon.  CMV.

[Assistant]
I always assumed it was to raise the cost of labour to make robotics easier to justify. Right now a human is less expensive to maintain then a robot when you factor in the initial cost of the robot.

By increasing the cost of labour for the market, you are encouraging innovation in the robotic space which Amazon can either license or acquire or build to reduce their overall cost of all activities.

Therefore the effect on the competition is irrelevant because it opens entire new business option of which amazon is poised to enter with their distribution networks, cloud computing networks and robotics division.

Amazon would happily pay their shipping people more if they could sell robot and handle logistics for other businesses, like say a fast food restaurant that needs a robot cook.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do many musicians not get any credit at all for producing backing music, whearas Avicii and David Guetta etc. are primary artists even on their vocal'd tracks

I've always wondered in songs, e.g. Titanium, why the "DJ" gets primary credit when in many other songs, the person who produces the backing tracks don't get any acknowledgement at all as an artist.

[Assistant] Firstly, producers and backing musicians *do* get credit, even if they aren't the featured artist (check the album credits). Secondly, in your example David Guetta is the featured artist who is known for the production, while the vocalist is just a contributor. It's also a genre thing, in EDM the focus is on the producer and not the vocalist while it's the other way around in pop music.


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

[User] ELI5: How does the reflex beneath the knee cap make your leg "swing" when you hit it?

[Assistant]
So, to stay standing up, we have sensory nerves called stretch receptors in the muscles and ligaments of the leg. They send signals to a nerve cluster that has motor nerves for the leg muscles. When you stand on your leg, the tensing and relaxing of your leg muscles keeps your balance. The stretch receptors activate the motor nerves for the muscle that got stretched.  This is so that, if the pull on s muscle suddenly increases (maybe you stumble), the stretched muscle contracts automatically. The nerve signal does not have to travel all the way to the motor cortex in the brain, it can do it's job using a shortcut.

When the doctor hammers the ligament below your kneecap, a big signal gets sent through this shortcut to make the muscles in your thigh contract.

Spastic cerebral palsy is s disruption of this loop.


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

[User] ELI5 Why does closing applications cause your pc to hang more when it is freeing up space in ram?

[Assistant]
Closing an application *correctly* takes work. The application needs to save any work you're doing (which can consume more RAM), save your current preferences (which can consume more RAM), find and close any handles to resources it has open (which can trigger processes that consume more RAM), and a bunch of other things that leave the computer in a nice state but take work to do. Worse, the "shutdown" parts of the program are infrequently used so they aren't in RAM when you close it, which means the computer has to make room in RAM, then move those parts of the program to RAM before it can start!

Imagine a desk that's completely covered with toys and supplies and paperwork. Cleaning it off is very slow at first, because you'll have to move some things around just to find things that should go together. A desk that's already almost clean is very easy to finish cleaning off. RAM's the same way. The more crowded it gets, the more likely doing anything to deal with the problem is going to make things a little worse before they get better.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't California seed clouds to cause rain to fall similar to what China did before their Olympic games?

[Assistant]
Wat do you mean? Create clouds to produce rain and prevent drought? Because that's not what they did in China, there they only caused existing clouds to drop their rain before they reached the area they wanted to protect.
EDIT: and even that was extremely expensive, so not really applicable for large scale use.


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

[User]
ELI5 What actions computer hardware perform

For example Whats the difference between your ram and your processing power, what does a motherboard do, isnt a graphics card similar to ram?

[Assistant]
Ok, let's pretend that a computer is pretty much the same as an office. In this office is a man who has to do lots of work and has an 'In' tray where he gets his orders and an 'Out' tray where he puts the fruits of his labours. We'll call this man the processor (or CPU) and his job is to make sense of all the stuff that's piling up in his intray, but more on him later.

Now, in order to see how this man works, it's important to know how all the stuff gets to his intray. The easiest way to look at this is to imagine a huge warehouse full of papers that he may have to work on. This is the hard drive and it contains all the information the company needs to perform the tasks required of it. The problem is that there's so much stuff in there that it takes ages to find and the warehouse is a long way from his office. So, if he said "I need Document X right now!", some little guy would run to the warehouse, search for it and then bring it back, all of which would take ages. Instead, the company had another room (called RAM) built next to his office for holding documents he knows he's going need that day and instead of the little man having to run all the way to the warehouse for each individual document, he instead gets another chap to pick up a whole batch that he knows he'll need that day and dump them in the room next door. This means it's much quicker to get those vital docs but the down side is that there's not so much space (so only so many things can be stored there) and it also has to be cleared out every time the company shuts for the day (like when a computer gets turned off).

On top of this, there's even faster (yet smaller capacity) memory in the office itself (it's called 'Cache Memory') and this can be thought of as the man's desk. It's pretty small so only the things he really needs can sit on it, but it's very quick for him to access.

Still with me? Good. Ok, the other thing about this man called 'Processor' is that he's only really good at certain, general purpose jobs and there are other things that other offices in the building are better at. For example, graphics are really hard work so he subcontracts that to an office called the 'Graphic Card'. This is just down the corridor and works in the same way that his does (so stuff comes from the warehouse to RAM), but he has an additional room next to him that's sole purpose is to store the graphics information so he can get to it really quick. You can think of this as video memory. Some companies like doing the graphics work so they put a really brainy guy in there and make his Video Memory room massive. In computer terms, this would represent a high end graphics card. Others don't care so much so they put an intern in there and insteady of giving him his own dedicated memory room he is simply allowed a few shelves in the main RAM room. This is what Intergrated Graphics look like.

The same goes for sounds. Now, modern processors are pretty good at dealing with sound but they weren't always so again, the man used to subcontract work to a special Sound Card and that worked in pretty much the same way as the graphics department.

Now, as is becoming clear, all these different rooms need to exist within a building and that's where the motherboard comes in: It's essentially houses all these different places and joins them up with a system of corridors. Some of these corridors are very wide and busy (like the one between the warehouse and the RAM) while others are less so (like from the keyboard to the processor) but they must all link up so that the little man in the office can get access to the other rooms fairly quickly.

And that's the simple version.


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

[User] [Futurama] What exactly was The Professor and Amy Wong's relationship? They acted intimately sometimes, and she was an intern for a very long time...

[Assistant]
Amy was an intern for the Professor for 12 years while she completed her doctorate, but the Professor reveals that she was ready about 6 years before that. A year doctorate will often be three of four years, but it's not uncommon for it to take longer, especially when, as seen, it depends on experimental designs (a planetary ratchet) may take a long time to perfect.

So why did it take an extra 6 years? From Amy's point of view, she has no reason to hurry. Her parents are rich and her life is just as she wants it. She can go out partying and having a good time and has no pressure from them to get a job and be married while she is in education.

She grew up chubby and that left her with a huge drive for acceptance and the Professor is highly dependent on her in many ways and so being needed and wanted makes her feel safe. So for Amy there is no driver for her to push to be complete. It's only when she gets serious with Kif and her life is moving on, that she starts to show signs of wanting to be done with her internship and complete her doctorate.

For the Professor, well, we know he has no problem using people for his own benefit and so it's no surprise he wanted to keep Amy around. He's stated in the past he likes having her near as she has the same blood type as him and so she's a potential blood/organ donor. A mixture of him forgetting to tell her that she can move on and wanting to have her around for personal/professional reasons, means that he was happy to keep her as long as possible.

Also, as life expectancy is much longer, you can easily life to 160, at which point you are supposed to go to the near Death Star, but it seems that many do not. So with double the life, people are more relaxed about taking their time in life.


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

[User]
[Mortal Kombat]How can the kombatants continue to fight, jump, etc. after having bones shattered and internal organs ruptured mid-fight?

It seems like after someone had their leg bent the wrong way and the bones snapped, walking(let alone running, jumping or kicking) on said leg would be damn near impossible.

[Assistant]
Incredible muscle definition and strength help as well as adrenaline. The muscle hardens around the broken bone to allow them to continue fighting.

Deer get hit by cars and run away on 4 broken legs, I've seen it happen.

Pain is something you get used to when you train repeatedly like these guys have to.

Many of the competitors probably have supernatural healing factor as well being related to gods and other powerful beings, or being gods and demons themselves.


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

[User]
[DC] What does the Joker consider to be "funny"?

Assuming he committs crimes based on how funny they are, what does the clown's sense of comedy actually entail?

[Assistant]
Funny:

* Inflicting enough suffering on someone that they're driven to abject madness
* Like most classical clowns, satire against the corruption of society (In Joker's Asylum he once hijacked a game show to prove people would keep watching it just for the hope of seeing a live murder)
* Puns.
* Slapstick and flatulence humor.
* He seems to like Golden Age comedians like the Three Stooges or Abbot and Costello.

NOT funny:

* Explaining the joke. Just don't.
* Beating a dumb animal to death. (Had a henchman beaten to death with rubber chickens for failing to impress him that way)
* Being a Nazi. (didn't really like Red Skull)
* White collar crime. (considered stock fraud Warren White the worst person he'd ever met)
* Unlawfully parking in a Handicapped spot (counter: helping them qualify retroactively is double-funny)


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why is the Jawa sandcrawler bigger on top?

It seems to be an unstable design prone to tipovers as it climbs and descends hills. Given its massive height it seems also prone to tipster when travelling parallel to a slope. In short, it seems like a terrible design.

[Assistant]
Shade.

The top is living space, mostly open. The bottom is the engine and storage.

So it's not top heavy at all, it's roomy and there's more shade at the bottom than would be if the top wasn't as big.

It's actually quite elegant in design.


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

[User] Is mech warfare actually worth it?

[Assistant] Depends on the universe. It is not practical in the real world as of current. Power requirements alone are a major issue, structural integrity is another. Our current materials and power supplies just are not viable with a large scale mech.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are conspiracy theorists "nuts" when many conspiracies have been proven?

Many conspiracies have been proven true.  The bankers and NSA are probably the most recent ones to come out as true.  So why is it that, all conspiracy theorists are labeled as nuts?

*disclaimer*  I am in no way endorsing conspiracies.  Just curious as to why they are automatically crazy.

[Assistant]
Confirmation bias.  Most conspiracies rely on belief (not evidence) based on a previous opinion.  Also, you don't remember the ones that are just amazingly wacky and untrue (and there are FAR more of those).

Do you think we have tracking devices implanted in us?  Are the black helicopters out to get us?  Those are the popular wacky ones.

The conspiracy people also have this tenuous grasp on their perceived enemy.  When it applies to the government, they're both amazingly pinpoint accurate and diabolical, and unbelievably inept at the same time (which can't be the case).


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

[User]
Best way to verify somebodys degrees?

My parents attend an evangelical church where they have recently hired a new senior pastor. I met him at a funeral this weekend. Im about to start a PhD in physics, and my parents mentioned this as a topic for discussion, as this new pastor supposedly has two masters degrees and a PhD. I think hes full of shit. During our brief conversation it seemed like he didnt really know anything about academia. He said things that didnt make sense. He was also talking at me instead of to me, in a way that made him seem nervous to be in a position where the person hes talking to knows something about academia. He seems like the charismatic type who is willing to take advantage of other people. I seriously doubt the church verified his credentials when they hired him. After some Google sleuthing I found his LinkedIn where he had listed one masters degree from Liberty University. I dont know which other schools he claims to hold degrees from.

What is the best way for me to verify this persons degrees? Do I need to find out where he supposedly got them from? Would I be able to use the National Student Clearinghouse to list all the degrees a person has obtained from all schools? If I can prove that hes lying, hopefully he will get fired and wont be able to take advantage of the simple country folk who look up to him.

[Assistant] Straightforward questioning can get you very far. So youve got a PhD/Masters degree? How interesting! Where from? How fascinating! What was the thesis title? Id love to read that, would you share a copy with me?


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do phones not pick up their own noise when on speakerphone?

This isn't an issue any more. But I remember old cell phones from when I was younger, the microphones would pick up noise from it's own speaker and make the call echo. What mechanism is in place that prevents this nowadays?

[Assistant]
Long story short the phone knows what is coming out of the phone and ignores it when recording sound

Basically it still does pick it up on the microphone but the phone knows that it is an echo so it cuts it out of the playback.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do out of season fruits taste less sweet? Is it that they have less sugar in them?

[Assistant]
Fruit usually starts producing sugar as it approaches peak ripeness. Out-of-season fruits are often grown in places where they *are* in season, and shipped to you. So in the American winter lots of apples and stuff come from New Zealand, for example, where it is summer.

In order to ship them from far away and have them not rot on the way, growers will harvest fruit early before peak ripeness. This means they get harvested before they start producing their sugar.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does it feel good to be clean?

[Assistant] Oils that occur naturally on your skin combine with dirt from the environment to create a layer covering your body. This layer changes the nature of tactile sensation you receive from the environment (eg, clothing, armpits, light breeze, etc.). Furthermore, this layer reduces your skin's ability to diffuse body heat by inhibiting sweat evaporation and radiant conduction.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Captain America's shield absorbs kinetic energy, right? How come Batroc the leaper can kick the shield and send Cap flying backwards?

After reviewing the documentary on Cap vs. The Winter Soldier, this had me stumped.

[Assistant]
Two possibilities:

One, Cap threw himself backwards for some reason, perhaps to keep the shield's unique kinetic invulnerability a secret.

Or, two, the shield doesn't actually absorb all kinetic energy.

Given that Cap *did* move backwards following the kick, I'd prefer to side with the former possibility.


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

[User] [Avatar the Last Airbender] What exactly was Zuko planning to do with Appa before Uncle Iroh stopped him in Ba Sing Se?

[Assistant] Presenting him to the Firelord to, relatively, get back in his good graces. The Fire Nation assumed that the only sky bison left would belong to the avatar, so they would hold Appa hostage and use him as bait to lure Aang inti a trap.


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

[User]
[Man of Steel] How can Superman use his heat vision and how does Zod suddenly use it with no experience? Also how does it work?

I understand the radiation causes muscle strengthing and enhances Superman's senses but how does it give him lasers?

[Assistant]
Mild correction.  The radiation does NOT cause "muscle strengthening"... Superman's strength does not come from the strength of his muscles.  The strength of his muscles would be biomechanical.  So even if you exposed him to Kryptonian atmosphere or Kryptonite, he wouldn't lose his strength.  You wouldn't be able to pierce him with a needle to take blood or pierce him with a bone spike to take his life.  You look under a microscope and his blood cells are just blood cells.  They don't have any material changes which strengthen them.

Therefore, Superman's strength under radiation is basically a force field.  You see this same force field when he files and little bits of dirt start to levitate with him.  His strength and invulnerability come from that field.  Expose him to the right conditions and you can weaken or drop the field.

Regarding heat vision, it's apparent that all Kryptonians can absorb and store radiation.  If Superman couldn't store radiation then he's out of luck on the Black Zero.  He's inside a ship, away from sunlight, shielded from radiation, but he can still tap into his stores of power once no longer exposed to Kryptonian atmosphere.  Similarly, if Superman couldn't store radiation, he couldn't operate at night or in a dark Arctic ice tunnel.  Likewise, Doomsday shows the ability to absorb various forms of energy and convert that energy into massive waves of destruction.

**Doomsday shows us that the power to expel energy is not limited to the eyes.**  It can come from the whole body or be focused and directed out of the face (eyes and mouth).  Therefore, heat vision is not directly tied to a bodily organ.  Superman's eyes may be the focal point and how he controls or focuses the effect, but his eyes are not generating the heat vision beam per se.  If they were, that's like saying Doomsday has that part of the eye organ in his mouth and covering his whole body for the wave attacks.

Instead, it makes much more sense that the same generalized full-body power that grants Superman his strength, flight, and invulnerability is ALSO the same mechanism for his heat-vision or Doomsday's face / body blasts.  And that's perfectly reasonable because what is a force field but energy?  What is heat vision but energy?  Therefore **heat vision is just a specific manipulation and manifestation of the same force field what empowers Superman generally**.

**This idea is consistent with the recent comic books which introduces the Solar Flare** power to Superman's arsenal.  The Flare emanates from Superman's whole body.  So again, there isn't one organ providing the blast.  And the effect after it's done?  Superman's powers are drained and he's a normal mortal man until he can fully recharge.  He can't fly, he isn't invulnerable anymore, he can get drunk, he isn't super strong, etc.  Again, proving the point it isn't "muscle strengthening" but a force field based power.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Is the Millennium Falcon truly the fastest ship in the galaxy or is Han Solo full of it?

Edit:

I mean it's regularly described as a piece of junk and escapes tough situations by the grit of its teeth. And Han Solo hasn't always been very honest about its capabilities. According to George Lucas, the infamous "12 parsecs" line in A New Hope was intended to be a bluff, although later EU authors took it seriously and invented rationalizations for it. I think you could make the case that he was also bluffing about how fast the ship is. What do you think?

[Assistant]
According to Wookiepeida:

"The Millennium Falcon's Girodyne SRB42 sublight engines were heavily modified through the addition of a SLAM overdrive that rerouted energy for acceleration bursts. Thanks to that, the ship could fly at a maxium speed of 1,050 kilometer per hour in atmosphere and 3,000 G in space.[8] The stock hyperdrive of the YT-1300 series was replaced with a Isu-Sim SSP05.[1] Although the regular SSP05 was a Class 1 hyperdrive, the one that equipped the Falcon had been jury-rigged "Vandangante style" into a Class 0.5 drive[8]twice as fast as most warships of the Galactic Empire."

So, yes, it's a very, very fast ship. Whether it's the fastest in the galaxy is unknown (the Galaxy's a big place after all) but it's certainly one of the most famous very fast ships out there, having made the Kessel Run in less than 13 parsecs (especially if you round down), flew through the Second Death Star and destroyed its reactor, and provided evacuation for the very last of the Resistance from Crait.


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

[User]
[Avatar: TLA] What factors led to the Northern Water Tribe being a much more successful society than the Southern Water Tribe?

The Northern Water Tribe has a large, walled fortress city like an icy Minas Tirith, while the Southern Tribe is reduced to one small village with low snowbanks for defenses and a lopsided tower built by a 14 year old. Even allowing for the fact that the Fire Nation armies have killed or captured most of their benders, it still seems odd that these two sister tribes have such a divergence in wealth, population, and culture. What gives?

[Assistant] The Southern Water Tribe relied on hunting while the Northern Water Tribe relied on fishing. This led to the Southern Tribe being spread out in villages, while the Northern Tribe fortified a capital. This was fine until the Fire Nation attacked.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the British pound (GBP) so strong against a lot of the worlds major currencies?

Even though the pound has weakened recently, it still out-values USD, EUR, AUD, etc. Why is this? What makes the GBP historically strong right up to current day strength?

Also - to expand - what makes a currency strong in the first place?

[Assistant]
A lot of the value of a currency was simply made up. When money was still linked to precious metals the UK decided to make 1 worth 7.3g of gold while the US made $1 worth 1.5g. It didn't really matter that 1 was worth more than $1 as prices just reflected the amount of gold something was worth.

Since currencies are no-longer linked to precious metals the pound still has a higher numeric value because of that history, but proportionally it's lost more of its value than its earlier gold value so really it's become much weaker relatively (1 used to be worth $4.8)

Now of course in general the numeric value doesn't matter, only whether the value goes up and down compared to other currencies - $1 is worth 100 YEN, but people have 100x more YEN so it's a bit like if the dollar were abolished and everyone just paid by the cent instead (you'd have a 1,000 bill instead of a $10 bill etc)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can't drug users just ingest/inject dopamine instead?

I feel dumb asking but don't drugs eventually turn into dopamine, or deal with dopamine receptors, anyways?

[Assistant] Well for starters dopamine is a neurotransmitter, it's not something that travels through the bloodstream, and likely wouldn't be able to pass through the blood-brain barrier either (a sort of biological gate-keeper for the brain).


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

[User]
ELI5: how do smart watches count your steps?

It's on your arm not your leg so how does it actually know how many steps you're taking? And do things like how fast you walk and how long your stride is make a difference?

[Assistant]
By using the gyro mechanism inside to simulate the old style pedometers which used an arm and a spring to bounce with your walking movement. The detected movement would be counted as "steps".

Modern devices also use GPS to determine if you are actually moving and how fast so that it can more accurately track walking and not give out free "steps" when you are exercising in place, riding a bicycle or driving in a car.


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

[User]
ELI5: What's actually happening when you miss someone so much you can physically feel it?

Have you ever missed someone so much that it "hurts"? I'd really like to know how the biological aspect of it works.

Thanks!

[Assistant] The threshold between mental anguish and physical pain is quite small. That's pretty much what it boils down to. Any emotional turmoil can inflict fairly severe physical effects as well. It's why grief runs rollercoasters over people.


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

[User]
ELI5: What philosophical concept is Sartre alluding to?

There is a famous anecdote Sartre (I think it was Sartre) used to explain some philosophical concept. Roughly, he describes a person ordering a coffee without cream. The waiter explains that they don't have any cream, but they can make a coffee without milk.

What exactly is this analogy alluding to? What is the philosophical idea behind it? Something about negatives or absence?

[Assistant]
Sartre was into phenomenology, looking at ideas of conscious experience. In opposition to certain other philosophical schools that held "being" and "existence" as the absolute measure of something, Sartre held the perspective that negation and absence are also concrete realities and experiences in and of themselves. For example, if a loved one is absent and you miss them, their absence is not just a lack of presence, it is a separate and specific experience. He wrote a book called *Being and Nothingness* on this topic.

The joke in question takes this philosophical position to an absurd extreme, proposing that the deliberate absence of cream is its own specific experience, distinguished from an involuntary absence of cream due to lack of availability. In this world, the absence of milk is a different experience than the absence of cream, so the waiter needs to ask if it is an acceptable substitute.


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

[User]
[Skyrim] Why are the Forsworn such good bowyers and such bad fletchers?

Me and my mates got in a scrap with some of them and ended up with a bow and some of their arrows. Both look like they were made in the Forsworn's style.

The bow is a masterpiece, it's made out of the same basic stuff as any bow, no fancy elfin metals or the like, but it surpasses anything the jarl's guards carry.

The arrows are pathetic. They don't fly straight, they have no penetration. Even the cheapest arrows on the market are better.

What is going on here?

[Assistant]
Bows are useful for more than just killing Nords, and are often symbols of ones skill and a hunter. Some are even heirloom items passed down through families. Care is, thus, made in constructing them.

Arrows, on the other hand, are disposable ammunition often manufactured on the fly and rarely expected to last more than a single shot. More often than not, they are slapped together out of scrap. They don't need to be fired straight most of the time because they are intended to be fired close up, within a few feet, and for the most part they don't need to penetrate anything thicker than Deer-hide.


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

[User]
Why do "all-black" institutions still exist? Primarily, universities/colleges.

I was driving through an all-black college the other day and thought to myself in a very simple manner, "Why?" If colleges are really to prepare individuals for the real world, why shun certain races? Why purposefully surround yourself in only people that are similar to you? At the very least, shouldn't a university force us to interact with those that are far different from ourselves? I felt that during my time at a very culturally/racially mixed college, that it was the best thing I could have done. I found new ways to interact and learn from people who had very different backgrounds and cultures from my own. If I were to attend an all-white college, I would have been doing myself a disservice.

Can someone explain why these institutions still exist and possibly, if a redditor has attended one, what were your motivations for doing so?

[Assistant]
Quite a few institutions which people think of as "all black", are actually HBCUs- Historically Black Colleges and Universities.  While these institutions were historically places for Black students to attend (partly because HBCUs were created prior to to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to serve Black students since segregation was still legal).

Currently, HBCUs allow students of all races to attend, but many still have high Black student populations.  You can theorize all kinds of reasons for why this happens, including institutions being slow to change, HBCUs tending to have more professors of color, to it being nice to be part of a majority on campus.  Location is also key, as HBCUs were originally located in slave states, so they are geographically situated near where large populations of Black people settled post civil war, and where their descendants still live today.


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

[User]
[Command & Conquer] Was Kane a Scrin?

I couldn't stomach the gameplay of C&C4 but I watched the cutscenes for the game on youtube for both GDI and Nod campaigns. Not sure exactly what the ending was all about. Anybody know?

[Assistant]
His DNA is "known" to the Scrin, but IIRC they don't really know who he is specifically.

Perhaps he's a Scrin gone rogue.  Perhaps he's part of some ancient race that was wiped out by the Scrin, seeking revenge.  Perhaps he's space Jesus.  It coul be anything.

The reason why he leaves Earth to God knows where is kinda unknown.  To home?  To war?  Why would he bring a bunch of his followers with him?

[Don't think about it too hard IIRC C&C4 suffered from severe budget issues and rushed deadlines on top of the weird new MOBA/traditional RTS hybrid gameplay.]


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

[User] [Star Trek] How do Combadges work? sometimes someone presses them before talking but other times they just speak a name into the air and they reply?

[Assistant] Combadges can detect when someone intends to communicate with another officer, so speaking into the air will generally automatically activate it. However, tapping it manually activates it, and most officers presumably prefer to do that to make sure it activates.


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

[User] Is it possible to determine our birthdate from our bodies through some biological/chemical/physical means?

[Assistant] The approximate age of a person can be determined a number of ways (prortion of naive T cells, growth plate presence in bone, etc.), but these approximations are all based on average values across many humans, so there isn't a way to get exact birthdate - usually you'd be looking at a 2-5 year window of age.


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[User] [DC/Marvel] who would be a good marvel villain to add to Batman's rogues gallery?

[Assistant]
Any of Spider-Man's villains would fit pretty seamlessly into Batman's world, with the exception of the symbiotes.

Specifically:

Green Goblin - brilliant scientist and CEO of a major company driven mad, perfect Bat-fodder.

The Chameleon - master of disguise versus master detective? Nice!

The Rhino - dumb Bane/human Killer Croc

Doc Ock - genius scientist with a human body and cybernetic attachments?  Good match for the Bat.

Mysterio - powerless master of illusions keeping Batman on his toes? Works for me.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does Japan seem to have such a low proportion of immigrants when compared to other developed countries?

[Assistant] Japan is a very (ethnically) homogeneous society and was essentially closed to foreigners for more than 250 years. Foreigners are not made to feel particularly welcome there. Anyone "different" stands out like a sore thumb.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What are the major differences between different portrayals of Tony Stark?

I've heard Civil War Stark is definitely the bad guy as opposed to hanging out in the gray area as usual. Is that more the way he's written, or just the culmination of all the shit that's happened to him?

[Assistant]
He wasn't supposed to be a villain, none of the Pro-Regs were. Both sides were supposed to be right and wrong, with the Pros being "lawfully right" and the Antis being "morally right" and demonstrating the contrast in what vigilateism is in theory and practice. Civil War was going to be a culmination of Tony "growing up", so to speak. Finally embracing the kind of good the heroes could do when they stopped using their personas as an outlet for adventure or revenge and instead focused on being heroes as an organized job, with all the transparency and accountability that comes with it.

Unfortunately, stories about heroes don't work all that well when there isn't a Villain, so SOMEONE had to be the bad guy. And most of the writers, being pretty liberal guys, inherently sided with the Anti-Regs on principal and thus began painting Tony and the Pro-regs in more and more facist colors until they were obviously "the bad guys", regardless of their mission statement. Tony has never been above screwing up and creating things he would regret, hell, half his personal rogues gallery are people who are using modified versions of his own technology. But he's always been an inherently heroic person who fixes his own messes.  For him to start doing so many obviously malicious things to other heroes just feels wrong, even for the sake of "peace". Maybe Reed Richards is just a shitty influence.


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

[User]
ELI5: How exactly do tetanus shots work?

I know is it's a shot for wounds that potentially could have rust or something else that you wouldn't want in an open wound. But how do they work?

[Assistant] Tetanus is a bacteria that can sometimes live on rusty things. It is very rare but can be potentially deadly. The shot is a vaccine which teaches the immune system how to identify and thus eradicate the bacteria before they become problematic.


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

[User]
ELI5:How is information attached to radio waves?

How is information attached to radio waves? Such as sound/music or text such as commands for computers?

[Assistant]
Information is attached to radio waves by altering (modulating) their physical properties (amplitude and frequency). That's why there is FM (frequency modulated) and AM (amplitude modulated) radio.

For example if you want to transmit the message 1101 you could define a "1" as a radio wave with a high amplitude and a "0" as one with a low amplitude. Now you create a radio wave whose amplitude goes high, high, low, high. Obviously you have to tell the receiver of the radio wave that a low amplitude means "0" and a high one means "1".


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

[User]
ELI5: Where do currency symbols come from?

I guess with the Euro Symbol it's easier because of its relatively recent introduction, but still: I unterstand the "E", but why two horizontal lines?
Much more of an enigma is the Dollar sign to me. Nowhere in the word appears an "S", and even in the original "Taler" there's no "S". And again the two lines. Can someone enlighten me?

[Assistant] The pound sign, , is a stylized capital letter "L". It stands for "Libra", which is Latin for "pound", in the sense of weight. The British pound [in sense of currency] used to be defined as a pound [in the sense of weight] of sterling silver. Hence why the British currency is often referred to as Sterling.


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

[User] ELi5: When we say a file is on a computer, how is it actually stored? I get that its all 1s and 0s on a chip but physically, how are those 1s and 0s inscribed?

[Assistant]
If it is on a traditional hard drive, they are stored on a metal disk, with sectors that are either magnetized (1) or demagnetized (0).

If it is on an SSD, they are stored in small electron gates that are either charged (1) or not charged (0).

If it on optical media, they use small reflective pits on the disk to the same end.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do Vehicle Air-Con units need to be 'recharged' to stay cold, whereas Refrigerators manage to stay cold for many years without a recharge?

[Assistant]
Air conditioning units have a compressor in them which is a rotary pump. This requires something to spin them.

In a car, the compressor is driven by a belt running off the engine. The only way to do this is to have a shaft sticking out of the compressor with a pulley on the end and a seal on the shaft. It's basically impossible to make a shaft seal which doesn't leak a microscopic amount. If the seal was absolutely perfect then no lubricating oil could get into the joint and it would fail.

In a fridge, there's an electric motor which is hermetically sealed inside the same chamber as the pump. This means even if gas/oil escapes to the motor, there's nowhere for it to go and you don't keep loosing gas.

In addition, all the pipes in a fridge can be made from metal brazed/soldered together. This effectively makes a perfect seal. In a car, you've got to be able to replace damaged parts (it's not that big a deal throwing away a broken fridge - but it is a big deal throwing away a car because the aircon is broken). This means you've got various removable joints which are liable to leak.
Finally the car has bits that vibrate, therfore you need to have some bits of the system that are flexible rubber hoses. These rubber hoses are slightly permeable, especially as they age/deteriorate.

Edit: Some electric and hybrid cars now have hermetically sealed electric pumps which should be very reliable. However you can still get leakage from other joints and its very easy to get microscopic leaks from damage.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is leaving the toilet seat up such a big deal?

[Assistant] Technically, both the seat and lid should be closed before each flush. This reduces the scattering of fecal particles and other bacteria around, helps prevent objects from accidentally falling in the bowl, and provides a neater overall appearance to the room. Plus it has the added benefit of circumventing the whole seat up vs. seat down debate.


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

[User]
ELI5: Freemasonry?

Could reddit please explain me what the freemasonry consists of and why are they so "influent"?

[Assistant]
Freemasonry is a world-wide brotherhood that stems from actual stonemasons' fraternities in the medieval times. It is now basically a big fraternity with lots of traditions and rules (in their speech, their outfits, their different "grades") whose members are mostly influential people in various spheres (cultural, political, industrial, etc.) Their goals are pretty much an ideal of unity, morality and brotherhood that supposedly goes beyond political views, nationalities or any kind of separation between men.

The reason it's full of influential people is because someone can only become a freemason if they're being intronized by someone who's already a member (so there's no "application sheet"). And if we assume that higher-ups only minge with other higher-ups, in the end most freemasons belong to that category.

However, freemasons are not particularly influential *as freemasons*: they are influential people who happen to be freemasons. Although it could be argued that these people might meet and take decisions during lodge meetings, it doesn't confer freemasonry in itself any actual power.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes feeling nauseas when you read whilst a passenger in a car?

[Assistant]
Your eyes see words on a page, which do not move.  They send "not moving" to the brain.  Your ear's balance mechanism feels the car's motion.  They send "moving" to the brain.  The brain compares these two signals and says "Oh no, there is a problem.  It's probably some poison berries you ate." and sends out the "Barf, barf now" command.

When you are driving, you are watching the road, so the eyes send "moving", and there is no problem.


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

[User]
Are there any bacteria that digest methane and produce fragrances?

So I'm pretty aware of bacteria that digests methane and produce biofuels, but I would have to imagine that if it was possible to culture a bacteria that can produce non-carcinogenic fragrances as a byproduct, it would effectively be self-feeding if it was placed in a frequently used bathroom.

My question thus, is do they exist?

[Assistant]
There would never be anywhere near enough methane in a bathroom for what you are imagining to work, unless there was a gas leak, and then the smell is the least of your problems.

Methane itself has no smell anyway.


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

[User]
Why are rain drops small?

My husband asked me why rain drops aren't bigger. When you take two drops of water and make them touch they become one big drop, so why don't rain drops do the same?
Thanks in advance!!

[Assistant] A hypothetically gigantic raindrop would experience stress during descent that would split it into smaller drops.  There's a tendency for drops to be large enough to fall, but not so large that they are forced to split, narrowing their size to a specific range.


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

[User]
[Magical Girls] Help, my girlfriend keeps shouting "To the power of the moon" in public!

I'm desperate. We are childhood friends and have a 5 years relationship, she was always very reserved and kind.

Recently I had an accident and was near death but thanks to the power of Science! I made an almost miraculous recovery. After that day she changed, she started carrying a creepy ferret-cat plushie with her and recite spiels about the power of friendship and love. She goes out at night at random hours in cosplay.

She also bounces from bubbly happy and shouting stuff like "to the power of the moon!" in public to depressed and angry at everything I do. She also gained a strange interest in German literature, thermodynamics and entropy.

We haven't had intimacy in a while either, she says weird stuff like that if we do it she'll turn into a speck of light and vanish yet she's been very touchy feely with other cosplay wearing girls. The other day I found her kissing the aloof transfer student and when I callled her on it she said it was "mana transfer" or something.

I read a bit in forums and I think she may be possessed by something. She acts really weird (blushing and gasping) when I touch a shiny stone she carries in her neck at all times and refers to as an "intelligent device". I'm thinking of breaking it or throwing it from a bridge to see if its the cause.

Also for some weird reason I'm getting less and less screentime.

How can I support her and help her go back to normal? Is it just a phase and I can wait it out? I fear for her safety and our relationship, what can I do to help her? And why won't she invite me to her "mana transfers"? I want in too!

If it helps I'm a geeky guy that's good with computers.

**tl;dr:** My girlfriend is acting like a magical girl. She says she made a contract or something, how can I help her and remain relevant to the story?

[Assistant]
You should create a masked identity as a roguish thief. When she isn't looking, roam the town, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. If there's monsters, throw down a smoke bomb and hit it with a stick a few times. Don't worry, you'll be fine. If your girlfriend is really a magical girl, she'll show up to defend you, or you'll show up just in time to help her out.

Then, with the power of true love she'll power up, be able to defeat the big bad and then you can return to normalcy.

Or she's not a magical girl, and you'll end up saving some other girl, and now you'll have a romance triangle between your normal (yet strange) girlfriend in your normal identity, and between your masked identity and the magical girl. Guaranteed to give you a subplot at least!


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

[User]
ELI5: How do those websites where you take surveys to earn money work? Why do they pay you for answering questions and how legit is it? Cause Im seriously considering it to earn some on the side and dont wanna get into anything dodgy

Edit: Sorry if this isnt the appropriate sub to be asking but I just want it explained to my simply :)

[Assistant]
Whether they are legit depends on the site in question, but the concept in and of itself is legit.

And the reason why they would pay you for answering questions is because they get paid (by companies / organisations / anyone that needs insight into the market and the thoughts of customers) to get a certain number of responses from certain types of people. As long as they pay you less money than they are getting from the companies, they are still coming out ahead.

And companies pay for these sort of surveys because this is how they find out what customers want / what they think about your brand / whether a certain commercial had an impact etc.


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

[User]
ELI5:What are the benefits/drawbacks to certain products being made "from concentrate".

For example, dish-soap. Some are made from concentrate and others are not. The same goes for food items like juices, which also are/aren't made from concentrate. What does the addition/subtraction of "concentrate" do to the effectiveness of the product?

[Assistant] Part of the reason juice companies use concentrate is so that they can keep their juice tasting similar throughout the season, despite different types of oranges being harvested from different countries even. By mixing the concentrates, it gives a uniform blend to their juice throughout the year. For example, when the winter oranges are harvested, part of their juice is added to summer concentrate, and part of it is frozen or canned. Then during summer, vice versa.


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

[User]
[MCU][Thor]Why did Coulson let Selvig take Thor?

Couson obviously knew that the Donald Blake ID was a fake, yet he let Dr. Selvig take Thor away and told his agents to watch him. What was the purpose of this?

[Assistant] Coulson had already spoken to Thor. He knew that he could learn more by seeing what Thor did than if he just held him there and kept asking the same questions over and over. It's also why he let Thor get all the way to Myuh-myuh rather than having him taken down as soon as he breached the perimeter.


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

[User]
ELI5: How Urine Color Is a Sign of Dehydration?

I've heard that if your urine is darker then you are dehydrated and if it's lighter or clear you're properly hydrated, but I don't understand how so. I think it has something to do withthe amount of liquid going though your kidneys and clearing the waste from them, but then wouldn't it mean you WANT it to be dark because then it's clearing impurities from your body?

Also, do you want it to be clear? Or have a faint color? What does healthy urine look like?

[Assistant]
The darker it is, the more concentrated it is. That means that your kidneys (which clean your blood) don't have enough water to work with. This means that your kidneys will not clean your blood well.

Having clear urine is good, because it means that the concentration is low. Your kidneys are (pardon) swimming in excess water, and they are cleaning very efficiently. The best urine is clear or almost clear urine. If your piss is clear, that means you are well-hydrated.