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

[User]
[DC/Batman] Bruce Wayne decides to pull a Logan Paul and participate in an exhibition boxing match with Gotham City's heavyweight champion. How does it go?

What the title says. If we consider that Batman beats the ever-loving-shit out of henchmen on a regular basis, how good would he perform in a sanctioned boxing match, would he completely overshadow a heavyweight boxer, or would he be having a bit of trouble?

[Assistant]
He has a couple of sequences where it looks like maybe he actually took his training seriously, but the champ is able to fend off the attacks and Bruce Wayne goes down by TKO in the 7th round.

In the press conference afterwards, he makes a joke about how he might turn to a life of crime so he gets to fight Batman next.


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

[User]
[General] If two omniscient people played chess, would one of them actually be able to win?

If both players knew everything that was going to happen could one ever beat the other? Or would they be stuck in an eternal stalemate? Would they even get past the opening move?

[Assistant]
Many games like Tic Tac Toe and Connect Four are referred to as "solved" games which means that we know which player will win or potentially draw before the game even starts assuming they play correctly and don't make any mistakes. ~~In both examples above, Player 1 is guaranteed to win if they play perfectly.~~ In the examples above, Tic Tac Toe is guaranteed to end in a tie, and Connect Four guarantees Player 1 the win if played perfectly.

Humans have not solved chess. Presumably, omniscient beings would know the outcome before they started and wouldn't agree to play together if they were worried about winning.


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

[User]
ELI5: If science can now produce cuts of beef with a small tissue sample from a living cow, why cant we also produce transplant organs from human tissue?

Also, how far away from that technology are we, in your estimation?

[Assistant] Producing meat (basically growing muscle) is a much easier process than producing other functional organs due to complexities of the organs. But that area is being actively researched and developed. We are expected to be able to grow organs in forseeable future as well.


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

[User]
CMV: Most people wouldn't enter the door from the Good Place

SPOILERS, DO NOT READ IF YOU DONT WANT SPOILERS

FINAL WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD

YOU WERE WARNED

In the show the Good Place, there is a door that you can take to remove yourself from existence and reunite yourself with the universe.

It is in the shows version of heaven. Its stated that eventually people become perfectly content with their existence that they choose to leave it.

For people in the show they either complete their to do list, or have a special moment that convinces them its time to go.

The show depicts pretty much everyone choosing to leave at some point or another. Usually its hinted to be after thousands of years. I dont buy it.

Why would people choose to not exist? Especially if they are in paradise where they can do any and everything. I dont believe most people would eventually walk through the door to leave existence.

Would a few leave? Sure, I could see a handful of people taking the door at some point, but the majority i think could happily live for eternity in a heaven like paradise.

[Assistant]
The good place is a giant tour of the world's moral systems. Almost every episode can be tied to explicit moral philosophy. Half the time, Chico literally tells us what book/author it's from.

You found the buddhism episode. The idea that while we do many things in our life (or lives, this is buddhism) that we all will eventually return to the source, return to the one. Reaching Nirvana, means the end of individuality and connecting with the everything.

Roughly ten percent of the world is buddhist, so not necessarily a majority, but a pretty decent percentage.

Another interpretation, is that heaven is actually terrible. Yeah it's fun for the first billion years, but infinity is just a really long time. Once you've done everything that there is, once nothing in existence is new, once you've seen all there is to see, why keep going??

Every individual thing gets boring eventually. Thus given infinite time, everything becomes boring. Heaven, given enough time, is hell. Non-existence is better than hell. Thus the door.


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

[User] ELI5:With college tuitions increasing by such an incredible about, where exactly is all this extra money going to in the Universities?

[Assistant] As a teacher in a state university, a fuckton of it is admin salaries. They'll put staff and faculty on hiring/wage freezes, but somehow end up with three new VP's of What-the-Fuck-Ever who all make high-five or six-digit salaries.


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

[User]
[General "Hard-ish" SciFi] Wouldn't missiles be relatively useless in a space battle, considering the potency of future detection systems associated with laser point defense systems?

Considering Issac Arthur's "First Rule of Warfare" (there is no stealth in Space) and considering that missiles can never beat lasers for speed, I don't see how missiles could be used in space warfare, if we are talking about a relatively hard scifi story.

Is there something I'm not considering?

[Assistant]
Depends on a lot of factors, including the relative sophistication of the missile and related technologies. In the most general sense a missile in the sense of a *kinetic projectile* has a lot of utility behind it: Force equals mass times acceleration, so even a little mass moving really fast (*a la* a rail gun or thor shot) can pack a lot of force, and lasers or other energy weapons might not be able to boil enough of that mass off fast enough to prevent impact.

If you're talking about missiles in the sense of self-propelled munitions, it's a little more difficult. Again, the whole point is for your missile to get close enough to the target to do some damage, and point defense systems can put a crimp in that...but for every countermeasure, there are counter-counter measures. Exotic materials or construction that make it hard to target, ablative armor that can absorb enough "hits" from point defense but still get through, or swarming the target with more missiles than the point defense can handle...all solid possibilities.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Would it kill the Doctor to have SOME form of self defense?

I understand that he's renounced violence and doesn't want to kill people. But, there are so many situations where a taser would just solve everything.

[Assistant]
Remember when the doctor hid from the family of blood?

Once his disguise was blown it turns out it was for their protection, not his. From the wiki:

Father of Mine was wrapped in supposedly unbreakable chains forged from a dwarf star alloy, and left in an underground chamber.
Mother of Mine was thrown into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy, imprisoning her there for all eternity.
Daughter of Mine was trapped within every mirror in existence, where the Doctor would visit her once a year.
Son of Mine was suspended in time, and dressed as a scarecrow to watch over the fields of England as their protector.
We wanted to live forever. So the Doctor made sure that we did.

He did that without weapons. He doesnt need weapons..


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

[User]
ELI5 How does marijuana being legal in a state but still federally illegal work?

This has been confusing me for a while now. How can a state have a law declaring marijuana legal (medical/recreational) when it's still illegal by federal law. Can people possessing/selling the drug still be arrested?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
Your parents (federal government) only let you watch 'pg' movies.
Your friend's parents (state government) let you guys watch 'r' rated movies and they don't tell you parents if you watch them.  You can watch 'r' movies at your friend's house without getting in trouble.. but if you're parents are there and you get caught watching an 'r' rated movie you're going to get in trouble and your friend's parents are getting a 'talking to'.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter/Inception] Would a Wizard be easier to Incept given that they accept things that Muggles consider impossible?

The key to a successful Inception is avoiding being detected by a dreamer as an invasive outside influence. In the case of Muggles, it is the introduction of unlikely/improbable/impossible elements into a dream by an Inceptor that tip them off. In the case of a wizard however, their everyday world is filled with spontaneous impossible happenings on a routine basis so given that they already have this kind of mindset does that leave there **more** vulnerable to an Inception attempt than a Muggle would be?

[Assistant] Sort of. While warping space like what Cobb does to the Paris skyline would still alert a Wizard dreamer, you could do anything in a dream that is readily replicated by magic without the dreamer noticing. But wizards dream of magical sheep: The mind's natural defenses would also do things Muggles consider impossible. A trained Muggle's mind has agents firing bullets to kill interlopers. A trained Wizard's mind would probably have agents shooting Avada Kedavra or casting Fiendfyre.


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

[User] ELI5- If calories are units of energy how does caffeine give you energy if it doesnt contain calories?

[Assistant]
Caffeine does not give you energy.  Not even a little.

What it does is keep you from knowing that you are tired. You still are tired and you body still suffers the negative effects of it, but you can't feel it anymore.

In addition if you drink too much caffeine too often, your body adjusts itself, so you only feel normal amounts of tired if you have caffeine in your system.  If you don't, like for example right after you wake up in the morning, you will find you are unable to fully awaken without caffeine.


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

[User]
[Star Wars/General] What would a Star Destroyer look like in orbit?

Writing a text post for an RPG and I was wondering what a 1.6km spacecraft would look like if it were in the orbit of the International Space Station.  Thanks a lot.

[Assistant] It's about 400 km up, so it's 250 times as high as it is long. That gives it an angular length of 0.004 radians, or 14 arcminutes. For comparison, the full moon has an angular length of 41 arcminutes, so a Star Destroyer would be about a third the length of the moon. It should be pretty clearly visible.


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

[User]
ELI5: When people are frozen cryogenically in the hopes of being revived in the future, what happens to their body tissue, especially in the brain?

I was thinking about this the other day and the way my thought process went was like this:

People get cold --> they get frostbitten.

People get frozen via cryogenics --> wouldn't they have even more damage because of the extended exposure to cold? And is there any evidence that says our brains will function normally after days/weeks/months/years in a cryogenic stasis?

[Assistant] If you freeze quickly enough, ice crystals won't form in the same way, and thus damage (which is typically caused by ice crystals in cellular fluids puncturing cell walls) is minimized, even eradicated. However, we have not quite yet reached that level of freezing; what we have now is an approximation that we think will be reversible sometime in the future.


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

[User] [LotR] It is stated that only the fires of Mt. Doom or Dragon-Fire can destroy the One Ring. Is this a matter of magic, or simply pure temperature? Could modern technology produce enough heat to destroy the Ring?

[Assistant]
It seems to be a matter of magic.

A lot of magic went into forging the ring, and without magical reinforcement the ring would be a lot less durable than it is.

It would have bent or broken at some point otherwise.

It's possible it's just a matter of temperature, but given that finding another volcano should have been possible, it seems that it's not just temperature.


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

[User]
When a small body of water dries up, where do the aquatic animals go?

Specifically the fish and the frogs, you never see dead creatures in dried up creek beds for example.

[Assistant]
It really depends on the body of the water and the animals living in it. In some small bodies of water that dry up annually but refill in the rainy season the fish can lay eggs that survive in the mud or small leftover puddles until the hole is refiled in the rainy season, letting the eggs hatch and life goes on. In other regions some fish survive by burring themselves deep in the mud and going into a kind of hibernation until the water returns. If it is a genuine lake drying out permanently, the fish and frogs die and are quickly devoured by the land wildlife. As for in dried up creeks, the fish and frogs go with the flow, so if they realize the water flow is weakening, they will swim upstream or downstream to find the biggest body of water they can.

Hope this helped.


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

[User] [Terminator] What makes the 800 series of Terminators so effective at defeating more advanced models?

[Assistant]
Sometimes, certain types of technology progress to a point where they are so effective at doing the tasks they are designed to do that the marginal return on any enhancement starts to quickly diminish.  Take the internal combustion engine.  If you take a close look at the engine block of a brand new vehicle and compare it to a similar type of engine block from 30 years ago, you'll find that they are going to look and perform almost the same.

In general, the T-800 series was so effective at doing everything it was needed to do that it was able to hold its own against the T-1000 and T-X models.

I think the key was that both the T-1000 and the T-X still "fought" like the T-800 as if they had not yet developed the software to fully utilities their more advanced chassis and weaponry.  This is especially true with the T-1000.  In T2, the T-1000 should have easy taken out the T-800 by forming a blade and stabbing it through the the chest like it did later in the movie with an ordinary pipe.  It didn't because it still seems to approach combat with the two arms and two legs paradigm that the T-800 uses.


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

[User] [GOT] Instead of Trant, if Joffrey had commanded Ser Barristan Selmy to tear Sansa's clothes and hit her, how would the situation have played out?

[Assistant]
Tl, dr: Selmy's resignation delays but does not prevent Sansa's beating

He's a professional with professional integrity; of course he'd refuse. His "resignation" would play out similarly, under less public circumstances. Sansa would probably avoid a beating on account of the Kingsguard being predisposed with Selmy's resignation... this time, but Joffrey would probably make up for it later, and with interest.


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

[User]
ELI5: How/when are flat roofs feasible when lots of snow is expected? I'm seeing them at a ski resort right now.

I typically see in excess of a metre (3.28 ft) of snow buildup and I just noticed due to extremely poor snowfall this year that some of the roofs are flat. How is collapse prevented? Is the snow removed in some way?

Edit: I haven't found any doors so far but maybe I'm blind.

[Assistant]
The roof is built to handle the weight of the (assumed) worst-case snow fall.

Every roof is engineered assuming some kind of load, usually spelled out in building codes. These can include rain, wind, snow, people walking around, etc. As long as the engineers planned for the snow, and the builders what they were supposed to, the roof is strong enough to hold up the snow indefinitely.


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

[User]
[Halo] Why didn't the UNSC make and use robots and drones to battle the Covenant?

I was just wondering if there was a specific reason as to why they didn't utilize the potential resource of robots. A smart A.I. could have possible operated hundreds of robots to fight. With the A.I. in them the robots would have been super intelligent, fast and depending on the build of the bot extremely strong.

[Assistant] Mostly its the power issue. Spartan II armor, mark IV and up, is powered by a compact nuclear fusion reactor to power both the suit and the suit's shields. The earlier models needed to be plugged in in order to get enough power to just operate the suits. That's the issue with robots, the cost of the fusion reactor is just too damned expensive to mass produce. Without a powerful and durable energy source a robot army just isn't worth it. Especially when you can get weapons, armor, supplies and transport for a whole platoon for the cost of one reactor.


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

[User]
Do plants have immune systems?

Whether it's bacteria, fungus, or insects, do plants have a way to fight off deadly organisms? Obviously trees and other plants don't have white blood cells or immune systems like animals, so I was wondering if they had a way to fight off diseases and parasites.

[Assistant]
In woody plants, there are four "walls" of defense from infection.

The first is the closing up of vessels in a wound or around a site infected with a fungus/virus/what-have-you.  This inhibits the movement of pathogens/decay up and down in the stem of the plant.

The second is the hard rings of early and late wood which inhibit spread of infection or decay tangentially, or in and out of the plant.

The third is the ray cells which compartmentalize a wound or infection radially.

The fourth and most effective wall is the layer of hardened wood that will grow around the outside of the infection/wound that will block it off from the outside (like a scab).

In effect these four walls compartmentalize an infection or wound so that it can't harm the rest of the plant.

Another big part of herbivory prevention is secondary metabolites.  These are chemicals or structures a plant makes to create defenses.   There are flat-out poisons like caffeine, cocaine, nicotine, stricnine, terpentine, etc. that will adeversely affect anything that consumes the plant.  There are also things like wood, thorns, tannins, waxes, and aromatic oils that will make plant tissues indigestible to infection or insects, armor it, or just repel herbivores.


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

[User] ELI5: Why were ridiculously fast planes like the SR-71 built, and why hasn't it speed record been broken for 50 years?

[Assistant]
Before we could use satellites to take pictures from space, if we wanted to see what was going on in enemy territory, we had to take pictures from a plane.

Enemies didn't want us taking pictures so they would try to stop the plane - usually by blowing it up with missiles.

We didn't have "stealth" technology yet to keep from being seen, so if we wanted to avoid getting hit with missiles, we needed a way to avoid them. The best way we could come up with was to go so fast they couldn't catch up.

Being really high in the air helped this, because it's easier to go fast up high, and because it would take missiles so long to get up to you, you could be out of the area before they reached that height.

As a result, the SR-71 was designed to go as high and as fast as possible.

Since then, we learned to build space satellites to take our pictures, which can't be hit with missiles. We also developed "stealth" technology for planes, which keeps them from being seen on radar. This means we no longer need to develop planes for high and fast work, so the SR-71 remains the best at that.

(Edited to remove error related to a missile strike)


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

[User] [WHO THE FUCK IS [WALDO] HIDING FROM AND WHY]

[Assistant] He's hiding from Odlaw. Waldo's walking stick is a magical gift from Wizard Whitebeard that allows him to travel through space and time. He mainly uses it for vacations, but once Odlaw found out, he started chasing him to get that stick for himself so he can get into Fort Knox and steal all the gold.


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

[User]
[Fantasy] Why is magic almost always growing "weaker"?

It seems that in most fantasy stories, magic grows weaker as time goes on. What's the reason for this?
Some being:

Harry Potter - The average wizard of today is nothing compared to the wizards of the past, even Voldemort and Dumbledore's magnificent fight is a pale imitation of what wizards were once capable of

Star Wars - The age of the great wars between the Jedi and Sith are long gone. Where there were once great battlefields with lightsaber being wielded and force powers being put to action are now merely men with blasters that don't even believe in the force blasting at each other, even the Clone Wars were nothing compared to the old wars, in both canon and legends

Lord of the Rings - The War of the Ring, though magical and fantastic by our standards is nothing compared to what once was. The elves are far weaker, Sauron and his ringwraiths pale in comparison to Morgoth and his balrogs, even the great and mighty Smaug is nothing compared to the dragons of old.

The only exception I can think of is Avatar, where bending has grown more powerful.

Why is this? Why is magic often growing weaker?

[Assistant] In some universes, it's probably selection bias. People remember Merlin and Godric Gryffindor, and assume that all wizards of old must have been that powerful, but they forget all about Merlin's bumbling apprentice. Also, a story grows in the telling.


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

[User]
CMV: The elderly need to hit the gym.

I feel like most seniors are super sedentary and weak, and that fact exacerbates their existing medical problems. Having weak muscles and little exercise, will make daily activity harder, reduce circulation, and weaken their immune system. Moreover, many retirees basically let themselves go health wise, having poor nutrition compounded with years of poor lifestyle choices.

The solution? Get big! Obviously there are things they can't do. Not everyone can get into running or strength training, but there's always room for improvement. The existing "senior fitness" classes are more a pastime than exercise. If a lot of elderly people set up goals and made consistent progress, it would be good for their physical, mental and social health.

This is also probably a super dumb perspective, so please CMV.

[Assistant]
It's not that the perspective is super dumb, it's just that the benefit they get would only go so far.

You have to remember that they also cant recover the way we can and that injuries are a lot more possible and severe when they occur.

Seniors definitely should be doing mild exercise, eating well and getting air. The bottom line is though, that doesnt reverse the aging process or make your health problems go away at that age.

Plus we have to define exactly who we mean by seniors. A 65 year old can and should do more than a 90 year old. It's a gradient, not a line. If that makes sense.


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

[User]
If gravity "travels" as a wave, does it move at the speed of light?

In science we were all taught that all matter has mass, and thus gravity. That gravity extends across the entire universe, and gets weaker the further you are from the center of mass.

So, since LIGO has detected gravitational waves, how fast do those waves move? Do they "travel" at the speed of light and behave the same as any other electromagnetic wave?

[Assistant]
Yes, gravitational waves move at the same speed as electromagnetic waves, i.e., the speed that is conventionally called *the speed of light*.

Note that LIGO's detection cannot directly confirm this (they did not directly measure the speed), but LIGO found waves consistent with general relativity, and general relativity requires gravitational waves to move at the speed of light.


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

[User] ELI5 why can humans regrow things like skin and muscle but not organs like eyes and kidneys?

[Assistant]
I think you're confusing how skin and muscle *heal*, with *regrow*.

Your organs heal on a daily basis from natural cell death and the toxins you ingest or are exposed to (such as alcohol), just like how your skin and muscle heal. But if you remove a muscle from the body, like if you removed a kidney, neither of them are going to regrow.

Your skin doesn't regrow easily - scars don't count as regrowing. Scars are basically the body saying "We can't regrow the original skin, use scar tissue to plug up the wound." like putting a poster over a hole in a wall.


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

[User] ELI5:Why is it common for developed western countries to hold snap elections but the US doesn't.

[Assistant]
The US uses a presidential system while most other countries use a parliamentary system.  These systems differ on who elects the executive branch of the government.

In a presidential system the executive branch of the government (ie the president) is directly elected by the country's citizens.  Once elected, the president serves out their term regardless of their popularity.

In a parliamentary system there is no election for the executive branch of the government (ie the prime minister).  Rather, the prime minister is chosen by parliament and serves only so long as they retain 51% support in parliament.  When the prime minister no longer has sufficient support in parliament then one of two things can happen: either parliament selects a new prime minister (which is rare) or the government just doesn't have an executive branch until the next election.

Because the government can't function without an executive branch, the solution that parliamentary systems have come up with is the ability to hold snap elections to replace the entire current government and start over again from scratch in the hopes that the new government will be able to select a new executive branch.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Do the Enterprise and similar technology use some form of electricity?

I understand they use an anti-matter/matter mix to create energy in order to power their ship, but does this energy come in form of high voltage electricity? If not, what is it exactly? Is it only on Starships? Did the Kirk era Enterprise use a different form? Did Voyager?

[Assistant] Not as we do today. They use a high energy plasma conduit system. That's why the consoles explode so easily. There is a crippling copper shortage in the future. That's why the Ferengi are so confused upon finding the Federation comm badges use gold instead and assumed it was just jewelry. They just don't have access to what the Ferengi see as a more common and more effective material.


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

[User] Vast swathes of North America used to be an ocean, the Western Interior Seaway. If this is true, why are those lands not salted and inhospitable like other dried saltwater bodies that have left behind only barren salt pans?

[Assistant]
They are! Almost all North American halite (rock salt) mines rely on the salt deposited during this period.

It's just that there has been fifty million years of deposition since then, meaning the salt is quite far below the present surface.


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

[User] I get that bees are essential to an ecosystem, but do wasps/hornets do literally anything useful in that sense?

[Assistant]
Assuming that we're not talking about an invasive species, wasps are absolutely essential to an ecosystem. The same applies to hornets, which are actually a type of wasp in the family Vespidae. Here are some of the many ecological roles they play:

**Pollination.** Many species of wasps are pollinators that are absolutely vital for flowering plants. Many plants have symbiotic relationships with wasps, and some even depend on wasps for their existence. Probably the most famous examples are fig wasps in the family Agaonidae, which coevolved with certain kinds of fig trees. So without wasps, we would lose many species of plants.

**Predation.** Many kinds of wasps (such as hornets, yellowjackets, and spider wasps) are predators that eat other insects/arachnids like spiders, beetles, and caterpillars. Since a lot of these destroy plants and other organisms, this predation serves as an important control that helps balance their numbers in order keep an ecosystem healthy and diverse. Some wasps even eat other wasps, which helps keep their own numbers in control.

**Parasitism**. In addition to being predators, some wasps are also parasites that feed on other insects. As described above, this has all of the same benefits for keeping the levels of other insects in balance. (For example, *Encarsia formosa* is used as pest control on tomato plants).

So if we destroyed all wasps in their native habitat, we would see a rise in many insect populations, a decrease in many plant populations, and things would not be looking so good for the ecosystem as a whole. Wasps can be annoying, but they're absolutely vital to our ecosystems.


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

[User] ELI5: If we (the human race) somehow become immortal, aren't we basically dooming ourselves?

[Assistant] If we were to become immortal, there wouldn't be a need to adapt. If the end game of evolution is to create something that is able to survive as long as possible, then immortality would be the endgame.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Can the teleporter be used to reconfigure the object being teleported? What are the limits?

The food replicator in Star Trek is a sort of teleporter, and it has recipes on how to assemble the source material to fill an order. Therefore Star Trek teleporters can manipulate data used during the teleportation process. So what are the limits?

Can I use the teleporter to perform surgery and remove a tumor? Can I use it to genetically combine two animals into a chimera? Can I use it to perform plastic surgery and give someone a face lift? Can I use it as a weapon during a war and teleport enemy soldiers, but reconfigure them into blocks of carbon?

I'm not very familiar with the Star Trek universe, so examples in-universe are appreciated.

[Assistant]
Allegedly, replicators are molecular resolution, while the personnel transporters are quantum resolution. The former are sufficient for rearranging feedstock into food and equipment or whatever, but the latter is necessary for living beings. Quantum resolution is so detailed that its not feasible to store the pattern for a complete person; theyre broken down and transmitted via a pattern buffer bit by bit. The idea is that youre scanned, youre beamed, and the pattern is never stored.

However. The transporter also supposedly reads the pattern and filters out known contagions and (I think at least sometimes?) weapons. It seems like it would be conceivable to swap a body part or something, but maybe there are limits to inserting a new pattern with precision in the brief time it flits through the buffer. Its not normally used for surgery.

Transporter accidents have certainly done stuff like accidentally merge two characters or duplicate characters or even cross the boundary between universes.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] What's the furthest an augment can legally get, as in positions of power or authority, in the 24th century?

Say Bashir's parents had been upfront with his modifications, could he have been a badass frontier civilian doctor? Is he barred from politics, or just someone that people're prejudiced against? There's no money, true, but could he've ended up with his own shipping company? Could he've played sports professionally against aliens, or possibly some augmented league (we've *got* to accept steroid use at some point)? Would he be barred from joining a PDF, if one were to exist alongside yet outside of Starfleet? Is it just Starfleet that augments aren't ok in, or all facets of Federation government? Could my mans be an emt or a fire chief?

[Assistant] Bashir was nearly kicked out of Star Fleet during a time of immense crisis when they need the best of the best. An augment could maybe it incredibly fast if they kept it a secret but soon as the cats out of the bag so too do any future plans.


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

[User] ELI5: How does grass reproduce?

[Assistant] Wild grasses are flowering plants (their flowers aren't around all the time, but they vaguely look like wheat flowers, if you're unfamiliar) so they reproduce the same way other flowering plants do - that is, sexually. But some grasses can reproduce through vegetative propagation, which basically means that new grass can grow nearby after popping up from an expanded underground root system. That's how a lot of lawn grass reproduces.


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

[User]
Why can't we just dig a deep enough borehole anywhere we need it to take advantage of geothermal energy?

Why is this not viable?  Dig a deep enough hole and you will get to useful heat levels.  I can certainly imagine all sorts of problems that would make this difficult, but nothing that would make it impossible.

[Assistant]
Geothermal plants work by pumping(relatively) cold water 4-10km deep into the ground, heating it up, and retrieving hot steam at the surface. In the simplest designs, they use this steam to run a turbine. Unless the area is around active tectonic zones, drilling 4-10km deep won't be hot enough to make the steam you want. But than you ask, "it's free heat, who cares about efficiency?" Eventually, pumping increasing amounts of water 10 kilometers into the ground is taking up more energy than it is worth.

Edit: And as the other poster said, geothermal heat pumps are very viable. Put some pipes 50 feet into the ground and use it as a thermal reservoir, instead of the ambient air. After  about six feet, the ground stays relatively constant year around. You can use the warm ground in the winter to heat up your house, and use the cool ground to cool your house in the summer.


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

[User] Einstein's Theory of Relativity is based on the principle that the speed of light is the same for all observers. How did he deduce that and how do we prove it now?

[Assistant] For one thing, in order to work Maxwell's equations require that the speed of light be constant. One of Einstein's big leaps was realizing that this wasn't just a mathematical quirk, it represented physical reality.


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

[User] ELI5: Why did 64-bit consoles come way before 64-bit home computers and OS's?

[Assistant]
Because it was mostly mostly marketing hype and 64 bit sounded was better than 32 bit. None of them had more than 4 gb of memory, which is the main use for a 64 bit processor. Since consoles at that time weren't ever backwards compatible, it was no big deal to switch processors.

Home computers on the other had, people expected to be able to run their old software. It was a bunch of work to make an OS that could run 32 and 64 bit software as well as a CPU that could do the same. So it wasn't done until people really started needing more than 4 GB of ram.

You could also argue that home PCs became 64 bit in 1997 with the addition of the MMX instruction set as Intel processors started getting 64 bit registers and instructions.

Generally, consoles as soon as they had one 64 bit feature, they were advertised as 64 bit. Home PCs didn't get called 64 bit until every feature was 64 bit.


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

[User]
[Batman] What tech level is Earth at?

More specifically, B:TAS Earth. I've been watching it lately and we have:

- telegrams as a viable means of communication

- pre-1960s fashion, architecture, cars, etc, including goddamn *police blimps*.

- Sapient/Near-Sapient AI (see: the robot replacements, Captain Clown, etc)

- extremely complex VR (as made by the Riddler and the Mad Hatter)

- Mind control (Hi, Jervis!)

- Video games with simple, block graphics

- Black and white TVs with video recorders

- Huge, bulky phones (and I think two-piece phones at one point?!)

- Gene splicing

...all co-existing at once.

With all this in mind, would you say it was more 2000s tech in a 1990s setting and 1940s wrapper or the 1940s with a helping of schizotech? ~~Basically, what level of technology can get away with I putting in my fanfiction because I have no idea at all?~~

[Assistant] It's Gothic 1990's. So you have 1990's tech, but with Gothic themes, which is why you have throwbacks like fashion and some tech. All of the advanced tech is limited to certain individuals who possess 'super' intellect as it pertains to tech.


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

[User] What is happening when I push my stomach out to make myself appear fatter/bigger. What is happening when I suck my stomach in. (where does all the size go?)

[Assistant] You're pushing your diaphragm (the muscle below your lungs/above the abdominal cavity) down and relaxing your abdominal wall. Since your organs don't have anywhere else to go they "push out" giving the appearance of a beer belly. The reverse is also true. You're just sucking the stomach and liver up into the space normally used by your lungs.


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

[User]
Professor wants to add another student to the paper before submission

Working on my paper with my professor, practically ready to submit. Professor suggests multiple times to ask another student to be co author, I hesitantly agree (why? Why now?)

Other student sends back trivial suggestions and comments. Professor says these are great comments, other student deserves authorship.

Reading through any guidelines suggesting that dropping in at such a late stage and suggesting rephrasing things does not warrant authorship.

Please help, what to do now? Fight and bitter the connection with the professor or accept someone, who had no involvement with the paper apart from the very end, as second author? I'm so disappointed I could cry...

[Assistant]
To be quite honest as long as you're first author, once there's more than 2 authors, adding on an extra author doesn't impact you in any meaningful way.

Is it ethical authorship? No. Is it - as a grad student - worth your time having the argument with the person you have to work under? Possibly not. This will depend on your relationship and your professor. The fact they're doing this in the first place doesn't speak well to them, so without knowing the specifics, it's impossible to give much more thorough guidance.


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

[User]
[A Song of Ice and File | Game of Thrones] Do Braavosi citizens get a discount on Faceless Men services?

EDIT: I am aware the title reads 'A Song of Ice and *File*', but you all know very well what is should say, so don't yell at me.

Just was thinking about that one scene where Arya has to assassinate the actress Lady Crane because a younger actress is jealous. Why do you go to *best assassins in the world* to assassinate a rival, unless you get a discount?

On another note: do the Iron Bank and the Faceless Men have a partnership? i.e. borrow a thousand gold dragons or more, and get 10% off your next Faceless Man contract.

[Assistant]
As near as we can tell, no. The Faceless Men don't price according to supply and demand, they require proof that the customer is willing to sacrifice truly something meaningful to themselves. If they must assassinate a king's rival, they may require his entire kingdom, or at least his heir/legacy. If a client has nothing else, they may pay with their lives.

This way they know their clients are not motivated by simple self-interest, but truly believe the world would be better without the target.

I truly don't know what to make of the contract on Lady Crane; it seems inconsistent with the Faceless Men's professed values, and can only conclude we have not been given enough important information.


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

[User]
[Attack on Titan]Why doesn't the Survey Corps sally at night?

It's said that Titans become lethargic in the absence of sunlight.  In addition, since blinding a Titan seems to disable it, they seem to rely on sight to hunt.  So wouldn't it be a lot safer if they made their sallys at night?

[Assistant]
The dangers outweigh the benefits. Night time grants concealment and cover but to both sides. True, titans are bigger and easier to spot in such conditions than humans but it only takes one of them noticing to get the attention of all the others in the area. So the Corps would have to go extra slow to avoid attracting attention, and speed is key to survival out there.

Outside the Walls, the only real defence that humans have against titans is mobility. We can't really fight them head on, we can't outrun them on foot. Even hiding isn't much of an option since we still need food and water while they don't need either. So we need to keep moving, either on horseback or with 3D Maneuver Gear.

You know how fast you move in 3DMG? Really, really fast. Now imagine having to do that, having to make those split second turns and shots, all in the dark. One wrong move and, if you're lucky, you'll be instantly killed by faceplanting into a building or tree. If you're not, then you'll probably also get a bunch of your team mates killed trying to save you.

Riding on horseback has similar issues but with the added problem of having a living animal between you and what you want to do/where you want to go. The horse just has to make one misstep and down it goes, and if you're in an open area then you're totally screwed. And again, imagine doing that at night when the horse can't see any better than you can.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Nasa know the exact course to chart with their space probes to get them on different planets?

ELI5: How does Nasa know the exact course to chart with their space probes to get them on different planets?

[Assistant]
Well they're literally rocket scientists...

No, seriously, NASA has some of the finest astronomers in the world, who have learned how to perform the complex trajectory calculations necessary to fire a space probe travelling thousands of miles per hour, off of one planet travelling sixty-five thousand miles per hour, towards another planet travelling fifty-four thousand miles per hour (Mars, for the sake of argument).

To use a sports analogy, a hockey player doesn't pass the puck to where his teammate is, he passes it to the point his teammate will be by the time the puck arrives. NASA is doing pretty much the same thing, just on an exponentially larger scale and using rockets.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does something having no face/minimal features make it cute?

I know the concept of what's 'cute' varies from person to person, but there are certain things in this example that are almost universal.

There are classic character designs like Hello Kitty and Marvin the Martian who have no mouths, but are considered adorable.

The Valais Blacknose sheep has such dark facial fur that you can't really see its features, but it often gets referred to as 'world's cutest sheep' (and honestly, agreed). Shouldn't something that looks as if it has a gaping void in its face be inherently disturbing?

Why is there such a fine line between endearing and unsettling here?

[Assistant] Our brains are engineered to think human babies are cute so that we want to keep them alive. Babies have round faces and small features. A cartoon with minimal features roughly resembles a baby's face.


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

[User] ELI5:When nuclear weapons were added to the US arsenal, why was the ability to launch them given to the President of the United States and not congress?

[Assistant]
Constitutionally, (although not really in practice any more), Congress is the sole authority on declarations of war or authorizations of the use of military force, but the President is the commander in chief of the armed forces. Congress can't tell generals what to do and it can't give or veto military orders. A nuclear attack is a military order and as such only the President has the authority to initiate it.

On a more practical note, if nuclear missiles have already be launched at the US, there would be only a few minutes to authorize a retaliatory strike, and even a functional congress is not capable of acting that quickly. No country in the world with nuclear weapons has that authority given to their legislatures. In every case it's the head of government or the head of state.


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

[User]
CMV: The college 4.0 GPA scale is dysfunctional and poorly represents students.

Been wanting to do one of these for a while now.

I find that the 4.0 scale leaves a lot of the students' academic work on the cutting room floor and presents them in a weird manner.

A student can have a consistent  score of 89%, which equates to a B+, thus a 3.3 GPA.

*But* a student can have a consistent score of 90%, which equates to a A-, thus a 3.7 GPA.

1% ( to \~5%) of a score in-class has the weight of about 10% on a 4.0 scale.

And conversely, 88% has the same GPA value as a 89%.

90%= 3.7

1+/-

89%= 3.3

1+/-

88%= 3.3

This quantification is inconsistent, a student can increase their score by 1% and receive either a 0, 0.3, or 0.4 increase but decrease their score by 1% and receive a potentially different value change.

 A subject that worsens this metric is when students request their professor to round up their grade (typically 89 to 90), as not everyone can benefit from a 1% boost no less have a professor who is willing to do so.

I simply think its inappropriate for a student to not be properly represented by the percentage they earned in-class. Students with a 3.7 aren't that different from those with a 3.3, but yet the scale appears to magnify their difference.

[Assistant] I would argue that a mitigating factor is that GPA isn't really used for individual classes, but over the whole education. In that time frame, we might assume that a student's course grades will be randomly distributed about their "true competence" in that class, so in fact an 89% student is only slightly less likely to get an A- than a 90% student. Thus, their average grade should tend to reflect that, where they'll both be hanging out around a 3.5 over the forty or so courses that constitute a degree.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do most crustaceans / seafood turn from a grayish color to a red / orange color when heat is applied?

[Assistant] Lobsters and crabs, etc. have a compound called astaxanthin in their shells. This compound is bright red, but it is usually stuck to another compound called crustacyanin that prevents its red color from showing. When the lobster is boiled, the astaxanthin gets separated from the crustacyanin, and it appears bright red since it is no longer stuck to the other chemical.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] When Time Lords are about to regenerate, why don't they just cut off a hand or something and pull a Tenth Doctor by sending their excess energy into that, allowing them to keep their old face and body?

The Tenth Doctor was able to regenerate in "Journey's End" without changing his physical appearance by letting himself be healed and then sending his excess regeneration energy into his severed hand which worked because it was what he called a "bio-matching receptacle". So why doesn't he just cut off his hand every time he's about to regenerate, zap the excess energy into it, and then heal up,, good as new, while retaining his physical appearance?

[Assistant]
Skilled Time Lords can basically fully control how they'll regenerate anyways. Someone like the Master or Rassilon could regenerate into a body resembling their former one trivially, but they don't care much about how they look.

The Doctor is just really, really bad at the whole regeneration thing.


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

[User] ELI5: If you take a multivitamin when you've already had your daily recommended amount of one or more vitamins or minerals, does your body get rid of the excess or can this hurt you?

[Assistant]
If you just take one there shouldn't be a problem, some vitamins and especially minerals can be a problem in very high dosages. The quantity in those pills is the RDA (recommended daily amount) your body can handle many times more before it becomes a problem. (don't take more than we thought the bottle says though!)

Of course, if you suffer from certain medical conditions this may affect how your body treats excess intake, in those cases always ask your doctor about supplements.


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

[User] Eli5: why does the country Liechtenstein exist? Its an incredibly small country in Europe, why isnt it just part of Switzerland or Austria?

[Assistant]
Originally, there were many, many such small kingdoms in Europe, ruled by powerful local families.

The land was bought by the House of Liechtenstein, and nominally ruled by the Holy Roman Empire, but became a sovereign state in 1806, as part of a loose German confederation

During the first and second world wars, many small states were eaten up by larger ones. However, Liechtenstein never really caused any problems for other countries, and kept itself to itself, and so there were always bigger fish to fry, and it remained self sufficient. It didn't have any great wealth or natural resources.

It was just too much effort for any other country to bother annexing it.


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

[User]
Why don't sealed terrariums explode?

Is it balanced so perfectly that the oxygen released by the plants is utilised by microorganisms that in turn provide carbon dioxide and nitrogen/waste, which feeds the plants and the cycle restarts? I'd just imagine there being some offset that causes gas accumulation eventually causing the glass jar to explode.

Especially when the animals within, snails and such, piggybacking on the plants I introduce, begin to breed?

Similarly to when I did sauerkraut that one time and didn't provide a release valve

How can these jars stay sealed for years with no mishap it's amazing!

[Assistant]
In order for the pressure to build up, you need something that is solid or liquid to be converted into a gas. In your sauerkraut case the bacteria doing the fermenting broke down your cabbage (solid/liquid) and released part of it as a gas.

In most ecosystems (the terrarium in this case) things are broken down and turned into gasses, but then other organisms will work in the opposite direction and turn those gasses back into solids. When a plant is doing photosynthesis, it is using power from the sun to take the carbon on CO2 and turn it into glucose (sugar), which is taking gas out of the terrarium and turning it into a solid (sort of). Other organisms will take nitrogen (N2) out of the air and turn it into something usable (often ammonia), which is then released again as big molecules break down. The balance of all of this is very important, and when things get out of flux it can have negative impacts. Sometimes runoff from farms can put too much (solid) nitrogen into an ecosystem and cause algal blooms that kill everything off.

Luckily ecosystems evolve in such a way that things are often kept at sort of a balance. If you have an ecosystem with too much oxygen in the air then organisms that can use that oxygen will flourish and naturally reduce it. So when you make a healthy terrarium you often are getting all of those balancing components. It is possible to create the sauerkraut situation though, if you don't have places for your water to drain and move through you can cause bacteria similar to the ones fermenting your cabbage to build up quickly, and then will create excess pressure, though there is less food available so it might not explode.


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

[User] Do the control surfaces on long distance flights have to be trimmed slightly downwards to compensate for the curvature of the earth?

[Assistant]
No.

There are four forces acting on an aircraft: Thrust from the engines, drag from the air, lift from pushing air down and weight from gravity.

We trim an aircraft so that the lift and the weight balance out and the aircraft remains in a steady attitude relative to the horizon.

As we fly over the curved Earth, the plane remains trimmed so that "Down" is in the same direction. We don't need to adjust the control surfaces for the plane to follow the curve.


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

[User]
How can I be ready for competitive programming?

Hey, I'm a high school senior.
I have good knowledge in python, C#, C, html, CSS, and JavaScript.
How can I be prepared for competitive programming like IOI and other competitions? Where should I practice and learn? And what topics I should learn?

[Assistant] Competitive programming is less about what languages you know and more about how many data structures and algorithms you have memorized. Study up really hard on that and pick 1 language to get really really intimate with, python or java are great choices.


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

[User]
Does mental retardation occur in animals?

I was going to sleep the other night and I wondered about this.  Since it occurs in humans, is it possible that it occurs in other animals?

[Assistant]
Yes it does.  However in the wild they don't last very long.  Often they are still birthed, or simply die in infancy from lack of nourishment.  If they do live longer than that they often die from predators or other dangerous situations that they are not capable of dealing with.

Domestic animals are a different story.  If they are bottle fed, or humans help them get to the mother for food they can make it to adulthood.  There are some youtube videos of mentally retarded cats that I've seen.  I'll try to find one.


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

[User] [Marvel] Ultimate Xavier sent Wolverine to kill an innocent kid with deadly powers to avoid making things worse for mutants in general. Would a Silver Age Xavier have adopted a similar strategy if he had been confronted with the same dilemma?

[Assistant] 616 Xavier has definitely done some messed up stuff.  His plan A would probably be to mind wipe the kid to forget what he did and then root around in there until he managed to lock away the majority of his power.  It's hard to say if he'd actually off the kid, he has access to stasis pods he can seal him away in but if it came to killing him being the only option?  Yeah he'd probably handle it the same way.


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

[User]
[Star Trek: Voyager] The Doctor frustratedly says "I only have two hands," but his "body" is just a holographic projection, what's stopping him from having as many hands as he wants?

Or Hell, as many *bodies* as he wants? He frequently complains about being short-handed, why can't there be an entire staff of EMHs walking around sick bay?

[Assistant]
The EMH was never intended to be the entire staff of a sick bay. The programming that underpins it's operation was built to work with and around a single humanoid form, both to lend a sense of the familiar to the patients and to allow it to use standard medical equipment, as a backup and supplement to a proper living crew.

When they wrote the program, they didn't include an option to produce 20 Doctors, or to transform the Doctor into a hundred-handed monster, and no one on the ship is qualified to rewrite his program to give him those functions. Attempting to do so would be a massive risk, essentially performing experimental brain surgery on the only qualified Starfleet medic in the Quadrant.


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

[User]
Eli5 How does our brain sending signals actually work?

I understand the process of how it works (on the absolute shallowest level), but not what it actually is. If Code is what tells a computer what to do, what is the code of the brain? What do these signals consist of?
How is it possible that we have prosthetics receiving signals from the brain and working like a real limb, what is it receiving, and how does it comprehend it?

[Assistant]
Electrochemical impulses.

Nerves are like a set of dominos that can reset themselves, so when one nerve gets activated, it sends an electrochemical pulse down the line to the next nerve, then the next nerve, then the next nerve.

Then they can reset themselves to be ready to pass along the next message

Now how a billion tiny chemical signals becomes our thoughts and feelings and just general consciousness, we still have no idea.


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

[User]
Why does a photons frequency increase when it has more energy?

What about the energy increase causes this?

[Assistant]
Photons move at the speed of light, which means they must be massless.

This means that a photon's momentum must be equal to E/c, where E is the photon's energy.

de Broglie tells us that anything with a momentum has a wavelength equal to h/momentum, so the wavelength of a photon is h/(E/c) = hc/E

Now for a nice sinusoidal wave, frequency f = speed/wavelength.

Here speed is c and wavelength is hc/E, so the frequency is

f = c/(hc/E) = E/h.

So when energy increases, so does the frequency.


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

[User]
If the earth was hit by another large planetary body early in its life, why is our orbit still relatively circular?

If another large body crashed into us and ejected a bunch of debris that created the moon, shouldn't that have thrown our orbit out of whack, how come it's still relatively circular?

[Assistant] The other object was orbiting the Sun as well. If something with 10% the mass of Earth approaches Earth with a relative velocity of let's say 3 km/s the impact will change Earth's velocity by 300 m/s, or 1% of its orbital velocity. Earth changes its velocity by more than 1% during each orbit from the small eccentricity it has.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it acceptable for men to show their nipples in public/media but not women?

[Assistant]
Sexual subzones.

 A woman's chest area is biologically developed to show sexual development in tandem with other features. Males are biologically attracted to females who are on the prime of sexual development. So sexual zones are linked to sexual arousal. Men's chest area dont do anything i know of that comes close to boobs.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we need to refrigerate something after it's opened? What happens to that thing when it is opened?

As the question says, why do we need to refrigerate something after it's opened? I have a bottle of Chipotle Sauce I got from Target, and it was happily sitting in the shelves for who knows how long unrefrigerated. It says on the label to refrigerate after opening. Why? And I don't think it's because Target is air conditioned. Some bodegas in nyc for example are un air-conditioned and will sell similar stuff.

[Assistant]
Usually foods that are packaged in cans or bottles are sterilized by heating during packaging. The exceptions are things that change in high heat like milk or meat.  This sterilization process gives the food long shelf life because bacteria that were in the food were cooked to death and can't eat the food or harm you.

One you open it, the food is once again exposed to bacteria and mold spores from the air.  They will begin to grow in the food, and refrigeration slows their growth down tremendously.  Therefore manufacturers recommend refrigeration so that you can keep the food fresher for longer.


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

[User] Why are many babies born blonde haired but fade to a different color at a later age?

[Assistant] Because the cells that control hair and eye color develop late and last. Biologically, nothing depends on hair cells, and hair cells depend on other structures to be formed first, so they simply dont start maturing until relatively late and sometimes after birth.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do neurosurgeons reach and fix lesions deep inside the brain without affecting outer tissues?

Non-native English speaker here.

Suppose you have a stroke or some other medical abnormalities in the center of the brain. Where there is a bleeding, clot, or some other anomaly.

How would neurosurgeons go about reaching it given its deep in the center? If it was on the outside, the anomaly could have been cut or sutured. But if it is deep inside, then wouldn't cutting through all these massive tissues destroy brain functionality in other areas?

[Assistant] Theres no magic. The brain isnt as solid as you might think. Its a bunch of folded up tissue floating in some fluid. You can poke and move things around. So they look at scans, come up with a plan, maybe poke or otherwise stimulate tissue to verify boundaries, then cut and hope for the best.


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

[User]
Faculty: What is the most important office politics lesson you've learned and how does it shape your current interactions with your colleagues?

Navigating office politics is a necessary evil. Let's help one another out.

[Assistant]
Have a positive attitude.

Project positive intent.

Deliver results rather than activities.

Practice personal accountability.

Be sparing with commitments, and follow through on those you do make.

Find win/win solutions.

Be generous and genuine with praise when appropriate.

Share credit.

Tell the truth, even when it's hard.

Avoid causing others to lose face.  Help others to save face.

Make eye contact.

Know the needs of the department better than your boss does, and do your part to promote success.

Don't worry about what's popular or who is trashing or praising you.  Consistently do what's right.

Ask for help when you need it.  Offer help when you know it's needed.

Don't say anything you wouldn't say with the object of your discussion standing in the room.


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

[User] eli5: How are eyebags formed?

[Assistant] The dark circles or bags that form under your eyes when you stay up too late are caused by the tiny muscles in that area fatiguing, and fluid building up in that area. Because the skin is so thin and delicate in that area you can really see it. Most people think bags come from not getting enough sleep, but it's actually from straining the eyes beyond the point when your body wants to rest or go to sleep.


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

[User]
ELI5: What Prevents US third-party Candidates from organizing a debate hosted on Youtube?

It boggles my mind that they dont even try to use the power and ease of access of the internet to break the Two-party stranglehold on the media.

[Assistant]
Nothing prevents it.  But if they held such a debate and it drew little attention, they would lose both credibility and moral authority.

Complaining that someone else is failing to give them exposure gives them a platform, while standing up and trying to host their own debate would run the risk of having to test their popularity.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do colleges and universities charge (often high) application fees?

[Assistant]
The cynical answer is 'because they can.'  Universities have so much demand for their services that they can charge a fee for pretty much anything.  Students will pay it, because what other choice do they have?

For a more helpful answer, most Universities already receive more applications than they can accept.  Thus, they need to discourage as many unqualified applicants as they can in order to handle applications processing in a manageable way.  Charging a nominal fee will prevent unqualified applicants from even considering it, and even though it's expensive, the fee is tiny compared to the cost of the overall education.  As well, many universities will waive the application fee for a qualified applicant who demonstrates financial need.

Finally, without fees, students would (did, and still do if they're rich enough) 'shotgun' their applications, applying to every University they could think of in hopes that they'd get into their preferred one, but have a slew of options in case that one doesn't work out.  Since that student is only going to attend one University, the time spent reviewing their application at every other University they applied to is wasted.


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

[User]
[Toy Story] Exactly How Strong Is A Toy?

Is the strength of a toy proportionate to their size? How much force can an action figure like Buzz Lightyear really exert? Their durability must be limited by the materials they are comprised of, but it does not seem clear whether or not this impacts their strength (ie: army men carrying a walkie talkie, stuffed bear dragging Woody into a dumpster). How strong are they?

[Assistant] Each toy is about as strong as what they're made of, for the most part.  Specifically the plastic toys - IIRC the army men needed to work as a team to catty the walkie talkie - are limited in this manner.  Fabric and metal toys like Woody and Slink are a little stronger and more durable than their materials permit.  For fabric toys, their compressive strength actually gets boosted to roughly that of their tension strength, as each fiber acts as an independent "muscle" and can be contracted or extended as needed- other wise Woody wouldn't even be able to stand up.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Reys dad was a "failed" palpatine clone? He seemed to be way more lively than the clone we see in the 3rd movie. Why was the final palpatine clone a zombie but Reys dad seemed to be "normal"?

[Assistant]
Rey's father was a "failed" clone in that he was a clone of Palpatine who didn't have any Force sensitivity - a requirement if Palpatine was going to use a cloned body to live forever.

The clone body on Exegol was mostly good enough for what he needed it for, except for one *tiny* little problem - it didn't have the constitution to withstand the corrupting power of the dark side, which is why when he possessed that body after Endor it started a slow decay, with only intensive medical intervention and a variety of Force techniques and rituals slowing it so he wouldn't have to jump to another body.


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

[User] ELI5: what does "mastering" do to audio?

[Assistant]
Keeping it relatively simple for ELI5, mastering audio is basically the process of preparing a mixed song or album for duplication and distribution.

You can break mastering up into 2 broad sections.
Aural and Technical.

Aural would be the manipulation and processing of a song/songs to get the best possible listening quality on as many different devices as possible. People can listen to a song on anything from a clock radio, cheap earphones, home hifi, car stereo, on their tv etc... All of which react completely differently and a given song will sound different on every system. There are techniques such as EQ and compression that can be applied to a song that can help it to translate as well as possible between different systems. A lot of bass would sound great on a good hifi or in a recording studio but would not sound good at all on a clock radio or cheap earphones. So mastering engineers use many techniques to "smooth out" the song dynamically (called compression), and also techniques to balance the song sonically (EQ).

Limiting is also applied which is a technique which basically makes a song louder. The louder the better with modern music it seems, but there are draw backs and this is an ongoing argument in the mastering industry. Limiting a song too much can cause it to distort, or can lose clarity in drum strikes etc. There's a happy middle ground here but these days most songs are over compressed and limited.

On an album the mastering engineer would ensure that the transition between each song is as the artist wants. So they will do fade in or fade outs as appropriate. They would also ensure that an album has an overall "tone" or "sonic signature", which basically means that the songs sound consistent in both volume and tone. If one song was bass heavy and was followed by a song that was lacking in bass the listeners attention might be drawn to that, and we want to avoid that.

Technical side to mastering would include>

* Embedding ISRC codes which stands for International Standard Recording Code. These codes are embedded on a CD and simplify the collection of royalties.

* Track order on an album.

* Gap times between each track. How much of a gap a listener hears before the next song.

* Creating hidden tracks.

* Creating a disk image that complies with international CD standards (Red Book).

* In recent years mastering engineers often supply tracks for online releases only and may be required to encode the song in the various versions that are required. MP3, m4a, flac etc...

Another big aspect to mastering is the listening environment. Mastering engineers use extremely expensive speakers called reference monitors. Although these speakers can be loud and can have massive bass response, they are more useful because they somewhat mimic home hifi speakers (but are much much higher quality), these speakers are clinical and are comparable to using a magnifying glass. Unlike recording studio speakers which no average person has in their living room. A mastering studio would sound very very nice and would be a lovely environment to sit and listen to an album. A mastering engineer would be an expert and know exactly how a song should react/sound in their studio and know how to manipulate it to get it to translate well onto car radios/headphones/home stereo etc...

Finally a mastering engineer is often a fresh pair of ears who only hears a song or album at the very last step. Everyone else involved to this point may have been listening to the songs for months and may not notice little errors. A fresh perspective can often discover the strangest mistakes and errors that need to be fixed. A mastering engineer could often send a mixed song back to the mix engineer if something needs to be addressed.

It is a very important job and a role that many claim they can do but few do it well.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Regarding Kylo Ren's mask

Kylo's mask has several dings in it so my question is; Did he ever get into a fight while wearing the mask that caused those dings or when making the mask did he intentionally put those in to look cool like a teen aged girl with predistressed jeans?  I don't believe he has ever been in any sort of fair fight especially with how he acts fighting Finn and Rey, toying with them and acting furious and shocked when either of them put up any sort of actual defense or tag him.  With his fan boying I assume he burned those nicks in himself.

[Assistant]
Kylo Ren is severely injured when he takes on Finn and Rey, having taken a bowcaster shot to the gut already. It's not really possible to judge his fighting ability from that one fight, as even the most skilled swordsman would struggle with that kind of injury.

He's trying to finish them off quickly, aware that he wont have the stamina for a long fight, but Finn has been trained in hand to hand combat and is able to hold him off for a while and that saps his energy. By the time he fights Rey, he has lost a lot of blood, is badly injured and has gone through one fight; frankly it's a miracle he didn't just fall over and was able to acquit himself as well as he did.

Kylo Ren, for all his failings, is still a trusted commander in the First Order and has likely led his troops into battle dozens, if not hundreds of times. His helmet shows the wear and tear that any combat uniform shows after a while.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the UK have so many accents despite being a relatively small island country?

Cockney, Geordie, Welsh, Scottish (Glaswegian/Edinburgh), Irish (Northern), Brummy and many more. I know other countries have a large degree of dialect diversity but these countries (such as the US) are massive compared to the UK. So why does this small country have so many accents? Accents that can sound totally different?

[Assistant] Those accents came about from hundreds of years of small isolated communities. People were born, lived and died in the same village without travelling more than 10 miles. So lots of local words and different pronunciations began to develop.


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

[User]
[Watchmen] Why did Dr. Manhattan's touch cause flashbacks?

*WARNING: VERY MINOR SPOILERS FOR A 5-YEAR OLD MOVIE*
First of all, I apologize in advance for being an idiot and only watching the movie without reading the comics.

On two separate occasions in the film, Dr. Manhattan touches Laurie's face in order to show her his perception of time. My question is: Why does this cause both of them (and the viewer) to see one short scene from Laurie's childhood and then carry on as if now she understands (or doesn't understand, maybe it failed or something) anything better than before?

[Assistant]
The recent course of events was triggered by the death of the Comedian. Everyone has him on their mind as everything that seems to be happening ties back into why (and who) killed him.

Given Laurie and her mother's own interactions with the Comedian, it seems natural that she would be dwelling on him and that history (even if subconsciously). Her interaction with Dr. Manhattan was simply that little *something* her mind needed to connect the dots she was already thinking about.


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

[User] Besides cilantro, are there any other ingredients that have been identified to taste different to people based on their genetics?

[Assistant]
Brussels Sprouts are regulated by TAS2R38, a.k.a. the brussels sprouts gene.

TAS2R38 controls the bonding of a specific chemical called phenylthiocarbamide (PTC). If you have the gene, PTC will be detectable to you. Sprouts and cabbages are laced with PTC.

I love the story of the sensitivitys discovery. There were two scientists working in a lab, one was decanting phenylthiocarbamide, and had no idea the other could smell the horrific stench. Intrigued he basically gassed family members until he had a working hypothesis and went from there. While he didnt have the ability to inspect the genes, it was clearly genetic in nature even in the 1930s.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the actual difference between 87, 89, and 91 octane gas and what effect does it have on my vehicle?

Always wanted to know.

[Assistant]
Octane ratings are essentially the resistance of a particular fuel to pre-ignition. This used to have some direct correlation to percentage of octane in the fuel, but that's not so anymore.

If your engine has a high compression ratio, uses a turbocharger, or is otherwise "high-performance," you will most likely be required to use 91 octane or above. If you have a fairly ordinary engine, 87 octane is probably just fine. You should read the manual for your car/engine and follow its advice.

If you run high-octane fuel in an engine that doesn't need it, effect will be neutral to slightly disadvantageous.

If you run low-octane fuel in an engine that requires high-octane fuel, effects will be mildly disadvantageous to disastrous. In a modern, computer-controlled engine, preignition will be detected and corrected for at the expense of power and economy. In a non-computerized engine, you can literally destroy your engine this way, costing thousands of dollars in damage.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are you prompted to close all other programs when installing something?

[Assistant]
The installer may need access to files for a program due to some connectivity or upgrade related things and it's easier to tell you to close everything than to try and find every possible program ever made or that will ever be made that will cause instillation errors to your program. It's sort of a lazy way out of a complicated issue.

So if your program is around 15 years but you stopped supporting it, you should tell people to close anything that may need write access.


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

[User] Is it possible that, given differences in gravity and magnetic fields, an element that is unstable on this planet could exist naturally on another?

[Assistant]
Not really. An element is unstable if the nucleus is too big to be held together by the weak and strong force.

Those two forces are a **lot** bigger at those distances, than gravity or the EM force, so those two are negligible.

Consider this: if you hold one of those fridge-magnets face down and put a paper clip on the magnet, the magnet will be able to hold the paper clip against gravity. So this tiny magnet's force on the clip is bigger than the gravitational force of the entire earth. That is, because gravity is an extremely weak force compared to the EM force.

The same relation is true for strong/weak force and EM.


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

[User]
Question about anesthetic: WTF happened to me?

I went in for a gastroscopy today and they put me under a general anesthetic. When I came out of it, I was laying flat on my back and started to *press buttons* in the air above me that obviously weren't there. The nurse asks me, "honey, what are you doing?" I reply, "I'm checking Reddit on my phone."

"you don't have a phone hun. Are you seeing things?"

"Apparently so..."

That's never happened to me from anesthetic before. Is it normal to hallucinate after coming out of it? What is the anesthetic doing to my brain that made me do that? And why did I do *that* instead of something else?

**Edit**

Just so everyone knows, I'm not confused about wether I was just sedated or if I had a general anesthetic. I have all the prep forms here telling me about general anesthetic and what I can or can't do after the procedure fr 24hrs.

[Assistant]
you tend not to have a general anesthetic for a gastroscopy, usually they just sedate you with benzos. You were just hallucinating from the benzos friend. cool huh?

theres an anesthesiologist on askscience somewhere would might shed some light on why it happens.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the advent of the number 0 a big deal in mathematical history?

Based on a recent post, I saw that it is apparently a "big deal" that mathematicians started using the number zero. To me it seems that even during a hunter gatherer society someone would have asked how many blueberries another dude picked, and that guy would say 0, because he didn't find any...

[Assistant]
> To me it seems that even during a hunter gatherer society someone would have asked how many blueberries another dude picked, and that guy would say 0, because he didn't find any...

That's kinda it. They didn't say they had zero of something. They said they didn't have that something. There's a subtle difference there, where you treat the zero of something as categorically different situation than some positive number of something.

Ancient Greeks debated this, and they ended up concluding pretty much this. And for the most part, to them, this was just a philosophical question. It really didn't have any real effect to their lives if zero was considered a number or not. The great things happened when you got 0 introduced into a positional number system(which Greeks didn't have), like the one we use, where 10 for example has one of tens, and zero of ones. People had used positional number systems before, but without number zero, and as a result, they could not tell apart numbers like 1,000 and 100 because there was just blank space signifying none of that position.

Basically, it's difficult to appreciate just how revolutionary the number system we now take for granted really is, and how powerful it is in its ability to represent all numbers using just a couple of different symbols.


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

[User]
Why does fat distribution seem to change as people get older?

this is purely anecdotal as far as I know, but I know a ton of people who used to be chubby all around as teenagers and young adults, their body would put a lot of the fat in their thighs and in general spread pretty evenly around their body. As they get older it seems that they have totally fit looking legs and arms, but fat starts getting distributed straight to their gut (men and women alike.)

Is it known why this happens?

[Assistant]
Fat cells stored lipids as triglycerides and can't release them unless the enzymes necessary are present and active. If the cell loses its hormone receptors that normally trigger lipolysis, the fat stays there. So, fat accumulates in regions where lipocytes have been 'down regulated' for lipolytic hormones such as epinephrine.

 "A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips."


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

[User]
[Star wars] Are there any type 2 or 3 civilizations?

It seems to me like there should be type 2 civilizations and things like Dyson arrays and the such but they're never really talked about and there are plenty of people throughout the Galaxy that barely even live at the technology that we have today. I know that in Legends there's things like the Star forge which would most definitely be like a type 2 energy source.

[Assistant]
The problem with stars technology in the sense of its scaling is with its power generation.

Whatever is powering literally everything is far more energy dense than anything we have ever seen. So why build a dyson sphere if some reactor will deliver the same amount of power>


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

[User] [MCU] In infinity war, before Peter gets snapped, he says I dont know whats happening and clearly is overcome with a feeling of sickness, before falling and succumbing to his fate. Biologically, what likely was Peter going through, and what was he feeling?

[Assistant] Most other people don't seem to display pain or suffering, more astonishment than anything. It's possibly Parker's spider-sense going into overdrive knowing that he's in mortal danger with no escape mechanism.


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

[User] ELI5: How does Bluetooth get in sync with videos and sound even though Bluetooth has quite a big delay?

[Assistant]
Cache.  If/when you're streaming over bluetooth it's not in real time.  It's delayed just enough to copy enough of the file to the display device so that the program can be relatively confident it will play without errors.  With proper transfer speeds and compression, the delay can be almost imperceptible to the viewer, but in computer timing small portions of a second can be more than enough time to "stockpile" enough data to present it smoothly

**grammar and spelling*


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

[User]
Do electric cars use electrical energy from the battery more efficiently than gasoline/diesel cars use heat energy from their fuel?

Simple question: In terms of total Joules of energy transmitted to the crankshaft (...or whatever electric cars connect to the drivetrain), which is the most efficient, strictly speaking?

[Assistant]
Yes.  By a very large margin.

A heat engine like a gas engine converts between 20-30% of its thermal energy into kinetic motion at the crankshaft.

An electrical motor can convert over 90% of the energy within a battery into kinetic motion given the right motor sizing.

So if we have 1000KJ within a battery vs 1000KJ within a gas tank the Electric motor will allow the car use much more of that energy, and waste much less heat than a gas engine.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between medicine injected in the veins through your arms or places with easy access, vs the butt cheeks?

[Assistant]
Medicine injected in the vein enters your bloodstream directly.  This is called *intravenous injection*.

Medicine injected into your body is either *intramuscular* (e.g. the butt cheeks, where it goes into your muscle) or *subcutaneous* (e.g. your ~~arm~~ stomach, where it goes under your skin).

There are other injection sites (e.g. intracavernous where you inject into a sinus) but these three are by far the most common.

Injection method involves four criteria: Effectiveness, safety, patient preference, and economics.

* Effectiveness varies from drug to drug.  Most drugs are most effective when injected intravenously, because that puts the drug directly into your bloodstream with no intermediate effects, but others are most effective when taken up via a muscle.  Subcutaneous is rarely the most effective.
* Safety also varies from drug to drug, but generally speaking intravenous injection is the least safe due to the possibility of vein damage.
* Patient preference is less important, but still a factor.  Intramuscular and subcutaneous injection are preferred by many patients because they can perform it themselves at home with high safety, unlike IV injection which should be performed by a medical professional.
* Finally, economics comes into play.  Some drugs require 10x the dosage when used intramuscularly as opposed to intravenously.  Other drugs require a special formulation for intramuscular injection which is 50 times as expensive as the intravenous formulation.  In these cases, the economics becomes important and IV injection may be preferred despite other drawbacks.


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

[User]
[Aladdin] Who made the cave of wonders?

It was built as a test to see if one was worth y to wish on the lamp but who made the decision that this was way too powerful for anyone to have? or is that part of the curse of being a genie that once the 3 wishes dose it just go back? If so why didnt it happen when Jafar made his last wish?

[Assistant]
I think you're making a lot of assumptions that may not have a strong basis.

In a world with magic, things do not necessarily need to be built. They can simply *be*.

What's more, it would be fairly easy to imagine a previous owner of the lamp whose last wish was that the lamp be sealed away for a thousand years or something. In that case, it *also* was not built so much as...poofed?


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

[User]
ELI5: The benefits the US gets from protecting Israel so much.

I've always been rather perplexed by the U.S position regarding Israel. It never seemed to me that Israel really could offer the U.S THAT much that Israel needed such protection. It strikes me that Israel can do NO wrong in the eyes of the U.S, and I'm wondering how and why such a relationship was created and persists to this day.

[Assistant] Actually Israel has the most advanced weapons/military technology in the world.  Since they face threats/attacks everyday they have to be ready with top notch technology.  The U.S. does get the benefit of trading our weapons with their weapons.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that if you lick or spit on something, your saliva smells pretty bad, but it doesn't necessarily taste bad to kiss someone?

And another person's mouth doesn't have to smell bad up close either.

[Assistant] Dental student here. You don't smell the odor compounds when they are dissolved in the saliva. It is only when the saliva dries up, like when you lick the back of your hand, that you can smell them. That's why you tend to smell bad breathe when someone talks; the moving air dries up the mouth and carries the compounds toward you.


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

[User]
[General] Iron vs. Magic

Why is iron so commonly considered "antimagic"? Not just spells, but also many supernatural beings are weak to it.

[Assistant]
There is the theory that in early history during the Bronze Age and earlier, mankind was more primitive and feared the supernatural. The Bronze Age was when they still regularly forged metal weapons, armor and tools from the softer bronze, but the Iron Age began when mankind became more industrious, using more advanced scientific techniques to refine metals, to get more purified and stronger iron. This advancement revolutionized metalworking, caused cultural growth, and mankind was not as fearful of the supernatural as they were taming and conquering nature. Iron made for better weapons, horseshoes, ploughs, etc. Being less reliant upon their belief in the wild supernatural coincided with their reliance upon the controllable iron. The story of iron keeping fairy and demon away and obscuring magic became commonplace.

On a side note, the belief that Silver has effect on certain creatures of the night like undead and werewolves may be dependent upon the fact that historically silver in considered a lunar metal affiliated with the moon, while gold is a solar metal affiliated with the sun.


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

[User]
No matter how we create energy, why do we still use it to boil water to move a turbine?

Is it seriously the most efficient method we have? Is there any research that is trying to find a better method of creating electricity from raw heat/energy produced through methods like fission or fusion or burning ass loads of coal.

How efficient is the steam method?

[Assistant] pretty much as efficient as we can make it. What it really boils down to is that the most efficient method of generating electricity is turning a magnet inside a bunch of coils. Steam is useful because there's a lot of water around, water absorbs a lot of energy from a variety of sources, and the waste product of hot water is fairly (though not entirely) environmentally friendly (barring the method used to heat the water like burning coal). Furthermore turbines are excellent for gathering the energy of a moving fluid and turning it into the rotational energy necessary to generate the electricity.


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

[User]
[General] What is it that makes multiverse versions of someone still fundamentally them at their core and doesn't just kick off a "The Egg" scenario where everyone is everyone?

To use some specific terms, though it has been fan-theorized at minimum that all Mortys become Ricks eventually or at least that "ours" (as in the one from the show we're following) will, what makes all the other characters not just really divergent Ricks too, or why isn't everyone in the MCU all Variants of each other as if there's infinite possibilities...

What fundamental thing binds all versions of the same person together?

[Assistant]
To borrow from Rick & Morty, they have the "Central Finite Curve", a representation of the "mean average" of their part of the multiverse. There are infinite dimensions, but a functionally finite number that produced something or someone recognizable as Rick Sanchez. We mostly only see the Ricks and Mortys from close to the curve, plus some outliers like "Simple Rick" and "Tall Morty".

This concept can apply to other multiverses. You only see the ones where the characters are recognizable because those dimensions are effectively "neighbors", and if you went further out on the curve you could see things get weirder and weirder to the point of complete unfamiliarity.


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

[User]
[Dune] Will shields save you from large impacts?

If you had a shield active and were struck by something at high speed like a car or some other large object would the shield save you from the impact? Likewise, could you survive falling from a high place and hitting the ground or would you just be a bubble of mush?

[Assistant] No, the shields would not protect you from getting hit by a car.  They prevent penetration, but the force is still imparted.  You're surrounded by Space Kevlar, not kinetic energy negation handwavium.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes eggs so essential to a lot of baking recipes?

[Assistant]
Eggs have lots of functionality in baking.

One of the main functions in many recipes calling for eggs is to add structure to the product. Eggs contain lots of proteins wich will coagulate once they reach a certain temperature. Once the proteins "set" they hold their shape therefore adding structure to cakes or thickening custards for example.

These same proteins are responsible for egg's ability to hold air bubbles when whipped. When you whip egg whites into a foam thousands of tiny air bubbles are trapped by the proteins. These bubbles make the finished product more light and airy. The most pure example of this is a meringue.

Eggs also act as an emulsifier when mixed with two ingredients that have a hard time staying well mixed on their own. This adds to the overall texture and makes the product more stable.

Eggs also have some other more minor (but still important) functions
as well. Eggs yolks are a good source of fat which adds richness and creaminess to many products. Eggs contain a lot of water which contributes to keeping the baked good moist. Eggs also add flavor and important nutritional content to the foods they are in as well. Finally, eggs add color to baked goods, most noticeably when egg-wash is brushed on top of a product before baking, this will add sheen and allow for a darker finish.

Hope this helps!


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

[User] Perhaps a silly question; why is space so cold?

[Assistant]
Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles in your medium.  In a vacuum, there are _very_ few particles (atoms, molecules, etc) present, and although those that are present may have a great deal of energy, there simply aren't enough for the word "temperature" to have much meaning.

If a person (or anything wet) goes out into space without a suit, they will freeze (eventually), not because space is inherently "cold", but because the pressure is so low. This results in boiling/evaporation of the water the body.  Heat from the body goes into the vaporization of water, which, given time, will freeze the body solid as the temperature drops far enough.


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

[User] [Lovecraft/Hitchhiker's Guide] What is more mentally scarring: looking at an eldritch horror or being in the total perspective vortex?

[Assistant]
The Total Perspective Vortex shows you what is. Eldritch horrors show you what *should not be*.

Both expose you to the vast, unfathomable size of the universe, and our sheer insignificance in the face of all that is, but the Great Old Ones add in a dollop of fifth-dimensional squid-faces. That makes them slightly more mind-breaking.


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

[User] [General] Which villains are kind of nice when they're not trying to take over the world or doing other villain related things?

[Assistant]
The Mayor from Buffy was always soft-spoken, polite, exciteable, quick to give useful advice, he efficiently fulfilled the duties of his office, and he gave a troubled girl a parental figure for the first time in her life.

He also wanted to transform into a giant demon snake and devour the town, but you know what they say, you can't make an omlette without sacrificing a few eggs in the name of dark gods.