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

[User] [MCU] Do the Guardians know how powerful Thor is?

[Assistant]
They have a vague impression, but not a clear picture.

When they met him, he had been floating in space for an indeterminate amount of time without suffering harm. His response to this ordeal was to ask for a cup of soup and a space shuttle so he could go grab a weapon powerful enough to kill Thanos. Assuming they believed that he was actually capable of that (and Rocket at least seemed to), that alone puts Thor near to top level of anyone they've ever faced. Rocket has also seen Thor unleash hell with Stormbreaker, so Rocket knows that Thor is at least an army killer.

I don't think he actually saw Thor and Stormbreaker overpower the Infinity Gauntlet, though, which would raise Thor from "very impressive" to "pants-shittingly impressive." And Peter and the others weren't un-snapped until after Steve, Tony, and Thor did most of their fighting against Thanos is *Endgame*. So for most of the guardians, Thor's biggest feats were off-screen.

Also, Thor is the kind of guy people underestimate. He doesn't take many things seriously, and it's easy to think of him a joke, not a warrior-king. This is especially true after his five-year Lebowski impersonation. Very few people have seen him rage hard enough to blacken the daytime skies, and even fewer have lived to tell about it.


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

[User]
Why do some white piano keys not have black keys between them?

A related question: Is the pitch difference from an E to F (which have no black key between) the same as the pitch difference from D to E (which have a black key between), and if so, why is E to F called a half step and D only half steps up to D#?

[Assistant]
Can you make the music that they play in the movie Jaws, when the shark comes close? Ask someone to sing it to you if you don't know.  Those two notes are a semi-tone apart. That's the name we give to how different those two notes are.

All of the notes on a piano are exactly a semi-tone away from their neighbors. So, why weren't they laid out in a nice row? Well, musicians long ago discovered that if you skip certain notes, it makes a nice tune. You might have heard of it, "Do re mi fa so la ti do", from The Sound of Music.  They called these notes the "Major Scale".  They found that if you only use these notes, people found your tunes easier to sing and remember.

They put all the notes of the major scale onto the white notes, and all the notes they skipped over onto the black notes.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why did Dumbledore borrow James Potter's invisibility cloak while they were hiding from Voldermort?

If the cloak is so powerful that even death can't find you, wouldn't it be more useful in the hands of people who are hiding Wizard baby Jesus from magic Hitler?

[Assistant]
Dumbledore had the suspicion that it was one of the Deathly Hallows and wanted to confirm it was. He needed to borrow it to examine it and thought the Potters safe with the protection of the Fidelius.

It should also be noted that the cloak, while exceptional, was penetrated by Moody's magical eye and Dumbledore on different occasions. Being a Hallow was more of a prestige and unique aspect. None of the items were infallible.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do companies with perfectly good mobile sites want us to download their app so badly?

I don't get what they have to gain from me using their app over their website.

[Assistant]
It's a marketing tool.

Having their app on your phone basically means they have their company now in your pocket. They know how much you check your phone. Now that their app is there they have an ad right on your phone! Push notifications? Perfect!

Yes their website is amazing and very mobile friendly, but their website isn't on your phone, you have to go to it through another app. Downloading their own app basically means you just subscribed to their company and you are now their Guinea pig.


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

[User] What would happen if a country didn't have a central bank?

[Assistant]
First, Ill assume you mean they develop in such a way that they never established a central bank for whatever reason. That said, no central authority would have the ability to manipulate a countrys money supply. So they couldnt employ counter cyclical monetary policies. Also there probably wouldnt be a generalized currency that everyone in the country uses. Independent banks would issue their own currency and set their own money supply. So in practical terms that would result in 100s or 1000s of currencies within an economy.

If you wanna read more about the United States time without a central bank, google free banking.


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

[User] [Flash TV/General Superheroes/Sci-fi] How are the engineers and scientists so quickly able to so come up with the right theory and engineer the right solution for their problems?

[Assistant]
Leonardo da Vinci sketched birds in flight, but we couldn't confirm the accuracy of the sketches until we had invented high-speed photography. The man's memory and attention to detail were just that good.

Nikola Tesla was able to draw up mental blueprints to machines that worked perfectly when assembled in reality. More, he was able to build things in his mind, run them for hours, and then disassemble them to *check for wear*.

Someone with dissociative identity disorder not only hears voices, but those voices can also talk among themselves. Now imagine if they actually had meaningful discussions, with different voices arguing for different things, all of them moving toward a conclusion.

It's hard to tell what's going on inside the mind of a genius. We think they're smarter than us, but we usually don't know what that involves.


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

[User]
ELI5:  Why does it take 30 minutes to install some programs but not even 30 seconds to uninstall it?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
When a computer writes something to a disk, like when you're installing something, it has to do two things. First, it has to write the data to the disk. This takes up most of the time. Then it has to make a record in a special part of the disk called an index that says "the data you're looking for is over here" so that the disk can remember to find it again later and so that it isn't overwritten by accident when more data is written.

When removing something from the disk, like when uninstalling, the computer just needs to remove the record from the index. That will make the disk "forget" that the data is there. This takes a lot less time than actually writing the data.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it so easy to count down (10, 9, 8, etc.), but so difficult to recite the alphabet backwards?

[Assistant] Because the arrangement of the alphabet is ultimately arbitrary but the arrangement of numbers is not; because of the fact that the arrangement of numbers is meaningful (for example, you probably do subtraction all the time even without noticing) you get good at it; but because you very infrequently need to reverse the (arbitrary) order of the alphabet, you don't get good at it.


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

[User]
[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory] How come all five kids are the same age?

In most adaptations, all five of the kids appear to be around 11-12, which is oddly convenient. Given how popular Wonka's candy is, wouldn't it make more sense for the kids' ages to vary from seven to eighteen?

[Assistant] There's a theory that Wonka rigged the contest to find five ideal candidates. Augustus loves chocolate, Veruca understands business, Violet loves gum, Mike understands marketing, and Charlie has a noble conscience. Of course, only Charlie made it through the "job interview", so he became the sole owner of the Chocolate Factory.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is happening in my body when I get the feeling I'm hungry?

Basically when I get hungry, I'll get this almost sick feeling. I can feel air bubbles or something moving around and coming up and it's uncomfortable. What is going on?

[Assistant]
A lot of the sensation of being hungry comes from your brain and not your stomach. You often feel hungry in response to changes in your blood sugar level rather than the fullness or emptyness of your stomach or intestines.

When you actually do feel pain or discomfort from your abdomen while being hungry, that means that part of your stomach or intestines are actually empty of food and bile, but the involuntary muscular contractions that help you digest food are still taking place. A 'bubble' may actually be a pocket of gas from digesting starchy food being moved back and forth by these contractions. It may also be air you swallowed. Most of the time it's just your stomach or intestines writhing, though.

Nice image, huh?


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

[User]
How were roots and logarithms inititially calculated without the use of calculators?

Right now all I do is use the root, log or ln button in my calculator and it spits the answer out. Is there a systematical way of calculating this by hand?

[Assistant]
There are methods that can be used to approximate roots and logarithms using pen and paper. Calculators also use such approximation techniques, but can perform them much more rapidly, so they can produce much better results.

For square roots, the oldest known approximation method is the Babylonian method. This method works by taking, for the square root of an input value S, an initial guess, x0, for the solution (perhaps the nearest integer root, but any guess works). You then compute the average of x0 and S / x0:

(x0 + S / x0) / 2

This value you call x1 and you repeat the process with x1 instead of x0. This can be iterated until the desired accuracy is reached, as the estimate comes closer to the actual solution with every iteration.

Approximation methods for logarithms are a bit more complex, but follow the same pattern of iterating a set of simple operations until the approximation reaches the desired level of accuracy.

Note that in the past, people working with logarithms often used so-called logarithm tables, large tables containing many precalculated logarithm values.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do cell phones and radios still have such crappy audio quality?

[Assistant]
Lower-quality audio doesn't require as much bandwidth (like an audiobook recorded at 32 kilobits per second rather than 128 kbps or greater, such as we use for music).  Unlike a web page or a Youtube video, conversation needs to go in both directions in *real time* without significant lag.  The cell phone companies may well be sacrificing sound quality for increased redundancy (and therefore, reliability) in the packets of voice data going each way.

And to be fair, even sound quality on corded phones remains underwhelming.


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

[User]
ELI5 - Why do ISPs have a monopoly in practically all areas of the united states?

I mean, everything I know about free market would dictate that a company being terrible to their clients would cause an opportunity to start an ISP that doesn't suck in an area.  Did they somehow manage to finagle laws to be anit-competitive?

[Assistant] The infrastructure required and the work needed to lay down all the cables necessary to compete with an existing company is too great of a barrier to entry, so most markets remain relatively unchallenged.


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

[User] [Death Note] Are shinigami obligated to do the eye deal?

[Assistant] Nope. They don't have to offer or accept the deal, its just that half of someone's lifespan both gives them extra life for themselves and shortens the time it takes to get their deathnote back. Plus, all the extra killings means more life for them.


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

[User]
ELI5: The Tor Project

Well, as a non computer person, I was just straight up confused reading through that AMA...

Can anyone break it down to a basic level?

[Assistant]
OK

So you have a message you want to send over the internet, but you don't trust your internet service provider (ISP).  Maybe you're a political activist, or a criminal, whatever.  If your ISP finds out, they'll tell the police, and the police will come and arrest you.

There are a bunch of people across the world who have keys to lock-boxes, and any lock-box can fit inside any other lock-boxes.  Now you pick three of these people, Alice, Bob, and Chuck to relay your message.

First, you put your message in a lock-box that only Chuck has the key to.  Then you put that lock-box in another lock-box that only Bob has the key to.  Then you put THAT lock-box in another lock-box that only Alice has a key to.  Then you pass the whole thing off to Alice.

Alice unlocks the outermost box and sees that the inner box can only be unlocked by Bob.  So she sends it to Bob.  Bob unlocks the box and realizes that the inner box can only be unlocked by Chuck, so he sends it to Chuck.  Chuck then unlocks the box and sees that the message is going to Google (or whoever) and sends the message.  If Google responds, it'll respond directly to Chuck.  Then Chuck sends the response in a similar lock-box manner to Bob who then sends it to Alice who then sends it to you.

The idea is that in this chain of communications, no ISP (or country even) has full control.  You and Alice might live in China, but Bob might be in Europe, and Chuck might be in the USA.  If the Chinese authorities tap into your internet connection all they'll see are these lock-boxes going between you and Alice and Alice and Bob, but they don't have enough power to arrest all of the people with all of the keys, so they can't see any of the messages that are being sent or where the messages are actually ending up.  (Although they can see that SOMETHING was sent).


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

[User] [Cyberpunk] I am almost fully cybernetic and now I want to go back to being (mostly) organic. Is this possible?

[Assistant] Depends on what point in the timeline you're at. By the Time of the Red and out to 2077, bespoke high-speed organ cloning is a mature enough technology to have put most conventional organlegging out of business, so getting your cyber parts replaced with organic parts that are a close match for your original meat. Prior to that (4th Corporate War and earlier) the tech exists, but is more or less the exclusive toy of the very, very rich, so it's still an option but it's going to cost you.


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

[User] [Deadpool] we know Deadpool to be a 4th wall breaking bad ass whos always snarky, happy-go-lucky and eating a chimichanga. Has he ever shown any emotion though? Has he ever taken anything seriously?

[Assistant] Hes shown plenty of emotion over his time, ranging from sorrow and regret to genuine happiness. Most of the time those occur are with characters such as Cable and Spider-Man (I also think Captain America at one point?). Deadpool also gets serious when things with kids come up, which also draw on some of his more emotional moments. His friendship with Kid Apocalypse and spending time with his daughter also come to mine.


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

[User]
[DC] Why does Luthor harbor such a hatred for Superman yet not "other" godlike beings?

We've seen Luthor sometimes form alliances with other alien beings, or other superhumans, why does Luthor not share the same hatred for them as Superman? Is it something personal? I mean my understanding was that Luthor is arrogant and envious that he gets to be a human yet live in a world with all these other super beings. So why doesn't he get mad at Shazam, or Wonder Woman or anyone else who is also in the leagues of Superman.

Why Clark Kent?

[Assistant]
Well for one, Superman lives in the same city - and thus is a perpetual thorn in his side.

Another reason is that Superman is an "imposter," an alien from another world galavanting around with his superpowers but who looks just like you and me; Wonder Woman is an Amazon, she's okay because they're from Earth. Same with Flash, just a human but with superpowers. Lex projects his ego onto Superman, and it makes him feel insecure to be this weak, helpless human standing next to a Kryptonian who *obviously* thinks he's better than actual humans, because that's how Lex would feel in Superman's shoes.

Martian Manhunter, Darkseid, and other aliens at least look different enough. They're just freaks from other worlds, as far as Lex is concerned. But Superman... Superman is better at being a human than other humans! He makes real humans look bad!


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

[User]
How is money stored in computers?

I have read that most of the worlds money only exists digitally. If this is true, then how do you distinguish a real dollar stored in a banks data system and a fabricated one? Does each unit of currency have its own identifying code? Does it work anything like Bitcoin?

[Assistant] Money has been created from thin air for hundreds of years, ever since fractional reserve banking. Someone would deposit $100 into their account at the bank, and that bank would loan out $90 of that, holding $10 in reserve just in case someone needed to make a withdrawal. (People don't generally withdrawal their entire savings at once, which is why this works, until/unless you have a run on the bank.) In that situation, $90 was created out of thin air. Physically, $100 exists, but, on the books, $190 exists. So much money exists that is not physical, but is on the books. The only difference is that, now, the books are stored on hard drives instead of in ledgers. Each digital dollar does not have an identifying code, though physical bills do. It is just the digital equivalent of a ledger, so the bank's system would keep track of all your withdrawals and deposits as well as give you the current total in your account. It's just a bunch of $XXX.YY ledger entries denominated in dollars.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can the quietest room in the world be -9 decibels?

This is just very confusing for me.  Would the sound be effected before it was created?

[Assistant] Decibels are a logarithmic scale. 0 isn't no sound, it's just the lower-limit of what a human can typically hear. So -9 isn't no sound at all, it's just quieter than the quietest sound a human can detect, by a factor about the same as the factor between 0 decibels and 10.


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

[User] Eli5 why are solar panels not used to run cars ?

[Assistant] Current solar panels (the size of a car roof) can't get enough energy into the battery fast enough at the rate-of-draw that an electric vehicle needs. Much better to have bigger / fields of panels that store to a battery, and just take what's needed to charge the vehicle from the deposit.


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

[User]
What are some examples of viruses that do not provide immunity post infection?

All the COVID news releases saying "There's no evidence being infected provides immunity."

I understand that it's researchers choosing their words carefully, since there's not evidence about a lot of things COVID related because it's so new; and policymakers don't want people to start thinking their immune and taking unnecessary risks.

I always thought once you had a specific virus you were immune to it until it until it mutated. I'm also not talking about colds and flus here because those are caused by several different types of viruses and have different serotypes.

So is it really possible that a viral infection could provide no immunity?

[Assistant]
Yes, it is possible. And unfortunately, the first cases that come to mind are other human coronaviruses that cause common colds - you can be infected by the same virus every couple years. The general trend is that if it doesn't elicit a strong immune response, there is not a strong memory immune response, so virus-specific antibodies and T cells decline in the span of months.

This doesn't rule out a vaccine though. With a vaccine, you can use adjuvants to trigger a stronger immune response alongside the antigen, and provide longer-lasting memory.


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

[User]
Is there a taste equivalent of olfactory fatigue?

I was chatting with another engineer at work about a time when I worked in a lab and someone cracked open a bottle of mercaptan to draw off a sample.  They opened the bottle too much.  We didn't smell anything after a few seconds, but the neighbors across from us reported a natural gas leak to the fire department.

In relaying this story, we got wondering: is there an equivalent to olfactory fatigue for taste?  What kind of things would trigger it (spice, etc.)?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
This phenomenon is called sensory adaptation, and it's pretty common in all sensory systems, even vision. That's what makes those illusions where you stare at a fixed point in a reverse-colour image and then see a true-colour image work. Or, if you stare at a fixed point and keep your eyes perfectly still, your vision will quickly start to grey out. Try it! It's hard, your eyes are always moving for exactly this reason.

Yes, it can definitely happen on the tongue, but it's less common to experience it because your mouth is usually being constantly flushed with saliva, washing stuff away so that what's in the next bite will contrast with the absence of taste. This is, in fact, why water has a sort of taste of its own: It tastes different than saliva, because saliva has a specific mixture of electrolytes and other stuff in it.

This can't really happen with a smell that's everywhere around you, because there's no fresh air to contrast the smell against.

Long story short, our sensory systems are best at detecting change / contrast.


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

[User]
What did Nietzsche mean by The criminal of criminals is consequently the philosopher in The Antichrist?

The full quote is:

> Second proposition.

> - Any participation in church services is an attack on public morality. One should be harsher with Protestants than with Catholics, harsher with liberal Protestants than with orthodox ones. The criminality of being Christian increases with your proximity to science. The criminal of criminals is consequently the philosopher.

It comes in the end of Antichrist but apparently some copies dont have this final chapter.

[Assistant]
This snippet of reasoning relies for its meaning upon an unstated (and thus, implied) principle. This principle basically runs as follows: the extent of one's moral culpability with dogmatism is proportional to the degree to which one has been exposed to better information - in this case: a liberal, scientific education. He's using the word "criminal" here to be polemical (i.e. to rile up the reader).

In essence, Nietzsche is saying that educated people who ought to know better are especially blameworthy for the intellectual compromises they make. Since Nietzsche thought that most philosophers make these kind of compromises all the time (and since philosophers are very highly educated), he thinks they are especially vulnerable to this critique.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do certain things seem appealing in the process of sex but not afterwards? NSFW

For example, the porn you watch when you masturbate seems great at the time but after you've finished you realize how disturbing it really is. Another example is enjoying anal play, to the extent of trying to be fisted, but afterwards realizing how painful and unnatural that is. Why do these urges happen but then shame and regret follow?

[Assistant] The process of becoming sexually aroused inhibits the regions of the brain involved with disgust. Hypothetical: spiders disgust a person. If That person were to become sexually aroused, and then shown a picture of a spider, the picture of a spider would no longer disgust that person. Once no longer sexually aroused, the picture would once again disgust the person, and possibly the person's memory would, as well.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is tree shade a cooler temperature than other shade?

[Assistant] Plants engage in *evaporative cooling.* That is, they allow water to evaporate from their surfaces, which draws heat away into the breeze. Thus they are actually a bit cooler than their non-living surroundings.


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

[User]
CMV I am pro choice when it comes to abortion. Why shouldn't I be?

Years ago, in high school I used to be all Republican, anti abortion hoorah mentality. Changed my mind on a lot of issues after moving out to a college town and experiencing more cultures and diversity it living. Now I'm very much pro choice, left leaning. I believe a free America means freedom to choose what you do with your body. Our government is far from perfect, they are the last people I think should be controlling what we do with our bodies. Problem is my family(uncle, mom, grandparents) are Christians and believe it's wrong to support a company such as PP that performs abortions. Though they agree in cases of rape and life endangerment, they are against abortion and see it as killing an innocent defenseless child.

Are they right? Am i? What do you think?

[Assistant]
this issue is really not going to get settled here and rather than get drug down into it I'll try to state the issue as neutrally as possible.

Basically it comes down to two issues:

* Are fetuses persons with rights like you or I.

* Does the right for a fetus to live trump the women's right not to be pregnant.


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

[User] ELI5: Why isn't there a "life skills" class offered in highschool to teach kids how to change tires, get credit, and other necessary information to function in the real world?

[Assistant]
we had one in high school (not in the US) it included:

* Checkbook balancing - basic financial skills. (loans, debts etc..)
* Cooking.
* Sowing and knitting. (You can't imagine how useful it is to know how to hem or fix something!)
* Basic vegetable gardening.
* Basic electricity. (how to wire a plug etc.)
* Basic car stuff. (change tires/check pressure, check oil, add wiper fluid etc..)

It was awsome!


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

[User]
ELI5:Why game devs region-lock games, even if it's a free-to-play?

Paid games are region-locked to protect developer's profits. But why they also lock f2p games? I noticed some are especially harsh in enforcing the region lock by throwing in all kinds of anti-import measures they can think of stop people from playing the games outside it's intended region.

[Assistant] A regional lockout may be enforced for several reasons, such to stagger the release of a certain product, to hinder grey market imports by enforcing price discrimination, or to prevent users from accessing certain content in their territory because of legal reasons (either due to censorship laws, or because a distributor does not have the rights to certain intellectual property outside of their specified region).


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

[User] ELI5: Why are some patches of ice more slippery than other patches?

[Assistant]
Ice is slippery when there is nothing on it to provide friction.

So if you spread sand over it, even is small amounts, it will already be less slippery.

When there is damage to the surface, even the smallest ribbles caused by melting and freezing again, that will make it already less slippery.


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

[User] Can a virus go extinct?

[Assistant]
Yes!

In fact, humans have caused the (effective) extinction of a virus, on purpose. That would be smallpox, and its eradication is a great success of modern medicine.

We're very close to doing it with polio as well.


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

[User]
[Standard Fantasy Setting] What would the romantic perceptions of humans be for various fantasy races?

Humans (both in real life and in fiction) have a tendency to romanticize various fantastical races.

Vampires as brooding bad boys or slinky seductresses with tragic pasts and hidden hearts of gold who need the love of a good (human) man or woman to heal them.

Elves as glamorous prince or princess types, often appearing snobby before their brittle exteriors melt.

Mermaids as universally beautiful sirens who desire only to marry a human man (Mermen dont get as much press, but they usually seem to go for a handsome prince vibe).

Even Orcs get portrayed as hunky, rough barbarians or sexy action girls.

What about the reverse? Since there are so many half-elves, half-orcs, half-demon, half-pretty much everything, they must find us attractive, too.

If an Elf author was writing a romance novel about an Elf falling for a Human, how should we expect the Human woman/man to be portrayed?

What about stories written by Dwarves, Halflings, Orcs, etc?

[Assistant]
I could see Elves as writing humans as "manic pixie dream girls".

In an Elven romance novel, a human's short lifespan and lack of experience makes them naivet, but also impulsive and adventure seeking.

For example, the Elven protagonist of a romance would have to deal with elaborate and lengthy courtships from Elven suitors, but secretly desire the fiesty, earthy, human stable boy.


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

[User] [Futurama] Why does Earth appear to be the only planet with a diversity of intelligent species? All other planets have one species (robots, apes, Omicronians), but earth doesn't seem to be even majority human.

[Assistant]
Earth isn't that mixed, just New New York. On the rare occasions they go outside it they see mostly other humans or earth robots. Its the same on any planet that engages in galacic society, you will generally have offworlders in a few of the major cities, typically clustered around spaceports, universities, governent buildings, etc.  In Earth's case NNY is the home of DOOP, earth government and a bunch of other things so attracts a lot of alien visitors.

The reason teh planet express crew so often goes to one species planets is that they're the only ones who need to hire a dedicated delivery company, the rest transport stuff through standard space cargo lanes. (Also you have to be a backwater hick to hire the professor)


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

[User] If the purpose of smell is to warn our bodies of potentially harmful chemicals and such, why do some things that smell good (soap, perfume, cologne, etc.) taste horrible?

[Assistant]
All the example products you listed are *specifically engineered* to smell good.  As in some chemists in New Jersey (ya, rly) figured out what makes things smell the way they do, extracted those compounds, and added them to soap, perfume, and cologne.

Also, the purpose of smell is just to pick stuff out of the air.  Deciding whether you like or dislike something happens in your brain, which is how you and your friends can have vast disagreements on whether something smells good, bad, or somewhere in between.


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

[User] ELI5: How do trees decide when and where their branches grow?

[Assistant] The full answer is pretty complicated, but the short version is that plants have hormones just like animals. They have growth hormones and the ability to sense light and the direction of gravity. Most plants try to grow towards light and against gravity. Many plants also grow more in the summer because they sense that the days are longer. There have been experiments done with plants kept in similar environments but with different durations of light, and it was found that you can cause certain plants to bloom depending on how long the lights are on.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does Great Britain compete together in the Olympics but separate for FIFA (eg. England, Scotland...)

Any legal/historical reasons?

[Assistant]
Between 1863 and 1880 England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland created their own individual football associations with separate leagues.

Because this was before big organised international competitions (even before the modern Olympics was started) they have ended up with separate international teams, one for each association.


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

[User] [star wars] did palpatine knew about Anakin before he was brought to corruscant?

[Assistant]
He was not.

Even in Legends, at best he was aware that there was "something" out there that was created as a backlash of the experiments he and Plagueis were getting up to, but it wasn't until Anakin showed up literally on his doorstep that he put two and two together.


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

[User]
What would the void between galaxies look like?

I am a writer and have an interesting idea for a story I would like to pursue.  However, I found myself asking a question while developing the idea farther.  In the story a man finds himself lost in the void of space while traveling from one galaxy to another.  My question is simple; what would the man see?  Would the void be full of pin pricks of light much like the night sky of earth, or would the galaxies be too far apart for the light to reach him, leaving the void utterly without light? This void is the primary setting for the story, so I would like to present it as accurately as possible.  Thanks for the help.

[Assistant] It would indeed be utterly blackness for the most part, but you'll be able to make out a few smears of light from nearby galaxies (if they're within a few million light years). On a dark night on earth, you can make out the smudge of the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years away with the naked eye.


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

[User]
Covid vaccine 2nd dose?

Is the 2nd dose of the (Pfizer or Moderna) vaccine a different formulation than the 1st? Why do people get more side effects from the 2nd dose?

[Assistant]
Both doses are the exact same formula. The reason you respond differently to the second dose than to the first dose is because your immune system is adaptive.

When you get the first dose, your immune system has never seen the COVID-19 spike protein before.

Your body mounts an innate immune response, but does not have any adaptive response yet.

The innate immune system is that part of the immune system that cant differentiate one kind of pathogen from another, but just generally attacks anything that seems foreign. This is always your first line of defense against against any disease.

The adaptive immune system is that part of your immune they learns from past experiences, and it includes those precious antibodies that specifically attack and neutralize specific pathogens that you have encountered at least once before.

That adaptive response takes a few weeks after infection or vaccination for your immune system to build up. That process of building up an adaptive response is initiated by the first dose of the vaccine.

When you get the second dose, the immune system has already been primed by its previous encounter with the COVID-19 spike protein, has built up some adaptive immunity, and is now spoiling for a fight.

So your body may react much more strongly to the second dose, as both the innate and adaptive responses kick in at once and much more robustly. And that stronger response may manifest as more side-effects.


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

[User]
Why don't Orcas attack humans?

These aquachads have teeth that would give batman nightmares and are the absolute apex predators of three quarters of the planet (with the other 25% being *land*), and prey on things as fearsome as *Great White sharks,* which *do* eat humans, even if very rarely. And yet, whenever the subject of orca predation is discussed on documentaries and such, it's always mentioned that no wild Orca has ever killed and eaten a human **even once in all of recorded history**. Why is that?

[Assistant]
Potentially partly because orca are highly selective hunters?

For example some pods exclusively hunt fish, others hunt dolphins, others hunt seals.

Not just that, different pods have their own preferred hinting techniques.

Like that famous video of orcas beaching to catch seal pups is behaviour only known from a single pod. Orca in other parts of the world don't hunt seals like that.

Orca in New Zealand specialize in hunting stingray by chasing them into shallow bays or trapping them against rock walls.

These strategies seem to be passed down through the generations within a pod, which is why they have such distinct hunting techniques.

So maybe orca don't hunt humans because they were never taught to.


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

[User]
[Terminator] Were there any humans who sided with Skynet? If so, were they afforded luxuries or special treatment besides just not being killed?

Just wondering if there were "talks" where certain groups or humans negotiated with Skynet to aid them in winning the war? Plus, I always thought it would make sense for Skynet to have some actual humans on their side for deep espionage/intel on the resistance plans.

I'm also curious what their lives were like, working for Skynet.

[Assistant]
I vaguely recall reading that Skynet employed various humans as generals, commandos or scientists. It didn't object to their continued existence, provided they were not a threat, and were totally loyal, totally obedient and did not reproduce (I don't recall whether they were all castrated or just had their tubes tied, but measures were taken to sterilize them).

I don't really recall much, but something about a human general who worked for Skynet who was considered a high-value target, and something about a commando who was so methodical, deadly and determined that he was almost as efficient as a T-800.

There are other stories about augmented human hybrids who were raised as child soldiers and infiltration commandos by Skynet, they were even capable of reproducing, and did so when they were sent into the past in order to begin building an army for Skynet. That same hybrid brought along T-800 Neural Net Processors and other key hardware, and started building Terminators as well as growing new hybrids. They were true hybrids, with a T-800's NNP implanted in their brains, making them extremely difficult to kill and capable of reviving after death for a limited amount of time to try to kill a hapless target.

Some more recent materials concern humans who were offered cybernetic augmentations and near-immortality, along with a neural chip that monitored their actions and thoughts 24/7, and who worked for Skynet designing new technologies and doing research.

Marcus Wright, from Terminator: Salvation is one such "modern" hybrid.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are the differences between all these awards show ?

The Grammys, the Golden Globes, the Emmys, the Oscars, the Tonys, the Academy Awards, the People's Choice awards .... There are so many different ones and I'm not so sure what the differences between them are. It seems some of the categories overlap as well. What's the difference between all of them ?

[Assistant]
Each award belongs to a different group.

The Grammys for example are given out by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for outstanding work in the music industry.

The same group gives out the: Emmy Awards (television), the Tony Awards (stage performance), and the Academy Awards/Oscars (motion pictures).

The specifies for each award are on Wikipedia.


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

[User]
[General fantasy zoology] Are young griffins considered cubs, or chicks?

Griffins/griffons/gryphons are half-eagle *and* half-lion (though some variants may exist in some universes where it's just a big cat and any bird of prey), so which is it when they're young?

And would they hatch from eggs like birds, or be live-born since it's typically the lion-half in the back?

[Assistant]
[](/gildaconfused) Both would be *technically* accurate, but generally the avian terms are used by default when discussing griffins.

As for their reproductive habits: it depends on the universe, but by and large most griffins lay eggs. They build nests like a bird of prey would, usually high in mountain peaks or at the tops of unscalable cliffs. Some varieties of griffin lay eggs with gold or silver shells, and will brutally slaughter anything that enters the nest area in defense of them.


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

[User]
Why does wood skip the liquid stage of matter?

Every time wood burns, it always appears to skip the liquid stage of matter. Is this true? If so why does this happen? If it's not true then what is actually happening when wood burns?

[Assistant]
Wood doesn't even enter the gas phase when it gets hot.  When you heat a solid up, all the bonds holding the material together start jiggling, including those bonding interactions that keep different molecules stuck together.  If you keep on heating, one of those interactions can jiggle fast enough to break apart.

For a small molecular solid like water ice, the first thing to break will be all the intermolecular interactions that are holding different molecules together, allowing it to melt and evaporate.  For very large molecules like the lignin that makes up the rigid portion of wood, there are so many intermolecular interactions that it takes an incredible amount of energy to break them all at once.  It's so much energy, in fact, that by the time you've added enough heat that you *could* break all of those intermolecular interactions, you also have added enough energy to break apart the chemical bonds holding the individual molecules together.

When this happens, we call it pyrolysis instead of evaporation, because the pieces that break off and either become liquid or vapor are not the same molecules as the one that existed in the solid.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does my skin feel so sensitive and why do my muscles ache when I have a cold?

[Assistant]
One of the main reasons that your body aches when you are sick, like with a cold is that your body's immmune system is producing plenty of anti-bodies.
These anti-bodies also produce histamines which typically dilates (widens) blood vessel near an infection, this allows for more of the body's defences to get at the infection.  There are histamine receptors in blood vessels that cause them to dilate. As these chemicals are released into your blood stream they can end up in your muscles or other body parts. Various body systems can have receptors to histamine that can then trigger a pain receptor.
In addition to histamines there are biochemicals called cytokines  that are released when the body has an immune response that are also known to trigger a  biochemical pathway that can affect pain receptors.

TL;DR The body's immune system sometimes trigger pain receptors or make them more sensitive when they release histamines.


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

[User] ELI5: why is it that if you draw a circle around small bugs they seem to be trapped and dont leave the circle for a while?

[Assistant] Insects aren't particularly bright. Further, their eyes aren't really that developed, so they navigate based mostly on scent. The act of drawing a circle, of leaving behind the graphite or the sharpie or whatever, breaks the trail of scent that they were following. Since they no longer have a trail to follow, they tend to mill around until they eventually pick it back up.


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

[User] ELI5 - Our bodies signal us that we are hungry but we generally have a lot of energy stored as fat. Why is that? What is the hungry feeling is telling us in fact?

[Assistant]
Hunger is triggered by the Hunger Hormone called Ghrelin. Ghrelin is produced by the body during times you usually eat. So if you always eat at 8am, 1pm, 6pm, you'll always feel hungry at those times.

When you eat, the food becomes short-term energy which lasts around 6-24 hours. Excess short-term energy not used is converted to long-term energy (fat). Since you're always refilling that short-term energy tank, your body doesnt need to use your long-term energy.


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

[User]
CMV: Restaurants that post their menus online without pricing are just hurting their own business

I mean, what's the point of doing so?

If a prospective client is interested enough to access your online menu then he or she is interested in pricing as well.

These restaurants are just creating pointless consumer friction by forcing prospects to either phone the restaurant ahead or show up and take a gamble on the prices. Frustration isn't a good way to start a customer relationship.

And if your business strategy somehow dictates you shouldn't publish your prices then don't post your menu online.

Why bring attention to the very information you want to keep private?

It also makes your place seem elitist, like if you had to ask for pricing then you can't afford it anyway.

And that might work for world class restaurants but not the random pizzeria that serves office workers. Come on, you are not fooling anyone.

[Assistant] Many restaurants are nationwide, or even international. Prices can vary wildly, even within a country/state/province. Including the wrong price accidentally would be worse, imo, than simply not having one.


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

[User] [Starcraft]Arcturus and Aldaris gets an offer from Amon to sell out their races for their chance to kill Kerrigan and become undisputed rulers, will they make the deal with the devil?

[Assistant]
Arcturus Mengsk?  Maybe; power and glory is his primary motivation, the only thing that would hold him back is that Mengsk doesn't trust anyone who would be be able to hold power over him.  A free lunch is just one you'll pay dearly for down the road, and that would make Mengsk leery of trusting someone so obviously evil as Amon.

Aldaris, despite all his faults, was a patriot.  He was an antagonist to Tassadar and Zeratul, but he believed he was doing the right thing for the Protoss as a whole.  He could be maybe be tricked into betraying the Protoss, but he would never knowingly sell out his race.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are we so concerned with automation and/or robots taking our jobs when our society has already survived exponential shifts in machinery, such as the Industrial Revolution?

[Assistant]
This is because the people who are losing their jobs don't see where there new job will be. This is the same concern people have always had.
People will always be concerned when they don't know how they will be able to feed themselves and their families.


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

[User]
How can the sun keep on burning?

How can the sun keep on burning and why doesn't all the fuel in the sun make it explode in one big explosion? Is there any mechanism that regulate how much fuel that gets released like in a lighter?

[Assistant]
There are 3 factors here:

1. It's not burning like a fire or a combustion engine or a lighter. There is no oxygen in the sun (ok there is a very small amount, but not enough to burn like that).
2. It is hot because of nuclear fusion, which requires insanely high temperature and pressure. Fusion only occurs in the core of the sun, which is the inner 1/4 radius. That means only 1/64, or less than 2% of the star's volume is actually participating in the fusion. And even then, of the 2% that can, doesn't mean it is at all times. Fusion is slow.
3. It is insanely big. The sun takes up 99.9% of the solar system's mass. The rest--all the planets, moons, asteroids, etc.--are the remaining 0.1% it's big, and has a LOT of fuel.


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

[User] ELI5: Do people have, "accents" when using Morse code?

[Assistant] It's more like everyone has their own recognizable voice rather than an accent. It's called an operator's "fist". Being able to imitate an enemy operator's fist was a vital counterintelligence skill in world war 2.


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

[User]
Is everyone's digestive tract the same length?

I mean 2 people who are the same height and size. Does this play into different levels of nutrient absorption?

[Assistant]
It wouldnt be exactly equal, but pretty close in general, yes. Motility of the GI tract and digestive fluid secretions, along with the tract walls health, would have a much larger effect than any minor differences in tract length.

If you cut out a part of the GI tract in a surgery though, that will alter your nutrient absorptionby *a lot*.


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

[User] [Fairly Odd-Parents] How powerful is an individual fairy?

[Assistant]
As far as we can tell, effectively omnipotent within Da Rules.

They do have limitations- they're dependent on human belief, and presumably other supernatural beings can match them- but for all intents and purposes, if there's not a Rule saying they can't do it, they can do it.


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

[User]
ELI5: If dogs can understand a select amount of human speech, then to what extent are they able to comprehend the idea of conversation?

Everytime I have a conversation with my family and the dog is sitting there, I wonder if she actually knows what's happening. I read somewhere that dogs are able to understand around 200 words of human speech, but how far does that go in terms of a conversation? Do they just think we're sitting there making a bunch of noises like a dog barking or a monkey yelling, or do they actually understand that we're discussing something and just not know the actual meaning of what is being said?

[Assistant]
None. Dogs may learn to associate certain sounds with certain objects or actions, but they show no evidence of being able to comprehend grammar, and are therefore unable to process the meanings of novel word combinations.

Humans are the only creatures demonstrated to have the capacity to learn language, as we seem to be the only ones that evolved the ability to process grammar. Even Koko, the gorilla who famously "learned sign language," was pretty thoroughly debunked by Steven Pinker, in *The Language Instinct.* Which is, incidentally, an excellent book to read if you're interested in how language works.


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

[User]
ELI5: What's it like inside an aurora, aka The Northern Lights?

I know the Norther Lights are caused by the Earth's magnetic field funneling solar radiation into the poles, where it causes the upper atmosphere to glow like a fluorescent light bulb. But what is it like inside the glowing part? Would it be dangerous? Apart from glowing how would it differ from the surrounding air?

[Assistant]
The glowing is very diffuse. You probably wouldn't notice much if you were inside it.

But the solar wind is throwing out vast amounts of energy. It's dangerous to be exposed to that for long periods - big problem in sending people out to Mars for example with the time they'd be exposed to that.


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

[User]
ELI5: If you drop a bowling ball off the skyscraper and it hits the ground with a lot of energy and destroys someone's car, where did the energy come from?

like was the energy created by gravity? Because I thought energy couldn't be created or destroyed.

[Assistant] When you hefted the bowling ball up the fifteen flights of stairs, you converted chemical potential energy (muscles) into kinetic energy (movement. In this case, up the stairs.) and this gives the bowling ball gravitational potential energy. The extra energy you had to spend lugging the bowling ball is then converted into kinetic energy again when the ball is dropped.


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

[User]
CMV: A suit and tie is not necessary (and should even be discouraged) to wear to work.

First, just to get this out of the way: If you love wearing a suit &tie because it makes you feel confident, helps you focus, it's comfortable to you, or any other reason that benefits you: that's great. Not saying you should be banned from wearing something that looks good on you and makes you feel good. Second, my personal perspective is that of a gay, lower middle class, white man who works as a social worker, but who has also worked in oil and gas, architecture, and other "corporate" environments as well as service industries.

Certain professions require specific clothing for safety (examples: construction workers may need a hard hat, surgeons should wear gowns/gloves/masks, etc.). Besides this, requiring that certain items of clothing be worn in order to appear "work appropriate" is an outdated, uncomfortable, disrespectful, and even oppressive idea. Why should anyone be required to wear something like a suit and tie to work? If you have to sit at a desk all day and are required to wear something with a collar, tucked into slacks, and leather shoes, what is the benefit to this uniform?

These types of clothing are typically uncomfortable. Wear a pair of leather oxfords for 10-12 hours without taking them off one day and then wear a pair of sneakers for the same time the next; what do you think will feel better? And if you don't think comfort should be considered,  what do you think is better for your feet? I understand the idea is that businesses want to maintain the appearance of "professionalism". But is the current standard of what is "professional" still necessary? Many wildly successful tech companies are notorious for having casual attire as a standard for its employees. The lack of employees wearing a silk noose did not get in the way of their exponential successes.

Beyond that, and this is where I feel I might lose some of you, I don't believe I'm the only person who can make a connection between the "ideal" of a suit & tie, and the influence of classism, sexism, colonialism, and other outdated ideals such as meritocracy and conspicuous consumption.

We can already see some movement in what women wear to work. Women aren't necessarily expected wear leather heels, a wool-blend jacket, or a blouse buttoned to the neck anymore. Women can wear clothing that is best suited to the weather if the want. In comparison, even at a not-for-profit where my clients were typically very low-income, I've been told that wearing navy dress shorts was not appropriate for work in 30+ degree weather (Celsius).

Finally - I am not advocating for wearing pajamas, sweatpants, or slippers to the office. But one thing working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic has confirmed is that wearing these types of clothing while working doesn't prohibit someone from doing a good job when their job is just sitting at a computer. I get that there's got to be some minimum requirement. But I believe we have a lot of room between that minimum and the suit and tie.

[Assistant]
The issue is that youre centering the argument around the employee (his comfort and his ability to produce the same quality of work in another attire) while neglecting the holistic view and the broader picture.

Companies can only be successful if their consumers enjoy their products and therefore adopting a customer-centric approach. You used the example of tech companies adopting a more lenient approach when it comes to attire, and thats true, but whats important to point out is that tech companies dont need a lot of in-person meetings with clients when it comes to delivering customer success since their products are mainly digital. Google just needs to make digital tweaks on their platforms based on consumer feedbacks (obtained digitally) for their customers to enjoy their products even more. And more importantly, tech companies are rather recent (most were founded in the 21st century where millennials were already challenging the whole suit/tie approach).

More traditional companies such as finance and law firms are way older and thus its more difficult to instil change in workflows that have been persisting for several decades. Secondly, their success relies on in-person meetings with their clients (to the contrary of tech companies who dont necessarily need physical presence to produce platforms that are enjoyed by consumers). As such, the in-person meetings are crucial to exhibit credibility and trust, and of course ones look isnt the sole factor taken into consideration to cement that trust, but it will be whether subconsciously or not, factored in the prospective customers opinion.


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

[User]
ELI5: If the average human heart beats 72 beats a minute. How can athletes have a resting heart rate of 40?

Please explain why/how does an athlete have to be calmer within?

[Assistant]
Athletes have very high aerobic capacity, because they regularly work out at a very high exertion level.  As a result, their very fit hearts can pump all the blood their resting body needs at only 40 BPM.

It's not a calm/Zen thing, it's a fitness thing.


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

[User] Why do all my major muscle groups ache so much during a bad cold or flu?

[Assistant] Viral strains like the flu will release pyrogenic toxins that will raise your body temperature and cause metabolic changes throughout your body. This, combined with the release of inflammatory chemicals (called cytokines) from your body, will result in the fatigue, fever, and muscle pain that is associated with the flu and bad colds. In the case of the flu, there can also be actual tissue damage that can contribute to aches and pains.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are wooden houses more prevalent in US?

It is rather a common knowledge that US undergoes series of extreme weather conditions (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, scorching summers, frigid winters, etc) every year. Wouldn't insulating concrete forms be more practical and a more durable against these elements?
I'm from the tropics so I can relate with your complains about summer. (We had 39 degree Celsius days [102-ish Fahrenheit]) Earthquakes are not that uncommon in the pacific ring of fire either. Yet our houses withstood everything. I have live my entire life here in the tropics so I can't really grasp the idea of building housings out of seemingly not durable materials thus I posted my query here in ELI5.

[Assistant]
Essentially because wood is cheap, abundant, easy to transport, and easy to work with.  In North America there is plenty of lumber that makes very good construction materials so there isn't much call for stone or concrete construction.  In areas of the world where construction grade lumber is more scarce you see many more buildings and homes built out of stone and concrete.

The weather concerns are also much less of an issue than you may believe.  Only a small portion of the country is affected by earthquakes or weather extreme enough to severely damage structures and even in those areas the incidents are rare enough that building to withstand them is generally considered over preparation.  The vast majority of homes in the US are perfectly capable of withstanding the weather they will actually experience.


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

[User]
why do the low notes on a piano carry for much much longer than the high notes?

if you slam an A in the first octave and an A in the last octave, the former will continue to output sound for much longer than the latter. why is that?

[Assistant] Because the energy in the vibrating piano wires dissipates a small percentage each vibration. So the note 'lasts' not a period of time, but a number of vibrations. Lower notes period of vibration is longer. So they last longer too.


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

[User] Eli5: How can higher labor costs increase profits? How did Henry Ford's $5 wage per day increase the profitability of Ford's motor company?

[Assistant] People who feel valued (not exclusively in terms of money!) tend to be more motivated and willing to "go the extra mile", which increases throughput and decreases errors. If someone feels exploited, why would they do more than the bare minimum to not get fired?


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How exactly does someone win/buy entire planets?

How the hell does that even work?

[Assistant]
With a fuckload of money.

As for who you buy them from, probably mega-corperations and the owners of them.

As for how they got them, they either discovered and colonized them, or they grew so big on that planets that it basicly owned everything there and had totall controll over the local market, and from there its a small step from owning the entire planet.

Its also possible to own a planet by conqouring it, but when the republic/the empire was in power, they would most likely not recognice your ownership and just see you as invaders.


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

[User] Do ants that get lost(accidentally get on my backpack) get adopted by local colonies?

[Assistant]
Depends on the species (possible for an Argentinian any) but usually impossible for other species.
For the regular black european ants, each ant colony has its own odor. Even if their queens are related.
If caught by the other colony, they would get killed and perhaps eaten.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does meat to stick to cooking surfaces?

[Assistant] Anything that goes from being viscous to being rigid will act like glue, because it'll first conform to whatever surface it's touching, getting into all the nooks and crannies. Once it hardens, it'll grab on to said nooks and crannies, and be more or less difficult to remove.


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

[User]
ELI5 - How do hacker groups take down websites "on demand"?

More precisely the Russsian government websites. How come the Anonymous decided to attack and actually be successful in bringing it down withim few hours since the announcement and then supposedly leak some data off it?
Are they good in quickly finding holes or the websites, even government ones, are poorly protected/coded?

[Assistant]
When some vulnerability is found and kept secret, it's called a 0day which literally means 0 days since it was known.  Lots of hackers have a stack of these or buy/sell them to other groups. 95% of the time it's not target specific, but a way to access a large portion of targets, but after using the exploit it will end up being publicly known and patched by vendors.

Government are also not great at staying up to date with the latest patches so it's possible there was a known flaw that was not patched.


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

[User] ELI5: If we kill bacteria using medicine, how do they become resistant to the medicine if they're dead?

[Assistant]
Evolution.

Imagine a house that has a rat infestation.  So as the disgruntled homeowner, you buy a bunch of mousetraps and lay them down.  You find great success with eliminating the rodents at first, but there are some smaller and nimble mice that can contort their bodies to get out of the mouse traps.  Over time, all the fat mice die out while the nimble ones survive.  Then, the nimble mice reproduce with each other, producing even more nimble mice that can wriggle out of the traps almost effortlessly.  By this point, almost all the fat mice have died out.  Once the next generation of nimble mice reproduce with each other, this new generation produced is *sooo* nimble that the mouse traps are basically useless.  So now there are the same amount of rats as there were originally, except the mouse traps don't work.  Now you have to go out and buy even stronger mouse traps.

In the case of your question, the rats are bacteria, the traps are antibiotics, and the house is your body.  It's not the dead ones that become resistant, it's the ones that survive that reproduce to breed a resistant strain.  Except since bacteria is constantly multiplying, it creates new generations very quickly.  It's essentially evolution on steroids.


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

[User]
CMV: "No parent is perfect" is an empty statement that does not justify or excuse your failings as a parent.

There are many communities here on reddit that relate to parenting concerns; ranging from children criticising their parents methods and parents raising concerns about their own parenting.

A common statement brought up by users as a form of reassurance or rebuttal is "no parent is perfect".

Now this statement is absolutely true. No human being has ever achieved "perfection" in parenting. Even overall amazing parents had their flaws - and thus were not perfect. The concept of a perfect parent is mythical.

This is where the issue lies; saying that "no parent is perfect" is basically telling us nothing about that individuals performance as a parent - it's basically just saying; "I performed under impossibly perfect, which is anything from scumbag to hero".

This kind of rhetoric is empty and useless and should not be used as a form of reassurance to parental failings or criticism to complaints towards parents. Everything should be judged on it's individual merit in this context.

[Assistant]
The phrase is not used to justify or excuse incorrect action by a parent. The parent is still responsible for the child and should learn from their mistakes.

The phrase is used to comfort a parent that already knows a mistake/failure occurred and feels overly down about themselves as a parent.


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

[User]
Why does my apartment in a high rise building become a wind tunnel when I open the window?

I live on the 10th floor of a 52 story building, anytime I open my windows (which BTW only open about 5 inches) air blasts in like a wind tunnel and creates a horrible whistling sound as air escapes the crack under the door to enter the apartment. Also if the window is open it's almost impossible to open the entry door as their is what seems to be a vacuum effect.

I have 4 windows, two in each room and no matter if one is open or all of them the air always rushes in and creates the whistling sound. I've tried putting a towel under the entry door to prevent the whistling sound but it just amplifies the air escaping from the top or sides of the door.

Can someone explain why this happens and how to stop it?

[Assistant]
It's caused by an imbalance in pressure between the inside and outside.  The pressure difference is something that your building's engineer can control.

The engineer typically tries to keep the building at a slight positive pressure.  When you open your window, you should have a slight breeze blowing out, not in.

You should ask your building manager to fix it.


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

[User] CMV: I feel that US Naval Dominance at Sea is threatened by a rival it may not be able to beat. Im not entirely convinced that the US Military's investment in New Ford class Carriers and the Carrier Battle group is a good investment for continued Naval Domination.

[Assistant]
Rock, Paper, Scissors.

You can't criticize the cost-effectiveness of Rock solely by looking at the advances that Paper has been making. You have to stop and ask why we have Rock in the first place - to defeat Scissors.

Carrier groups are useful for far more than blue water dominance over technologically advanced navies. They're the most powerful way for the Navy to project force over land, especially in the early stages of a conflict against an adversary who doesn't have a serious navy. They're great for providing support for ground forces in areas of the world where we don't have access to large ground bases.

And while anti-piracy, humanitarian, and counterinsurgency missions aren't "sexy," those are really important missions that we *know* the Navy will be involved in continuously over the next few decades. An actual war with Russia or China (the only non-allies who might credibly have the tech and the training and the tactics/strategy to take out a carrier anytime in the next few decades) is unlikely. Worth preparing for, sure, but still unlikely.

So I'd say it's more of an acknowledged weakness, that carriers are less cost-effective against anti-ship missiles and submarines, but that they're just so good for a lot of other things that the U.S. Navy is likely to face that it's not enough to just give up on them.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why were Dumbledore/ Voldemort so ludicrously powerful?

No-one really comes close in terms of magical ability. Sure they might be prodigies/ geniuses- but geniuses are not so rare for there to be only two anywhere near that level in the whole world.

[Assistant]
Dumbledore and Tom were both willing to experiment and research old magic.  For Dumbledore this lead him down a path of a benevolent magical dictatorship until the death of his sister.  At that point he decided to halt his ambition knowing he would never be able to stop himself from amassing knowledge and his core morality wouldnt change.  He learned more about the fundamental nature of magic than any living mage.

Tom did something similar but he never had any attachment, so he just amassed power and knowledge to make himself the ultimate power.  That led him to lichdom, most wizards dont have the skill and the ones that do dont have the desire.  He had both because he had nothing else.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do parts of your body involuntarily twitch/flutter repeatedly for short to medium periods of time?

[Assistant]
As unsatisfying as this answer is, most of the time no one has any idea why it happens. There's usually no obvious physical cause, no diseases, and no tests to show that anything is wrong. And then just as randomly stops as if it'd never been there.

And that's pretty much it. Sometimes such symptoms can be caused by injury or stroke or the like, but im assuming you're not talking about those instances.


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

[User]
CMV: I believe anyone should be able to think anything they want and say it in a private situation.

I'm not sure if this is more appropriate in unpopular opinion or CMV. I welcome any and all criticism. I also go off on tangents during this writing.

I'm about to be torn to shreds.

As a 30yo black American born in the US. I believe anyone should be able to think anything they want but say it in a private situation. I would like to note I personally have no dislike against anyone due to their race, religion, culture, or ideas.

Prime example but not limited to: I believe people are allowed to hate me for being black (the color of my skin). I believe the problem comes in when you act on that hate. If someone was to say I don't like black people; I would strongly disagree with them and I would think them incredibly ignorant, and would recommend they don't say that in certain areas, or even out loud, but I believe they have the right to think that.

 I think if they act on those thoughts they should be shunned by society. If they treat someone differently based on their skin color or beliefs. There are people I don't like (prefer strong distaste) (for personal reasons, generally attitude or character) but I am perfectly nice and polite and even helpful towards. Would saying I don't like you because you are black be considered "acting on that hate"? Perhaps. Many people probably lack the ability to separate their own thoughts from conforming to society.

 I disagree a level of violence should be done against them for their thoughts. In turn if they act on a level of violence, punishment should be handed down. As in if they threaten violence or show the intent of violence they should be dealt with. But even then they would be dealt with on their threats of violence not on their beliefs.

Of course you can't have blanket statement like that and have a functioning society. For example you can't have a store owner refusing service because someone is black.
But they should freely be able to think that I believe. CMV

Edit: So I've been replying for a few hours and handed out some deltas. I will take a break, I will try to respond more later. Have a great day

Edit: I just think there is more nuance to racism than society likes to act like.

Edit: I'm not advocating for racism. I'm saying there are levels to racism. And silencing peoples voices does not solve the issue of racism, I believe it allows it to grow in a corner. A random guy along the street saying racist things should be ignored. You should not have to deal with racism on your private property, at work, on in certain social situations. Educating racist is the best way to solve racism. I'm not saying John says a racist sentence and you pat him on the back. I am saying if John says a racist sentence figuring out why John says those things and educating him would be better. Of course there is debate is if it's up to you or not. I believe it depends on the situation.

Edit: I'm not saying be friends with racist. But every little racist situation that a person runs into is not the same. I think too much power is given to racism. Many people here have mentioned harassment. I think it's harassment through the racism. People have used religion to perpetuate crime. But you place racism you are failing to get to the root cause. In my experience common day racism is ignorance.

Edit: it's better to have discourse with racism than silence it.
The crux of it

Edit: my mind has been changed. I believe racism should not happen in public. But I believe they should be able to express it in a spot where there can be open discourse.

[Assistant]
what do you mean by "allowed"?

People obviously can't be punished for their thoughts.  There are no mind readers.  There's no proposed punishment anywhere for what people think.

But, what people think is part of their morals, even if they fear reprisal enough not to act on those thoughts.  If by allowed, you mean there should be no moral condemnation at all for evil thoughts, that seems odd to me.  People's thoughts can express what people would do, if there were critical mass to avoid judgement for acting on those thoughts.


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

[User]
[GvK] what are the Geopolitical ramifications of Mechagodzilla being a privately owned 'kaiju-killer' created by a mega-corporation like Apex Sciences?

Going past the obvious consequences of having the corporate entity pay for billions of dollars in damages and reparations to Hong Kong, but would other corporations like military contracts and science corporations, even governments pursue a new kind of defense, or offense, now that humanity has the potential to end Kaiju threats?

Would their also be any social backlash now that a handful of men and women caused the deaths of potentialy thousands in a "failed" attempt at restoring humanity as the dominant life on Earth?

[Assistant]
The first issue is that Mechagodzilla was something of an opportunistic fluke; what made it possible was the use of fairly non-replicable Kaiju parts and tissues from Ghidorah. This leads to the second issue, which is that what happened wasn't so much the development of a new anti-Kaiju weapon, so much as it was bringing a previously resolved problem back to life and setting it loose in a major metropolitan area.

Even if we assume the documentation survived the fight, there isn't really anything to for a future project to iterate on here; when you're building a superweapon out of nigh-irreplacable parts that tries to kill you the second it comes online, there's no margin of error for troubleshooting, and Godzilla is going to be crawling up your ass the whole time, and it'll be impossible to keep what you're doing under wraps from other governments as a result.


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

[User]
Wouldn't Yoda have done better with a more conservative fighting style?

Ok, Yoda seems to do a lot of bouncing around and flashy techniques in his lightsaber fights. He probably doesn't get anywhere close to an even match very often so it probably isn't an issue on a regular basis.

However, I do think it was to his detriment when he fought Dooku and Palpatine. Particularly in the case of the latter, I think he would have stood a much better change of winning if he'd taken a step back, realised that this was likely to be a difficult, drawn out fight and not wasted all his energy in the first five minutes bouncing off the walls.

[Assistant]
Yoda used his fighting style (Ataru) to compensate for his lack of reach. His style focussed on overwhelming the enemy with sheer speed and acrobatics.

Yoda was very old-school, to the point that he wouldn't even use the Force to walk properly. He and the rest of the Jedi had spent their time preparing to fight the old Sith-Jedi war that ended a millennium before, and they paid for it. He hadn't adapted to the new Sith, and trying to rethink his duelling tactics while fighting the new Sith'ari would have been suicide.


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

[User] How big has a object to be, that it would cast a shadow on the moon, visual from earth?

[Assistant] Humans can discern objects that are about one arcminute (one sixtieth of a degree) in apparent size.  The moon's apparent size is about 30 arcminutes, and actual size just under 3500 km.  So, an object that would case a shadow with an apparent size of 1 arcminute would have to be almost 60 km wide.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are human eyes usually blue, brown or green as opposed to any other colors?

[Assistant]
The stroma (top layer of the iris) is what determines eye color. For those with no melanin (pigment that makes eyes or skin a warm brown), the only color comes from the Tyndall effect of light scattering in the iris. This creates a blue color, like water with glacial flour or dirty smoke.

When the stroma has a little melanin, it looks green because this blue combines with the the orangey brownish melanin. When it has a lot of melanin, the brown color takes over completely.


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

[User] ELI5: Why did we Americans name our sport "Football" when there was already a sport called that with entirely different rules?

[Assistant]
Because your premise is faulty. There is no single game whose English name is "football". Football is a category of games played on foot and using a ball (in opposition to something like polo that uses a ball but is played on horseback).  Games within the football category include Association Football, American/Gridiron Football, Australian Football, and Rugby Football.  Also, most of these had their rules codified in the 1860s, so there's not even much if a which came first.

The form of football that became popular in Europe is Association Football, this becomes more evident when you look at what FIFA stands for (federation Internationale de *football association*).

Fun fact: the term "soccer" to refer to association football comes from England. In the 19th century students at Oxford had a tendency to create slang names by adding an "-er" to the end, thus Rugby became Rugger and Association Football became Assoccer and then finally Soccer.

Tl;dr: there is no single game whose English name is football. Your premise is faulty.


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

[User]
[DC/Superman] Kryptonian seem extremely overpowered when they are on Earth due to the sun, what other species are there that are extremely powerful in right conditions?

So I was always amazed at how just one Kryptonian human was basically the Superman we know and love. One out of a planet full of them. So that makes me wonder if there are other beings out there who, in their own planet might not be all that special, but under certain conditions they too become "superhuman".

Like, maybe someone who breathes in oxygen and becomes indestructible? Someone thrown in the water realizes they become immortal as long as submerged?

[Assistant] Humans are more powerful (basically Superman level) on ZurEnAr due to breathing the atmosphere.  Martians are actually less powerful on Earth and would likely be extra powerful on an oxygen free planet.  Medphyll finds himself more powerful on Earth but it's nowhere near as significant a boost as Superman and it's due to his magical abilities which aren't inherent to his species.  The situation you are asking for is pretty rare though.  Kryptonians were basically custom designed by two malevolent beings for the exact situation Superman found himself in.


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

[User] [Aladdin] How are they able to get fresh fish in desert-bound Agrabah?

[Assistant]
As the live-action movie shows, Agrabah is built on a harbor, like many historic Middle-Eastern cities.

Edit: Which tracks with the original film too, considering Jafar tried to kill Prince Ali by having him dumped into the sea, and he was able to do so and have Aladdin return and expose him all within the same evening.

If we don't take that as authoritative, given its size, it's still likely to be built around a river or oasis that could support fish.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Palpatine believes in the Rule of One. So why did he teach the Force Lightning technique to his apprentice, Count Dooku?

My understanding is that Palpatine believes in the Rule of One, and one day discovering immortality to rule the galaxy alone, forever. Given that, as well as the long history of apprentices overthrowing their masters, why did Palpatine teach Dooku powerful Dark Side techniques such as Force Lightning which could be used against him?

[Assistant]
Dark side makes you pretty arrogant. In Palpatine's case, his arrogance was a bit justified. He was way above Dooku's level.

Basically, he didn't think Dooku had a chance to take him down, even with those techniques.


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

[User]
How to stop rebuilding everything from scratch?

Every time I'm working on a sizeable project, I feel the urge to stop half way and rebuild everything from scratch as if I'm going to write it better, or understand it deeper.

It's really counterproductive and somewhat demotivating. How do I stop this habit?

[Assistant]
You will always want to, probably a consequence of the whole "code is easier to write than to read". Can you refactor rather than re-write? You should be able to identify and argue *how* you would improve on the current implementation, as if you needed your team's buy-in. If you can't identify what would be improved, you may just need to understand what you wrote better and study exactly what is happening at each step.

Break it down into smaller parts. Identify the confusing part(s). Write documentation if there is none.


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

[User]
[DC] I'm a third string mercenary who's stumbled on the motherlode.

After doing some... research... on Wayne Enterprises and Bruce Wayne himself, I think I've discovered to most well kept, and most sought out for, secret in all the world: Bruce Wayne is Batman. Now that I know this for sure, it's time to profit!

Trouble is, I don't want to put myself or anyone else in danger. For example, I don't want Batman dead, as that would put Gotham in danger, nor do I want to get myself killed or imprisoned by the Justice League, for obvious reasons.

How do I profit from Batmans secret identity without getting myself or anyone else killed or imprisoned?

[Assistant]
You're kinda stuck. If you sell the information to the press, you're essentially taking Batman out of circulation, which would be bad. (Also, if you're where Bruce Wayne gave a press conference admitting he ~~is~~ funds and supplies Batman, you've been beaten to the punch, mostly.)

What you *could* do is risky, but could make a bundle: Learn as much as you can, fabricate the rest, and claim *you* were Batman. The actual Batman would feel honorbound to keep you from dying when everyone crawls out of the woodwork to try to kill you, and you can rake in some appearance-and-interviews money until the truth is discovered. After that, you drop back to anonymity.


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

[User] It's possible to explain the gravitational force with geometry, as the curvature of spacetime. Is it possible to explain other forces (like electromagnetic force) with geometry too?

[Assistant]
Yes. The mathematical framework is gauge theory. In particular, the fundamental forces of the standard model are a specific type of gauge theories called Yang-Mills theories.

Roughly, the wavefunctions of particles "charged" under the interaction are thought of as taking values in a thing called a bundle, which is a thing "attached" to spacetime. This bundle can have curvature, and this curvature can act back on the particle as it travels, giving the force. The curvature is also known as the field strength; in the case of EM the curvature is nothing else than the electric and magnetic fields.


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

[User] [Marvel/Fantastic Four] How did Reed, Sue, and Johnny get cool powers, but Ben got stuck as a rock creature?

[Assistant]
According to element theory, Reed is water, Sue is air, Johnny is fire, and Ben is earth; Ben's transformation is more drastic than the others in strictly physical terms, since his appearance differs from human norms, but thematically it's an expression of the same basic idea. Other versions of Ben Grimm have it as a transitional form (Ultimate Thing, for example).

Also, some people think being able to trade punches with the Hulk is a pretty cool power.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Han supposedly "won" the Falcon from Lando somehow. But what if it had gone the other way? What did Lando stand to gain?

I have to think that for Lando to wager one of the best ships of its class in the galaxy, Han would have had to put up something very valuable. Was Han once rich? Or did he have some other, fabulous ship to throw in the pot?

[Assistant]
In Rebel Dawn they explain that the wager was during the final round of the 2 BBY Cloud City Sabacc Tournament in Bespin. The buy in was 10,000 CR so you can imagine the stakes were very high. In the heat of the moment Lando promised any ship on his lot on top of his bet in order to get Han Solo all in. Lando never intended the Millenium Falcon to be an option as it was his personal ship and not for sale, but he was sure he would win the hand anyway and stuck to his poorly worded offer when Han later insisted he would only take the Falcon.

Interestingly enough Lando had won the Falcon at the same tournament three years prior from Cix Trouvee. Trouvee had a notorious gambling habit and owed the Hutt's much more than he could scrape together. He used the Falcon as collateral for his entry into the tournament so that he could pay back his prior losses.


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

[User]
ELI5: What actually is occurring when you bring a house fly back to life with salt?

I know that if a fly is dead and you pour salt on it, it should eventually come back to life. I've tested this before and it worked. What reaction occurs with the salt and house fly that brings it back to life?

[Assistant] They aren't dead. This trick happens with drowned flies. Simply, they don't breathe like we do, they breathe through a series of tubes called spiracles. When you "drown" the fly, the water blocks the spiracles and they stop being able to breathe. They then fall unconscious as a result. When you add salt, it draws the water out of the spiracles to the salt, they start being able to breathe again, and recover.


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

[User]
[The One] How did this universe have such advanced technology compared to other universes?

Everyone else is in the 90's, while this one universe has advanced technology, with universe hopping tech, etc.

It can't take place in the future, otherwise the characters would be of a different age.

[Assistant] If you go by the idea that there is a multiverse, then some of those universes are going to advance faster. Say the Roman Empire doesn't collapse, so engineering in that universe isn't set back several hundred years in Europe,  etc. Different choices or events get different results.


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

[User]
[Wreck-It Ralph] Why do the Nicelanders hate Ralph?

It'd be like if the cast and crew of *Harry Potter* actually hated Ralph Fiennes, accused him of actually being a Dark Wizard and didn't invite him to the premieres.

[Assistant]
Theyre not actors, they actually do what their roles are in the video games.

Its more like people hating defence attorneys for the mob or for sex offenders. People dont respect their necessary role in the system.


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

[User]
[Star Wars (Canon or Legends)] How advanced are the Ewoks elsewhere?

C3PO, on understanding the Ewok language: "They're using a very primitive
dialect."

This means there's a "less primitive" dialect. How advanced are we talking? Are they industrial age? Space faring? Are there groups that have joined galactic society as a whole?

[Assistant]
They've been known to the wider galaxy for, at minimum, nearly four thousand years, per Legends (one appears as a player companion in SWTOR, the MMO set three hundred years after *Knights of the Old Republic*). They're still primitive creatures, no space flight of their own and very obviously not industrial on their own either.

(Un)fortunately, they were not really used much in Legends surprisingly enough, so we can't actually say if groups of them went out to join the galaxy at large. We do know that in both continuities more went out into the galaxy after the Battle of Endor, either helping the fledgling New Republic in various ways or going independent and doing their own thing.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Are children allowed to drink Syntheholic beverages?

[Assistant]
I don't think we know enough to say. It's known that synthehol is deactivated by an enzyme possessed by most people, but we also see that 7 of 9 doesn't, and can get drunk on it.

It would probably depend on whether children produce enough of this enzyme to deactivate the alcohol.

Or maybe the Federation is just more like Europe... Children are allowed in 10 Forward when accompanied by an adult (see "Imaginary Friend"... but Guinan only served the child fruit juice, arguing against that).


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

[User]
Complicated feelings around leaving academia

I'm doing a post-doc in a STEM field that has pretty good industry options. For a while, I entertained the possibility of staying in academia but it's becoming clearer to me that I need better work-life balance and that I enjoy working in teams more than being a PI. I've been slowly applying for industry jobs and I'm generating a decent number of follow up interviews.

But the truth is that I feel ... strange ... about this idea of leaving academia. I did have an industry job for 4 years before starting grad school and I also was always lukewarm about the idea of getting in academia as a career (as opposed to getting a Ph.D. for cooler jobs in my area).

I feel sad and like I'm grieving, even though I'm sure I don't want to stay in academia any more. I guess I'm also worried about telling my PI that I'm leaving. I have my own grant, and he hasn't been super helpful or supportive either along the way, so I don't know why I'm feeling this guilt.

My Ph.D. advisor is quite supportive of whichever direction I choose. But I just feel weird about this. I just don't want to make my entire life about some scientific endeavor that isn't even earth-shattering. Why do I feel guilt for not doing that?

[Assistant]
Change is always difficult. Particularly difficult when you are changing from an environment where you have been successful...

That said, from the perspective of this retired university professor, nothing indicates that the academic environment is going to improve anytime soon... Number of traditional age college age students declining, competition for money increasing, as well as student debt levels increasing.

Absolutely normal to have some trepidation when contemplating a change.

Do your research about where in industry you want to work... Make a plan. Work you plan.

Best of luck!


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

[User] ELI5 Why was the United States the only country unable to end slavery without a civil war?

[Assistant] It wasn't. Haiti is the result of a successful slave revolt against the French. Many nations in Latin America began ending slavery during their fight against Spain, to rally some support for rebel leaders and then the Creole elites. In the states there that kept slavery, like Brazil, there were numerous slave revolts. The British Navy fought to end the international slave trade, making the plantation business in those states that maintained slavery less economical, and some of those it fought were British slave traders operating illegally.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why don't the Separatists use wedge shaped cruisers?

Using a wedge shape design allows a ship to focus all its weapons on a target in front of the ship.  Wouldn't other factions want to exploit this feature?

[Assistant]
Because it is much cheaper to convert a freighter into a battleship/carrier than to build a custom warship. Early separatist warships were converted trade federation freighters.

As they built warships the dreadnought cruiser was smaller (and cheaper to build) than the republic star destroyers but has a comparable broadside, and is better defended in the rear than a wedge.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Is Han Solo force sensitive?

[Assistant]
Han is lucky. Very lucky. Maybe too lucky.

To a person like Han who is a sceptic he just thinks that he is just that lucky.

To someone like Obi-Wan, there is no such thing as luck, just the Force.

Now what does that mean? Well maybe Han has some Force sensitivity, maybe his reflexes are just a little bit faster because of the Force, his aim a little bit better, his ability to read a situation inately perhaps without even realizing it. Maybe all that is hard expression of the Force. Sure he may not have the potential of Luke or Leia, but maybe there is something there.

There is also the possibility that he isn't but the Force is working through him. Chirrut (from Rogue One) was no Jedi and even he claimed no Force potential, but on Scarif the Force did guide and help him. So perhaps that is the same thing happening to Han.