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

[User]
[Quantum Leap] In his own 'present' timeline (1999 and beyond), what is the public's level of knowledge regarding Dr. Sam Beckett's leaps? Are Sam's adventures studied?

Al mentions several times that the Quantum Leap project is affiliated with the government, but I can't recall if any specific mention is made about how much the public is aware of what Sam is doing vis a vis the leaps.

Are Sam's adventures classified? Does the general public know that some guy is bouncing through time, setting right what once went wrong? If so, what kind of research is being done (I'll bet the paper written on Sam's leap into a chimpanzee was a scorcher!)?

[Assistant]
In one episode a US Senator shows up as part of a plotline about a Senate hearing to defund the project, so presumably the existence of the project is public.  Al actually testifies that Sam is "putting things right" and that God is in charge of the leaps now.

The Senator is sceptical that Sam has actually developed Time Travel, but Sam changes something in the past, which ends up changing the identity of the senator mid-sentence from someone who was going to defund the project to someone (that Sam helped) who supports the project.  Al is the only person in the room who sees that the timeline has been changed.

Beyond that, the "evil leaper" project presumably uses the same technology developed by Dr. Beckett, so research papers and technical details would need to exist and be available outside the project.


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

[User]
Do injuries take significant amounts of calories?

Does the body use up significant amount of calories when healing wounds?

[Assistant] Yes but it is situational. The injury severity will determine the amount of calories needed for repair. One example is that a second or third degree burn will require substantially more calories for all the metabolic activities required to repair the damaged tissue. Something of this nature can actually cause weight loss in patients who have been hospitalized due to a burn covering a significant amount of the body. To counter this, extra food or supplements will be given to those patients. Something minor like a paper cut will require some caloric energy but nothing major.


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

[User]
[Friday the 13th] Frightened, lucky teenager here. I need some advice pronto before this guy gets back up...

So... this asshat with a hockey mask just showed up and brutally murdered all of my friends and even some people that I didn't like too much.

I got lucky and he happened to fall into one of my traps - an oversized woodchipper in a pit underneath a tarp that had some dirt and brush sprinkled over it.  Yes, I turned that shit on and cranked his zombie-ass through it again and again, each time ensuring that the majority of his evil corpse got dumped in these handy 5 gallon buckets someone left lying around.

Anyways, I am concerned that this unrecognizable, reddish glop of clothing, hockey-mask, and meat might somehow reconstitute and kill me too.

So here's my question: **What the hell am I supposed to do now?** Presently the guy's remains are distributed across 18 buckets.  I've been running random buckets through the woodchipper every hour or so due to the possibility of him coming back T-1000 style, but am concerned that this won't work forever.  On top of that, I'm going to run out of gasoline for the woodchipper in another 2-3 hours.

Thanks in advance.

[Assistant] Bury the buckets at least 20 meters apart, cover them with rocks, go home, buy a plan ticket, leave New Jersey, and possibly move to Canada, which I've heard is killer free for the most part. Just stay out of Wendigo territory.


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

[User]
ELI5: what qualifies Bono to speak to the U.S. congress about terrorism?

Seems like someone got a donation in order to ensure that he has access or something?  Why Bono and not world military leaders?

[Assistant]
All the people who are replying "nothing" or similar should look into the bombings that happened all over Ireland, his political themes, the IRA openly threatening to kidnap him, death threats, IRA supporters attacking the vehicle the band members were in, etc.

He's lived it, as a political activist. And while that doesn't mean he knows as much as someone who has devoted their life work to studying it, it's still something.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] [Serious] What if Anakin was gay?

Anakin Skywalker is gay in the Star Wars series and has no sexual interest in Padme. How would that change the Star Wars series?

[Assistant]
He would probably have latched on to obi wan as his love interest instead of Palme (young anakin clearly idolised Jedi).

Problem is Obi could never have loved him back, so Palpatine could probably still have corrupted him by playing on that unrequited love, and turning it in to resentment and ultimately hate.


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

[User]
[Pokemon Anime] Since James' Magikarp evolved so easily was it really a bad deal?

Sure, he didn't buy it to battle with it but had he(and the rest of Team Rocket) had just been friendly with it and earned its love they could have soon had a powerful Pokemon.

Imagine if Ash had bought it.

[Assistant]
No. This is the secret of the Magikarp salesman. At first it seems like a good deal, then you see the fish and you think it was a bad deal, then you learn about Gyarados and find out it was a good deal.

In the games too. Many people initially think of it as an awful deal, but standard advice now is that if you dont start with Squirtle that its a genuine good strategic decision to buy the Magikarp.

If James had that Gyarados, hed be in a better position. Pikachu still destroys the 4x weak Gyarados, but its a good Pokmon.


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

[User]
If I were to leave my fully charged laptop turned off and unplugged for five years, could I still start it up on battery only?

Average run-of-the-mill HP laptop, fully charged. I unplug it, turn it off, leave it at room temperature, and then I wait five years. Will I still be able to turn it on using battery power, or is the battery somehow discharged?

[Assistant]
Most likely not. All batteries suffer from a phenomenon called "self discharge", which is the slow reduction of capacity when a battery is not in use. Rechargeable batteries have higher self discharge rates than non-rechargeable batteries.

Lithium ion batteries that are used in laptops and many other mobile devices, have a self discharge rate of about 2-3% per month. The rate depends on the temperature, with higher temperatures resulting in a higher self discharge rate.


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

[User]
Eli5: Why are nuclear power plants smoke stacks shaped so differently from others?

If its just for steam why make it different?

[Assistant]
They are shaped differently because they are being used for different things. A smokestack is used just to exhaust gasses up high enough to be away from people on the ground. The nuclear plant doesn't have smokestacks though, they have *cooling towers*. The aim there is to draw in air at the bottom and make it carry heat out the top.

Hot water is sprayed into the tower and allowed to fall through the cool air, becoming more cool water when it lands at the bottom. Only a small amount escapes as the steamy mist out the top. This is the whole aim of the cooling towers, to make cool water which can then be used to cool the water that actually flows into the reactor.


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

[User]
How does e.g. MS Word copy and paste formatted text, but you can still paste the plain text in other programs?

For example, in MS Word I can copy some text, then paste somewhere else in the document and choose "keep formatting" and it will remember the formatting the text had when I copied it. So I assume there is some metadata in there somewhere that tells Word how to format the text.

However, if I paste that same text into a different, unrelated program it comes out as just the plain text without any metadata or anything. How is this achieved?

[Assistant]
Windows and OS X have a way of storing multiple types of data on the clipboard.

If you copy formatted text in MS Word, it stores the plain text version and the formatted version.  MS Word is smart enough to know to pick the formatted one when you paste.

If you copy plain text, nothing is stored in the formatted section, so you can only paste plain text.

If you copy an image, it's stored in the image data section and nothing is stored in the plain text section / formatted text section, so you can only paste that image.


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

[User] Could there exist a planet made completely out of water?

[Assistant]
*Liquid* water? No.

To keep water a liquid requires a few constraints:

1. The pressure has to be high enough to keep it from all evaporating. This generally requires an atmosphere to keep pressures at least above 1 kPa (1/100th sea level pressure), though a fair bit higher to maintain a reasonable range of temperatures where water remains a liquid. We could imagine our proposed water planet evaporates enough water vapor off the surface of the ocean to maintain a water vapor atmosphere to prevent this.

2. The pressure has to be low enough to keep it all from freezing. This requires that, at depth in the ocean, the pressure climbs no higher than about 2 GPa (20,000x sea level pressure), or else we start forming exotic crystal structures of ice, even at high temperatures.

3. We need the right temperature, but let's assume we can play with the planet's position to maintain the right distance from its star.

Suddenly we find ourselves playing a very careful balancing game here: if our planet is too large, then the lower layers will have a pressure that's too high and start freezing. On the other hand, if our planet is too small then there won't be enough gravity to hold on to the water vapor atmosphere, and the whole thing will just evaporate out into space.

So let's start crafting this planet...we want to start by defining the escape velocity, which we'll do by first considering the average velocity of a water molecule at room temperature:

v = sqrt(2kT / m)

v = sqrt[2 * 1.38x10^-23 * 293 / (18 * 1.66x10^(-27))]

v = 520 m/s

That's pretty fast - about 1000 mph - so let's make sure our planet has a high enough escape velocity to prevent a molecule moving that quickly from escaping our planet. In truth, we want an escape velocity quite a bit higher than that since 520 m/s is only the *average* molecular velocity - other molecules could be moving quite a bit quicker. Let's say 8x that so our planet will at least stick around for a while. (By comparison, Earth's escape velocity is about 8x hydrogen's mean velocity, and while we do leak hydrogen into space, we can hold onto it on million year time scales.) The equation for escape velocity is:

v = sqrt(2GM / r)

We know we want v = 8 * 520 = 4160 m/s, and since our planet is liquid water which is pretty incompressible, the density = 1000 kg/m^(3), defining the relationship between mass and radius as just:

M = 1000 * 4/3 Pi r^3

r = (3M / 4000Pi)^1/3

We plug that back into our escape velocity to find:

4160 m/s = sqrt(2 GM / r)

= sqrt[2 GM / (3M/4000Pi)^(1/3)]

= sqrt[2(4000/3 Pi)^1/3 G M^(2/3)]

M = (4160 / sqrt[2(4000/3 Pi)^1/3 G])^3

M = 7.22 x 10^23 kg

...and plugging back into our radius equation...

r = (3 * 7.22 x 10^23 / 4000Pi)^1/3

r = 5560 km

That's big, but not too ridiculous...a bit smaller than Earth in terms of radius, but about 8x lighter in terms of mass, which makes sense when you consider this planet is much less dense.

So what's the central pressure of this planet? Well, to first order we can use the following equation (though a more thorough treatment would use an integral):

P = G * M * density / r

P = 6.67 x 10^-11 * 7.22 x 10^23 * 1000 / 5.56 x 10^6

P = 8.66 GPa

...or about 80,000x sea level pressure, which is already well above the freezing point of water at extreme pressures. In other words, this thing has to have an ice core.

**TL;DR**: In order to have a liquid water planet large enough that it doesn't evaporate away into space in less than a million years, the core must have a pressure high enough to become ice.


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

[User] [John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt]Whenever John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt goes out, why do all the people shout "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt"?

[Assistant] They don't shout "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt". They shout "*There goes* John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt". And they shout it because John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt is the fuckin' man that deserves to be recognized.


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

[User]
[General] How does an immortal being deal with the hell of a post heat death universe?

Like, just a human that can feel pain and suffer, but cannot die, how would they deal with an eternity in a cold dead universe?

[Assistant] The thing about the heat death of the universe is that it's not **just** cold.  It's not just dead.  It has a completely even distribution of both matter and energy; it has achieved total entropy.  The expansion of space would have ripped the immortal entity apart at the cellular -- and then molecular -- level long before that point.


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

[User]
CMV: The way Facebook, Google and other tech megacorporations control speech on their platform limits free/effective speech in the world today

Let me start by saying that I am totally aware that private companies are legally allowed to choose what is and isn't allowed on their platform.

The internet has undoubtedly changed how we communicate with each other, connecting us in ways we never thought possible.

However, as the wild west days of the internet fade behind us, we have entered a world where speech is increasingly being controlled by megacorporations like Facebook, Twitter, Google and others who now have become major channels for the expression and discover of our ideas today.

 These companies effectively control vast amounts of the flow of information in the world, and as the climate continues to polarize, we are now facing serious problems with our situation. These private companies have already begun using their platforms to determine which voices are worth listening too, and deplatforming or soft-censoring voices they don't like.

Here are my main problems with this situation:

* The private aspect means that a small group of individuals can decide based on their own personal biases or preferences what voices are heard, distorting the flow of speech to their own benefit, or others detriment

* Further, political biases at these companies tend to lean left, resulting in voices that oppose or disagree with such ideologies being, at best, potentially underrepresented in the public conversation

* At worst, disliked ideas can be branded as "hate speech" or similarly nebulous terms, and banned on platforms without evidence or warning, all on the whim of of a mouseclick. Sometimes this happens in tandem at multiple companies, forcing someone off multiple platforms at once

* The monopolistic nature of these companies also means that competing platforms can essentially be muscled out by the big guys

* Cooperation with world governments without civilian oversight means that government censorship is also an increasing threat without proper tools to deal with it

The end result is that free/effective speech is at severe risk of being censored by private companies at the behest of everyone but the people it actually matters for.

Left wing ideologies are also at risk here, because if these tech giants can censor peoe they don't like, they can censor people they like, too.

[Assistant] A small group of people have always controlled information and decided what the populace could or could not know. This was true of television, radio, print, and even town criers. These platforms have effectively made dissemination of information at scale as much of a mertiocracy as the world has had. How do you contextualize your argument historically when dissemination of information has never been a right for more than the privileged few?


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

[User]
ELI5: How did humans get to harness and use electricity?

I had always heard about Benjamin Franklin and his kite and key, so what happened between that and when Edison was able to turn on a lightbulb?

[Assistant]
Some dudes were fucking around with magnets and found out that if you spin a magnet really fast around a conductive metal, a bunch of electrons jump out, and if you pump a bunch of electrons into a magnet, the magnet will spin.

You mix that together and you can make things move with this spinning magnet, conductive metal combo.


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

[User]
CMV: Minors should not be able to marry under any circumstances.

Many countries have provisions in their marriage laws that allow minors to marry with parental consent (or subject to certain conditions). Allowing 16/17-year-olds (sometimes younger) to marry is completely illogical to me. There are two main cases of marriage involving minors:

Marriage between a minor and an adult: allowing marriages like this clearly leads to child brides and exploitative situations. This obviously should not be permitted. This is already illegal in some countries.

Marriage between two minors: while this is generally not exploitative, it is still a terrible choice. If someone is barely old enough to drive, why should they be able to enter into something as serious as marriage? Marriage should take a lot more thought and consideration than a 16-year-old is capable of. As well, what's the harm in waiting a few years? A couple that young has hardly had any time to find out how compatible they are with each other in the aspects of life they will share after marriage.

I'll award a delta to anyone who can prove any benefits associated with the existence of these laws that are significant enough to outweigh the harms they bring.

Edit: I've awarded two deltas for the terminal illness point. Further change in view will have to attack my point that the laws allowing minors to marry should not exist.

[Assistant]
> Marriage between two minors: while this is generally not exploitative, it is still a terrible choice. If someone is barely old enough to drive, why should they be able to enter into something as serious as marriage? Marriage should take a lot more thought and consideration than a 16-year-old is capable of. As well, what's the harm in waiting a few years?

I think there should be at least one exception: the current minor is close to becoming of age, but is expected to have only a few months left to live (e.g. due to a very serious illness), and their dying wish is to marry the love of their life.

In many countries, the law permits a court to make a compassionate/humanitarian exception in such cases, to fulfill such a person's deathbed wish to marry the person they love.


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

[User]
How Should I Approach Heidegger as a Therapist?

There is an approach to psychotherapy that follows in the footsteps of 20th century 'existential' or 'ontological' phenomenology, borrowing mostly from Heidegger and Sartre. One of my professors sent me some articles as an introduction to the matter and I want to start reading Heidegger. But since my interest is more clinical than philosophical (but I think the two are closely intertwined anyway), how should my approach reflect this? My goal is to read his *Being and Time*, but not as close as a philosopher maybe would; I'm trying to understand his fundamental concepts to help me formulate my own therapeutic orientation. It looks like there are two translations (Macquirre-Robinson and Straumbaugh). There also seems to be a few read-along guides (notably by King and Llewelyn). Is there a preference for any of this? Is a guide required for my goals? How long should I expect to spend on this book, estimating 4-5 hours a week on this alongside my actual studies for classes?

Bonus: if anyone knows any papers out there reconciling Heidegger to psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, that would be awesome.

[Assistant] Frankly, its going to be a rough read (and maybe not super fruitful) unless you have a clinical-specific read-along guide. If your choice could be between Being and Time, or lots of material on the specific clinical applications/discussions of Heidegger, I'd pick the latter. It's very easy to get lost in the weeds, even with a good translation, and while there is an overlap with some psychotherapy, it can be *really* hard to see where it is for *long* stretches in the text.


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

[User]
[The Prestige] Why didn't Angier simply use the machine once?

And create a perfect double of himself to perform his trick? It would change nothing and they could switch off. I understand that he freaked out and shot his clone the first time, but why murder EVERY ONE? It solves the issue he had with Root (the actor) and logistically (And morally) is much simpler.

[Assistant]
When he uses the machine, he doesn't know which one "he" will be. Maybe he'll be the one to drown, or maybe he's the one up on the balcony finishing the show.

From his perspective he always survives because the other one is never around to challenge this perceived truth. The one that survives is always the "real" Angier. They both have equal right to claim to be the legitimate Angier. They are literally identical beings.

He knows that if a clone survives, that it *will* claim to be the original and take over his life. It has every right to think that. Neither would be able to know for sure which is the original and deserves sole ownership of the identity. He solves the teleportation dilemma by simply always killing one of himself.

It's fucked up to think about. But the teleportation paradox is a really interesting problem.


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

[User] What is the difference between Pathology, Pathogenicity and Pathogenesis of a virus?

[Assistant]
**Pathology** relates to the disease (specificially, the effects on the host) caused by the virus.

**Pathogenicity** describes the potential of a virus to cause disease.

**Pathogenesis** is the process by which the virus causes disease.


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

[User] ELI5:What is the psychology behind motivation?.

[Assistant]
Motivation generally is about fulfilling one's needs.  Maslow described these needs in terms of a Hierarchy of Needs that once you have satisfied the most basic need you are only motivated by the next until that is satisfied.

Roughly those needs in order of basic first are

* Physiological needs: Warmth, Food, Water, Oxygen.

* Safety: Free from risks of injury, bad health, abuse.

* Social: Love and Belonging.  Association with others.

* Esteem: The sense of being respected by others.

* Self-actualisation: Reaching ones self defined potential.

So for example if the alternative is starving to death we are willing to put up and be motivated in pretty shitty jobs.  Once food and safety are taken care of we may be motivated at work by team spirit and friendships.  If we find love and belonging outside of work we may only be motivated at work if the job we are doing builds prestige or we find interesting intrinsically.  In fact beyond a certain point salary is only motivating as a symbol of prestige if that is how you measure your esteem.

Loads more writing on this, as you can imagine a lot of Business Managers spend a lot of time looking for the magic formula.


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

[User] [Jessica Jones] Why does kilgrave bother playing people at poker? He could just have them give him the money. He's had his powers almost his entire life, making dudes go all in then fold can't be that exciting.

[Assistant] People remember what they did while under his control. If he simply tells someone to hand over all his money, he will be compelled to do it, but know he has some kind of magic power. If you lose it playing poker, you would remember playing poorly but not suspect something supernatural happened.


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

[User]
[Alvin and the Chipmunks] How were the chipmunks not taken by the government when people figured out they talk?

This is seriously the stupidest question Ive ever asked anyone ever but Im genuinely curious if there is a canonical answer.

[Assistant]
Talking chipmunks are rare, but not unknown by the government.  No reason for the government to take them since they have previously been studied.

The ability for chipmunks to talk is not well known by the public, however, until the popularity of the trio.


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

[User] ELI5: What does the concept of entropy mean?

[Assistant]
You can set off a stick of dynamite.  But you can't put it back together again.  The amount of disorder in the universe always increases.

Well, technically you could take all of the gasses etc produced in the explosion, refine them, process them, and after a lot of work end up with a stick of dynamite again.  But by introducing a lot of order to that random swirl of gasses, you will introduce even more disorder in the rest of the universe - e.g. you're burning stuff to generate electricity to power the machines, you likely have used pure chemicals as part of your reactions and now you have a load of mixed chemical waste, etc.  The amount of disorder in the universe always increases.

The "disorder" in this example is technically called "entropy".


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

[User] [General] Why dont villains help in world ending situation? Dont they care?

[Assistant] Because most villains know that the heroes are going to save the day in the end with or without their help. Knowing that, the best thing for the aspiring villain to do during such world ending events is to maximize their advantage while they know their heroic rivals are preoccupied with bigger fish than themselves.


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

[User]
[DC] is Batman good for Gotham?

Is batman good for Gotham overall? Did crime drop when batman came to the scene, did more super villains appear just to challenge batman? So is batman good for Gotham?

[Assistant]
Batman is a positive for the city. While super villains do seem to be drawn to him they're hardly only there because of him. Many of the villains predate Batman or even care little about him other than him foiling their plans. Batman's biggest contribution is reformations made at the GCPD. He busted many of the entrenched mafia groups and helped root out corruption in the police leading to more effective honest police work. So while yes the likes of Joker and the newer smaller mobs like two face and the penguin are a problem they're not outweighing the good Batman does. His struggles against the court of owls, the league of shadows, and non arch super villains is work only he could accomplish and hardly his fault for their actions.

And that's completely leaving out Bruce Wayne's contributions to the city that he only does as he feels Batman can't fix every problem his way.


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

[User]
[Transformers] Have the Transformers ever tried talking to each other about their problems?

Have the Autobots and Decepticons tried debating each other? Or do they just fight each other?

Follow up question: are all Transformers warriors or are some poets, chefs, politicians, actors, etc.?

[Assistant]
Yes they have! For a long time they tried to settle things by way of votes and debates in their Senate. The problem was the ruling class at the time was very entrenched and were NOT interested in hearing any dissent.

One of the biggest social issues was the belief that your alt-mode determined your function. So tanks, drills, other large equipment fellas ended up working the mines.  One of these was Megatron, who was not interested in being a miner, he was far more interested in being a poet. Unfortunately after he was arrested in a bar fight he was savagely beaten by a dirty cop as a way of trying to keep him in line. Ut didn't work and led directly towards Megatron using violence to make his point.

As to your follow-up question, yes. Magatron was a poet, Slog was an artist. Jazz was VERY into music. Mirage, Blurr, and Drag Strip were pro athletes. There were a lot of Cycbertronians before the war who had other proffesions. After the war started a lot more of them started to be built just as soldiers.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are fleas the size of a speck of ground pepper but they can jump so high?

[Assistant]
Part of the answer is the relationship between size and mass.  If an animal is half the size, it's one-eighth the weight - so the smaller an animal is, the stronger it is in relationship to their weight.  This allows very small animals to perform relatively amazing feats of strength.

Additionally, fleas have a special adaptation for jumping - rather than flexing their muscles to leap into the air, they repeatedly flex their leg muscles to put tension on a "spring" made of elastic protein.  Then they release that tension all at once to jump.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do tires have whiskers?

[Assistant] Just looked it up. They're called 'vent spews.' When they fill the mold the tire is made in, they want to ensure there are no air bubbles or pockets in the tire, so they have small holes in the mold to allow the air to escape and some of the rubber gets spewed out of those holes, causing the little hairs/whiskers.


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

[User] [Buffy The Vampire Slayer] Does evil just work better in Sunnydale? Murder-robots, zombies, dark magic, murder sprees? Better chance of working on the Hellmouth?

[Assistant]
Its literally because of the Hell Mouth that evil works so well there. It also draws all sorta of vampires,demons and other various 'evil' creatures to Sunnydale.

The hell mouth's proximity seems to amplify some powers in various beings too.


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

[User] ELI5 How mitochondria first got replicated during cell division since they were a separate organism.

[Assistant] Mitochondria divide just like other cells (they even have their own DNA). Presumably, the mitochondria already replicated a few times inside the host cell, so when the host cell split, both daughter cells had mitochondria too. Think of it like adding a raisin (the mitochondria) to a ball of dough (the host cell). The raisin multiplied and distributed around the dough, and then the dough ball got split in half with raisins now in both halves.


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

[User] [Blade Runner] If we call it Voight-Kaumf for short, what the heck is the long name?

[Assistant] Probably a long technical name. Something like replicant personality detection battery. Just easier to name it after it's creators than to say the entire name of the device as it has no end user name and just the descriptive name. Like when people say Rorschach test instead of inkblot test.


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

[User]
How do electrons get separated from the Hydrogen atom in a Fuel Cell?

I know theres a platinum plate that the hydrogen hits, and a membrane that only the hydrogen ions can pass through, but I don't understand how the electrons separate.

All research only states they "get separated" but fails to explain why it separates.

[Assistant] You can't just look at the hydrogen side, you also have to look at the other half-cell where oxygen, the protons diffusing through the membrane and the electrons flowing through the closed circuit recombine to water. That recombination is what drives the reaction, energetically. Just like H2 and O2 readily burn to form water. A fuel cell does just the same, it only separates the reactions and generates electricity instead of just heat.


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

[User]
Eli5: When two mirrors face each other, where does the light eventually "go" so that it doesn't constantly build up?

Also, is there an eventual limit for how many recurrences of the other mirror are in the reflection?

[Assistant]
Mirrors reflect light out at the same angle it came in at. To trap light indefinitely, you'd need light coming in at one mirror at a perfectly straight angle wit h the two mirrors facing eachother perfectly - and then be able to remove the device fast enough (keep in mind we're talking about light) for the light to not hit the light emitting device after it bounces off the first mirror)

Everything else would bounce around a few times and eventually away.


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

[User]
When statisticians say "distribution", do they mean a frequency distribution, a probability distribution, or a plain old list of values?

I find the usage of this term very confusing. It looks like they do most often mean a frequency distribution, but almost none of the material I read or watch makes that clear at *any* point.

[Assistant] Typically probability distribution, but the context should make it clear.  Note you can easily convert a frequency distribution to a probability distribution by dividing all of the frequencies by the sum.


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

[User]
CMV: Pet cloning is a waste of science, money, and time

Recently I found out that people pay upwards of $30,000 to clone cats, and even more for dogs.

Sure the clone will be genetically identical, but environment plays a huge role in shaping an individual's personality. It'd be practically impossible to have the "same pet", so why try? I don't find it particularly healthy for someone to delude themselves into thinking "I've had Milo for 26 years" when really Milo 1.0 died 14 years ago and was replaced by a clone. Mourn the pet and move on. Maybe get another new pet, already living, instead of crafting another one. It's not the same pet as before. It's bad for the pet too, I'd imagine, being expected to act exactly like the first version.

It's also a waste of science/resources. I'd rather all of our cloning resources go towards increasing the efficiency of cloning endangered species, or to animal shelters/clinics/etc.

[Assistant]
>It's also a waste of science/resources. I'd rather all of our cloning resources go towards increasing the efficiency of cloning endangered species, or to animal shelters/clinics/etc.

I mean... where would you get the funding for that? This way, you can get cloning research and practice done through the private sector - if some rich person wants to contribute to science by doing completely unneccessary things, it's still better than not doing it at all.

EDIT: Also, quick question: what do you mean with "a waste of science"? "Science" isn't a resource...


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

[User] [Aladdin] What is the backstory for the Cave of Wonders?

[Assistant]
In Arabic legend, King Solomon had the power to command both men and jinn, and built a vast and exceedingly wealthy kingdom.  It is frequently said that King Solomon bound many jinn to objects.  The lesser such spirits were bound into rings, that they might be available at all times.  The more powerful, and often rebellious beings were bound to containers so they could be sealed inside where they could do no harm.  After Solomon's death, the jinn had no further compulsion to obey mortal masters, and went their own ways, leaving behind the great treasure of Solomon's kingdom in secret caches.

The Cave of Wonders is the largest, and most famous such cache.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is collecting rainwater illegal in some states?

Claiming that rainwater harvesting is "illegal.

[Assistant] Water can be hard to some by in some places. Collecting rain water means that you are interfering with the replenishment of the natural water supply, or artificially worsening the water shortage for neighbors that would normally receive run-off from your property. Essentially, you are keeping water from it's natural course and in a drought condition, that can be devastating for others.


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

[User]
What are some fun real world programming challenges to solve?

I wanna do some programming challenges to improve my programming skills and speed. I don't really like doing coding challenges like code golf etc that much even though I've done some. What are some fun challenges that i can solve that would teach me different kind of real world problem solving?

My interests are web application development and I like devops type stuff (I know its a buzz word).

What are some cool problems I can try solve.

Some stuff I've thought of:

1. Web scraper that indexes to solr or Elasticsearch.
2. Do something with AMPQ. I struggle to understand what this protocol is supposed to really be used for.
3. Do something cool with DNS to enrich data

Any other cool ideas?

[Assistant]
Try building a website with microservices backend, sounds like just what you need.

You'll use a Message Broker (AMQP implementation) to wire microservices together, then try deploying it with kubernetes afterwards (and there's your devops).

Granted it's a complex enough setup for a solo project, so keep it small and stupid :).

If you really want to, you could shoehorn elastic somewhere in it. Otherwise I'd keep it simple with a  SQL DB.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does using the brain burn any noticeable amount of calories, and if so, could you exercise mentally instead of physically?

How many calories does the brain burn and do different mental activities burn more calories than others?

[Assistant] The brain does consume plenty of calories (when you're resting, it's actually a pretty large part of your energy usage), but the difference between a resting brain and a thinking one is much, much smaller than the difference between a resting muscle and a working one.


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

[User]
CMV: Racism isnt a big problem anymore. Its culturism.

Please read this through before knee jerk downvoting me.

Racism typically stems from the idea of a that race has worse genes that somehow makes them dumber/aggressive/lazy This has been disproven many times by science, and you rarely see a politician make that claim.

However, a (potentially) true statement is that this culture raises dumber/aggressive/lazy kids. This could statistically proven, and is very possible.

This makes a huge problem. When two different cultures collide in the workplace, is it the employers fault at all?

Say that one culture raises kids who think its fine to talk, or scream about any issue they arent satisfied with. The culture believes that this will lead to a peaceful resolution, and avoid misunderstanding. Lets call this culture 1. Another culture raises kids to internalize problems, and avoid conflict. They believe that this is best for everyone, because it keeps a person from lashing out wrongly at another. Lets call this culture 2.

Now say that one culture immigrates to another, and vice versa. The company will see the employee from culture 1 as hostile and rude, and from their perspective, rightly so. If youre speaking with customers who may not be as understanding, they may mistake the person from culture 1 to be rude and short tempered, and question the companys decisions.

The other way around leads to problems as well. Immigrants from culture 2 will be viewed as cold, and unfriendly when in Culture 1s country.

These differences make it hard for the immigrant to rise to high management positions in the workplace, due to a perceived lack of human interaction skills.

You cant truly blame the company. From their point of view, the other employees they hire will be uncomfortable under the immigrant. This leads to suffering on everyones part. The immigrant could also become a liability, as a coworker may go to HR making claims that the immigrant from culture 1 was harassing them.

So is it the immigrants fault for not assimilating? Of course not. Asking people to throw away a part of their culture just doesn't sit right.

Culture is many other things, which may have effect outside of work. Maybe its how you discipline your kids, or how you treat your elders.

I think that this is the real root of the issue. 100 years ago, discrimination was based on race. Now it is based on culture, which is often tightly correlated with race. The end result is the same, but the reason is different.

Stereotypes that were injected into people as kids obviously play a role as well though. These stereotypes coupled with culturism creates a disaster.

This is a issue that needs to be fixed. However, because the science isn't there to help, it will be much harder. I don't have any sort of solution, but we will need one.

I'm curious to see if there's something I'm missing.

Edit:

I have come to the conclusion that Black people experience more systemic racism, and less culturalism. Most other immigrant minorities, however, experience culturalism. The difference is most likely because of black people's long history with slavery, and how that left a lasting imprint on their race.

[Assistant]
With Black Americans, you have to ask the question why Americans who have lived here for hundreds of years, who remember nothing of African culture, have a separate culture at all?

Did they all choose to live together in high-concentrated poverty ghettos? Why dont poor whites also live in these neighborhoods?

Is it part of Black culture to separate themselves from the wider mainstream culture? Or is part of American culture to keep Blacks separated from the mainstream?


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

[User]
Is it possible that instead of the universe expanding, the matter inside it is shrinking?

As I understand it, the universe is getting larger because the space between things inside it is getting larger. Its not just that we are drifting away or flying apart, the actual 'space' is getting bigger (inflation).

Does it make sense that matter is shrinking inside a static universe, and that the 'heat death' is the point at which we can't get any smaller and everything just stops?

[Assistant] No not really. All of the forces that govern matter are distance dependent, so matter can't really shrink. Furthermore not *all* of space is evenly expanding. There are pockets of the universe where matter dominates and space doesn't expand, these being clusters of galaxies and the stuff within those clusters.


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

[User]
How close do a particle and its antiparticle have to be to annihilate?

Would it also matter through wich interaction they annihilate by? Since the electromagnetic force has a much further range than say the weak force would electron-positron annihilation be able to then occur further away via electromagnetic interactions rather then weak interactions?

[Assistant]
For any interaction among fundamental particles (whether it counts as annihilation or not), there isn't a sharp cutoff. The probability of the interaction becomes lower as the trajectories of the incoming particles get further apart.

Each individual reaction has a cross section, and if you set that cross section equal to r^2 and solve for r, that will give you a rough estimate of the distance above which the interaction probability becomes small.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is visa free traveling such an important topic for countries when they are negotiating with each other ?

[Assistant]
Applying for a visa requires filling out paperwork before traveling, which needs to be processed by a bureaucrat and approved. This takes time.

For business travel, this is extremely inconvenient. International business deals and meetings can't be easily rescheduled, might be cancelled on a moment's notice, and can't be convened in an emergency.

The automatic visa for passport holders makes it much easier to conduct international business and trade.


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

[User]
Oxytocin vs. Dopamine vs. Serotinin etc?

I'm always hearing things like "hug your pet, it'll release oxytocin!" Or "high fives are just free serotonin!" Or "kissing gives you a dopamine rush!" These all just sound like pleasurable things to do but what are the real differences between these substances for a layman like me? Do different activities release different chemicals? Will Batman fool the Joker's plan to poison the water supply? So many questions!!!

[Assistant]
Serotonin affects the hypothalamus, and regulates things like mood, appetite, sleep, sexual desire, social behavior.
Oxytocin  makes people feel content or attached to another person, auch as a mate or a child. On the other hand, Oxytocin also makes people
 less friendly to strangers or outsiders, so it's not exactly fairy dust. Dopamine is sometimes mistaken believed to be a "feel good" chemical, but it's not actually. Dopamine is responsible for motivation, and remembering rewards
 It's the neurotransmitter that makes you  want to do something or want to do more of it. The actual feel good chemical is endorphins.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is Shockwave Flash so slow, Why is Adobe unable to optimize it, and Why do websites continue to use it instead of moving to an alternative?

[Assistant]
Flash being slow is usually the result of a poorly programmed animation, menu, etc.

Adobe has to have its team of programmers support many browsers, patch security holes, and solve bugs, leaving them spending a lot of time on something that does not make them money directly. Hence their decision to drop mobile support. (the subtext is that they might not care about quality that much since it's already on the out, or they don't have the resources invested in it)

HTML5 is considered to be the upcoming alternative to Flash, and since it's an open standard, it's up to Chrome, IE, Firefox to implement it (and the quality of the implementation is now up to them instead).

Back when flash was introduced, it represented a significant advancement in web technology since one plugin would act the same in all browsers (with many competing standards, each acting differently in every browser). In the present, it's kinda out dated, especially compared to its alternatives.

Edit: spelling
Edit Note:
To clarify, HTML5 is not a replacement for flash currently, it represents a possible alternative that might be viable in the (near) future. Flash works for its __supported__ systems. Thanks to the many who mentioned it below.


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

[User] If there are multiple universes existing, is it theoretically possible for two universes to expand into each other? What would the consequences be?

[Assistant]
This depends on what you mean by "multiple universes".

If you're talking about multiple *observable* universes, then yes, but since an "observable universe" is an observer dependent construct, not a lot happens. This is just the statement that as our observable universe expands, we'll be able to see more stuff.

If you're talking about multiple universes in the sense of the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, then no. These "worlds" already occupy the same physical space and shouldn't really be thought of as "other universes".

If you're talking about multiple universes in the sense of large extra-dimensional string-theories, then again no. Expansion is an effect that occurs within the 3-dimensional spatial slice of a 3+1 dimensional spacetime; it doesn't in any way bring two such universes "closer". That said, there *is* a sense in which such universes (called branes) can collide. In fact, there are some speculative models in which our own "big bang" was actually the result of a collision between two such branes.


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

[User]
What does it mean when you "throw out your back"?

I've never actually done it, and googling the question returns no useful results.

At a biological level, what happens?

[Assistant]
It's not really a specific condition, but more so a general way of describing (typically lower) back pain. There can be a lot of things at play here. Usually it's just a strained muscle and will heal with just some basic rest, but sometimes it can be something a bit more serious like a herniated (slipped) disc. When this happens one of the discs in your (again usually lower) back has torn part of its fibrocartilage and has a bit of the softer inner squishy bits protruding from it. Usually quite painful, but will often heal on its own given enough time (occasionally requires surgical intervention).

Muscle strains are a fairly straightforward process (over exertion causes muscle tear), but actual vertebral injuries are almost always a result of prolonged "wear and tear". Too much pressure over too much time causes something to shift where it shouldn't be shifted. Pretty natural part of the aging process (but overall your lower back is a champ), but clearly doing hard physical labor can significantly speed up the process.

And that, kids, is why you always lift with your legs.


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

[User] How close are we to end aging?

[Assistant]
We're a long way away.

The point we're at right now is that it is no longer really viable to continue increasing the ability of the body to continue living if we cannot get the mind to live past 80 or so.  The mind is much more complicated than the body, and a part of the reason for our absurdly high healthcare expenditures is that we as a country are spending a lot of money keeping old, demented people alive who retired at 55 and are now in their 80's.  So it's not economically viable.

It's also not really viable in terms of the quality of life tradeoff.  Geriatric medicine today takes a huge toll on quality of life.  So there's a lot of cost-benefit analysis that needs to be carried out there too.

I'd guess that we, the Millennials, can be expected to live a good deal longer than the preceding generations just due to sensible eating habits, basic consumer protections implemented in the 80's and 90's, and the benefits of modern medicines, but "forever" is still a long way in the future.


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

[User]
[MCU] Could Goose (the Flerken) have eaten Thanos?

What if, at the end of Endgame, Captain Marvel had shown up with everyone's favorite Flerken and had him eat Thanos? A Flerken has a 'pocket dimension' in its mouth which can clearly swallow and contain things of enormous power like Infinity Stones (The Tesseract). Could it have contained Thanos? Could it have swallowed him before he realized what was happen and could defend himself?

[Assistant] i think thanos could literally tear through goose. yes goose is able to hold the tesseact but the tesseract isnt trying to punch its way out. simply holding the tesseract like a purse isnt that powerful of a feat. all it needs is immunity to radiation, but its flesh is still soft.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] If Harry uses the invisibility cloak backwards.. What does he see?

Let's assume the invisibility cloak works only on one side. If Harry puts the inner side out, what does he see?

[Assistant]
To give a slightly different answer, it's possible the magic of the cloak can detect the shortest distance between its two surfaces, and uses that to work out which the "inner surface" is. So regardless of which way round Harry wears it, it will always be the smaller volume (ie him, as opposed to the rest of the world) that will be invisible.

Another implication of this theory is, if the cloak is laid out flat, both surfaces are infinitely far apart from each other, so nothing is made invisible.


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

[User]
What is the value in publications prior to entering a PhD? Is it worth it?

I am studying within the Australian university system and am currently completing an honours project within a health field with the goal of first class and publication. My supervisors have approached me regarding one of my assignments and want to progress it into a publishable systematic review or meta-analysis.

If I go down this route I would have 2, potentially 3 publications before entering into a PhD and experience on conducting a published systematic review or meta-analysis. However I am a little concerned about the potential detriment to my honours grade (First class is the most realistic chance for PhD scholarship), and my financial wellbeing where I am currently working 25 hours and doing honours full time. I questioned waiting until I am a PhD student so that I can actually be paid for the work but they did not want to wait that long.

My question is what the potential career gain and benefit from contributing to this type of paper compared to the potential negatives, given I would like to pursue a career in academia and at the very least, research.

[Assistant] The value is that you are more likely to get a PhD place with funding. This can vary with country and field but many PhD programmes are incredibly competitive so the more evidence you have of research experience the more chance you have of being accepted.


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

[User]
Can a planet orbit a blackhole inside of the event horizon?

Not even light can escape a black hole once inside the event horizon but what about orbiting within the event horizon? Could light or a planet orbit inside the event horizon so that it couldn't escape but also wouldn't fall into the singularity?

Edit: Thank you for all your responses. Some great discussions are going on.

[Assistant]
No. The innermost ~~stable~~ orbit is the photon sphere, at 1.5 times the event horizon, where light can orbit in a circle. Inside that but outside the horizon, things can either fall in or escape to infinity. Inside the horizon, they can only fall inwards.

edit: The photon orbit is not stable, any perturbation will send it off-kilter.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] What exactly is a TM, and how does it work?

Technical Machines, Hidden Moves, and Technical Records have been in every Pokemon game, but what are these devices? How do they teach Pokemon unusual moves outside of their natural type and abilities?

They appear to be discs. Are they just instructional videos that teach Pokemon how to tap into powers they already have? Is there some innate magic to Pokemon that lets them use such a wide variety of moves?

In the most extreme case, many Normal Pokemon can tap into a diverse variety of elemental powers. Has this unknown energy source ever been discussed in a Pokemon game? Even a passing mention that it's odd a Pokemon can learn these moves?

Do we know who invented TMs and when? Finally, are HMs a game-only concept or do we see Pokemon in the anime who cannot use their innate, natural abilities such as Surf or Cut without HM guidance?

[Assistant]
As Pokemon are stored in PokeBalls and computers as energy, and TM and HM moves are stored on physical media likely as digital data, we can guess that Pokemon learn these moves digitally and not practically.

More closer to holding the TM or HM against them so that they can "scan" the data signature on the disc, rather than physically viewing and practicing the move contained on the disc.

I believe we've seen a TM used in the anime before and it was essentially just held to the Pokemon's forehead and the disc disappeared.


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

[User] ELI5: How do smoke detectors know that there's smoke around? And how do they make it infinitely reusable?

[Assistant]
Inside a smoke detector, there is a small amount of radioactive material between two electrically conductive pieces of metal.  The radioactivity causes the air between the plates to ionize and conduct electricity.  When smoke enters the detector, this ionization is interrupted.  This causes a change in current between the plates, which the detector can sense.

ETA - This is also why the detector is reusable.  There's nothing about this setup that would change after smoke is detected.  The half-life of the radioactive material in the smoke detector is about 400 years, so you don't have to worry about that part either.


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

[User]
[Star Wars OT era] Why are there so few aliens in the rebellion?

The imperials make sense for being human only. They're racists.

But wouldn't the rebels have great success recruiting Wookies and other species that have been enslaved by the Imperials? Why does it seem like most pilots and foot soldiers are human?

[Assistant]
Reminder that what we see in ANH and ESB is only one cell of many. Not every cell is going to be full of nonhumans, and not every cell is going to be pure human either.

RotJ features many aliens among the Rebellion, as it's the first time that all the cells have finally gathered for one big confrontation.


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

[User]
[Fallout 3] Why is Washington DC a barren desert while Point Lookout is a swamp?

Washington DC and Point Lookout are only about 60-70 miles away from each other. Washington DC was also built on a swamp. Without constant maintenance to keep its current climate, the swamp will once again reclaim the area.

Nuclear war of course would interrupt regular maintenance of the waterways, and once these failed, Washington DC should be a flooded swamp with humidity through the roof. However in Fallout 3, Washington DC is depicted as an arid, barren area seemingly devoid of water. And yet Lookout Point, only 60-70 miles away, is a lush area teaming with plant life.

Even assuming that the radiation from so many bombs being directed at the capitol of the US during the Great War makes it almost impossible for anything to grow there, it should still be a swamp, albeit a dead swamp. Its still going to be very wet and humid from both rainfall as well as from the waters of the Potomac.

Why is Washington DC so dry but Point Lookout nearby is so wet?

[Assistant]
>Even assuming that the radiation from so many bombs being directed at the capitol of the US during the Great War makes it almost impossible for anything to grow there, it should still be a swamp, albeit a dead swamp.

It is possible that the shock from the impact of that many nukes altered the course of some rivers and underground water drainage patterns to dry out the DC area.

Another possibility is that a combination of the heat and impact from the nukes altered and compacted the soil, making it harder and less porous.  This would cause more rainfall to run off down the Potomac and into the ocean instead of pooling in a swampy area.


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

[User]
ELI5:Is there a limit on how sharp a knife or piece of metal can become?

If so what it is it?

[Assistant]
Yes.  Eventually you will get to a point (no pun intended) where the metal is so thin that it can no longer support itself against any resistance.  This is why learning how to properly sharpen a knife is important.  If the angle formed at the edge is too small the metal won't have enough strength to hold up against the pressure you apply when cutting and will fold over rather than cut.

Stronger metals (generally) can be made sharper than weaker metals.  For example, stainless steel has other metals added and undergoes heat treatment that make it stronger and less brittle which means you can put a sharper edge on it and it won't bend or chip.  That's why they use it for things like scapels and razors which have to be very sharp.


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

[User] ELI5: On the treadmill at my gym, the calories per hour estimate jumps from 353 at 4.4 mph to 647 at 4.5 mph (roughly the border between a brisk walk and a light jog), and anecdotally I've noticed that a slow jog is much harder than a fast walk even if the difference in actual speed is small. Why?

[Assistant] Jogging slowly is a very inefficient way of transporting yourself compared to walking. Let's say that "walking fast" and "jogging very slowly" give you the same speed. When walking fast almost all your movement contributes towards transporting you in the walking direction. When you jog very slowly, you will notice that just spend a lot of energy moving yourself up and down, and less energy moving yourself towards the direction you are running.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Are R2D2, C3PO, HK-48 and the other "Protagonist droids" more than the rest of the droids in the SWU? Are they more sentient?

[Assistant]
The way droids are programmed leaves room to develop sentience via an extended version of the "personality development" part. This takes time, however.

To forestall this, most droids are mindwiped with each sale, effectively giving them a factory reset. C-3PO's personality would thus have come from his work with Princess Leia Organa, even though he was much older.

R2-D2 was a special case, having escaped all mindwipes he would have been subjected to.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] How intelligent are most Pokemon?

As in problem solving skills, and if possible, IQ. I know there are outliers like Abra and Mewtwo, but what about most of the Pokemon who can understand English and empathize?

[Assistant]
Pokemon vary fairly wildly in terms of intelligence. Most are kind of dumb. (Not necessarily stupid, just not smart) Some are a bit more clever. They don't recognize speech they way that most people assume; They recognize the intention behind the words, and, with training, know how their trainer expects them to act.

Problem solving skills are limited. They can solve whatever issues crop up in their day-to-day lives, but if put into an environment they're unfamiliar with they won't exactly flourish. There's actually a rather advanced system in the PokeComputer (PC) network that releases Pokemon to their natural habitat, just so we don't end up disturbing ecosystems (For instance, by letting Gyarados loose in a local fishing hole)

As for IQ, well, those tests are designed for humans, so they won't exactly apply. There are some psychic Pokemon who perform well on IQ tests, which sounds impressive until you realize that those tests are proctored by someone who knows what the correct responses are, and that Psychic types can read minds.


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

[User]
[Star Trek][AMA] Federation Cultural Exoanthropologist here, Ask me Anything!

Greetings, 21st century humans!

Due to a number of temporal anomalies, information about the 24th century has been leaked to historical humans under the guise of "fiction." This no doubt has made you all curious about how things work in the 24th century.

With permission from Starfleet's Temporal Enforcement unit, I have been authorized to answer questions pertaining to my field of research: Cultural Exoanthropology.

Similar to your time's field of Cultural Anthropology (the study of human societies and cultures), Cultural *Exo*anthropology extends that to extraterrestrial species. My focus is on contemporary (mid- to late 24th century) Alpha and Beta quadrant cultures.

Ask me anything!

P.S. I will attempt to answer any question I can, even those outside my field of expertise.

[Assistant]
What does everything smell like?

We primarily know of our future with written and audio/visual media, things we call books, movies and television. We lack any sense of smell.

Do Vulcans smell at all?  Do Klingons have a strong body odor? Does an Orion slave girl smell sexually arousing? Does a wet Tellarite smell like a wet terran dog or pig? What do the many foods we see smell like? Do replicators replicate smell? Do Vulcans fart?

Tell us about all the smells (and tastes and feels, but mostly smells) of Tomorrow.


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

[User] ELI5: When a video/text is claimed to have been written by a AI that has been fed thousands of exemplars as models, what's actually happening? How does an AI read or watch exemplars of video or text and then abstract enough meaning from them to make one of its own?

[Assistant]
AI, even really advanced AI, doesn't really deal with "meaning." It's just executing instructions.

A really basic text generation algorithms works probabilistically. It needs a first word, so it goes through and looks at all the first words in the model text and picks one at random, with more weight given to words that appear more often. Suppose it chooses "the". Then it needs a word that comes after "the", so it goes through and looks at all the words that come after "the" and picks one, and so on. More advanced AI try harder to do things like binding words together into syntactic units or taking into account where in the sentence/paragraph they are.


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

[User]
CMV: As a male who showers and changes his underwear every day, I believe it would be more hygienic for me to wash my hands BEFORE peeing rather than after.

Two points that are used to form my view:

1.) I know exactly where my penis has been all day after I shower: inside of a fresh pair of boxers. Barring sweat on hot summer afternoons, my penis is completely clean.

2.) I couldn't readily remember all of the things that I've touched with my hands throughout the day (subway poles, stair railings, elevator buttons, door handles, other peoples' hands, etc.). Barring the few scant moments after washing my hands before touching the next germ-ridden object in life, my hands are presumably quite dirty.

It seems much more logical to wash my hands prior to peeing, as my hands will still be in the same state of cleanliness post-pee since point A established that my penis is clean throughout the day.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the Public Health 101 argument is something I've considered, and is on its own not enough to change my view. If I haven't pissed on my hands somehow, then my hands are in the same 'cleanliness state' (if not more so) after touching my penis than they would be after touching, say, my forearm. I also forgot to mention that this view holds only for self-flushing urinals (as I wouldn't be touching a handle to flush afterwards).

[Assistant]
Washing your hands after you use the restroom is more about other people than yourself.  You probably wouldn't want someone shaking your hand, cooking your food or folding your clothes with their own urine or excrement on their hands - it seems fair to afford them the same courtesy.

While you may be right in that your hands come into contact with more germs during normal life than from touching your genitals, nothing precludes you from washing both before **and** after so as to satisfy both sets of conditions.


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

[User]
ELI5:The deal with Mont Blanc pens?

Ok so I try to be open minded, but I still can't really understand why people would pay hundreds (or thousands?) of dollars for a pen. I get that they're probably really great pens, but seriously?

[Assistant]
High End pens are like high end anything else. Quality and prestige drive up the value of the product. Pilot makes some really nice pens for about $20 each. Compare that to the bank teller's Bic you swiped that probably cost under a dollar. The Pilot is likely to be significantly better (more comfortable to write with, better quality ink refill, sturdier design, aesthetically pleasing, etc.). Now imagine an even better pen (fountain pen, less mass produced or more hand made elements) with a rich history of craftsmanship.

Mont Blanc pens, Ferrari cars, or Rolex watches, or whatever are generally among the highest quality product in the industry, but also (and more importantly) have the deepest history associated with the product. A perfect car example, Volkswagen made a $90,000 vehicle called the Phaeton. It was a marvel of automotive engineering and was designed to be the peak of luxury (after all, VW borrowed heavily from sister company Audi). Yet no one bought it. Why? No history, no prestige, no brag factor. You can't walk into a bar and throw down your VW key fob and expect anyone to be impressed. No one cares about a $5,000 Timex. And Bic could never charge $100+ for a pen.

I'd venture to say that the actual quality of a pen tops out around $50. After that, it depends on the materials it's made of. As those materials get better/rarer, the price will continue to climb. Then add a multiplier for the prestige of the company. I'd say a Mont Blanc pen is at least times more expensive then a comparable Pilot.


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

[User]
Why exactly do objects make "wooshing" noises when I drive by them with my windows rolled down?

What exactly causes this sound?  Is it related to the Doppler effect?

[Assistant]
I suspect that you may be talking about something other than what SausageMcMerkin addressed.

Do you mean the quick "whoosh" sound caused by passing stationary objects by the roadside that don't make noise themselves (like mailboxes, parked cars, etc)?  If so, what you're hearing is simply a reflection of the sound made by your tires combined with your car's engine noise.  The noises generated by your car bounce off the relatively-flat face of roadside objects and are directed back toward you.  You should notice that this effect is more prominent with larger objects, objects closer to your car, and objects with very flat faces.


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

[User]
[40K] Can a sufficiently high ranking officer of the Imperial Guard dismiss/relieve/discipline a commissar?

Commissars are pretty bad ass and very good at what they do. However, they're still human. Is there any circumstance where an officer of the Imperial Guard can dismiss or relieve a commissar for poor service or other reasons?

[Assistant]
Commissars are outside the IG chain of command, so no, *technically* an IG officer cannot touch his commissar.

If a commissar is incompetent or corrupt or heretical enough, though, their IG unit might remove them from their post. This removal generally takes place on the battlefield in an unfortunate friendly fire incident.


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

[User]
Do languages that read from right to left think of time as progressing from right to left?

As an English speaker I, and I assume most people, think of time progressing in the forward direction to the right. For example when plotting a time line, the most recent events would be to the right, and historic events to the left.
Does the direction of reading affect this?

[Assistant] "Not the answer but related". In English, people think of the future as ahead of you, and the past behind you but in some other languages the past is in front of you and the future behind you because you can see the past and it can give you clues about the future but you can't know for sure whats behind you/in the future.


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

[User] [Superman]Could superman still use his heat vision if were blind?

[Assistant]
Yes. Vision is based on the ability of the eyes to absorb light reflected off objects.

Superman's heat vision is a misnomer, he's not using it to see, so it's not vision. He uses it to emit light, which is the opposite of vision, and is what light bulbs do.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does "he was all but confused" mean "he was extremely confused", but if you take the sequence of words literally, it means " he was everything EXCEPT for confused"?

I never understood this English form. I'm using the word "confused" as filler, but any adjective might do there.
I dont understand why when someone is "all but XXX" they are understood to be "extremely XXX."
Didn't we just say they were ALL BUT that thing?

[Assistant]
The phrase "all but X" is an idiom, and idioms should not be read literally. Throwing a book at someone doesn't literally mean throwing a book. If you miss the boat ordering a cake for a birthday, you haven't literally missed a boat.

The phrase "all but X" means that practically, things are so close to being X that they may as well be X. For example, the "match was all but decided" means that the end result from the match is almost certain.

If, however, you had a basket of eggs and broke all but one, this is a literal construction and you can replace the word "but" with "except" and the phrase still makes sense.


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

[User] ELI5: How does toilet paper not become damp from the steam produced by a shower?

[Assistant]
TLDR: Your shower doesn't produce THAT much moisture, and it doesn't last long enough to cause considerable damage.

Basically paper has to be splashed with water or soaked in it to get damp. Moisture in the air isn't enough for paper to get what we would consider damp.

Just looked this up on a few sites talking about archiving paper. Even at 100% humidity and room temperature paper only absorbs about 20% moisture content. That's enough to start causing curling but not enough to get it wet.

Generally speaking a shower wouldn't be enough to cause this on it's own. You are more likely to get paper damaged by water if you live in an area that has 100% air humidity on a regular basis.


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

[User]
Why can your brain simulate sensory sensations during a dream but not while awake and day dreaming?

For example, a kissing sensation feels real while asleep and dreaming but not daydreaming.

[Assistant] One theory of dreaming states that one part of your brain is overactive during REM sleep. It makes random signals which get sent to the other areas of the brain. Those other areas then try to make sense of these random signals by using already-known information, which leads to weird ass dreams.


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

[User]
Does Earth get energy from stars other than the sun?

I know the sun is our biggest source of energy on Earth, but do we also get some energy from all the other stars out there? We can see them so we're at least some light is getting here, but are they contributing any even remotely significant amount of energy to us?

[Assistant]
If by energy you mean light and heat.
Then essentially yes as being able to see the stars at night is there light (which is a form of energy) reaching us. But in the main way earth 'uses' the Suns energy, photosynthesis other stars do not contribute at all really. Could go far more in depth but not really sure if this is what you mean.


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

[User] ELI5: Why our face looks slightly different after we wake up from a sleep?

[Assistant]
During the day you generally keep your head up at the top of your body, and your body gets used to having to pump blood way up there, and you look normal.

At night, you position yourself horizontally and stay that way for hours.  Blood flows much more easily to your head and that extra blood in there (it's not pooling up, there's just more in there as it's moving around) makes your face a little puffy n' stuff.

Then once you get yourself upright again after a bit everything settles back down under gravity's constant tug, and you look normal again.


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

[User]
ELI5: How much more "data" does a QR code have, compared to a regular "bar code/UPC code"?

I kind of understand how a UPC code works, but how is a QR code capable of "storing more data"?

[Assistant]
If you think about what a UPC code is, it's just a series of black and white lines, right? Each of those lines can be represented as a binary digit, a 1 or a 0, depending on whether it's black or white. If you only cared about a binary string, that's all you'd need. You could make a barcode that was 4 digits long by having 4 lines. If B is 0 and W is 1, then 4 lines of BWWB will be read as 0110. However, this isn't super convenient, so UPC organises these lines into blocks of 7, and uses the order of the lines to represent a decimal digit. 1110010 for example represents 0.

But, those lines don't actually need to be very long. The vertical dimension in a UPC code is doing absolutely nothing in terms of the information it delivers, it's just making it so the line of light from the barcode reader doesn't need to be perfectly aligned - it's making it much easier to scan. So, you could squish a barcode down to be potentially even just 1 atom tall if you really wanted to and could invent a reader capable of seeing something that small. With the shift to cameras, which can see the actual image and not just detect the red line bouncing off it, the height of the barcode can be shrunk down immensely. This is pretty much what a QR code is doing - by shifting to squares instead of lines, it can fit a lot more information in, because it frees up the vertical dimension to contain different information to the bits of the code above and below it.


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

[User]
What makes an object or surface sticky/smooth?

I feel silly asking this question but I've always wondered!

[Assistant]
This is actually a very complicated topic, so I'll start with a basic overview of some key points. You can ask about any parts you want more detail on, and we'll take it from there.

Stickiness and smoothness are derived from a number of factors, including surface chemistry and structure at the very core. Chemistry or the makeup of a material is obviously crucial. Stickiness is a macroscopic form of attractive forces, while smoothness is basically about a low friction surface. These are not exactly opposites, but they do run counter to each other in many ways.

At the molecular level, a surface can be sticky towards different things based on any number of forces or interactions. Electrostatics (positively and negatively charged molecules or parts of molecules) can stick things together, as can ionic interactions, hydrogen bonding, Van der Waals forces, and a bunch of others. You can also have chemical reactions that form covalent bonds between two different materials, but that's usually more permanent. Velcro-like entanglement can also happen with longer polymer molecules, for instance.

Smoothness, chemically, is about reducing attractive forces and often increasing (but not necessarily) repulsive forces. This reduces the observed frictional forces. The most well known materials like this would be Teflon and similar perfluorinated compounds, although there are many others as well.

One important note about the chemistry component: nothing repels or attracts everything. It's always targeted based on the most important interactions you want to control.

Structure is however equally important. A piece of steel can feel smooth if polished, but very rough if it's scraped up. There is also the famous example of gecko feet, which have thousands of tiny hair like structures, each of which are a tiny bit sticky (via Van der Waals forces). Add up those thousands of little sticky forces, and geckos can climb walls. Or the famous lotus effect, a structural form of water resistant coating based on the structures observed in lotus leafs. By optimizing the surface area (either to reduce it maximize it) and angles, you can greatly affect the surface interactions of a material, but it's hard to give a universal rule for this. It must be examined in the context of a specific material and it's interesting with specific substances.


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

[User] [Marvel/DC] Why are there far more villains than heroes?

[Assistant] Because people tend to be self-interested, and if you hand them enough power to get whatever they want that's what they do. That's why they say that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The flip side of that, the idea that with great power comes great responsibility, is rather more rare.


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

[User]
ELI5: Is quality of sleep affected by how you wake up?

For instance, I wake up every morning to about 5-15 minutes of alarms because I'm a very heavy sleeper. Does waking up this way change the amount/quality of my sleep?

[Assistant]
Kind of. Your body runs through 90 minute cycles when you're asleep. You go from light sleep to very deep (REM) and back again. If you wake up during the deep sleep part of your cycle, it is much more difficult to wake up and you feel very groggy. If you wake up during the light part of your cycle it's usually much easier.

There are apps you can get on your phone which monitor your sleep pattern, and try to wake you up during a light-sleep period closest to your wakeup time. These can help make your mornings a little easier.

This is also why, if you're taking a nap, you want it to be shorter than 30 minutes. Any longer than that and you start going into the deeper stages of sleep that are hard to wake up from. Then your nap leaves you groggy instead of refreshed.


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

[User]
Is Jean Grey an Omega level mutant due to the phoenix force?

If she had no ties to the phoenix force would she still have enough power to reach Omega level status?

[Assistant]
Absolutely. Jean Grey is literally more powerful than she can even manage.

When she was a child, she was so strong that she Professor Xavier had to retard her abilities. Her telepathy was completely turned off, and her telekinesis was ramped down to allow her to grow. The strength was reintroduced to her as she grew.

At her maximum potential, her raw power is basically unmatched. She has the strength to pull objects out of orbit and the finesse to manipulate objects at a subatomic level. Telepathically, she can cut off individual senses, communicate with animals, project astrally, and kill with her mind.

She wasn't so powerful because she became the Phoenix, she was so powerful THAT she became the Phoenix.


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

[User]
[Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra] Can benders only be born in their respective nations ?

Is in some way were you are born connected to the type of bending you will receive, like fire benders can only be born in the fire nation, water benders in the water tribes etc. Is in some way your bending associated with the real world borders ? If the fire nation had won and conquered the world everybody that would born in the now world controlled by the fire nation would be a fire bender ? And if you are born in the Replubic City from Legend of Korra since it's a neutral territory you could born with any type of bending ?

[Assistant]
Probably has more to do with genetics than national boundaries

In Republic City we confirm mixed race couples can produce benders from both cultures represented

(And Bolins unique abilities are not fully explained but may be because of said mixed ancestry)


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

[User] ELI5: What makes the human mind dwell so easily on embarrassing experiences even after a long time since they occurred?

[Assistant]
Embarrassment usually happens when you perceive yourself to have messed up in some way (especially when others witness it). Humans are social creatures, and our group is really important. We don't want to lose our group because they think we are screw ups, so the brain tries to hammer home every mistake so that we don't make it again.

Does that make sense/answer your question?


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

[User]
[Transformers 2] Why didn't the US Navy blast the Sun Harvester with that new railgun?

It took out that massive NBE like it was nothing. It's pretty damn accurate if it can hit a 70-90 foot target from miles away.

Why the fuck didn't it shoot that damn machine!? And don't give me any bullcrap about running outta energy. My buddy was in one of the planes that tried to shoot that thing!

Why were they even flying so close when we had that wondergun offshore?

[Assistant] Power issues aside (They are, actually, a concern), HEATING would also be a very serious problem. A shot from that would cause so much heat in the barrel that they'd have to give it time to cool off, otherwise we're talking missing the shot as a least dramatic possibility, and the rail gun outright exploding as a worst-case scenario.


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

[User] [Genies] I've written up a catalogue containing 100 items and I say "I wish for everything written in the catalogue to be granted to me." Am I granted 100 items or 3?

[Assistant]
It can depend on the genie.

If you've got a friendly Aladdin-type genie who likes you, then there's a good chance you'll get all 100 items.  After all, Aladdin got a whole bunch of things with just his "I wish to be a prince" wish (seventy five golden camels, fifty three purple peacocks, ten thousand servants and flunkies, etc).

If it's a neutral genie, he'll probably point out your error and tell you that you can't do that.  Or he'll just follow the letter of the law and give you the first three things in the catalogue.

If it's a malevolent djinn, he'll give you all 100 items, but will drop them on your head all at once from a sufficient height to kill you.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does milk really help you grow taller or is it a myth?

Is milk still reasonable to drink just for a healthy growth or its all a myth and your height growth only depends in genetics and your diet (meat/fish, rice, veggies, water etc etc..)?

[Assistant]
Not having malnutrition helps you grow taller.

Milk is a good source of some minerals that were traditionally hard to find.  However, if you live in a developed country and are well fed, it is not likely something you need to worry about.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do those lame porn advertisements make money, and why do porn sites continue to host them?

e.g., "Local singles want to fuck in your area!" "Grow your dick with this simple trick!"

[Assistant] They make money because there's a sucker born every minute. If *somebody, somewhere* wasn't clicking them, the company wouldn't pay to keep them up. It's also why spam emails are still a thing, for a lot of people. They still work on enough people to make a profit.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why didn't the Jedi Council send more backup to Naboo when they knew a Sith Lord was running around?

The Jedi were not in a war during this time so they weren't starved for resources like they constantly were during The Clone Wars.

They found out that a Sith Lord was running around for the first time in 1000 years but they send Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan back to Naboo alone. Why? Qui-Gon got killed and Obi-Wan would have been killed as well if Darth Maul hadn't been so cocky.

During the celebration ceremony on Naboo, the whole damn council showed up to stand around even though nobody there even cared about them. Why couldn't they haul their asses to Naboo before?

[Assistant] Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan encountered Maul on Tatooine, not Naboo, so there wouldn't have been much point sending backup to Naboo, from the Council's perspective. And nobody knew Maul was a Sith Lord, Qui-Gon suspected that he was from their encounter, and he passed those suspicions on to the Council. You have to remember, for a Jedi, Qui-Gon was a bit of a loose cannon. He very well may have reported a Sith Lord every other week.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do guitarists sometimes use different guitars for certain songs causing them to switch instruments mid-set?

[Assistant] besides the different tunings, different guitars have different sounds.  Guitars are made of different materials, different woods, different pickups (which capture the vibrations of the string), and different circuitry inside of the guitar and pickups. So a guitarist may want a "Strat" sound for one song and, say, a Les Paul sound for another.


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

[User]
[Fallout] Does the Brotherhood have the manpower to simultaneously occupy DC and Boston without relying on a local militia or swelling its ranks with a whole lot of rubbish recruits?

Question inspired by the ability to simultaneously become a Sentinel and a General. Logically, that turns the Minutemen into Brotherhood auxiliary militia, which actually sounds like a smart idea.

[Assistant] The BoS under Maxson made some important recruiting changes. Besides the "be born in the BoS" route, if a wastelander is young enough they can join or if a established BoS memeber (such as a Paladin) vouches for the recruit they can join. In just 10 years this policy has flooded the BoS with a lot of decently trained soldiers. The expedition to Boston has 500+ members iirc, which is already larger than the Mojave BoS before Operation: Sunburst and that's not including the forces left back in D.C.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do busy city roads take longer to degrade than lesser used county roads?

[Assistant]
Former paving contractor here. Busy city roads are usually built to a  higher standard and get more maintenance than low-use country roads.

To the causal observer, roads all tend to look the same. But underneath the black asphalt you see, busy roads are built stronger. More gravel base, and often a layer of concrete provide a strong long lasting structure that can support lots of traffic.

But this strength is expensive. Municipalities often cannot justify the extra expense of building this strength on country roads that do not get used much. So they sometimes degrade more rapidly.


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

[User] [Robocop] If almost all of Murphy's brain was destroyed when he was murdered, does the robot adopt his identity as a way of coping with its existence as a piece of police equipment?

[Assistant]
Without the brain, the robotic portion wouldn't have enough intelligence to need to cope with anything to begin with.

That Murphy feels the need to cope at all is proof that he *is* Murphy, and not a machine adopting an identity.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is information transmitted through wires?

Take a simple USB cable. Its just a small array of conductive contacts and metal wire. Obviously the computer/device decodes the information but how is that information communicated? Morse code?

[Assistant]
For copper/metal wires like that its basically morse code, you just toggle the electricity on and off real fast. In a usb cable and other such cables there's also often multiple wires woven inside the isolating sleeve to allow for more information traveling simultaneously.

What's really interesting is fibre optic cables. These ones are made from (i think plastic) transparent fibres, and instead of running a current through it, you shine light into the fibre in a particular angle, such that it bounces off the walls of the fibre and stays inside, so you can see the light coming out the other end. These cables carry a lot of information, because not only can you wrap many of these fibres into one cable, you can also shine multiple different colours (wavelengths) of light into a single fiber, and they won't interfere with each other. Then you again just toggle the different colours in each fibre on and off really quickly to transmit information.

Also note that its not actually morse code, its simpler because in computers all data is already in the form of ones and zeros, so you just transmit it raw.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What would be the easiest way(s) to kill Carnage and Venom?

They're "weak" to fire and sound, but it's (as far as I know) shown that their comic counterparts can often shrug those off relatively easily. So how can you kill them?

And, even more importantly, what's the easiest way of doing so?

[Assistant]
There's a pheromone that repels symbiotes and prevents them from attaching to their hosts. Assuming they're willing and able to kill the host, anyone wearing it could do so to either symbiote.

Of course, said pheromone is only available in the future in another dimension (Earth-8009) so "easiest" is relative. Women there are genetically engineered to emit this pheromone, to keep back what they call "the Black Bloom."


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

[User]
The most idiotic rejection reason so far

Hi All!
Let's have a fun and post the most idiotic rejection reasons.
The weirdest reason I've came across so far is:

"we have decided to focus on papers which are related to previous work published in our journal.
And this does not seem to be the case with your paper since you are not citing articles of XXXXXX"

This God-forsaken journal, which nobody is reading, publishes only papers that are citing it!

[Assistant]
I once had a rejection like "the results of this article are solid but unsurprising. It would be more exciting to see X or Y."

X was actually in the article, and Y was a hugely important open problem that, if we'd solved it, we'd have submitted to a much fancier journal than the one who rejected us.


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

[User]
ELI5: Are sound waves as big as they are in diagrams?

How big are sound waves?

Youve got all these kinds of waves, square, sine, saw blah blah. At least when I was getting into sound design you spend some time looking at the supposed sound waves. Also on diagrams where you see sound waves, are they actually that big going into your ear?

[Assistant]
The wavelengths of audible sound are between 17 mm and 17 m, but sound travels as a compression wave, not a sin wave like light. Thing is, compression waves are hard to visualize or write down, so a sin wave is used with the same wavelength. Best visualization Ive seen for sound waves is a Slinky stretched out, then you pull and release a portion from one end and watch the ripple travel along its length.

So if youre talking about are sound wavelength large enough to see (if they were visible at all)? Then yes.