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

[User]
Is there a term for the cost of convenience while shopping?

It's a bit of an odd question for a proper term so I'll present the story that led me to think about it.

At one store, milk is $3, but the produce is bad so I will purchase none.

At another store, milk is $4, but the produce is good so I will purchase produce there.

Is there a term for my unwillingness to go to the cheaper milk store to save $1?

Is there a term for the $1 difference in milk prices between the stores, assuming the other store knows I'm willing to pay this extra $1 to be able to purchase both milk and produce at one location?

It feels too easy an broad to call it price discrimination because my shopping preference is between two products instead of one, and that cost increase is based on my preference for produce which varies from time to time. The stores are also right next to each other which means I can't really account for travel time as a big factor.

Thanks!

[Assistant]
Opportunity cost: the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen
(Definition taken from the Oxford English Dictionary).

In essence, opportunity cost is the value of your next best alternative activity. So, in your example, the opportunity cost of buying your $3 milk in one place and then traveling elsewhere to buy produce, includes the value of the gas, wear and tear on the car (if you're traveling by car), and time that you spend travelling to the other store for cheaper milk, in terms of how you could have spent these resources in the next best way. If this value exceeds $1, then you'll just buy your milk for $1 extra at the store you buy produce from.


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

[User] [WH40k] In the grimdark future where war is the only future, I have to imagine that in such a setting acts such as rape, child molestation, slavery and torture are run of the mill daily affairs. So, what would constituent a most heinous act in the Empire?

[Assistant]
Willing Heresy is the top of the pyramid, bar none.

Also, in most Imperial cultures, those acts involving children are all still illegal and punishable by imprisonment or worse. They're still viewed as heinous. People still loathe criminals who commit those kinds of crimes. The vast majority of the Imperium is still regular men and women, they still have senses of what is right and wrong.


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

[User] [Fallout] Are all living humans the descendants of Vault dwellers? Did anyone manage to stay non-ghoulified on the surface?

[Assistant]
No. Some people escaped the bombs by living in bumfucknowhere, where there was no real target for the Chinese to aim at. Others hid out in caves, personally built shelters, and other means of survival.

Even without the Vaults, Life, uh, finds a way.


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

[User]
[Modern day magic] What would be a responsible way of evaluating my new superpower?

By sheer cosmic coincidence, I found out I can "heal wounds" after I reflexively gripped at a scratch i received. I saw that the injury had broken my skin and drawn blood, but after I had applied pressure to the area and released my grip, there was no such injury.

I assumed this was just warped perception at the time, until another instance of injury occured, where I absentmindedly cut my finger during meal prep. Same deal; dropped the knife and put pressure on the wound, then realized it wasnt there anymore as I went to grab a bandage.

Now here's the thing. I don't know what's happening exactly to undo wounds, or the limitations of it's activation. I can't tell if it's rapid cellular regeneration, a localized time reversal, or what; and I'm honestly not keen on testing the extent of this phenonenon on myself should it lead to giving myself super cancer or something. Nor would people be jumping at the idea of being human lab rats lest the same happen to them.

While this is pretty benign so far, both activations have been unconscious. I'm not keen on waking up one day to find out it had spiraled out of control and turned me into a massive tumor; but I also don't want to end up locked up in a research facility where I'm doomed to just suffer through experiments as a test subject.

I'd like to at least find the extent to which this ability works, or if I can even consciously control it, without stirring up unwarranted attention. How do?

[Assistant]
The easiest way would probably be to try it out on animals.

Buy some literal lab rats and try it on them.  Wound them, slightly at first, but then more severely, testing your ability to heal them and observing for after-effects each time.

Realise that rats are pretty small, and you're not accounting for potential complications with larger animals.  Buy a cat, then a dog, and experiment with them.  Buy a bird, a lizard, and some fish, so you're not just testing with mammals.  Continue hurting and healing them, until one day you go too far and kill one of them.  In a panic, attempt to heal them and discover to your surprise that you're successful; what's more, the subject experiences no apparent ill-effects apart from the obvious, expected fear of you.

Realise that the horror of killing a living, breathing, tail-wagging, cute little puppy and the subsequent thrill of bringing it back to life was the most intense rush you ever felt.  Begin to test this ability exclusively, inflicting increasingly more grotesque and catastrophic - but always fatal - damage each time and finding to your delight that you can bring them back in every scenario.  Blunt force trauma; evisceration; fire; extreme cold; starvation; your abilities overcome them all. The killing and the resurrecting get mixed up in your mind, until you no longer know which of the two thrills you the most.

Eventually, come to the conclusion that animals aren't enough: yes, you can _observe_ them, but you can't really understand what they're experiencing; what's really _happening_ to them when you revoke, then restore, the gift of life. Start scoping the area for homeless people, junkies and/or runaways.  Abduct them and subject them to endless inventive deaths, resurrecting them each time and interrogating them for data: how much did it hurt to die? What was it like being dead? Did they see anything beyond the veil? Did it hurt more or less than the last ten, fifty, one hundred times? Would they agree that you are, if not _the_ God, then at least _a_ god?  Are they suitably appreciative of the miracle you're allowing them to share?

Congratulations - you are now a supervillain, and a particularly nasty one at that.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40K] Using orks' reality warping

Say the Imperium goes out and catches some orks alive, and sticks them in cells with everything they need to reproduce. A few captive orks make more, and those in turn produce more exponentially. Keep capturing, keep breeding, until there are millions, then billions, of captive orks, spread throughout planets across the Imperium.

Then, through every means of education, conditioning, and indoctrination possible, drill into their minds so they believe, more than they do anything else, that when some simple trigger occurs (e.g., a blue light goes on in their cells), Slaanesh will cease to exist and the Warp will become hyperspace again.

Pull that trigger on every ork at once. Every one of billions of reality warpers, spread across the galaxy, believes utterly. Does it work?

[Assistant]
1) The psychic gestalt of the Orks does not work like that. Its like any other psychic power, it has its limits and functions.

2) You can not educate or indoctrinate an Ork, and certainly not in a way that allows them to keep their gestalt fields.

3) Your plan fails spectacularly and catastrophically at the billions and billions of Orks spread across Imperium worlds part.

Im afraid this is not going to work out too well.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why doesn't someone start a blood factory? Instead of blood donation, blood jobs!

I was wondering why someone doesn't just go to one of the most populated places on Earth (China) and start a sustainable way of life that revolves around the production of quality blood.

Just build a mini village, grow the right food nearby, and hire people to grow food and live lifestyles that promotes excellent blood quality. This can be a model for other villages to adopt.

Maybe pay them by blood type and specifications (though that might cause class-ism within the blood farm).

Seriously...Then MILK farms. HUMAN milk.

[Assistant]
1. Because you are basically making them commit to something that's really invasive for life. If you're looking for someone with the perfect blood, you need them to live their entire lives according to rules prescribed by a specialist. You basically tell them to sign away their right to choice for money. That's a terrible thing to do.

2. Because humans have a right to decide what to do with their bodies. You can't contractually obligate someone to give you a part of his body, they can only donate it if they *want* to donate it.

3. Because commercialising blood transfusions creates a *huge* incentive for crime. We already have a horrifying amount of human trafficking in the world, imagine if people's blood became a valuable commodity. The weak and defenseless would be picked right off the street and bled dry, they would literally be worth more dead than alive. And where does it end? Look at animals. A pig is definitely worth more dead than alive, because they are bred exclusively for meat. And look at the lives of pigs today, they spend all of it being prepared for slaughter. Not many people in the world give a shit about pigs' rights, because who cares? They're going to be killed some day anyway. Now imagine if we treated the poorest, least educated human beings that way. We'd be a terrible, terrible society.

4. Because wtf, man, who wants to live their lives like that? That's just terrible.


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

[User] ELI5: If the universe is expanding and the distances of each galaxies get larger over time then why is our own galaxy (Milkyway) will collide with another galaxy (Andromeda) in the future?

[Assistant]
Andromeda is part of our local galactic cluster, which is still bound by gravity thats stronger than the expansion force.  Other galactic clusters are getting further away from us but the galaxies within our own cluster are not, or rather are not due to expansion.

Galaxies within other clusters are the same, they remain locally bound to each other.  Expansion is acting at extremely large distances only at this time.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does skin turn red when irritated?

[Assistant] The simple answer is that there is increased blood flow to the area of irritation. When you injure yourself, pro-inflammatory molecules are released that promote increased blood flow and attract a number of different types of cells to help heal and fight infection. When blood flow increases in part of your body, the area becomes red and warm.


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

[User] What happens to the light that strikes a solar cell but is not converted into electricity?

[Assistant]
If it's absorbed it's turned into heat [just like any other light that is absorbed], if not it's sent packing back into space or wherever.

Ironically heating up a solar cell makes it less efficient so the ideal solar cell is highly reflective.


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

[User]
[Doctor Strange / Infinity War / MCU] Whats the difference between Doctor Stranges shields?

Throughout the movies, we see him always casting shields to be used on his hands and there always seems to be a new way of casting them.  However, they always yield the same orange-sparkly shield.

Whats the difference between the casting types and shields (other, of course, dramatic effect)?

[Assistant] They may look to same to your mundane eyes, but each one is fine tuned to be the best for the situation as Strange sees it. Better resistances and affinities to certain energy signatures for example.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does it mean that New Jersey & Maine government has 'shut down'?

Is it a big deal? What are the implications/how are people affected?

[Assistant]
When a government "shuts down," they basically stop operating anything considered to be a non-essential service--things like parks, tourist bureaus, etc. In addition, a lot of paperwork-related things are curtailed if not shut down--so if you're waiting for a car registration or a licensure or some other thing, you may not get it at all or it will be heavily delayed while the shutdown is in place.

The state employees are not paid while this happens (at least by the state--some state unions have funds specifically for this to keep paychecks coming in.) although benefits will continue. Sometimes they are reimbursed after the shutdown, sometimes not.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do Violins and cellos have a "scroll"?

[Assistant] Scrolls are purely decorative and herald back to the craftsmanship of the Baroque era. During this time, many instruments were quite elaborately decorated like etchings on brass instruments, and scrolls were no different on stringed instruments.


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

[User]
ELI5: Do helmets prevent concussions? Why or why not?

Just doing some thinking and it just occurred to me for the first time in my dumb existence concussions are the brain rattling in the skull for XYZ reasons... but what can a helmet actually do for that?

[Assistant]
They do. If you look at the design of a helmet, you'll see that they're designed to distribute force throughout the whole thing. When you get concussed, your brain is suddenly accelerated in a direction, so if the force that causes that is dispersed over a larger area, the damage will be negated or at least less.

Just a safety warning. If you ever get in an accident in which your helmet takes the brunt of the force, get a new helmet. They're only going to be able to do that once.


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

[User] ELI5: How can car dealerships on radio claim they'll accept payment from people with bad/no credit? Doesn't this destroy the idea altogether?

[Assistant] They usually use your job or your property as collateral/a form of credit. Sometimes the same types of ads will say this. "Bad credit? No credit? Your job **is** your credit!" Basically, you will be approved for an extremely high interest rate and if you don't pay, they'll automatically deduct missed payments from your paycheck at work.


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

[User]
[The Amazing Spider-Man series] How would things have changed if Gwen had caught Peter as he was entering the Spider Lab at Oscorp, getting bitten instead of Parker?

I seem to have forgotten to specify that I am referring to the film series... My bad.

So, Peter luck's his way into Oscorp and finds himself at the Spider Lab but, instead of him getting bitten as he leaves, Gwen catches him as he goes in and she is bitten instead.

Connor's is still working on his regen serum and Peter still figures out the Decay Rate Algorithm.

I reiterate, I'd like to know how the *FILM SERIES* would have changed if Gwen were bitten instead of Peter.

[Assistant]
Peter turns into The Lizard. Gwen fights him and Peter dies.

Gwen joins a band with Mary Jane Watson as drummer.

Daredevil exists in this universe and is working for the Kingpin.

The Punisher is a cop.


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

[User]
Why can't Force users (Jedi/Sith) fly?

I mean they come so close to it, with force jumping during battle and fearlessly jumping off of insane heights...

[Assistant]
It's like asking why people don't sprint in a marathon. Yeah, doing a short burst is easy enough in a hundred yard dash, but if you're doing that for over an extended period of time, you're gonna get tired, and at what cost?  Does flying give you that much an advantage over a force jump?  Harder to dodge while in midair, makes you a more visible target , and above all uses way more energy.

Plus, keeping airborne just adds a whole new direction for gunfire to hit you at. Pretty hard to block lasers coming from underneath you.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do you bleed even if you weren't injured on a vein?

[Assistant] Capillaries. Basically veins are just the bigger blood vessels. There are much smaller ones that spread out everywhere and the smallest of which are capillaries. The blood is still in tubes just ones that are too small to be called a vein.


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

[User] ELI5: Why did it take so long for TV's to adopt the 16:9 format?

[Assistant]
**TLDR: (1) There's no reason to own a 16:9 TV if there is no 16:9 content available to watch on it. (2) Only a small minority actually care about widescreen.**

The first 16:9 TVs were made in the early 90s, but very few were sold, because (1) they were incredibly expensive, and (2) there was very little 16:9 content to watch on them.

There were a few anamorphic Laserdiscs that were specifically designed to work on 16:9 TVs. However, Laserdiscs were a very niche market to begin with, and anamorphic discs were even rarer because they could not display properly on a 4:3 TV.

Meanwhile, 99% of us were watching movies on VHS, which were only capable of displaying a 4:3 image. There were "widescreen edition" VHS tapes available, but the image was still 4:3, just letterboxed with black bars at the top and bottom. If you were to play one of these letterboxed tapes on a 16:9 TV, it would look terrible because you would have black bars on all four sides.

(It's also worth noting that "widescreen edition" tapes appealed only to cinephiles who wanted to watch movies in their original aspect ratio. Joe Public *hated* them, because he wanted the image to fill his TV screen without any black bars. There was therefore only a limited selection of letterboxed movies available, relegated to a special section of the store.)

Things started to change once with the advent of DVDs. DVDs differed from previous technology, because the same disc could be displayed in different ways: it could fill up a 16:9 screen at full resolution; it could display a letterboxed picture on a 4:3 screen, or it could display a "black-bars-free" 4:3 image to keep Joe Public happy.

Suddenly, every movie you bought in the store could be played in 16:9, without having to buy a special "widescreen" edition. This increased the desire for 16:9 TVs amongst those who cared about watching movies in the original aspect ratio, therefore gradually making them more affordable. Joe Public, meanwhile, would stay happy with his 4:3 screen.

Much like VHS, analogue TV signals could only support a 4:3 picture. It was not until digital broadcasting was rolled out, that a TV signal could be broadcast in 16:9. Much like a DVD player, a digital TV receiver would adapt the image to display properly on whatever shape TV you had.

Once digital broadcasting became available, all of our viewing content was now available in a 16:9 format. At this point, TV manufacturers decided that there was no good reason to continue manufacturing 4:3 TVs.

Coincidentally, this is about the same time that flat-screen technology was becoming more widespread. Joe Public had spent years not caring about widescreen. But what he did want was a flat screen! And well, it just so happened that they were only being manufactured in 16:9! And that was the final nail in the coffin for 4:3.


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

[User] ELI5: how does the "control" line on a diagnostic test work (like a pregnancy test)? What makes it react if the sample itself is negative and how does that prove the test is working?

[Assistant]
The control line is basically testing for the test ingredient. Say the test is looking for some Hormone A. It has a supply of Substrate B, which is known/designed to react with Hormone A to form Product C. Now if you test only for Product C and find nothing, do you know if there was no Hormone A? Maybe the Substrate B degraded and is no longer sensitive to Hormone A, so no Product C was formed.

So if you have two tests in one, one to test for Product C and one to test for Substrate B, then you can be sure that the lack of Product C wasnt because Substrate B was missing, but because Hormone A was missing, since the Substrate B test came back positive. This means youre not producing Hormone A (ie, youre not pregnant).


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

[User]
Is time discrete or continuous?

I know we largely treat time as continuous, but is there is there a "smallest time unit" that is possible? If so, what ramifications does it have for things like acceleration or movement in general?

[Assistant]
>is there is there a "smallest time unit" that is possible?

Not so far as any experiment to date has been able to detect. There are some models in which the Planck time (about 5.39110^-44 seconds) is the smallest meaningful amount of time, but they're all entirely speculative at this point.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did Palpatine tell Vader to stop hunting Obi Wan?

The Emperor spends so much resources and time trying to hunt down and wipe out the survivors of Order 66, then Vader finally finds and confirms that Obi Wan is alive and strong enough to still kick his ass and when he reports to the Emperor Palpatine just tells him to stop worrying about it, calling it a distraction. Shouldn't Palpatine want one of the highest ranking Jedi dead?

[Assistant] It's possible that he's worried that Obi-Wan will be Vader's downfall, in one way or another. As you say, Kenobi kicked Vader's ass. Whereas evidence suggests that, left alone, Kenobi will stay out of the way of the Empire. So what's the benefit of sending Vader out to find him again, as opposed to the many other things he could be doing?


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

[User] What are the current active/hot areas of research in ethics?

[Assistant]
All of them, really. The closest thing you'll find to a consensus in ethics is that rationalism makes sense, but there has been a resurgence of anti-rationalist thought lately, so it is still a point of contention. Everything is hot in ethics.

Some particularly active places in applied ethics are medical ethics (specifically medical consent), privacy and security (especially surrounding obligations of content creators vs. third parties) and animal rights.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why don't we have a department that tests police-citizen relations, i.e. undercover cop cops.

Some way to audit the police and check for abuses of power. Perhaps have someone in a high crime area looking suspicious but not actually breaking the law to make sure protocols are being followed, and to prove people aren't being targeted based on race. It's not like it'd be entrapment any more than using a woman to draw in folks soliciting prostitutes, or acting like a drug dealer/buyer to find users/suppliers.

Edit: U.S. citizen here.

[Assistant]
Here in the US we have entire division and departments that investigate cops and their wrong doing. They are called internal affairs and their only job is to determine if other police are corrupt. And they will implant under cover officers into stations that they believe to be corrupt to conduct investigations.

TLDR: We do that.


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

[User]
CMV: The ridiculing of the "Not all men..." argument is toxic to feminism

Even though it may be justified sometimes, generally making a laughing stock of that phrase is not right imo. I've been involved in the feminist scene, many close friends of mine are frequently active aswell and it bothers me that hypocritical sexism is often generally accepted or even empowered by feminist groups and you get put down when you speak up against it. I believe tolerating such behavior is part of the reason i still often get weird looks for saying i'm a feminist, even in sophisticated circles.

[Assistant]
Question -- if you're sitting quietly in a chair by the pool, and some kids go dashing about, and a lifeguard yells out "hey, no running!" ... do you yell back "I wasn't running!"?

That's sort of what "not all men" is.


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

[User] [Batman] The original Batman timeline had him active in the 1930's. How did he train for his war on crime, with the knowledge and resources available at the time?

[Assistant] Well he was rich, so he had access to a lots of resources. He trained physically, primarily with acrobatics and gymnastics; and intellectually becoming a master of "scientific criminal investigation" a.k.a excelled in practical forensic science.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do two phones in the same room make weird sounds when on a live call?

Sometimes even if only one of the phones mic is on.

[Assistant]
This is called feedback and is similar to what happens if you put live microphone near a speaker connected to it.

Microphone on one phone picks up a sound, then the other phone plays that sound and the first phone picks it up again and amplifies it in an continuous loop ultimately causing a high pitched noise.


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

[User] How do we know the universe is (only) 13.8 billion years old?

[Assistant]
We calculated it by the inverse of the Hubble Constant (H)
v=Hd, where v is the speed of a galaxy moving away from us (Usually measured in kms^-1 and d is the distance to said galaxy (Usually measured in Mpc {Megaparsecs}). There's a lot of uncertainty in the measurements of these values, meaning a lot of uncertainty in H, values can range from 60kms^-1 Mpc^-1 to 80.
Rearrange for H=v/d, convert speed to ms^-1 and distance to m, you'll see you have ms^-1 divided by m, so H is measured in s^-1. Inversing will then give you the age of the universe in seconds. Then convert to billion years and you have your answer for the age of the universe in a timescale we can sort of understand.
Fun fact: When Hubble was first calculating this constant (Which technically isn't a constant), his data was so erroneous that he ended up with an age of the universe younger than the age of the Earth - Luckily geologists had a rough idea of the age of the Earth at that point so Hubble knew his data was the problem.


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

[User] If moving electrons produce changing electric field, and if changing electric field produces magnetic field, every electron must produce an electromagnetic wave. This means an atom in its natural state must emit light or other waves in electromagnetic spectrum. But why doesn't this happen?

[Assistant]
If the electron moves at constant velocity, it has a changing electric field, which yes, induces a magnetic field which then in turn however does not induce a new electric field, it just induces the old one. The E and B fields induce each other. There is no EM wave from a uniformly moving charge. You can move to its frame and it's still, so it surely does not radiate.

And you cannot really apply classical electrodynamics to atoms, they're fully quantum-mechanical objects, and you need to treat the EM field as quantum too.


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

[User]
Ways for the rich to invest in the poor?

Obviously the point of having extra money is to put it to work making more money, but in doing so limits its circulation within the economy. What are ways to turn a profit that also directly improves the lives of poor people? For instance, creating a factory provides jobs which directly puts more money in a local circulation and creates more jobs.. basically is both an investment of the rich and an improving of the nonrich. Are there more examples beyond just creating jobs that rich people can invest their money into and receive a nonzero ROI?

[Assistant]
Development of medical treatments (e.g. Covid vaccines), cheaper manufacturing processes, improving the efficiency of services delivery, etc. Basically things that reduce prices tend to help the poor.

A plus of reducing prices is that this helps the poor who can't work (say due to disability or unemployment). The lowest income quintile has a  disproportionate share of households with no one earning a market income (at least in every country I've seen data for).


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

[User]
[Marvel Comics]Why didn't the Punisher fight back when Cap beat him up during Civil War?

I read that Spiderman theorized something about Cap being the reason why Frank became a soldier back then while Cap just dismisses it on the claim that he's simply a madman. Who of them is right, or is it maybe something else entirely?

[Assistant]
Parker got it more or less right. The Punisher exists to, well, punish. He fights against evil. Captain America is the closest thing to an actual good, noble person as anyone in that room had ever seen. There was nothing for Castle to punish.

It would be like Ghost Rider going up against a man that had never sinned. There just wouldn't be anything for his power to work on.


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

[User] [Star Wars] What are the advantages of having a curved lightsaber hilt?

[Assistant]
It's reasonable to assume that a curved hilt offers the same advantages to a lightsaber user as it does to someone using a curved hilt sword in our world, namely greater leverage - to crib an answer from elsewhere: "On a slim single handed sword a curved handle offers leverage to the bottom two fingers and allows force to be added simply by tightening your grip a moment before impact, it also allows for a quick change in direction with a minimal movement. On a heftier two handed blade a curved handle creates a lever with a pivot point, so rather than actually swinging the sword a person can simply pull their bottom hand back and the sword will be able to generate motion and force. It allows for unpredictable attacks and unusual movements during attacks."

As a lightsaber can be wielded one or two-handed, both aspects apply.


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

[User] ELI5: How do animators with different styles still make their cartoon consistent with the rest of their team?

[Assistant]
It varies.

Digital puppetry and CGI are done with models either 2D or 3D that are manipulated to create movement, and being that everything is created beforehand animators won't have the opportunity to show their own style (if they have one.)

Hand-drawn animation has everybody told how to draw each character and item, and therefore they're doing everything the same way and style is not an issue.

Some programs, such as *The Ren and Stimpy Show*, let their animators use their own style to draw characters to give the series a unique, expressive look.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does statistically significant mean?

If the p<0.05, what does this mean?!

For some reason I just cannot understand this concept.

[Assistant]
It means "it's very unlikely this happened by chance".

Take a coin, and throw it into the air. It can either land heads or tails. If it's a fair coin, the probabilities are 50/50. Half the time it's going to be heads, half tails.

How likely are you to get heads twice in a row? 0.5 * 0.5 = 25%

How likely are you to get heads 3 times in a row? 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 = 12.5%

At some fuzzy point that's really quite arbitrary we just decide "Well, it's came up heads 100 times in a row. That's very, very unlikely to happen by chance, so it must be that the coin is rigged to fall on heads".

The "p < 0.05" is just a way to say "the probability of this happening by chance is below 5%", and somebody decided that a 5% risk of being wrong because things happened to align just right is acceptable.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the point of having multiple hexagonal cells in the eyes of insects?

[Assistant] Compound eyes are good for detecting and tracking fast motion, and allow for a very wide field of view, as you can just keep adding more cells as you wrap the eye around the head.  Simple eyes, like vertebrates have, only allow a relatively narrow field of view but allow much higher resolution, allowing the use of much smaller eyes and the ability to see things further away.


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

[User]
What is the relationship between reason and emotions?

It seems to me that many, if not most, philosophers throughout history claimed that a life governed by reason is superior to one governed by 'passions' (emotion, desire, appetite, etc.).

Also, there seems to be a common conception that reason is something opposed to emotions. I feel like this idea is deeply mistaken, but can't explain why.

So, what could be the relationship between reason and emotions (and, by extension, 'passions')? Are they necessarily in conflict with each other? Is reason something that puts emotions under control, and vice versa? Can reason exist without emotions, and vice versa? Can I lead a life deeply affected by both reason and emotions?

[Assistant]
This is a huge topic and youll find that there are many different arguments about it. Very briefly:

Plato: reason should control the unruly emotions, to lead to a state of equilibrium between reason, courage and the emotions.

Aristotle: the emotions can be habituated to work with reason to see the noble and the good.

Hume: reason is the slave of the emotions, morality is relative to our emotions.

Kant: reason gives us access to morality, the emotions are sources of heteronomy.

Nietzsche: the will to power doesnt eliminate the emotions but it doesnt consist in giving into them either.

Freud: the unconscious attacks the idea of all powerful reason.


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

[User]
ELI5: When major natural disasters like Katrina and the recent LA flooding happen, how do insurance companies pay out? How does it all work?

As an outsider watching all this devastation from afar, I'm curious as to what happens next.

How do the companies cover so much damage at once?  Aren't insurance companies regional based and if large scale destruction happens all at once like this, wouldn't they bankrupt?

[Assistant]
The actual answer is reinsurance. Insurers that people insure with directly have their own insurance policies with global companies called reinsurers.

These policies cost millions of dollars per year and have an excess / deductible in tens of millions of dollars as well. It means when a single event (such as a flood) goes over a set $ figure for an insurer they lodge a claim, meaning their risk is capped at that amount.

These reinsurers insure insurance companies across the globe so their risk is spread out and manageable. These companies are also the reason for weird exclusions in your policies (they make them them in there) such as terrorism, nuclear war or biological weapons.

This is the reason why earthquakes in Japan (for example) can make your premiums higher in the US. A good % of your policy premium goes to the reinsurance which is impacted by global markets.

It seems strange, but it is the only way that small insurance companies can stay in business when a large event happens, ensuring they can meet all their claim obligations.


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

[User]
[Batgirl] Where does Gordon's Clean Energy's money come from?

Barbara spends half her time being a student, half her time being Oracle, and half her time being Batgirl. Which more than uses up the time a normal person has. When does she find the time to run Gordon's Clean Energy, and how does she make money at it? And what does it do to make so much money so quickly?

[Assistant]
All of the bat family share one trait in common:

The are ridiculously, over the fucking top, *go go bananas insanely goddamn driven*.

Honestly, most of them seem to accomplish more in a few years than most regular folk do in a lifetime, so while it's kind of a cop out answer the truth is basically just 'that's the way they are'.


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[User] [Marvel] my entire house was destroyed by a supervillain what kind of strange insurance covers this?

[Assistant] "Superhero insurance" is an actual field of insurance in the Marvel Universe. It's sometimes mentioned by characters, and plays a role in the Damage Control series of comics. In the MCU, this is the government division that takes over Adrian Toomes's cleanup/construction business. In the mainstream comics, it's a private corporation.


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[User] [Dune 1984] Why did the Guildsmen speak a different language?

[Assistant] Isolation and the need for a highly specialized lexicon that could convey the unique requirements and experiences of creating Navigators, folding space, and interstellar economics. It is a mathematical language.


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[User] In clinical oncology, why is cure defined as survival at 5 years? Is there something about the 5 year mark that is special compared to 1, 2, or 10 years?

[Assistant]
In oncology, the standard metric that is used is "5 year survival"-- this isn't the same as claiming that after 5 years someone is cured.

5 year survival rates are simply the percentage of people with a specific type of cancer who are still alive 5 years from their diagnosis. This allows for comparison of cancers (e.g. pancreatic cancer has a very low 5-year survival rate, while early stage breast cancer has a very high 5 year survival rate.

So nothing magical about 5 years, it just allows for comparisons across many cancer types. Since survival rates have been improving for many cancers, you may start to see 10-year survival rates being reported more frequently.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where do rich people keep their money?

If I wanted to rob a poor person I would have to go their house and steal their stuff, because all their money is used up to buy "stuff."  But if I wanted to rob say, Alec Baldwin...where is Alec Baldwin's money?

[Assistant]
Banks, stocks, bonds, real estate, other "stuff".

Rich people store most of their money in investments, earning them more money so they can stay rich.  Don't get me wrong, Mr. Baldwin probably has more than enough cash in his bank account for anything he could want, but for the most part you're not going to hit a rich guys money by robbing him physically.  You'll need to hit him electronically too.


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[User] Is an electron or an elementary particle both a wave and a particle at the same time?

[Assistant] The short answer is yes. However, a better way to think of it is that electrons are neither particles nor waves. They are objects completely unlike anything we encounter in the macroscopic world that sometimes look like particles and sometimes look like waves.


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[User] ELI5: When a movie comes on tv and they swap out the curse words with other words who says the lines the actors? Or do the networks do it? Is there a separate script for that?

[Assistant]
It depends on the movie.  Sometimes, they'll have the original actors record "clean" versions when they're doing the normal additional dialog recording after filming.   There's even some productions where they'll film takes with the "clean" dialog during principal photography.

Other times, they'll just use voice actors who can do a reasonable approximation of the original actor's voice.  They can also snip other bits of the original actor's dialog from mother places in the movie to replace the swear words.

In general, the "clean" versions don't show up in the script since they're done well after the fact unless it's one of the cases where they shoot alternate scenes during filming.


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

[User]
CMV: The current political climate (US) is mostly a misunderstanding perpetuated by external forces.

There are obviously actual differences in what people believe to be the "right" policies. However, much of this is exaggerated and exacerbated by the creation of echo chambers, which in turn are wielded by media and others in power to increase their influence and income as applicable.

There are obviously certain fault lines that are beyond compromise for some people--yet even then, I would argue that it is a relative loud minority who even have interest in these fault lines, to the exclusion and in some cases detriment of those who have very practical and even survival level considerations.

This is especially true as the dream of a middle class life has become an impossible attainment for an increasing share of the population.

[Assistant]
You say "misunderstanding" in your title, but you never make it clear what people "misunderstand" about each other.

Can you please clarify that matter, what are Americans currently "misunderstanding" about the other side of the current political divide?


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[User] Is it possible that we've already discovered planets with life on them, but just don't know it because the planet is so far away that we're seeing it before the life started?

[Assistant] Theoretically possible yes. Much more likely is that our telescopes can't make out the life on the planet. Our telescopes are only sufficently powerful that we can just about detect exomoons (exoplanet being the term for planets that aren't in our solar system, and exomoons are by extension, moons of exoplanets.) Life would be much harder to detect than a moon.


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

[User]
[PotA reboot] How many humans actually died from the virus?

There are passing mentions in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to the virus and its toll on humanity. One character says it wiped out half the planet.

I assume this is just rhetoric, because losing half the world population would still leave 3.5 *billion* people. That's a hell of a lot of people! Humans would still outnumber apes by a margin of a thousand to one!

That would leave over *2 million* people in the San Francisco metro area alone. That's more people than there are great apes *in the entire world*.

Please help me with these numbers! There must be hope for ape kind!

[Assistant]
The simian flu spread almost universally, and initial exposure causes a 90 percent death rate. Within a few years, the human population went from 7 billion to 700 million.

But that wasn't the end of the madness. The speed with which simian flu incapacitates and kills (you're severely ill within two days, basically bed-bound within five, and close to death within a week) left entire cities - entire *nations* - without any functioning infrastructure. The production and distribution of the most vital necessities - food, fuel, medicine - ground to a halt. Nuclear power plants went critical. Dams overflowed and collapsed. Fires raged out of control.

Secondary plagues swept the globe - typhus and dysentery mostly, as billions of corpses rotted and their filth swept into untreated reservoirs from which desperate survivors drank. The rats and cockroaches feasted, and they spread unholy amounts of disease as they multiplied out of control (especially in the first winter, as their exploding numbers were drawn to the few flickering campfires of the survivors for warmth).

Worse than all of this was what was left of humanity. Few were able to maintain their sanity in the face of this madness. A father who'd watched his family die, a doctor that walked a hospital full of the bloated dead, a child who ate his dead brother; how many of them could walk past an abandoned gun without thinking of the easy way out? How many could go on living, let alone think of a better future? And even if you could dream of a tomorrow, the weed-strewn roads are full of those who want nothing more than to howl and drink in the last guttering flames. Rape, murder, genocide, even a few small nuclear exchanges among the gasping, hating remnants of a few second-string militaries: they did their part.

Perhaps a million humans remain in communities like San Francisco, bent on rebuilding and in contact with other flickering flames of civilization, but transmissions from Asia and Europe no longer come over the shortwave: half of the world is gone, forever. There are other remnants out in the wilderness, and perhaps some even in the vast radioactive belt of the Middle East and India; survivalists, ex-military war bands, the lucky or unlucky few, but their numbers dwindle almost day by day.


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

[User]
[Spider-Man] Are there any villains from Spider-Man's rogue gallery that he doesn't fuck around with, like, if he's up against one of them he's not cracking jokes or anything, he actively wants to stop them ASAP?

I know a characteristic of Peter as Spider-man is to crack jokes or mess around with his opponents. Only when things get serious like a family member is in trouble is Peter really into stopping the baddie and no wasting his time goofing off.

But is there anyone that when they get loose on the city, Spider-man isn't kidding around with? Basically, who is the one who makes Spidey shut up and take them as a serious threat every time they come across each other?

[Assistant]
The cracking jokes is a combat tactic in a very real way - it's not indicative of "messing around" or "toying with" with his opponents, it's a viable strategy for him. Spider-sense lets him unconsciously dodge pretty much everything, so he can focus on irritating and infuriating whoever it is into overextending and making a mistake, because as superheroes go, spider-man isn't actually that high-tier in a 1v1 knock-down-drag-out fight - he doesn't "mess around" because he isn't taking it seriously, he "messes around" because he so often fights enemies orders of magnitude stronger than himself and that's the only safe way to fight them. So to answer your question...

Any kind of robot or monster that doesn't speak English.

If whoever it is has managed to traumatize Peter past the point of being able to make jokes(Like certain incarnations of the Green Goblin).


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

[User]
If the Human Genome Project represents a map of the genome of a few individuals, why is this relevant to humans as a whole if everybody has different genetics?

As far as I'm aware, the Human Genome Project was developed using DNA from a number of volunteers.

If the project generated a patchwork map of these people's genetics, then surely the results are specific to them and not to the whole population?

Is it that the overall structure is the same but there are just variations across individuals that don't make a huge difference to the main bulk of the genome? If this is the case then why could DNA from just one individual be used?

[Assistant]
Of 3.2 billion bases, about 10 million bases are known to be variant, and on average each person has 100 thousand or so of those variants.

Were all genetically distinct and unique, but were overwhelmingly similar to one another. The reference genome provides a structure upon which we can make notations of variation, localization of features / functions, etc.


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

[User]
[Monsters in War] In a war where humans and monsters served side by side, what jobs would monsters do best?

Werewolf assassins, ghostly spies, zombie troops that come in wave after wave, or even highly specialized jobs. Who serves where best?

[Assistant]
-Werewolves would make great shock troops, especially during night and during full moons.

-Ghosts would be superb intelligence, counterintelligence, and general espionage assets, and Poltergeists would make good saboteurs.

-Vampires tend to have large fortunes and various resources across various industries, it could be likely that one owns a large media company and could spread propaganda like wildfire.

-Doppelgngers and other Shapeshifters could infiltrate enemy forces with ease.

-Merpeople, Black Lagoon Creatures, and literal Frogmen would be good at countering naval forces, sabotaging water ways, removing sea mines, and fighting in swamps and other similar bodies of water.

-Trolls, Sasquatches, Ogres, and other brutes would be good at moving supplies, loading artillery, and doing general heavy lifting and dirty work

-Zombies, Revenants, Draugrs, Liches, and other forms of Undead can make up the rank and file of large units that don't require much (if any at all) rest, food, shelter, or water.

-Various dinosaurs can field a variety of roles from cargo carriers, to strategic air and seas units, to straight up armor.


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

[User]
ELI5: why does a video game character always look at his hands

It seems like every first person character looks at their hands when an explosion or something traumatic happens. Then after the screen goes blurry he stares down at his hands and flips them as if something happen to them. Even though their hands are completely fine.

[Assistant] Because, in reality, when something like an explosion happens, you normally check yourself for damage if you are nearby. You block your face with your arms and hands and then it is natural instinct to check yourself for harm or shrapnel, so you check your hands because they are typically the only part of your body that you almost always see.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] The Lannister's are represented by a lion. Where are the lions in the world?

Are they anywhere near Casterly Rock? The other houses animals' live in close proximity to those areas.

[Assistant] There are definitely lions in the Westerlands. House Clegane's founder was a Lannister houndmaster who was ennobled for saving his lord from a lion attack, losing three dogs in the process, hence their sigil.


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

[User]
Why are antennas a half wavelength?

What would happen if it was a wavelength instead of half?

[Assistant] I will assume for the moment that you are asking about dipoles.  There are a couple of reasons, but let me first state that it is absolutely possible to have a wavelength long dipole.  However, a few changes would need to be made.  At lambda over 2, the input impedance of the antenna is predictable and slowly varying, and takes very little effort to achieve a good match to a 50 ohm transmission line.  This is because the current distribution on the dipole arms supports a high relative current magnitude at the input location (for 2 quarter wavelength arms.)  When you increase to a wavelength long, if you keep feeding at the center, the current distribution at the feed is at minimum; this is analogous to seeing an open circuit impedance and is difficult to match to a 50 ohm line.  Finally, an antenna patterns directivity is highly linked to its size via the Fourier transform relationship.  There will be additional nulls in the pattern in the elevation direction that are not present in the half wavelength dipole.  Depending on application, the additional directivity gained by increasing the dipole length may by offset or overcome in value by having additional regions in the pattern where the link fails.


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

[User]
Why don't humans eat one large meal and then not eat for a while, like some other predators?

There are many predators that will hunt a large animal, eat a large amount of food, and then not eat for multiple days. What prevents human beings from doing the same thing? It seems our eating habits are inefficiently designed.

[Assistant] It is believed that during most of human evolutionary life, we lived as hunter-gatherers, and at that time, most of our nutrition came from gathering, not hunting. With gathering one can eat multiple times per day, even grazing throughout the day. The remnants of this are seen in the ways we prefer to eat today.


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[User] [DBZ] Seriously, what the fuck is Chaiotzu supposed to be?

[Assistant]
By appearance alone, Chiaotzu resembles a Jiang Shi, also known as a Chinese Hopping Vampire. The style of clothing, the white skin and red cheeks, small stature, and his preference towards flying over walking all indicate this. The way he outstretches his arms for attacks is also much like Jiang Shi.

Whether he's actually a Jiang Shi or not is unclear, but it's possible. Son Goku has fought mummies, vampires, etc. in the past so it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility.


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

[User]
Did all neutrons arise from the Big Bang?

As I understand it, all Hydrogen atoms were created directly at the time of the Big Bang. However, most hydrogen is comprised of a single proton and single electron.

I read that there is a variation on Hydrogen, which contains 1 proton, 1 neutron and 1 electron, but that is far less common as the "no-neutron" version.

All the Helium in the universe was created just after the Big Bang, in the first few minutes as I understand it, but only by *fusion of existing Hydrogen atoms* - they weren't created directly from the Big Bang.

So, given that most of the Hydrogen created had no neutrons (just a single proton), it seems to follow that a far greater number of protons were created than neutrons, at the instant of the Big Bang.

If this is correct, and all the Helium in the universe was created in the first minutes following the Big Bang, and Helium requires neutrons, how are there enough neutrons in the universe to create all the other elements?  Every heavier element seems to require as many neutrons as protons, so I'm not sure how that works, assuming far less neutrons than protons were originally created?

(ed spelling)

[Assistant]
>Did all neutrons arise from the Big Bang?

Not really, no, because most neutrons have been created in stars due to the high density, and some have been created in tiny amounts through other beta-decay processes.  However, many neutrons did arise from the big bang.

>I read that there is a variation on Hydrogen, which contains 1 proton, 1 neutron and 1 electron, but that is far less common as the "no-neutron" version.

Yes -- this isotope of hydrogen is known as "deuterium," also called heavy hydrogen.  There is also an isotope called "tritium" (1 proton, 2 neutrons, 1 electron), but unlike deuterium it is unstable.

>So, given that most of the Hydrogen created had no neutrons (just a single proton), it seems to follow that a far greater number of protons were created than neutrons, at the instant of the Big Bang.

Yes, this is correct.  The ratio was approximately 7 protons for every 1 neutron -- or equivalently, 1 helium atom for every 12 hydrogen atoms, which is 75% hydrogen and 25% helium (by mass).

>If this is correct, and all the Helium in the universe was created in the first minutes following the Big Bang, and Helium requires neutrons, how are there enough neutrons in the universe to create all the other elements?

Because neutrons are created during the fusion processes within stars.  Protons beta-decay into neutrons when enough energy is present for the process to be allowed -- this results in hydrogen (all protons) being converted into deuterium/helium (both protons and neutrons).  This is why the densest stars (neutron stars) are composed almost entirely of neutrons; the extreme pressure causes electrons to be captured by protons, and neutrons to be created.

So after the big bang, there were only enough neutrons to form a little bit of helium, and the stars and early supernovae were responsible for creating the rest of the heavy elements through fusion processes.

Hope that helps!


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

[User]
If gravity is caused by massive objects warping spacetime, then when I hold my pen above the ground, is the force I'm applying with my hand un-warping the pen's spacetime, and that's why it doesn't move?

I understand why a traveling object move through space would get pulled towards a massive object since the mass is warping spacetime and the straight pathway now brings the traveler close to it.

But I'm having trouble understanding how this would make an object I'm holding start to accelerate towards the mass when I'm no longer holding it.

[Assistant]
An object with no forces on it follows a straight line through spacetime; this is the cause of gravitational attraction, as you point out.

But once another, non-gravitational force acts on the object, it follows a *curved* path through curved spacetime (just like in Newtonian mechanics, an external force causes an acceleration); in your example of holding a pen, the force is just enough to curve the pen's trajectory through spacetime so that it stays at rest relative to the Earth.

By the way, the curving of space*time* is crucial for understanding gravitational forces; curving space alone doesn't cut it. (It can't explain the attraction of objects at rest, for example.)


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[User] ELI5: When I make folders and sub-folders in Windows, does the OS place the files therein in physically different places on the hard drive? Or do they just get some kind of location tag and are stored wherever? Or am I offbase completely?

[Assistant]
It's just a location tag.

File systems contain directory structures.  Directories contain, among other things, pointers to where all the files and subdirectories are located on the drive.

A large file may even be broken into pieces and stored in several different places on the drive.


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[User] ELI5: Would it be possible for another country to BUY a country in debt?

[Assistant]
The only ways to gain control of a country is through conquest or treaty.

In a treaty, you can theoretically place a condition by which the annexing nation pays the remaining debt of the nation being annexed.

This would effectively be "buying" a nation, though it is not something that could be done without the debtor nation's consent.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do I like to sleep with a blanket, even when I'm already warm?

[Assistant]
Its something you are trained practically since inception. Being snug in a blanket or sheet imitates the womb which gave us comfort in the early years of our life. Infants and young ones can often be calmed just by wrapping them in baby blankets.

edit:conception*


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[User] [MCU] Ok, so Ant-Man can lessen the distance between the molecules in his body while retaining mass, making him strong. So when the distance expands and grows huge, why didnt he just flop and fold on the floor?

[Assistant] Pym Particles can increase/decrease size AND mass. The point of the suit is that it carefully regulates these changes without the user having to do advanced calculus every time they grow/shrink, to maximize the effect of the change. That's why when he's small, he hits like a truck yet can still walk across plant leaves when it suits him: his mass is literally shifting on the fly.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Family Guy make so many episodes each year, if it takes half a year to make each episode?

This is my first post in this sub, so please be gentle on me. I've heard over and again that Family Guy takes somewhere around half a year for each episode. That doesn't make any sense to me as they make around 20 episodes each year. Also, on a side note, I don't watch this show, just curious.

[Assistant]
From the time they start work on an episode to when it is wrapped is half a year. However, they are working on lots of episodes at the same time. If each season only had one episode in it, they would make that episode in a lot less time than six months.

Also, lots of different teams are working on an episode. So the writers will be writing one episode, while the voice actors are recording the dialogue for another episode, and the music director is recording the music for another, and the animators are animating  another, and the editors are editing another. It's not like the writers will be sitting idle, while they are waiting the editors to apply the final touches. The writers will move onto the next episode as soon as their work on the current episode is done.

EDIT: By way of comparison, each episode of South Park takes about a week to make, and they DO only work on episode, from start to finish, at a time. Also the jokes in South Park are relevant to the plot and not just out-of-context cutaways which could be crowbarred into any episode.


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

[User]
ELI5: why does a duvet cover in the washer eat all other items?

You know if you've ever washed a (open) duvet cover with a few other things. When the load is finished, all the things are inside the duvet cover and at the very bottom of it. Nearly always true. How come?

[Assistant] it's the same reason headphones get tangled in your pocket. there is random motion that means the clothes go in every possible direction, then there's a state that's hard to reverse. it's hard to untangle a wire once it gets that way and it's hard to pull a sock out of the duvet cover, so it stays. the longer it all tumbles the more stuff ends up in there. they probably do come out as well occasionally, but as long as each piece spends more time in there than it does outside then whenever you check most of the laundry will be in the cover.


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

[User]
What to read from Kierkegaard?

I just spent a couple of weeks reading Kant and Hegel on ethics/morality (Groundwork, Critique of Practical Reason, Philosophy of Right), and just found a quote by Kierkegaard: "our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts."
I think this is very close to some of the points that I disagree with the other two thinkers on, so I was wondering if anyone could help me to find which works by Kierkegaard could be best to read now? I'm mainly interested in ethics and the question of free will, so perhaps that could help. Thanks in advance!

[Assistant] The standard go-to text for Kierkegaard's ethics is *Fear and Trembling*. If you've never read him before, it's also one of the best starting places to get at his thought in general. It's not too tough to read (certainly not compared to Kant and Hegel), and it's fun.


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[User] ELI5: Why are TV and Monitor manufacturers along with TV Cable subscription company's marketing 3840x2160 as 4K when in 4K's native resolution is 4096x2160?

[Assistant]
4K 4096x2160 is a digital cinema resolution, similar to 2k in aspect ratio which is 2048x1080.

The broadcast world uses aspect ratios of 16x9, e.g, 1920x1080, or 3840 x 2160.

In cinema, there are two overall aspect ratios depending what the content is, if your film is 1.78 - 2.0, people tend to use a flat container, meaning the image is scaled into a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio, introducing letterbox if the active image aspect ratio is greater than 1.89:1.

For titles with aspect ratios larger than 2, e.g 2.4 or 2.35 or 2.39 and more, they'll use the frame called scope, which has a pixel aspect ratio or 1.5:1. Basically so they can squeeze more content into a frame, in this case preserving the vertical information more so than the horizontal. When the image is projected, the image is unsqueezed, preserving more detail or image than would exist in a flat container.

Broadcast/ consumer electronics are more restricted, in order to broadcast over the air, the distribution architecture decided on 16x9.

Some televisions do support digital cinema initiative frames, many 4K capable televisions will squeeze 4096x2160 content into a 3840x2160 frame. Most people won't notice, however you can usually notice some minor aliasing or thinning of people when this occurs.


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[User] [MCU] What happens when Rhodey wishes to retire from the military? Does he have to give up the War Machine armor to the Defense Department?

[Assistant] That's all up to Pepper. War Machine/Iron Patriot is fully owned by Stark Industries and on long-term loan to the United States Air Force, and if Rhodey wants out of the game it's up to Pepper and the Feds to sit down and determine what happens next. Ideally, Rhodey and Pepper would have an eye out for one or more suitable candidates to take up the mantle within the USAF or other branches of the U.S. military, so they could make an orderly transition to someone else either putting on the current armor or accepting an updated War Machine.


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[User] ELI5: When we get issued plates for our IOTV vests in the army, we get told not to drop the plates or they might shatter. How can these plates that are rated for a 7.62x54mm bullet stop said bullet if they can't even hold up when they get dropped?

[Assistant] It's not about being so hard as to stop the bullet. It's about reducing the amount of energy the bullet is carrying. Transferring that energy into the ceramic and distributing it throughout lessens the energy. As stated above cars are made to crumple at the hood forward. That way the energy of the impact is spread into the front of the vehicle instead of in your body. It's like a stuntman coming off a high jump. If he lands directly on his feet he will snap his legs. If he rolls he distributes the energy and doesn't get injured.


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[User] ELI5: Why Does Avatar 2 Need 2 Billion to Break Even if its Budget Was 350 Million?

[Assistant]
It doesn't. This number comes from out of context article that happened years ago.

James Cameron said it needs to be about number 5 all times biggest movie to be profitable. Which people looked up and saw as 2B right now.

But he said that way back in 2012 or so. At that time the number 5 all time was just around 1.2B.

Still a very large number, but nowhere near 2B.


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

[User] ELI5: Why have gas prices been dropping so sharply lately?

[Assistant] A big factor is that Saudi Arabia are keeping oil production high so allowing global prices to drop. This is in order to limit the competitiveness of further shale developments in the US and Canada. Oil reserves that are more difficult to access can't compete with the low prices so the Saudi's retain market share. They're expected to let it drop even further through 2015.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we get the uncontrollable urge to stretch? Why is it connected to yawning and how does it happen?

[Assistant] Stretching helps stimulate circulation and manage muscle tension. Likewise, yawning flexes the ear canal and dislodges excess earwax. It's kind of like an itch. The body has a maintenance issue that needs to be taken care of so the brain suddenly gets the urge to do something about it. The exact connection is complicated but it's sufficient to say your brain comes with a set of instincts on how to maintain the body. It's not complete but it helps.


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

[User]
Why do polarised sunglasses make some screens difficult to read?

I'm a crane driver and find it hard to look at my instrument screens when wearing my polarised sunnies. It's difficult having to choose between reading my vitals and avoiding sun strike.

[Assistant]
It's because those screens also work through polarization.

Polarized sunglasses work by filtering horizontally polarized light, which is common in reflections of the sun (like off the ocean or snow).

TN-style LCDs work by having a backlight, a polarizing filter, a thin film that can twist the light, and another polarizing filter. The thin film can switch from "twist light" to "don't twist light" for each pixel on the screen, so when it twists it can make the light get filtered and when it's not twisted, it doesn't get filtered.

The end result is that all the light coming off your screen has the same polarization (if it didn't, the second filter would have already filtered it for you).


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

[User]
[40 K] Orks aren't a mono-culture, so what's some interesting and weird cultures that exist in the glaxy spanning Ork-o-sphere?

I respect that their behaviour is partly hard wired into their genetics. However:

We know there are the Bad Moon clan who love building guns and suits of armour, the Blood Axe clan who are considered un-orky to the point that they've been known to have kommandos and conversations; although I wouldn't be surprised if there's some Orky similarities across the whole species, I feel like an entire Galaxy should have at least a few unusual examples of Ork society.

A planet of metaphorical green-thumbs who spend all their time growing fungus?

A society who worships the weakest because weak people have to fight harder and thus are the real epitome of Orky fighting spirit?

Orks who aren't corrupted by Chaos, but think they are, and act accordingly/hilariously?

Orks who have decided they're actually Eldar and act accordingly/hilariously?

Orks who are so driven to fight that they do it by arguing on the Internet, because God knows as far as effort-to-rage goes there's no more effiecient way to fight.

Pacifist Orks who get their kicks from arguing and fighting with words and know nothing pisses off other Orks more than a pacifist? Maybe having some sort of heavy-handed parody of Ancient Greek philosophers going on?

Orks that dance?

Orks that don't do anything but race space craft?

[Assistant]
>A society who worships the weakest because weak people have to fight harder and thus are the real epitome of Orky fighting spirit?

Ork that fight grow largers, so the weak ones that fight wouldnt be weak for long, unless they lost and died

>Orks who have decided they're actually Eldar and act accordingly/hilariously?

I dont know how you "decide" that you are another race (i havent visited tumblr much) but i agree that it would be hilarious.

>Orks who are so driven to fight that they do it by arguing on the Internet, because God knows as far as effort-to-rage goes there's no more effiecient way to fight.

They do, they are the one that give all the orky awnsers on the 40k questions.


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

[User]
Trying to understand Hegel's master-slave dialectic

I'm trying to grasp the meaning of Hegel's master-slave dialectic, and from what I'm getting, the point is to show that one cannot truly be free unless everyone is free. To be free by oppressing others causes everyone to be unfree. Is my interpretation correct?

[Assistant]
I think there's something to what your saying, but you have to remember that to be free there also has to be a slave as well. The story goes that man starts out as an animal, as another object in nature that obliterates other objects. But man wants to be assured that the he is not just another object, but something more. He needs recognition from an outside source for this, because he could be mistaken. Everything he encounters he consumes, in other words he transforms to suit his ends. He eats food to fill his hunger, he burns wood to satisfy his desire for warmth, but there is nothing that remains that can fill that recognition for what he is, or rather what he wants to be.

Until he meets the other. The other is problematic because it is another force that consumes, and he is disturbed by the thought he could just be another object for the other, just another animal to be preyed on, seed to be planted, wood to be burned etc. This must be avoided. The other must be compelled to recognise him as something more than another element in the natural order. Now this can end in two ways. Either he fights the Other, and one of them dies, and we are just where we are before, or the other is forced to submit in the face of death. This is the loss of autonomy for one of the two, while the winner proves that he was willing to risk death for something that was not just an immediate end (hunger, cold etc) elevating himself above the animal.

But the master finds himself at an impasse. The slave cannot serve to recognise him, precisely because he yielded in front of death, and so proved himself to be just another natural object. Therefore he is consumer in a sense that he is just another object to achieve ends for the master. He cuts the wood, prepares the food, and so on, but he cannot recognise the master.

The slave on the other hand is in an interesting position. True  he yielded in the face of death, and sacrificed his autonomy. But now he is in the position of working, of carrying out plans, for another. No longer is he cutting wood to end his cold, preparing food to fill his hunger. Now he is acting for something removed from himself, he is mediated. He transforms the world with his labor in the service of an idea (the master's desire). Paradoxically, the slave in his bondage elevates himself through his labor to an abstraction while the master is in no better position because he is just filling his desires consuming things like before. This sets in motion the possibility of the slave gaining both his freedom, so being autonomous, but having gained the ability to effect change in the world in a way that is not just filling his desires like an animal, proving his humanity.


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

[User]
On Back To The Future 1, marty wakes up in their house but in a completely different timeline, what happened to the Marty that was originally living in that timeline?

On Back To The Future 1, marty wakes up in their house but in a completely different timeline, his family is different and his house is different... when he went outside, he saw his girlfriend and told him that "it's like you haven't seen me for a week." indicating that there was a Marty that was there in that timeline.

So what happened to him and where was he when the first marty woke up in his bed?

[Assistant]
Back to the Future uses a single-threaded time travel system, though with a very special difference: the "ripple" effect has a speed.  There is only one timeline, but changes made in the past take time to ripple in the future (notably seen when Marty doesn't immediately disappear when he stops his parents from hooking up, and the fact that Old Biff was able to re-enter their version of 2015 after delivering the almanac to 1955).

Therefore, Marty was there in that timeline, until 1 AM that night when he met Doc and went on their wild ride.  He returned later that morning, technically only "missing" a few hours in 1985.  It's likely that when he arrived, things were still as they were when he left (or at least similar), and during the hours he slept or whatever he did before the next scene, the universe changed around him.

There was no "first marty".  The only time duplicates are possible is when you travel from two different times to the same target time - such as in BttF2.

EDIT: to address her reply, that was a response to how odd he was acting since he was very excited and affectionate when she saw him, because he had been away for quite a while in "true-time" (the measure of delta time spent by his person in 1955)


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

[User]
Am I more closely related to my sister or my mother?

My sister and I both have genes from both my mother and father, whilst my mother only has shared genes with me and my sister, and none from my father (if she did that would be a bit weird). Who is more closely related, my mother and I or my sister and I?

[Assistant]
Ignoring the X and Y chromosomes, you get exactly half of your DNA from your father and half from your mother.  The sperm contains half a set of chromosomes and the egg contains the other half.

Comparing against a sibling, you have a 50% chance of getting the same copy of any given gene from your father since he has two versions you each can get.  Same goes for the copy from your mother.  Each is approximately a coin flip, although the genes on a particular chromosome tend to go together so you're more likely to have all the same or all different.

The net result is that on average you're related to a sibling as much as you are related to your parent, but there's more variance in your relatedness to siblings.


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

[User] ELI5:Why is soccer so ridiculously respected and revered in the rest of the world, and commonly sneered at and bashed in the USA?

[Assistant]
Soccer is popular because you don't need special equipment or infrastructure to play it. You need a spherical object, and a relatively flat field.

All other sports need a lot of special equipment or infrastructure.


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

[User]
If the EU has a common currency, why doesn't it have common bonds? Wouldn't this be beneficial to the EU?

A showerthought I had. I recall that the EU was issuing eurobonds for its NextGenEU project but that it would be a one-time thing. Which made me wonder why the EU hadn't done this before or why it's seemingly hesitant to make it a permanent thing. Wouldn't such a common bond be economically beneficial to a lot of member states? Especially poorer ones?

[Assistant]
Imagine the logistics of such a thing:  who exactly gets the money, and who exactly is on the hook for paying it back?  What if Italy gets the money and doesnt pay it back, does Germany step in to pay it to protect the credit-worthiness of the EU as a whole?  Why wouldnt every EU country refuse to repay what it borrowed to make Germany (as an example) pay it off for them?

Until the EU actually has a unified fiscal system, or at the very least an EU government with taxing authority reaching into the territories of all member states, you arent going to have the EU borrowing money.


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

[User] Why do cavities and necrosis turn teeth/tissue black?

[Assistant]
Depending on the cause of necrosis, necrotic tissue can be a variety of colors ranging from black to purple to yellowish or white.  The type that most people are familiar with is avascular or ischemic necrosis (which turns black), where blood flow and/or oxygen delivery is interrupted.  As cells in the region begin to die, various biochemical processes cause proteins to denature and coagulate.  The coagulated protein gunk is usually opaque and dark-colored, giving the dead tissue a black or purple appearance.

EDIT: Necrosis caused by infection often includes an ischemic component, either because the infection interrupts local circulation, or because ischemic tissue is unable to defend itself against opportunistic infections.


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

[User]
How come wet clothing dries pretty quickly, but water in a cup doesn't just evaporate away?

Say you spill an entire cup of water on your shirt. That will dry up relatively quickly (say, a few hours or so). But if instead you just leave that cup of water sitting open, the water won't evaporate in even many days. Why?

[Assistant] For one, spreading a cup over the entire surface of a shirt will give you a much larger surface area, so water can evaporate from everywhere at once. In a cup, only the water on top can evaporate, so the rest of the water has to sit in wait until the top layer evaporates.


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

[User] Can someone explain what the Vietnam War was all about? (ELI5)

[Assistant]
In world history following World War 2, there were two large powers in the world: The United States, and the Soviet Union. Both sides represented competing ideas, and those ideas were capitalism (the idea that customers and stores decide what things are produced and what price, etc) and communism (please see the communism LI5 post).

The Soviet Union was willing to help other countries out financially (with money) provided they would think about converting to communism. Since most communist nations at the time were run by one guy in power, this appealed to several people who wanted to run their own country like kings used to.

 France happened to have some colonies in Asia that they watched over and made money off of without really helping the people that much. After World War 2 ended, the world kind of started to bug countries like France and the United Kingdom to let their colonies be free. This was not something that was well accepted by those countries and they held onto colonies were they could.

 Meanwhile, people in Vietnam (called French IndoChina at the time) wanted to be free and started looking for people to help them. The Soviet Union's powerful stance as a communist nation had helped encourage other nations to do likewise, and so the People's Republic of China was created and became communist as well. Since China was so close, this made them a logical choice for Vietnam to seek help from.

 The United States, had decided that it did not like communism and it did not like countries like the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China spreading their ideas around the world. Once it became clear that communism was a possibility in Vietnam, the United States decided that it would step in and prevent this from happening.

 The trouble with fighting in Vietnam was that there were no clear battle lines, and the "bad guys" could be anywhere. Also, troops were rotated in and out of Vietnam on a regular basis, so they lacked experience with the area and were more likely to "freak out" and commit horrible, horrible actions.

 Opposition rose at home in the United States, partially because it was seen that the North Vietnamese just wanted their freedom from colonial rule, much like the U.S. once did... and partially because the man that the U.S. had decided to support was corrupt and not very smart. When the United States decided that maybe he wasn't the best man to lead the South, they let his generals know that they would support the people that took over. They killed the leader and took over, though none of them were as good as the guy that they'd killed, which isn't saying much for anyone.

 As the U.S. switched Presidents after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the new president (Lyndon B. Johnson) decided that the country could win the war... but since this was not a war of seizing ground (since the Vietnamese would run away when attacked) it would have to be a war of attrition... which is to say, whoever kills the most people wins. The U.S. conducted search and destroy missions and kept a body count to prove that they were winning. But eventually, public tide turned fully against the war and the United States saw that it would be foolish to continue to supply the assets needed to fight, so they left.

 Within a year of their leaving, the North Vietnamese conquered the South, executed the leader there, and united the country as Vietnam.

 By the end of the 1980's the U.S. had reopened diplomatic ties with the nation and it now enjoys favored trade status with the country.

 (Simplified, left out names of organizations and leaders to just get the general idea of what happened and an overview of the war)

 Concise edition: the Vietnam War was about the U.S. halting the ideas of countries like the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. It was conducted because the U.S. felt that their isolationism had helped bring about WW2 and Europe's policy of appeasement... so... the U.S. would stick it's nose in everyone's business and smack down those who tried to rise to power... dictators... Hitler-esque peoples... etc.


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

[User]
[Resident Evil] So Umbrella Corp just made a virus that can turn people in uncontrollable zombies. Why?

What profit is there in global destruction?  It seems all they did was make profiteering more difficult because everyone is too busy trying to escape the latest bioweapon they helped create.

[Assistant]
Mad science means never having to say you're sorry.

Isn't the original story that they were experimenting with the virus for use as a bioweapon and couldn't get it refined before it breached containment?


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

[User]
[Ghostbusters OG] I was in NY when the Stay Puft man exploded. When I got marshmallow fluff on me well, I wasnt thinking. Everything smelled like marshmallow. Um..I licked it off my hands.

Ive now consumed the flesh of a god. Does anythinghappen to me?

[Assistant]
Assuming you only ate a little bit you shouldn't experience any supernatural side effects. or just to be safe you might want to go see the ghostbusters and ask for their two cents.

However you might want to burn any of your clothes that came into contact with the stay puff goop as the goop contains high amounts of PKE energy as stated by EGON in the real ghostbusters. If those clothes continue to come into contact with ghost energy, they may come to life and try to kill you as is what happened to the ghostbusters after they got new uniforms.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do blockbuster movies like Avatar and End Game have there success measured in terms of money made instead of tickets sold, wouldnt that make it easier to compare to older movies without accounting for todays dollar vs a dollar 30 years ago?

[Assistant] Industry news focus on money because studios want to make money off releasing the film. The amount of money made versus the amount of money spent on making and marketing the film is what people in the film sector are interested in. It's not supposed to be a scientific comparison, and not relevant for whether the movie is good of course.


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

[User]
Based on ongoing experiments, how far away are we from nuclear fusion power?

I know there's the ongoing joke of nuclear fusion being 50 years away every year, but based on current experiments, does that still hold true?

[Assistant]
Depends on what you consider "fusion power". Starting and maintaining a fusion reaction for some time? Been there, done that. Getting more energy out than you put in? On the todo-list, check back at the end of the next decade. Commercially viable fusion reactors? Ehhh...

Scientists have already generated fusion reactors in various tokamak-reactors (donut-shaped) around the world. The problem is that these tokamaks were too small and more energy was used up sustaining the reaction than was produced. These reactors were meant purely for research.

Currently under construction somewhere in France is ITER, which will be, with some distance, the largest tokamak reactor and will be the first fusion reactor to generate more power than it uses. But it's still very much a research-device, loaded with all kinds of sensors and with a design goal of sustaining the reaction for only 1000 seconds. Parts of the reactor design haven't been finalized yet and are still under research.

The goal is to have the first plasma established around the turn of the decade and the start of fusion operation in the second half of the next decade.

Competing with tokamaks are so-called stellarators, which use a more complex shape to make the fusion plasma easier to stabilize. Recently, the Wendelstein 7-X hit the news because it had created a very high temperature hydrogen plasma. The W7-X, however, is not designed to actually start a fusion reaction, it is primarily a design study into the viability of the concept and the properties of such high temperature plasmas.

Following ITER and W7-X, the DEMO project is the project that will involve the creation of the first commercially viable fusion reactor, able to operate fusion plasmas for long periods of time, while extracting energy out of it. The project is still in an extremely early stage and most recent estimates of when it will become operational point to the second half of the 2040's, but this will greatly depend on what is learned at ITER.

Actual commercial implementation of fusion power will follow the successful operation of DEMO, building on what is learned in that device.

So yeah, that's about 50 years away.


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

[User]
[Elder Scrolls] If readily available Aedric shrines cure all diseases, why do people still die from them?

Like Meeko's owner who dies from Rockjoint.

[Assistant] The shrines are limited. They are mainly in temples. Not everyone can reach them easily. Some illnesses debilitate the sufferer and prevent them from receiving the aid of the gods. Some sufferers wait too long and the power of the shrine cannot save them. And then there are those who the gods ignore. Some also die because such is there fate. It is not for us to question the will of the Divines.


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

[User]
[Zombie Apocalypse] I'm in America, the government's fallen, zombies are roaming everywhere. I got a car, a full tank of gas and extra in the back to take me anywhere in America. Where do I go? What places would be safest?

Also Canada and Mexico have closed their borders. Assholes.

[Assistant] Anywhere cold and large. Depending on what type of zombies you're dealing with, you just need to survive a few months before they decay. Places in the north like the Dakota's, Yellowstone area, or heck in a pinch Kansas for it's shear openness. Frankly you'll want to find a way to get into Canada as that's your best bet. They can't cover all the entrances so grab some supplies and sneak in.


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

[User]
[28 Days/Weeks Later] Does a person's cardio vascular endurance and strength determine how fast they are after they contract the rage virus ?

So for example, I am in pretty good shape and run every day. If I were to become infected with the rage virus would I be a faster rage carrier then someone less in shape then I am ? Would Usain Bolt be the most OP rage carrier ever?

[Assistant] Yes, they are still alive physically. They are just really messed up and want to eat your face. Having said that they have to abide by basic bodily systems whatever condition their's was in before.  Mind you they don't really comprehend pain like we do. They could run harder and longer then before they got infected but they'd still tired eventually.


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

[User] ELI5: What is snot and how can I produce a seemingly infinite amount when I have a cold?

[Assistant]
Your nose (and the rest of your respiratory tract) produces mucus (snot). It is always being produced and pushed up and out of your nose or into your oesophagus (which leads to the stomach). Its function is to trap inhaled particles (like dust) and microbes so they can be removed without entering the sensitive parts of the system.

When you have a cold, you have an infection. This causes your body to put mucus production into overdrive as there's more germs to get rid of.


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

[User] Why are the bottom of clouds flat?

[Assistant]
Clouds are formed by rising air. The air can hold a certain amount of moisture based on its temperature, and the cooler it gets, the less water it can hold.

As air rises, it cools. Eventually it gets to a point where it gets too cool for the amount of water already in the air, and the water vapour condenses out and becomes cloud.

For a large airmass, the height it reaches this temperature is uniform, hence the base of the cloud being flat.


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

[User]
[Star Trek Into Darkness] What was the ring made up of that caused such a large explosion?

**For those who are unable to access the data archives due to lack of clearance, please watch out because this has some classified information (AKA Spoiler Warning).**

When the one guy sits down at his desk at the Starfleet Library in London, he sends the email, takes off the ring he's wearing and drops it into the water cup. Shortly after we see from security footage that it explodes...violently.

My current task is to try to figure out what that ring was so we can prevent this substance from being smuggled into secure locations this way.

We are currently lost. We at first were thinking it was some sort of alkali metal, such as Cesium, or even Francium, but that would never create an explosion that large from a ring that small. Plus it would have reacted with any moisture on his skin and in the air.

We then thought it may be some miniaturized fusion bomb as it could have used the hydrogen in the water for fusion. If it was, why did none of the radiation detectors see this when he was screened?

It's evident that massive amounts of heat are being generated as the ring starts fizzing and the water almost immediately boils before the explosion.

Some sort of fusion device is our best guess, but we are still unable to understand how such a device was miniaturized and concealed, or even if it was some sort of fusion based device.

[Assistant] Probably something like anti-hydrogen atoms (or even molecules of anti-water) sealed in a stable protective structure such as a carbon fullerene. Dropping the ring in water started a multi-stage chemical reaction that dissolved this protective structure, causing a run-away anti-matter explosion. A fraction of a gram of anti-matter would have been necessary to produce the explosion, and there would have been no detectable radiation.