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

[User] ELI5: Regarding US education, the roles of the: state legislature, state board of education, and state department of education.

[Assistant]
In the US, these are the normal educational administrative groups, going from local to federal

## Local Board of Education

This is usually the governing body for a local school district.  They make budgetary and hiring decisions for all the schools in their district.  The sizes of these can vary widely.  A school district can be just one or two schools in a small town, or an entire metropolitan city, or an entire county.

## State Department of Education

Differs a bit from state to state.  Some states have constitutions that include education as a primary role for the state.  Some states don't.  In many cases, the primary function of the State Department of Education is to assemble data and reports to comply with federal laws.  In some states, they will take a more proactive approach.  If there is a State Board of Education, it's is usually just a committee within the Department of Education (or sometimes separate) that makes curriculum and standards decisions

## State Legislature

Depending on how schools are funded in the state (some are funded more by local property taxes, some more through the general state fund), the legislature may be responsible for funding schools.

## Federal Department of Education

Their primary purpose now is providing loans and grants for higher education and ensuring each state complies with various requirements (testing, diversity, sports, equality, etc.).  There have been attempts at expanding the scope of the Federal Dept. of Ed. through initiatives like No Child Left Behind, and Common Core, but they haven't been as successful.


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

[User] ELI5: How are ants able to build colonies/civilizations with such a tiny brain?

[Assistant]
"Civilization" is a bit of a strong word. AFAWK, they do not create art. They do not recount epic legends.

They are able to build colonies by use of pheromones. They recognize the behavior they should have in certain areas by chemical trails. Foraging ants know to bring extra back to the hive. nursing ants know to tend to the queen. The queen knows to give birth once it has sufficient food. They know when it is safe to leave their hole when it is warm enough outside for them (They use body heat and heat of decomposing waste to stay warm in colder situations).

They don't need large brains. Every ant has hard wired, instinctual roles. Narrow in scope, there is little need for a larger brain. They overcome difficult challenges not by out thinking them (a common tactic of primates) but instead by throwing more brood at the problem. With the high rate of egg laying done by queens, this is a much more economic solution to the problem.


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

[User]
Eli5: Why are bus depots so often in such rough areas of big cities?

Which comes first - is the bus depot built in a rough area because its cheap, or does something about it attract shady people?

Whatever it is, in most major cities the area around the major bus/coach station is always a scary place to be at night. Whats the connection?

[Assistant]
A bus depot requires a large amount of land, for a business that doesn't make a ton of money, so the land cannot be very expensive. Yet passengers want it to be near the center of the city.

Cheap land near the city center? It's going to be a rough neighborhood, because the nice parts are expensive.


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

[User]
Why aren't all screwheads philips?

Or Robertson, why not just pick one and make it universal instead of all these millions of variations of screwheads?

[Assistant]
Robertson (The Canadian): High levels of torque. Doesn't Cam out. Speeds up production. Cheap. Designer was a crazy tinfoil fuckhead that didn't let anyone else but him make them. Not wide spread except Canada.

Phillips (The Cross): Cams out when too much pressure is applied. Only 5 different drivers. Literally designed to destroy the driver before the screw if the correct one is used.

Slot (The Flathead): Simple as fuck to make. Discourages power tool use. Annoying as fuck.

Cross (The Double Flat): Slot x 2. When you fuck one up, there's one more to bail the screw out.

Pozidriv (Phillips Mk2): Phillips on torque steroids. Incompatible with phillips.

Hex (Mr. Allen): generally same benefits of Square. Wrenching commonly available.

Hexalobular (The Torq): Loltorque.

Phillips/Square (The Compromise): Best of both worlds. Select based on needs.

Every-Single-"Tamper-Resistant"-Screw (The lol): Grind a slot, use flathead. Problem = No Problem.


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

[User]
ELIF how the price of crude oil has plummeted yet gas prices stay above $4/gal and oil companies show record profits.

Did refineries reduce production? Why can't the govt force them to make more? It seems like a drastic reduction in the cost of gas might sooth an aching economy.

[Assistant]
Pretend you have a lemonade stand.  During lemon season, lemons are cheap and you can get a whole basket of them for $5.  It only costs you ten cents to make a glass of lemonade during lemon season.  The rest of the year, lemons cost $10 a basket and it costs you twenty cents to make a glass of lemonade.

You could raise and lower your prices throughout the year to match the cost of lemons, but then people might complain that a glass of lemonade cost 50c one day and dollar the next.  So instead, you average out the cost and sell your lemonade for 75c all year long.  You don't make as much when lemons are expensive, but you make up for it when they're cheap.

That's kinda sorta what the oil companies are doing.  They know the cost of crude is going to go back up, so they're keeping the price higher than it should be.  That way, when it *does* go back up, they won't have to raise prices again.

That's what they *claim* to be doing anyway.  In actuality, they're incredibly greedy and they're charging more because they know you'll pay it.  It's not like you can make you own gas or anything.


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

[User] [Walking Dead] What kinds of animals might thrive in this new world? Have any species gone extinct? How much danger do walkers pose to elephants, hippos, and bears?

[Assistant] According to Max Brooke's interpretation whales became extinct because so many people lived at sea and harvested them. In Africa. Lions and other apex predators thrived because sport hunting became irrelevant. In the US feral house cats and dogs became a problem because of they're high birth rate and consumption habits.


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

[User]
Do atoms emit spectral lines in the nonvisible spectrum?

I'm taking a Stellar Astronomy course, and have a very limited understanding of spectroscopy.

My basic understanding is that emission lines are the result of electrons needing a very specific amount of energy before they can change orbitals, and when changing orbitals they emit a photon to account for the energy change. This photon results in the emission line, right?

Assuming I have that understood properly, Here is my question. Do atoms have emission/absorption lines in the radio/infrared/ultraviolet etc. spectra? And if so, could we gain any information by examining these additional spectra?

Like I said, My understanding is very limited, but I really enjoy this subject and look forward to the answer!

[Assistant]
Electronic transitions commonly occur in the UV and visible region. Most materials that aren't colored (i.e. do not absorb visible light) do in fact absorb in the UV region somewhere.

There are other types of transitions that occur in the radio, microwave and IR region, but these are not generally electronic. They include spin magnetic moment, vibrational and rotational transitions.


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

[User]
At what point does light "have" mass?

my understanding of light is that it is a wave,  similar to sound. wavelength,  frequency, etc. are measuring "tools."
light is composed of mass-less particles, and thus, has no "weight."

I once read of an experiment where light was shown into a vacuum sealed box, with all interior sides of the box containing mirrors, at the perfect angles.

in this instance, the mass of the box is increased when the light is switched, "on."

1. has anyone else heard if this experiment , or is it theoretical?

2. am I correct in thinking light has no measurable weight?

[Assistant]
Any given individual photon propagating in vacuum will always be massless. What *can* have mass is a system of multiple photons--so your box example would indeed weight heavier with the light trapped inside. Imagine two photons, 1 and 2, traveling in opposite directions, he math works like this:

> E^(2) = (mc^(2))^(2)+(pc)^(2)

> E1 = pc

> p(total) = p1+p2 = 0 (opposite directions)

so,

> E(total)^(2) = (E1+E2)^2 = (mc^(2))^(2)

If they're traveling in parallel, the mass is zero and for anything in between it depends on a bit more complicated equation involving a (1-cos(theta)) of the angle between them. This is what we call *invariant mass* which you can almost think about like a 4D (spacetime) consequence of Pythagoras's theorem. This mass while not attributable to any single component, acts like any other mass and will gravitate, obey Newton's laws, and do anything else you expect mass to do. In fact it accounts for 99% of the mass of neutrons and protons. In that way, much of the mass of the universe is from this strange consequence of Special Relativity.


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

[User] ELI5 Why does it take a computer minutes to search if a certain file exists, but a browser can search through millions of sites in less than a second?

[Assistant]
A browser can't do that. What it *can* do is send a request to an enormous data center which has *already* read through those millions of sites, and has created an index of their contents, So when it gets a request to search for a word, it just has to look that word up in its index, and it can go "yep, that occurs in these websites".

So there are two pieces of trickery involved. One is that all the hard work has been done ahead of time, indexing millions and millions of websites *before* receiving your request.
The other is that your request isn't handled by your computer, but by some of the biggest data centers on the planet. Literally hundreds of computers may be involved in answering your Google search query.


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

[User] ELI5: Why its usually much cheaper to manufacture outside of america.

[Assistant]
If you have a lot of people in a nation and no labour laws it's easier to make profit there because, as a manufacturing plant owner, you can hold wages down closer to starvation levels.

Also, manufacturing processes can be dangerous and produce lots of toxic waste.  Outside of the u.s. there are many nations that don't have an EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), so it's easier to just dump toxic byproducts , say, into a river, ....or not spend much money at all on worker safety.   Makes bigger profit for company or corporation which owns the manufacturing plant.


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

[User] [SW] Did Luke make the shot against the exhaust port by normal talent, or did he use the Force to direct the torpedoes into the target with telekinesis?

[Assistant]
Neither.

The shot was perfectly possible, but wildly unlikely. The Force guided Luke to the one precise moment when firing the torpedoes would send them straight down the exhaust port, and regular non-mystical physics did the rest.


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

[User]
why is my body still able to feel the motion of waves after having left the beach?

this mostly occurs right before i am about to fall asleep.

[Assistant]
Our brains are very good at compensating when external stimulus throws us off. There are great experiments, for example, showing how our brains will gradually adjust to wearing special goggles with mirrors that flip everything the wrong way. Over time, the brain adjusts.

The brain also adjusts to coping with the ups and downs of being out at sea. However, that compensation also takes time to go away. When you're lying in bed feeling the ups and downs, you're still experiencing the compensation mechanism before it fades away.


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

[User]
When a vaccine is 70% effective, what does that mean - are 70% of recipients protected 100% or are 100% protected 70%?

Hopefully the title summarises it well, however incase it isn't - say in COVID-19 the AZ vaccine is 70% effective, what does that actually mean though:

Are 70% of people protected against 100% of exposures - and 30% get no protection, or
Do 100% of people have their risk of contracting the virus at each exposure by 70%?

If it's that 30% of people have no protection - is there any way to know those who are still at risk?

This can go for all vaccines, not just COVID-19.

[Assistant]
Population wise, your two scenarios have the exact same consequences. In a large group of people, there is no difference between everyone having a 30% change of getting infected and 30 of them having a high chance of getting infected.

That being said, no, it means 70% of the people will be covered, and 30% will not (either you develop an Immunity or you don't...I think). There is no way of knowing in advance who will get how much cover, exception made for very particular and obvious cases such as immunodepressed individuals.


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

[User]
What's actually happening when I lose or gain weight?

Is all food stored as fat/muscle and then our body uses current stores for energy or will it tap it directly from food.

What happens if I ate 5000kcals today and only burned 3000.  How long til the others are now fat??

[Assistant] If you were to lie down in bed all day, your body would burn a certain amount of calories simply by pumping blood, breathing, and doing all the other involuntary bodily functions. This is called your basal metabolic rate. Disregarding any sort of exercise and what was consumed to receive the calories (i.e. was it loaded with sugar, etc.), if one were to eat more calories than one's basal metabolic rate consumed, then the body would store the excess calories as lipid or fat cells. Conversely, if one were to eat less calories than one's basal metabolic rate consumed, then one's body would use the energy stored in fat cells to keep providing the body with energy.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that, if the age if consent is 16, 16-17 year olds sending nude pics to their significant other is considered child porn?

[Assistant]
Because the age to make pornography is 18.

Perhaps this is partly because of puritan beliefs that see pornography as more hedonistic. Perhaps it is because in our society leaked nudes are more damaging to people's reputations than having sex. Perhaps it requires more trust that a person won't share nude pictures than it takes to have sex with them and so it is believed that younger people are too easy to manipulate into it.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do I have to wait 30 seconds after I unplug my modem to plug it back in? Once it's off, isn't it just...off?

When resetting a modem, why does the 30 second time limit matter?

[Assistant]
Electronics contain capacitors and will maintain a capacitive charge for some length of time. The 30 second window is intended to be enough to let that capacitive charge drain. Not starting discharged can lead to some sequencing problems as the modem powers back up. In a perfect world they'd be designed such that it wouldn't matter, and it usually probably really doesn't.

You can see it one some electronics when you unplug them and the LED slowly fades out rather than going blank entirely.


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

[User]
If a mass-spring system is hung from a vibrating object, at what frequency would the mass begin to oscillate?

And how would one go about calculating it?

[Assistant]
So essentially you've got a harmonic oscillator subject to a driving force which is a combination of gravity and a harmonic driving force?

I'll call x the vertical direction and let x = 0 be the equilibrium position in the absence of gravity.

The addition of gravity will shift the equilibrium position to x = -mg/k, taking the downward direction to be negative.

So it will be easiest to solve the equation of motion for

u(t) = x(t) + mg/k.

I'll assume the harmonic driving force takes the form of F(t) = F*_0_*sin(wt).

The equation of motion for u(t) takes the form

u''(t) + w*_0_*^(2)u(t) = (F*_0_*/m)sin(wt), where w*_0_* = sqrt(k/m).

The solution to this ODE is a homogeneous part which consists of a linear combination of oscillations at the natural frequency (w*_0_*), and then a particular part which is an oscillation at the driving frequency (w).

If we ignore the homogenous solutions (or add a damping force so that they die away with some characteristic time scale), all that remains is the particular solution, which has the form

u(t) = Asin(wt).

Plugging this into the equation of motion we find that

-w^(2)A + w*_0_*^(2)A = F*_0_*/m,

so

A = (F*_0_*/m)(w*_0_*^(2) - w^(2))^(-1).

Notice that this amplitude is singular at w = w*_0_*. This is called *resonance*.

So u(t) = Asin(wt) = x(t) + mg/k.

So x(t) = Asin(wt) - mg/k, where A is given above.

But anyway we already have enough information to answer your question, which is about the frequency. The steady-state behavior, once we've gotten rid of the homogeneous solutions is a sinusoidal oscillation at the **driving frequency**.

So whatever frequency you force the system with, that's eventually the frequency it will oscillate at. Of course this is a simple system with only one oscillator and it's being driven sinusoidally. You could for example have multiple coupled oscillators or even a single oscillator driven by a more complicated driving force, and you'd get more interesting dynamics.


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

[User]
[WH40k] We know there are untold billions of humans, but how many are there of the other species?

An easy place to start might be, how many Adeptus Astartes (still technically humans, but only technically) are there across all of the chapters?

After that, are there any ways to estimate the Eldar, Tau, or Necron populations? It obviously becomes much harder with species like the Orks or Tyranids, but is there any way to estimate those populations?

*alternate question to be able to get slightly more tangible answers: For those beings who inhabit planets, what would the population for an Earth-like planet be. How many humans to a hive world? How many Eldar to a Craftworld? How many Necrons would normally be entombed on a single planet? Etc, etc.*

[Assistant]
>how many Adeptus Astartes (still technically humans, but only technically) are there across all of the chapters?

1 Million, roughly.  A thousand Chapters is described in the codices.

>After that, are there any ways to estimate the Eldar

No.  You've got Harlequins hanging out in the deep Webway, the Dark Eldar in the less deep webway, unknown number of Exodite worlds, unknown number of craftworlds total.

>Tau

See above.  Unknown number of total worlds, do you want Tau only or down to the castes or including the auxiliaries?

>Necron

See above - unknown number of tomb worlds in existence, never stated how many Necrontyr were given metal life.

>Orks or Tyranids

For all intents and purposes, infinite.


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

[User]
ELI5: What keeps a bowling lane from getting warped from thrown balls?

You always see those bowling ball videos of people punching through the ceiling and it coming back down, and you can hear it occasionally in public lanes where the release isn't really on point, so what keeps the wooden lane from getting warped, dinged, or dented?

[Assistant]
Wood lanes are shaved down usually every 2 years. Also the lanes are not 1 continuous piece of wood. There are sections. The front part of the lane (where balls land) are made of a harder wood.

 Most lanes today are made of a synthetic material. Also in sections that can be replaced.


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

[User]
What electrically isolates the top of the heart (atria) from the bottom (ventricles)?

I am an EMT and I have an interest in 12 lead EKGs.  I know the basics about cardiac conduction (SA node generates a p wave that propagates through the atria and arrives at the AV node.  There is a delay in the AV node and the QRS complex propagates through the ventricles via the bundle of His, and Purkinje fibers.

I also know there are literally hundreds of arrhythmias and many are due to another conduction path from the top to the bottom of the heart, bypassing the AV node (ex. Wolf-Parkinson-White) and that allows atrial p waves to have a back door into the ventricles (some times fatally).

So thinking of this electrically, there is supposed to be a high impedance (in ohms) from the top to the bottom of the heart, with the exception of the AV node.   My question is, what structure in the heart provides the high electrical impedance and what is the morphology that causes a spot or path to have a low electrical impedance?

[Assistant]
It's not so much that there is a specific structure that presents high impedance to the electrical signals, as it is that cardiac tissue (like any other tissue) presents high impedance *but* cardiac tissue has specific conductivity pathways that it permits. The conductive pathways arise from the gap junction in cardiac intercalated discs, which permits action potentials to propagate from one cardiomyocyte to another.

Which makes sense, because even outside the atrioventricular wall, cardiac conduction is not omnidirectional; it proceeds in a very specific order at very specific speeds, which are controlled by the arrangement of cardiomyocytes, their interconnections through intercalated discs, and by variations in physiology of different types of cardiomyocytes.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't stars be naturally green?

[Assistant]
The sun is green.

Well the peak of the spectrum of light it emits is in the green wavelengths but it puts out so much energy in the rest of the visible spectrum of light as well it looks white.

Redder stars are cooler. Hotter stars are more blue. The spectrum of light emitted by those stars are biased towards the the red/blue end of the spectrum. A lot of the light emitted falls outside of the visible spectrum so you see the colour of the peak. Everything else will look more white as green is in the middle of the spectrum the peak is harder to see as little light is shifted outside of the visible spectrum so the huge amount light is pretty well spread across the visible range and so looks white.


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

[User] ELI5:I have a fundamental understanding of what a mathematical algorithm is, but I wonder: Can anyone can explain how Google's PageRank algorithm works?

[Assistant]
Before PageRank, search engines worked in silly ways like frequency of key words used. It made web browsing in the 90s pretty awful.

A couple of bright guys came along and noticed that it might be useful to say that some sites are more important than others, and if those important sites link to you, you might be somewhat important too. If a page has a high enough ranking, and it links to you, it shared that ranking to some degree.

Bonus trivia: The PageRank patent is actually owned by Stanford, not Google. And it's named after Larry Page, not just because it ranks pages.


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

[User] ELI5: If the sun were to suddenly disappear, why would we keep orbiting for eight minutes?

[Assistant]
The speed of light is universally the maximum speed. However, it's not just the speed of light. The same constant, C, also represents the fastest speed any 'influence' can travel, as far as we know. Not only light, but magnetic force, gravity, and everything, is transferred only at the speed of light.

This means that an event taking place anywhere will take the distance divided by the speed of light to have an influence on a further object. Remove the sun, and it'd take the same time it takes for light to reach us - about 8 minutes - for the Earth to "realise" the sun is gone, and stop being affected by its gravity.


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

[User]
[Halo] How DID Johnson make it back in one piece?

Johnson mentions in Halo 2 that the story of his survival is "classified." I watched him die right in front of me. Any theories?

[Assistant] Johnson was part of the ORION super-soldier program(the predecessor of SPARTAN) and it fucked up his nervous system enough that the Flood can't control him. You didn't see him die- you saw him get mobbed(and rejected) by The Flood. Near the end of Halo, he, a Helljumper(CPL LOCKLEAR) a pilot (WO PULASKI) and an ONI spook(LT HAVERSON) escaped Halo on a Pelican.  The "classified" bit is his involvement in ORION, not the Pelican escape bit.


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

[User]
CMV: Saying things along the line of if everyone around you is an asshole then youre the asshole is dumb and victim blaming. (to the people who arent actually assholes)

1. Saying one wrong thing can bring on a wave of hate. If I said something about X being better than Y if enough people feel strongly about it.

2. A girl was bullied to the point of suicide because she stopped drawing fan art of a certain YouTuber. She wasnt being an asshole she just stopped doing something.

3. If a child is being bullied by their peers saying something like that is telling them its their fault theyre being bullied and they need to fix themselves.

4. Remember when {Edited due to me making a mistake, I see that now} *almost* everyone was an asshole to people based on race? Yeah, I doubt that people brought the racism on to them.

Edit; So is this phrase meant to be taken literally or not literally? Or can it somehow be both?

[Assistant] The phrase isn't meant to be an absolute, just a general call for self-examination. People on the whole are biased toward self-justification and tend to see themselves as the hero of their own story. Of course there are genuine victims, but there are also people who conflate any consequences of their own toxic behavior with victimization. The saying isn't meant to be any kind of hard and fast rule. It's only meant to disrupt the self-justification narrative long enough to allow for candid self-examination.


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

[User] ELI5: If I had one speaker with say 50 decibels coming out, then turned on another of the same. How loud is it?

[Assistant]
Adding a second speaker should double the out power, which increases the sound pressure by 1.4 times, which should sound 23% louder, which is a increase of 3dB.

That assumes there is no destructive interference between the two speakers which could make things sound even quieter.


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

[User]
ELI5 - how does the body decompose in a casket?

How does the body decompose in the casket? Does it eventually just become goop? Do the bacteria within multiply and eat you up?

[Assistant] Yes, the microbes on and in your body multiply and digest all the flesh, organs, etc.  The ossified parts of bone will stick around for a good long while, but given enough time, those will be broken down and digested too.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why is General Grievous allowed to fight Jedi?

Isn't it kind of dumb to allow your top general to fight in big battles and risk getting killed, captured, or incapacitated? Also while he is playing with his lightsabers, he isn't commanding his forces. Shouldn't he remain at the command and control areas and leave the physical act of fighting to his army?

[Assistant] He usually does, but he hates Jedi with a white hot passion. He makes exceptions when it comes to Jedi. Also, he's got so much machine in him that he might be able to broadcast orders to his troops without even speaking.


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

[User]
ELI5:In ancient and medieval times, how did soldiers distinguish friend from foe in battle?

When I look at movies that have vikings etc in them, they have no regulation uniforms whatsoever and their enemies wear roughly the same looking gear. How did the soldiers know, who were the enemies?

[Assistant] Sometimes they didn't. However for the most part it involved big flags and designs on the shields. Some armies were equipped totally different but others where similarly equipped there were special people called heralds who could tell whose design on a flag or shield were who and which side they were supposed to be on.


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

[User]
Is there such a thing as strong force potential energy, and in what situations can this effect be seen?

When two masses are moved apart, there is gravitational potential energy; when two (unlike) electrical charges are moved apart, there is electromagnetic/ chemical potential energy. Is the any situation, presumably within or between protons and neutrons, in which a similar kind of potential energy is seen for the strong force?

Does this have anything to do with fusion, fission, or radioactive decay?

[Assistant]
Yup! There indeed exists such a description though it is only useful as an approximation of quark behavior:

> V = -k*_1_*/r +k*_2_*r

As quarks carry electric charge, k*_1_* corresponds to the Coulomb interaction. As quarks carry color charge k*_2_* corresponds to the color force. Notice the situation of asymptotic freedomthe color potential goes to zero the close the quarks are and blows up for large distances. The color force gets stronger as we try to separate quarks.

This is related to the concept of color confinement where quark systems are restricted to those which do not have free quarks, the strong force explains protons and neutrons why we have atoms in the first place.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are DVDs region locked?

Simple question. Thanks to one of my favorite subreddits!

[Assistant] So that DVDs can be sold at different prices in different regions. Without it, someone could buy the DVDs in a cheaper region, then sell them in a more expensive region to make money. That would force the price of DVDs in the expensive region way down, and the maker of the DVD wouldn't make as much money both by selling fewer DVDs in the expensive region, and those DVDs that they do sell will be for a lower price.


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

[User] What is Immanuel Kant's view on sexual morality?

[Assistant] Pretty much it's only moral to have sex when you're married, because in sex you treat the other person like an object, and the only way to make that okay is to simultaneously contract with each other to have rights over each other for pretty much everything, and that's what marriage is. Anything else isn't okay - prostitution, masturbation, etc.


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

[User]
ELI5: Lucid Dreaming?

I have searched for answers and there isn't really anything in ELI5, it's just a bunch of people talking about their dreams.

I would like to know what is lucid dreaming and how does one achieve such a thing? From my knowledge it seems to be a dream like state where you control everything. But how is this possible; Am I even correct? I appreciate every answer and will upvote them all just so I get an explanation. Please remember, could you actually explain it as if I am a literal 5 year old, if not, explain it in the easiest way please. Thanks in advance.

[Assistant] A lucid dream is not a dream in which you can necessarily control everything, but rather a dream state in which you become aware of the fact that you are dreaming. Usually people wake up when they realize they are dreaming, so a lucid dream occurs when you realize you re dreaming and just go right on dreaming. Often, you can control certain aspects of the dream, which is pretty freakin' cool!


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

[User]
Are professional philosophers continuously mailing arguments, essays, and questions to other professional philosophers they trust before they publish their final works?

Is this something that actually happens, or is it mainly a secretive project where each philosopher just does all the thinking in their own head? Its not really an authoritative book on philosophers but Stephen Greenblatt said in his book, The Swerve, that in ancient greek philosophy, philosophers generally had big meet ups where they would discuss ideas, and there was constant mail being sent between philosophers. He compares this to modern approaches where philosophers are usually doing all the thinking themselves.

edit:Thanks for the responses :)

[Assistant]
Philosophers present and discuss their research at conferences, which often serve as a working step in the development of a publication.  They present and discuss their research at departmental research colloquia and in the course of funding applications or writing contracts, and these presentations likewise often serve as working steps.  Their publications are often peer-reviewed and accepted on the basis of a process of revision worked out through the peer review.  Their research is often developed in the course of their teaching, especially in the case of teaching graduate seminars, which are frequently organized as extended engagements with the topic of the professor's ongoing research.  Publications typically engage and respond to the work of other academics, so they more often have a conversational than monological quality.  And on top of these regular collegial activities of academia, it is common to distribute drafts of research among one's colleagues for comment.

So, yes, philosophical research *is* typically conducted in the context of a variety of means of peer-review.  If this isn't the case for some particular article, it was still probably written by someone who has spent decades involved full-time with these sorts of peer-review activities and on the same subject as the article.


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

[User] ELI5: Why don't executioners use the easy and painless lethal injection of overdosing someone on morphine?

[Assistant]
8th Amendment (in the US) prohibits, "Cruel and unusual punishment."

So that's a tricky when you are literally ending someone's life. But the blend of chemicals is supposed to simply put them to sleep, then stop their heart. That's really the most objective way to kill someone without cruelty. Getting them really high as they die is unusual, and families would likely protest the euphoria that they get before they leave this world.

There are lots of ways to kill a person, but letting them go to sleep and never wake up was less dangerous and expensive than a gas chamber, less messy than an electric chair, and less antiquated than a firing squad.


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

[User]
What is the difference between Schwann cells and Oligodendrocytes other than the location of where they wrap neurons in myelin?

Just curious while taking upper level physiology.

[Assistant] Morphologically, behaviorally, and physiologically, they're different cells.  Oligodendrocytes have many arms, which insulate many cells, whereas Schwann cells wrap around a single segment of a single axon.  Schwann's can create an architecture for growing axons, and come from a different lineage than oligodendrocytes.  Both cell types have non-myelinating versions ("satellite cells"), that serve different roles, some structural, and some regulate interstitial fluid.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are so many creatures in places like South America and Australia venomous and dangerous, as opposed to the UK or europe?

[Assistant]
South America and Australia simply have more species of animals. More species means a wide variety and so you're more likely to find dangerous ones. There's also plenty of completely harmless animals in these places but they just don't make the news as much.

As to why these regions have more species there are many reasons but most people agree that the ice ages played a part. Europe and North America were cold and inhospitable for thousands of years, whereas the areas around the equator were fine, giving life a much better environment to evolve into the plethora of species we see today.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Regarding the dagger in Rise of Skywalker

The dagger had to have been created after the Battle of Endor because the creator knew that the portion of the Death Star with the throne room in it crashed on that planet. Who would know that there was a thingamajig in the throne room and knew Sith, and why would this person make that dagger?

[Assistant]
How many sith were even around at that point, after the Emperor and Vader were dead (or "dead")? And why would they be using *ancient* sith script? and why would they not just go get the maguffin themselves if they knew exactly where it was?

Who was this dagger for, such that the creator of it knew where the wayfinder was, and wanted to tell someone else, but decided to make a dagger about it instead of telling them in person? If Palpatine was still up, why would he want *anyone* to have a tracker to find him? His entire plan is based on a surprise attack with his planet-busting fleet.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly is the purpose of the chip on credit cards now. It's more secure, but how?

[Assistant]
Basically, all an old card reader does is send a message to the bank asking "Is this a real card? I'd like to spend some money." and the bank says yes or no, and the cashier can proceed. The strip was easily read and it is easy to make a duplicate card this way.

The cards with chips have a tiny computer in them and when the card reader wants to make a transaction, it generates a special number based on the transaction. This number is then sent along with the other stuff. The bank knows how that number should be generated and can check if it got the right number.

The way the card generates that number isn't accessible to the card reader. There's a special key that the card never tells the reader and so it's much harder to copy the card, because in order for the bank to say it's valid, you need that key.

In the case of chip-and-PIN systems more popular in Europe, the card also makes use of your PIN when it makes that special code, as a way of verifying that the cardholder is present and someone didn't just steal the card.


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

[User]
Can art be objectively judged?

I'm sure this question has been asked countless times in this subreddit, but reading through what I could find, none of the answers truly satisfied me.

I'll talk about music as an example of this, as it's one of the arts I'm most fond of. I find myself discussing with some of my friends about how much of the music in that dominates the market is VERY, VERY "bland" (Specially in Brazil, where I'm from). They all follow an already pre-established formula that they know makes money, and thus innovation is not encouraged. Some people would say, by this fact alone, that this type of music is not art, but let's imagine that it is.

If we compare this music with some of the classical composers that have universal praise, can we say that one piece of work is objectively "better", than the other? Or is it simply a matter if taste? And if so, what is this taste based on?
The same could be said about anything else.
A recipe that someone enjoys might be seen as disastrous by a chef.
Literature experts might hate some popular teenage novels.

TL;DR: Are there objective criteria upon which art can be judged?

[Assistant]
Tolstoy argued that something only constituted art if it *infected* you. That is, if you could look at it, and immediately feel something, even if that feeling was indescribable, then it was art.

"An artist, if he is a true artist, has in his work conveyed to others the feeling he has experienced: what is there to explain?  If the work is good as art, then the feeling expressed by the artist is conveyed to others, regardless of whether the work is moral or immoral. If it is conveyed to others, they experience it, and experience it, moreover, each in his own way, and all interpretation is superfluous. If the work does not infect others, then no interpretation is going to make it infectious. Artistic works cannot be interpreted. If it had been possible for the artist to explain in words what he wished to say, he would have said it in words. But he has said it with his art, because it was impossible to convey the feeling he experienced in any other way. The interpretation of a work of art in words proves only that the interpreter is incapable of being infected by art."

He also argued that simply having a talent or skill in art and using it for remuneration was *not* art, but simply a *simulacrum* of it.

"There are many conditions necessary for a man to create a true object of art. It is necessary that the man stand on the level of the highest world outlook of his time, that he have experienced a feeling and have the wish and opportunity to transmit it, and that he have, with all that, a talent for some kind of art. It is very seldom that all these conditions necessary for the production of true art come together. But to produce, with the help of the developed methods of borrowing, imitation, effectfulness and diversion, that simulacrum of art which is so well remunerated in our society, one need only have a talent for some kind of art, which occurs quite often."

\- Leo Tolstoy, *What is Art?*


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

[User] [All Star Trek] Why does the Federation want to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no man has gone before?

[Assistant]
Curiosity and learning kinda their shtick. The Federation is primarily a human organization, and humans are renowned for their propensity for being explorers and knowledge seekers.

Let me ask you a question. When you know there are something like a hundred billion stars in this galaxy, most with planets, a fairly large portion of which are Class M and many are populated by advanced beings, are you really satisfied to only know your city in one country on your backwater planet?


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

[User]
Why are 12 volts and 5 volts such popular voltages for electronics?

Is there something intrinsically convenient about them, or is it just the standard we've been using forever so we keep using it?

[Assistant]
There are many things that factor into both the historical choices of these these voltages and the continued use of them.

In the 1950s through 70s, roughly speaking, it was exciting that you could run a transistor circuit on voltage lower than the hundreds of volts used in vacuum tube circuits, both because of the reduced power consumption (for a given current level), because of the safety, and because of the feasibility of making a portable device.  In addition to 12 V, standard voltages included +/-15 V for high-performance instrumentation and 9 V for portable electronics.  The 9-V battery was (and still is) made by stacking six small 1.5-V cells.  It would have been easier to run on one or two single cells (like AA or C cells), but it was hard to make something run on a voltage that low given the electronics technology of the day.   One reason for 12 V was that that's the standard vehicular battery voltage, which was based on 2-V lead-acid battery cells: six stacked in series.  Some equipment could be powered from the car electrical system or from a 12-V power supply at home.

In the early development of digital logic circuits and ICs, different schemes used different supply voltages.  In the mid 1960s, Texas Instruments introduced the 7400 series of "TTL" (transitor-transistor logic) ICs, which became hugely popular and set the standard for digital logic for decades.  They chose 5 V as the supply voltage, and required a regulated constant voltage.  A single transistor requires at least about 0.7 V to turn on, but given the configurations of multiple transistors in a set of interconnected logic gates, and given the need to guarantee proper operation even with process variations in the crude processes of the day, and over temperature, 5 V allowed a design that gives adequate margin to be sure everything works right consistently.  A higher voltage would have allowed more margin, but at higher power consumption and power dissipation, so 5 V was a sensible design point.

The standardization around the 7400 series chips and the improved versions of them locked in 5 V as a standard.  12 V was used for other things.  Some systems had an unregulated 12 V power supply bus for general use, and used that as an input to a 5 V regulator that created a tightly regulated 5 V bus.

CMOS replaced TTL, and especially as CMOS technology advanced, operation at lower voltages became possible, and desirable.  Part of the story of how Moore's law advanced is the story of smaller features work with lower voltages to enable high density ICs.  3.3 V became a new standard, then 2.5, and now voltages around 1 V are common for the actual operation of the digital logic circuits.  The low voltage, combined with the high power that modern processors use when they are running all out means that huge currents are required.  So the new standard approach is to step down the voltage with a dc-to-dc converter right at the load (the end use of the power).  This is often 5 V to about 1 V, and often 12 V to about 1 V.  That means that the current supplied to the equipment, and the current traveling in the power distribution wires inside can be only about ~1/5 or ~1/12th what is consumed by the digital logic circuits.  So even though the logic itself no longer uses 5 V or 12 V, those are reasonable voltages to use for power supply and distribution, and can reasonably easily be stepped down the the voltages needed for the actual circuitry.  In modern electronics there are often many sub-systems running on different voltages, and many different dc-to-dc converters are used.


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

[User]
How clearly can we see objects in other galaxies?

I have always been curious as to just what kind of details we can see, and what can only be theorized. For instance, we can count how many moons Saturn has, but can we tell the same for a planet in another solar system? To my understanding it would really come down to just how much light is being reflected from these planets and moons. I guess I don't really have a direct and clear cut question, so I suppose I'll just ask this, what criteria is needed for us to be able to know there is an object in space?

[Assistant]
Our telescope resolution is what limits us to see detail on objects in other galaxies.  An object can be incredibly bright, but unless the optics you're using have the proper resolving power, it will look like a big bright blur.

Telescopes have specific resolution that depend on their size and ability to see beyond the turbulent atmosphere.  Hubble's resolution is about 0.1 arcseconds.  An arcsecond is the *angle* an object in space subtends -- that angle can be converted very easily to a "real size" if you know how far away the object is.  So for the galaxy M51, which is ~ 7 Mpc away, HST can resolve objects that are as small as (0.1 arcsec)(7 Mpc)/206265 = 3.394 x 10^-6 Mpc, or 7 x 10^5 AU, where 1 AU = the distance between the Sun and the Earth.

So HST would not be able to "separate" the Earth and the Sun (or the whole solar system for that matter), and in its optics the system would appear as a single dot.

EDIT: clarification to the last sentence...  "HST would not be able to "separate" the Earth and the Sun *at the distance of M51*"


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

[User] ELI5: Why does it feel so good to itch a scar/insect bite? Is there a genuine medical advantage to it?

[Assistant]
It has more to do with the itch being a signal from your body asking for attention. A bug bite or irritation would require you to bring your attention to that area of your body to remove the irritation. The itch signals a need and once you scratch it,  you feel a relief that acts as a reward encouraging you to continue to bring your attention to irritations.

Consider it less an advantage feeling the relief post-scratch and more of an advantage to have a signal system that causes the irritation in the first place.


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

[User] [Star Wars] When Sith name themselves, they use words from their ancient language i.e. "Vader". Is the name "Kylo Ren" also a reference in this regard, or just something that was made up?

[Assistant]
Kylo and Snoke are not Sith. Kylo is apparently the leader of an order called the Knights of Ren, who were the ones to wipe out the Jedi.

Where the name "Kylo" comes from is not known, it's probably just arbitrary.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes us to get bags/dark circles under our eyes when we are tired?

[Assistant]
Dark circles are just the blood that is circulating around your eyes showing through the skin. The skin under the eye is very thin, so subtle changes can cause these circles to appear. In essence, there are three main reasons why this can happen:

* your blood vessels dilating (low blood pressure). this can be because of inflammation such as with allergies or rubbing. when you have an inflammatory reaction, your body releases histamine, which causes a reaction to get as much of your immune cells to the area as possible. this will cause more blood flow, resulting in a lower blood pressure and dilated blood vessels. this means more of them show through the skin. it can also be because of heart medication or erectile dysfunction drugs which work by causing veins to expand. being tired will cause dryness and irritation around your eyes, which will lead to an inflammation similar to an allergic reaction, causing more of the darkness to appear, especially if you irritate the area more by also rubbing it.
* your skin getting pale. if you are not getting enough sleep, anemic, or dehydrated, your skin will become paler and that will show more of your blood vessels through your eyes.
* your skin getting thinner. this is mostly the cause of dark circles when you age.

Bags are caused by areas under your eyes filling up with water or fat. This is essentially a secondary effect of inflammation. Expanded blood vessels will cause fluid to accumulate and pool, and leak out of your blood. This is normally beneficial because the fluid will have immune cells in it that will help fight an infection or irritant. This is why injured areas will be red, hot, and swollen, but in this case it will cause these bags. In addition, rubbing your skin (as is common when being irritated) will exacerbate this, essentially mechanically squeezing even more fluids out of the blood vessel.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why, after a certain point of being tired, do we switch and get energized instead?

Or well, not really "energized" but after staying up for long enough, why is it significantly harder to fall asleep?

[Assistant] The longer you stay awake the more stressed your body gets. Now to counter the effects of sleep deprevation your body is flooded with adrennaline to keep you awake. At some point you are practically so flooded with adrennaline that you can't sleep. Thats also why you sometimes can have a racing heartbeat while trying to sleep.


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

[User]
[The Office] How exactly does Michael still have his job or even retain employees for that matter with how he acts?

Every episode there's something bordering on (or straight up) harassment from his end. He argues with, and passive aggressively rebels against corporate over everything that doesn't jive with his "cool boss" MO, and frequently offends everyone.

I've only just seen up to the sexual harassment episode, but already I've seen enough stuff from Michael to warrant him getting fired by Jan like 10x over. And that's not even what goes on prior to the series or between episodes!

But okay, maybe corporate lets *a lot* slide in lieu of sales figures because he gets results. Why do Michael's employees not resign after all the name-calling, racism, sexual harassment and other shenanigans enacted by Michael and others like him? They're clearly unhappy with his antics, yet they don't complain to corporate (frequently enough to get Michael replaced) or leave?

[Assistant]
His employees put up with his behavior because he also gives them a lot of leeway, like letting phyllis take a 2 hour lunch and get drunk, or letting ryan do whatever the hell he does all day.

His bosses put up with him because none of the employees usually file complaints, and his branch makes the most money.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How many Mandalorians would it take to defeat a Jedi Master? Spoilers for recent episode ahead

In light of what happened with Din and one Dark Trooper and then Luke with an entire platoon, what's the math on Mandalorians and someone like Luke?

[Assistant]
you cant properly powerscale between Din and the dark troopers like that, this isnt dragonball where if you beat one it means that you are stronger and unbeatable by anyone weaker.

the jedi are unarmoured, and can be suprised, and its not easy to use the force in battle. ashoka had trouble with that lady with the spear, and she is one of the best duelists of the age. anakin and obiwan had trouble with non-force users in melee battles tons of times. So, if the mandalorian is well armed and very skillfull and fights smarts and dirty, then yeah he could take down a jedi master, depending on the master. Like, probably not windu or yoda, but probably one of the other council members.

fact remains that din had almost no weapons that could reliably hurt the dark trooper, and had to engage in it melee, where he was outmatched. while luke had a lightsaber. give luke the beskarr spear, and he too will have a bit of trouble with the darktroopers.


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

[User]
Why is the average height of humans increasing over time?

Napoleon, who was known for his short stature, was average height in his day. During the American Revolution, the average male height was 5'6.

Does this mean that taller people are "fitter" to survive?

[Assistant] Increased access to nutrition and healthcare has lowered rates of stunted growth in children. Global development has limited famine and lowered disease loading that draws on energy that would otherwise go to growth.


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

[User]
ELI5: why is the ocean made of salt water and the lakes made of fresh water?

Are really big lakes saltier than small lakes? Does the salt in the ocean change around, or is it always the same salt?

[Assistant] Oceans initially eroded away at bedrock and sediment that put salt into the water. Lakes and rivers, however, receive their water from rainfall. When the sun heats up the ocean, water evaporates and leaves the salt behind. In gas form, the water travels back to the mainland where it cools off, becomes rain and supplies the lake with salt-free water. That water then travels back through the rivers, into the ocean and becomes salinated again.


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

[User] [Toy Story] Do weebs and otakus exist in universe? And are there legions of traumatized anime girl figurines?

[Assistant]
The Toy Story world has not shown any significant deviation from ours thus far, so we can presume they do.

As for trauma, it really comes down to the personality of the figurines and how they perceive anime fan tropes being applied to them:

* Isekai protagonist figures will likely see the human world as just another world they've been brought to.
* Characters with canon, exclusive relationships might be offended at a real person considering them or their partner to be their "waifu" or "husbando" instead.
* Alternatively, being someone's "waifu" or "husbando" could be the teenage/adult equivalent status of being a child's favorite toy.
* Creepy people are going to be creepy with their figurines, but the figurines' response to this would depend on whether creepy behavior is tolerated within their own series, since at least some of a toy's initial personality is determined by their canon. If a show relies on fanservice or perverse humor, the figurines might not mind as much as you think, but Toy Story also has toys developing their own personalities over time, so they might see it just as creepy as anyone else would.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What would Padme's wardrobe have been worth on Tatooine?

Obi Wan thought they might be able to barter with the queens wardrobe.  How much could that have possibly have been worth on Tatooine?  I can't imagine there are a lot of balls going on.  Also it's not even the queen's nicest clothes its her emergency outfits she keeps on the ship in case she forgot to pack a tea dress.

[Assistant] The clothes themselves wouldn't be worth much. However, as a queen, she likely wore very fine fabrics, which are worth a lot to people who live in a place where everything is coarse and rough. Hell, some people would probably buy it and use it as the equivalent of six ply toilet paper.


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

[User]
Why are the Maldives so flat?

I would have thought that, as islands, they would be the "peaks" of mountains/volcanoes sticking out of the water meaning they would be hardly flat at all.

[Assistant] The Maldives are coral islands. Coral starts to grow in reasonably shallow warm water and stops growing at sea level. Sea level changes and geological uplift can then move the coral tops slightly above sea level but its unlikely to get very high before it is eroded back.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Velcro retain its strength through continuous use?

Given the basic hook-loop mechanics, I would think it would become significantly less effective extremely quickly.

[Assistant]
There are a couple factors that explain this.  First, most loops don't find a hook each time the Velcro is sealed.  Only a minority of the loops need to find a hook for the Velcro to hold.  Second, not every loop tears when you rip apart the Velcro.  There are many times more loops on the one side than there are hooks on the other, so this combination of factors gives Velcro an appreciable use\-life.

If you notice your Velcro is getting less sticky, you'll get more bang for your buck by trying to clean lint out of the hook side first.


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

[User] [MoS] Jor El talks about how over 100,000 years of civilization, the Kryptonians accomplished wonders. What are some of these wonders?

[Assistant] Colonizing other planets, birthing matrices, Brainiac, insane weaponry, information crystals (Sunstones), discovering the Phantom Zone, regeneration pods, conquering disease, slowing the aging process to a crawl, and perfecting cloning. Among other things.


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

[User]
ELI5 How did humans discover that the earth tilts on it's axis?

How did we go from establishing that the earth is spherical to knowing that it tilts  and even figuring out the degree at which it tilts?

[Assistant] When sundials were first used, 5000 years ago, it was quite apparent that the gnomon casts a shadow in a different place in the summer than the winter.  By measuring the angle between the summer and winter value, and a little arithmetic, you can calculate the tilt angle.


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

[User]
CMV: A gas tax holiday would mostly help people and companies who don't need it and people should be embarrassed of the idea

The federal gas tax is 18 cents per gallon.  On average, Americans consume 56 gallons of gas per month meaning on average Americans who drive will save $9.81 a month or $19.62 for a couple.

I don't want it to seem like this is nothing and it is likely that working class people have to drive more each month but this is an embarassingly ineffective way to give relief to people who need it whole creating a larger budget deficit.

The US lose out on billions of dollars on revenue. This means the country would go into debt for a bunch of people who don't need relief to get $9 of their gas instead of just giving relief to people who actually need it.

So why are politicians pushing for it? It's a giant paycheck to the largest corporations. Amazon and Walmart get extra profit from each of their tens of thousands of vehicles they operate.

You may be thinking but that would reduce the cost of good.  Nope. Not necessarily.  It will reduce the cost for the companies but that has nothing to do with whether they would pay those savings onto the consumer.  Companies almost always just keep benefits from the government.

Other countries are forcing these companies to justify why their profits are all skyrocketing.  This is a sensible thing to do.  A gas tax holiday let's them all of the hook for price gouging and keeps demand high which enables them to keep making their enflated profits.

TLDR: a gas tax holiday is a regressive tax cut which mostly helps people who don't need the help.

[Assistant]
Sales taxes, which fuel taxes are, are always regressive since the tax hits people in essentially the same amount regardless of their income. Worse, the parts of the country which are indifferent to the effects of fuel prices are those who live in prosperous metropolitan areas in which incomes are high and public transportation plentiful.

If the revenue lost through a fuel tax holiday were recovered by a windfall profits tax on oil producers, it would be a fantastic and effective way to combat inflation.


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

[User]
[ALOK] how could you keep a highly skilled water bender like Ming Hua in jail? They need water to live, and they could use even small amounts of water/blood bending to escape.

Not sure if Ming Hua can blood bend, but we've seen what skilled water benders can do with even small amounts of water or their own sweat. In the Avatar universe, how would it be possible to arrest and incarcerate a very skilled water bender? If you don't give them any liquid, they die. Would you have to execute all water benders like this? Could you keep them in some type of cell that was impossible to cut through? I imagine good water benders could break any lock by inserting water into it then freezing that water, causing it to expand and cracking the lock open. I suppose you could remove their bending, but so far only two people (whoever the avatar is at the time and Amon) can do that.

[Assistant]
By doing exactly what they did, throwing her somewhere hot and dry enough that she couldn't accumulate any meaningful amount of water to do anything serious and physically isolated enough that escaping would be difficult, and having highly trained guards keep an eye on her.

>If you don't give them any liquid, they die.

She'd been there for years, they're obviously giving her enough to survive

> In the Avatar universe, how would it be possible to arrest and incarcerate a very skilled water bender?

Knock em  out, restrain their movements so they can't bend, lots of ways

>Could you keep them in some type of cell that was impossible to cut through?

Why not cripple/disable their ability to cut shit in the first place, which the volcano prison accomplished?


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

[User]
[Star Trek] How much of a a technological jump does Star Fleet get from destroyed Borg ships?

Basically how much loot does the Federation get from these techno monsters?

[Assistant] I believe Borg technology generally self-destructs for this very reason. On other occasions the Borg track down their damaged tech to recover or destroy it, along with anyone who tampered with it. There have been times that people have salvaged Borg tech, but these occasions are very rare. So, to answer your question...a little bit, but not much. Mostly just stuff to help them fight the Borg themselves.


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

[User] [Fallout] Did the US bomb China as bad as China did the US?

[Assistant]
China likely got it as bad or worse.

Details on World War III are scant, and some information contradicts. There's an NPC artificial intelligence in Fallout 2 that implies that the true cause of WWIII was a defense computer basically going nuts and feeding people bad data, causing America to shoot first and shoot hard. Meanwhile, background data from Fallout 3 onward indicates that just before the bombs flew the U.S./China War was being fought on Chinese soil with American power armor development providing a critical advantage, and implying China was the first to go hot with their nukes in a strategic sense; America would have fired second, but still would have fired, and with China already reeling from conventional assault they likely would not have fared well.


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

[User]
Can you make a nuclear bomb with any element?

Could you use an element like gold, or sodium, instead of uranium?

[Assistant]
No. There are a few basic requirements that a nuclear warhead should meet in order to be useful. First, you need nuclear reactions that release energy, and as much of it as possible. Second, you need this reaction to be as easy as possible to initiate; you dont want a large energy barrier to overcome. In broad strokes, this already limits you to fission of very heavy nuclides, and fusion of very light nuclides. In the case of fission, you want to maximize the probability of each fission reaction occurring, so this further limits you to *fissile* fuel. Fissile nuclides are defined by the fact that they can fission in the presence of neutrons of arbitrarily low energies. In other words, there is no energy threshold for neutron-induced fission. This generally implies that the probability of a neutron causing the nucleus to fission is proportional to 1/sqrt(E), and its very large in magnitude compared to other cases. In the case of fusion, you want to minimize the energy barrier required for the reaction to occur. The Coulomb barrier is proportional to Z*_1_*Z*_2_*, where the Zs are the atomic numbers of the target and projectile. So obviously the lowest Coulomb barrier will be for hydrogen on hydrogen reactions.

If you want to use fissile nuclides for a fission bomb, this limits you to a handful of heavy species. Engineering/practical constraints further limit you down to uranium-233, uranium-235, plutonium-239, and plutonium-241.

If you want to use hydrogen fusion for a thermonuclear weapon, youre limited to deuterium and tritium.

For a sense of scale, the DD and DT fusion reactions used in thermonuclear weapons release about 10 MeV of energy per reaction, and neutron-induced fission of uranium-235 releases an average of 200 MeV per reaction (its an average because there are many possible exit channels).

So to summarize, *no*, you cant just use whatever you want if you want your bomb to actually work, and satisfy a few basic requirements desirable for a weapon.


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

[User]
Why can we bring someone with HIV to undetectable levels, but we can't completely cure it?

I'm just a little confused on why we can get rid of a majority of the virus in someone but not all of it.

[Assistant] So HIV actually integrates into the genome of your T immune cells. Drugs can help kill any virus copies that escape these infected cells, thereby keeping it from spreading to more cells, but it doesnt detect the virus DNA within these infected cells.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What was Obi-Wan thinking when he told Luke to "use the force".

I'm talking specifically about the battle of yavin, after Obi-Wan was killed.

If we look at the big picture we can assume that the rebellions leadership and tools of war were down on yavin. If they were taken out it would likely be a blow that the rebels couldn't recover from.

Princess leia (correctly) assumed that they were being followed and likely told her peers that the Empire was on their way and they needed to come up with a plan and get every ship into the air asap.

They came up with a plan, and everyone who could fly was given a ship. They even gave one to Luke, a boy who no one, except Biggs, knew. Was he good, or was he shit? Give him a ship and hope for the best.

There plan of attack was risky, but it was their only option. What they didn't count on was interference from Obi-Wans spirit.

So we have Luke, a person who's journey into the force can be measured in baby steps. He's getting ready to fire off his torpedoes when Obi-Wan tells him to use the force and trust his feelings.

Why did Obi-Wan think that would be a good idea? The future of the rebellion was at risk just so he could satisfy his hunch that Luke has what it takes to be a Jedi. That's an awfully risky move.

[Assistant] Everyone including Luke's computer were unable to hit the target. Obi-Wan knew that Luke could do it with the force but the computer would miss. With so much at stake Obi-Wan told Luke to trust his skills and his ability to use the force. It had a chance of working, but was better than a certain failure.


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

[User]
Why are some people "deep sleepers" whilst others are "light sleepers?"

Is it possible to impact how `deeply` or how `lightly` you sleep? What is the role of fatigue in sleep and how large a factor does it play in your sleep patterns?

[Assistant]
There are two different ways you could define sleep depth. One in terms of the actual stage of sleep the brain is in. The other in terms of how difficult it is to awaken someone (e.g., using a loud noise).

Sleep is usually divided into four stages. There is rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and three stages of non-REM (NREM) sleep, called N1, N2, and N3. Generally, we consider N3 to be deeper sleep than N2, which is deeper sleep than N1. This is because upon falling asleep, people tend to progress from N1 to N2 to N3, becoming progressively harder to awaken. The deeper the stage of NREM sleep, the more high-amplitude slow-wave activity you see when you measure brain electrical activity using EEG.

When individuals are sleep deprived, there is an increase in the depth of NREM sleep and an increase in the amount of slow-waves. Consequently, people who have a large background sleep debt will tend to sleep more deeply and be more difficult to awaken.

Across a night of sleep, there is a progressive decrease in the depth of NREM sleep and the amount of slow-waves, as well as an increase in the frequency of spontaneous awakenings (people always have many brief awakenings at night, but these are usually too short to remember). This pattern is also affected by the body's circadian clock. Specifically, the clock promotes REM sleep and discourages deep NREM sleep around the time of the core body temperature minimum, which is usually an hour or two before morning awakening. In individuals who are sleeping at unusual times of day or at unusual circadian phases, the usual progression from deep NREM sleep early in the night to increased REM sleep later in the night is altered. In turn, this would affect sleep depth.

It's difficult to directly compare depth of REM sleep to NREM sleep, since they correspond to such different brain states. In terms of how difficult it is to awaken someone using a loud noise, REM sleep is similar to N2.

Of course, there are many other factors that can affect sleep depth.  Some individuals are simply less sensitive to environmental cues -- perhaps due to differences in sensory pathways. Alcohol tends to increase the depth of NREM sleep early in the night but makes sleep lighter and more fragmented in the second half of the night. Caffeine decreases sleep depth at night, with a measurable effect even if the caffeine is taken in the morning. Sleep disorders also affect sleep depth; severe sleep apnea, for example, generally prevents entry into deeper stages of sleep due to constant brief awakenings.


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

[User]
ELI5: If the human body already rejuvenates itself by replacing dead cells by new ones, then why isn't eternal life possible/happening?

Why does this process eventually stop so people get old and die? Isn't it possible in theory for the body to keep replacing every dead cell in every body part so we people wouldn't age?

[Assistant] The tips of your chromosomes are composed of a protective coating  of meaningless code called a telomere. You can think of these telomeres as the protective plastic caps at the ends of your shoelace, their purpose is to protect the actual meaningful strands of DNA. When DNA replicates in a cell (during the process of creating new cells) some of the code at the tip of one strand is lost every time. The telomeres protect the meaningful code of the DNA but overtime they are stripped away. The less telomere code a cell has, the older it is, and eventually the cell will die rather than keep replicating its DNA without the telomeres. This occurs to prevent mutations as a result of lost meaningful DNA. Some cells actually have the ability to regenerate their telomeres using an enzyme called telomerase. An example of such a cell would be a germ line cell like sperm or an egg which necessarily need to be protected from cell aging. They say aging and cancer are two sides of the same coin because tumour cells also have access to telomerase which sadly prevents their aging and death.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] I accidentally cloned my pokemon! What do I do?

I'm a relatively new pokemon trainer from Johto. Just got my first badge and was on my way to my second when I stopped at a Pokemon Center for the night. Now, the PC  at this Pokemon Center was from the 90's. I mean ancient. Apparently, since it wasn't in a city, no one had thought to update it.

Anyway, I had deposited my starter. (Love ya Sydney!) and had decided to put a gold colored Bellsprout I had just caught in a separate box.

Now, for anyone born this century, when you switched boxes on older PCs, it takes a minute. And its still the case, even if its connected to the modern network.

Anyway, when I was stitching boxes, the computer crapped out on me, and Sydney's pokeball came back out. I was a little worried, but glad that Sydney wasn't hurt. But when I opened the PC again, I saw Sydney. Same OT. same stats, Same "Obtained On" date. Same everything. And when I opened his pokeball, it was Sydney. Just like the Sydney that was in the Pokeball I got back originally.

Now, needless to say, all three of us are freaking out. As far as I'm concerned, they're both my pokemon, and I've told both of them, but which one is the original? Is there an original? Do I need to report this to someone? I told the Nurse Joy there, but she doesn't seem to have seen anything like this before and she doesn't know what to do.

So here I am, on reddit five minutes later. Sydney and Sydney are both freaking out. Before I put them back in their pokeballs, they didn't even want to look at each other (which I understand completely. I'd freak out too) Has anyone else been through this? Any help to help Sydney and Sydney, and me if possible, come to terms with this would help immensely.

[Assistant]
Honestly, other than the ethical questions raised, it's no biggie. The ethical discussion could go on forever, and I'd recommend binging some sci-fi with your two pals, because frankly, there's a lot of people who's thought a lot more about this than me.

Instead, here's the practical stuff:

So, we know that people don't care how many pokmon are out there. A guy releases an extra Giratina they acquired from a parallel universe, and no one bats an eye. Same thing for the guy who released 100 Haunters yesterday because they, quote, "had the wrong nature."

Whatever you've got there, no one will notice anything wrong. So don't worry about that.

Now, if you want to, you could speak with some pokmon professors. This accident of yours seems... surprisingly simple to replicate. Either you've got cloning tech on your hands that *will* be discovered in time, so might as well start out in the right hands, or this is a freak accident that will never happen again. Either way, speaking with a professor seems like a good idea to me.

If you want to bet on this being a miracle of sorts, don't be afraid of using your new friend. I've heard of people competing with multiple Arceus on their team. Arceus! And they just let it happen. If that's the case, no official places are going to care that you seemingly have twin pokmon.

So yeah, watch some films, read some books, figure out all that ethical crap out. Just don't worry too much about the politics of it all.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do nuts and seeds taste significantly better after roasting them?

[Assistant]
Because you end up roasting out some of the water and caramelizing the naturally occurring sugars, giving a deeper, sweeter flavor. Roasted nuts weight less than their unroasted counterparts due to the water loss, and therefore the fat content by weight increases, which helps amplify the flavor as well.

If your roasted nuts taste burnt and are only salvageable by salt, you're doing it wrong.


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

[User]
Why did my lemon juice ice cubes spark in the microwave?

When our lemon tree yields more lemons than we can handle, we sometimes freeze straight lemon juice in ice cube trays.

Tonight my wife tried to melt pure lemon juice ice cubes in a bowl in the microwave, and kept getting sparks (even though there was no metal in the microwave).

The microwave isn't failing; there were no sparks when microwaving water in the same plain white microwave-safe Corelle bowl.

[Assistant]
Microwaves cant heat up solidphase water (i.e. ice) as effectively as liquid water because microwaves do not resonate with ice the same way they do with liquid water.

This is why there are special defrost cycles on many microwave ovens. Otherwise, as soon as a pocket of ice melts, it is heated more effectively, creating a feedback loop that leaves parts of the food frozen and parts scorching hot.

Im not sure if this has anything to do with the sparking you witnessed, but it might.


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

[User]
If a planet in our solar system was impacted by a huge asteroid tomorrow, how long would it take for us to discover that, and would we be affected in any way on Earth?

Like, for example, if Mars were struck by something rock-like moving at high speed that was say 1/20th the diameter of the planet itself. Obviously the landscape and the atmosphere of the planet would be altered, but what else would happen? Would its orbit get messed up, and would that have any influence on life here on Earth? How does this change if the impacted planet was Venus or Mercury? or if the object was 1/100th the diameter? 1/2? Also, could we go for a long time without knowing about this sort of thing happening in our solar system?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
Comet ShoemakerLevy 9 (formally designated D/1993 F2) was a comet that broke apart in July 1992 and collided with Jupiter in July 1994, it caused explosions in the atmosphere visible by earth based telescopes. But Jupiter is so massive that something like this doesn't alter its orbit or cause any effects to the earth. Occasionally a smaller rocky planet is hit and this can cause fragment of the crust of the planet to be ejected at speeds that put them into interplanetary space. These fragments can then fall to earth in the form of meteors in turn causing craters on earth if the where significantly large.

As for how long between collision on mars and fragments reaching earth, it may take millions of years.


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

[User] ELI5: How do doctors detect Down Syndrome in pregnancy?

[Assistant]
It's a two-way process. There are two markers in blood plus the measurement of the thickness of the neck in a given week of the pregnancy.

The doctor checks then in a look-up table the risk of Down Syndrome given the age of the mother, the blood test results, and the ultrasound measurements.

If the risk is very high, the only way to know for sure is an amniocentesis, but in that case there is a risk of losing the pregnancy, so it's not routine.

There have been some advances in research that have proven that the baby's blood mixes with the blood of the mother, and the trisomy could be detected in a blood sample from the mother, but this is still under research.


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

[User] ELI5: What IS the "stock market" and how does it work?

[Assistant]
It's a place where ownership of companies is traded.  It works like any other market (it's structured as open outcry which is chaotic on the surface but is a very good way to transfer information widely and rapidly).

So if you start a company called Charlie's Surfboards and need money for a factory, you can go to investors and sell a portion of the ownership in the total company in exchange for the money to build the factory.  The idea being that with a new factory owning half the company will make you more money than you would continuing out of your garage, and investors get a return on their money because they'll also own half the company.  That works well, until one of the investors want's to invest in Bulksalty Snacks Company and hasn't earned enough from Charlie's Surfboards to buy any.

So the investor has a desire to sell, but to do so is sort of like selling a home he needs to find someone who likes the surfboard business and has enough money to buy the 50% stake.

With a stock market, once Charlie's Surfboard goes public his 50% stake is a large number of smaller shares that because they're small allow lots more investors to afford.  So the investor can simply sell some of his Charlie's Surfboard shares and buy Bulksalty Snack shares.

When he does so, the prices will update based on the new trade and people may act on the information (a large investor is selling something and buying something else, why, what does he know, etc).


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

[User]
[DC] Why are the weekdays relevant to Solomon Grundy?

Why does he care that the day of the week he was born or got married?

[Assistant]
Solomon Grundy,

Born on a Monday,

Christened on Tuesday,

Married on Wednesday,

Took ill on Thursday,

Grew worse on Friday,

Died on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday.

That was the end

Of Solomon Grundy.


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

[User]
What individuals, other than Thor himself, are worthy to hold Mjolnir?

The only one I've seen do it is Wonder Woman.  During a battle Thor was knocked to the ground and lost his grip on Mjolnir.  Wonder Woman picked the hammer up, handed it to Thor and returned to the fray.

[Assistant]
Captain America (no surprise there) and the alien Beta Ray Bill.

Most of the people who have been able to wield it are already notable in their own right. Thunderstrike was a nobody until he picked it up. In theory, *anyone* could use Mjolnir short-term if it was for a particularly worthy purpose.


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

[User]
[Night at the museum 2] Since the paintings and photographs come alive, does this mean that if one entered a photograph from a key historical period that one could change something?

It seems that Larry left his phone behind in the New York photograph and that "Johnny Motorola" was taking it apart in an after credits scene, so this got me wondering.

[Assistant] No, it wouldn't change anything. All the characters and settings are simulations of the original. Besides some dude named Motorola finding a phone is just coincidence. Motorola was founded by a guy named Galvin as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation.


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

[User] Why does turning a internet router on and off fix my connectivity problems?

[Assistant] Your router is running software, just like a small computer.  Sometimes that software gets stuck, freezes up, etc.  A reboot will reset the software to a good working state, and ensure the memory, cache, and other scratch space is clear.  It will also free up any hung processes or things that could be slowing you down.


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

[User] ELI5: In France, the government want to push further the age of retirment, one of the argument is that I'll restore full employment, how making more people worked will help everyone having a job ?

[Assistant]
I think they just want to delay paying retirement benefits.

Imagine if you can make (for instance) 500,000 people keep working for three more years, how much retirement money you WON'T have to pay out during that time? It'd be a tremendous savings.

And it's not like the retired guy will just make it up on the other end by living three years longer, ha!


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

[User] [Frozen] Elsa easily dismissed Arendelle's winter at the end. Does that mean she has the capacity to completely control the weather, like Storm, as opposed to just having cryokinesis like Iceman?

[Assistant]
Within reason, she can do quite a bit.

By altering temperature at will, she can create wind due to pressure shifts, so there's that, but she can't just summon wind out of nowhere, she has to make someplace cold first.

If humidity already exists, she can generate rain by altering temperature, but she doesn't really have any method of generating the humidity in the first place.

She cannot generate volcanic ash storms, which are apparently part of weather.


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

[User]
By observing a radioactive atom, is there any way of knowing whether it will decay soon or in a million years' time?

Is radioactive decay truly random? And do radioactive atoms show signs that they are about to decay before they do so?

[Assistant]
Radioactive decay is purely random.

That means it is not just random in the way a coin toss is random: If we would know exactly the velocity, angular momentum, mass and some other properties of the coin in the air we could predict the outcome but since we do not know these properties with enough precision we say the outcome is random. This is called chaotic randomness.

Quantum effects like nuclear decay are purely random. That means there are no hidden variables and it is not only technically but in principle impossible to know the outcome (the time of the decay). If you want to know more about this, you should read about Bells Theorem.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why is the Federation (and universe in general) so human-oriented?

Humans were one of the more recent races to reach warp technology (Vulcans were obviously earlier, since they're the ones who made first contact, and I'm pretty sure Klingons, Romulans, even Bajorans were earlier too).

Yet, I can make a big list of times when Humans and Earth are given unfair representation:

* Starfleet is based on earth, as is the federation (I believe)
* The captains on all the Star Trek series are human
* Earth gets to be in "Sector 001" and in the "Alpha" quadrant (even acknowledged, for some reason, by Delta Quadrant races)
* All characters, including aliens, seem to measure time in earth days and earth years
* Characters regularely refer to earth events by Earth's time system ("in the 1990s, ...")
* Characters regularely refer to Earth events, especially American-oriented events (like the "Cival war" or "World War 2"), without referring to the planet

So, why are humans so special? Is it like the American "we run the world/universe" attitude? Is it the fact that humans, despite being late to the table at warp technology, were ahead of the game in other technology (like weapons)? Or is it something else?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[Assistant]
Starfleet is a primarily human organization. It's based off Earth because it is the Terran Starfleet. Most other members of the Federation maintain their own fleets.

Because it is a primarily human organization, those non-humans who serve typically acclimate to human scedualing when aboard Starfleet vessels. Likewise, the numerical designation and grecco-alphabetical deliniation of the galaxy are Starfleet terms, but are programmed into the universal translators. We 'hear' Alpha Quadrant, but that's just the translators converting the alien language into something Starfleet Officers understand.

As for the Federation in general... it was largely founded between warring factions (Vulcans, Tellarites and Andorians) with the diplomatic help of humans. Because the majority of the founding species were originally hostile towards each other, Earth was the most neutral ground for the site of the Federation HQ.

The Federation functions very much like the United Nations, although with far more legislative power. Individual worlds still maintain their own governments, with embassies to other foreign powers, but since we primarily deal with Starfleet (again the Earth-based semi-military organization) we see alot more humans than aliens.

It should be noted that of the known Presidents of the Federation, only 2 were human.

***There is a degree of western-centric history and ideiology in the federation though, and that stems from the base of its literary history. Star Trek is a western-fiction, and thus contains a large volume of western-oriented content***


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

[User] How true is the adage "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at morning, sailor's take warning."? If true, why?

[Assistant]
There's some truth to the second part, at least.

In the mid-latitudes, the jet stream prevails, generally sending weather from west-to-east. Up to the top of the weather layer, the jet stream increases in strength.

Now, imagine there's a large thunderstorm located upstream (to the west) from you. That thunderstorm will create large ballooning clouds that flatten at the top, in a classic anvil shape. At the top of that anvil, the jet stream is much stronger, often leading to cloud detachment that creates high, thin cirrus clouds.

Caught in the high winds, those cirrus clouds will pass over you first from the west, the first indication that a thunderstorm is slowly approaching. A rising Sun from the east will tend to illuminate those cirrus clouds from underneath, giving a strong reddish appearance to the sky.


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

[User]
[The Mandalorian] Question about the spear...

In both duels we've seen with the spear, the opponent had a lightsaber. Why didn't they just slide the blade along the spear and cut the wielder's fingers off? I can understand maybe Jedi fight with honour and its a bit underhanded (forgive the pun), but Moff Gideon wouldn't resort to those tactics? Is it just because the light sabre duellers thought they were better than that?

It even seems possible that it could have happened accidentally.

[Assistant]
The spear is longer than a lightsaber. If you slide your lightsaber down the edge of the spear the business end of the spear is now inside your guard and basically a short poke away from death.

Given force wielder's natural future seeing reflexes they probable just force-sensed doing that would result in death. It's a high risk maneuver to attempt.


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

[User] [The Matrix] How did Tank not read in the code that Cypher was meeting with Agent Smith?

[Assistant]
The meeting took place while everyone was asleep, and Cypher was on watch for the night shift. He was setting up for the meeting when Neo came up behind him and spooked him.

It is later established in the video game "Enter The Matrix" that the cranial jacks can be equipped with a timer mechanism, allowing a user to jack-in and out without the assistance of an operator. We see Trinity and Ghost use this for a sparring match, in conjunction with stabilized cranial jacks that they lay back on.

So while everyone is asleep, Cypher arranges his meeting with Smith, and rigs up his own stabilized cranial jack on a timer. He jacks in for just enough time to seal the deal, grab a quick bite of steak, and get back to the hardline. All before the timer runs out, and before his shift ends.

It was an *extremely* risky move on many levels. If he failed to make it back to the hardline before the timer ran out, the connection would automatically be severed, killing him instantly. Or someone aboard the Nebuchadnezzar could have simply woken up for a late-night snack of protein goop, checked the main deck, and saw what Cypher was up to.


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

[User] [Fallout] When my son was born, the doctor showed me a projection of what he'll look like as an adult. 18 years later, I'm wondering how exactly they accurately predicted his hair and beard style?

[Assistant]
Exactly eighteen years later they treat your kid to a shave and haircut. Not only is it free, but there's a cash incentive to ensure that there's enough hair to cut.

Because if there's one sin they cannot abide, it's false advertising.


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

[User]
Is there any evidence to suggest that using birth control for a long period of time would delay the onset of menopause?

It is my (perhaps flawed) understanding that menopause begins when the female body runs out of eggs. It is also my (again, perhaps flawed) understanding that birth control prevents the release of eggs.

So would someone who started and consistently used birth control at 16 end up going through menopause later than someone who started at 24 or someone who never used birth control at all?

[Assistant] Women have hundreds of thousands of eggs, running out of eggs is not the concern. The concern is as women age, follicles either are released or die. The decrease in follicle count and corresponding hormone levels account for menopause. The aging process still affects follicles even if they're not released. It is possible to undergo menopause while actively taking birth control; it's even possible for BC to mask the symptoms of menopause.