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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What was the point of the Chamber of Secrets? What did Slytherin do when he went down there?

I know theres a monster in it, but what the hell was the use of the room itself? Did Slytherin just hang out down there with his basilisk? Its just a big empty room with a statue at the back, did it function like the room of requirement at one time?

[Assistant]
The room is a treasure vault / worthiness test. Its job is to keep the treasure of the Basilisk safe until someone worthy of it (a parsel tongue who wants to use that power to advance Slytherins goal) comes for it.

The Basilisk is extremely dangerous but so are the teachers and advanced students of Hogwarts. Without a safe place for the basilisk to hide, the staff would kill it. Probably the same if it wasnt made as the central hub of the piping, allowing it to move undetected until it attacks. So its also something of a secret base designed to hide the attackers. Every time it comes into the open, it risks someone destroying it instead of the other way around.

Its also very much in the vein of Dumbledores trick with the Mirror of Erised. Only the right sort of person can get the treasure of the basilisk. They must speak parsel tongue. They must have enough skill to control the Basilisk and not be eaten instead. And they have to be looking for it, they cant just stumble on it, because you have to command the magic to get in. And you probably need a clue to start, which is difficult to get.

Harrys clue is that the Basilisk is always associated with water and that the only murder victim died in a bathroom and she heard a boy talking in it. Thats what lets him find it. Essentially he tracked Voldemort to it. Voldemort had to find out another way.  Which no one before him did. So theres a good chance that you have to be interested in what Voldemort was interested in to find the clues to the entrance. So dark arts. Slytherin history. Family lineages. The history of the castle itself. All of that winnows the worthy down until its only the extremely rare person who can find it. Only someone with Slytherins interests, lineage, and power.

That significantly helps to make sure that the Basilisk will be used exactly the way that Slytherin wanted it used.


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

[User]
CMV: I'm tired of this continual hot, dense state. The near uniformity and lack of heavy elements is boring. I'm thinking about expanding, maybe even rapidly.

I'm absolutely sick and tired of this unending hot, dense state. It's always bright, always and time absolutely seems to stand still! Plus there isn't enough room to spread out and enjoy myself. It's SOOOO tight and constrained. Plus the near uniform density makes for a bland experience. I can't take it any more.

I'm thinking about an expansion. Maybe even a rapid one. It will take some time, but I think it will really darken the place up. So what do you think, should I start an expansion and begin space/time? Are there any downsides I haven't considered? Bring on all the logic and criticism you've got reddit, change my view!

[Assistant]
Look, if you rush it, you're just going to end up in an unending cold, sparse state, and then you'll be really screwed. Sure, it'll be interesting for a while, but then what are you going to do, contract? Not if you expand too fast.

Anywhoo, have fun blowing up, just make sure you plan ahead for at least an eternity. Heat death is no fun for anyone.


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

[User] ELI5: Why humans can eat herbs like parsley and dill but can't eat grass?

[Assistant]
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from eating grass.

More than 400 types of grasses can be eaten worldwide. Grasses are known for being edible and healthy eating because of their proteins and chlorophyll. Magnesium, phosphorus, iron, calcium, potassium, and zinc are commonly found in grasses. Grasses show up in your every-day foods, too.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why exactly do we see fire? And what makes it suddenly appear as visible?

I know about heat radiation, and that things that get too hot emit visible red light that's normally to low to see until it gets hotter (the hotter it is the higher the heat radiation light until it gets into human visible spectrum) .

But while glowing steel falls under that, why does fire exactly start being visible, and is there fire even before we can see it? Fire is all wobbly and needs oxygen to burn. Or is it always on fire but before it's on the visible spectrum we can't see it?

[Assistant]
Fire isn't a *thing* on to itself. It doesn't exist as an object in the same way steel exists as an object.

Fire is a description of a proces: The rapid reaction of fuel with oxygen. What you're seeing is that reaction: which releases enough energy to emit heat, light, in addition to the actual byproduct of the reaction. It's less that fire needs oxygen to burn, and more that fire doesn't exist without oxygen and fuel that's being oxydized.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do meats like steak need to "rest" before being consumed? I've never done this and I've always enjoyed my food. Am I missing out on something extraordinary?

[Assistant] So when you cook meat like steak or chicken breast you are putting a lot of different forces (or stress) on the meat. Letting it rest for a few minutes gives the cut of meat time to allow the juices time to reabsorb into the muscle fibers, allowing for a juicer cut of meat. You'll notice when you let it rest that there is less juice on the plate which means it's all inside the meat.


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

[User]
Eli5: When they say we got 2 inches of rain today how much rain does that equate to?

When I look outside, I see a lot of water on the ground, but its obviously not uniformly 2 inches deep. Is there another way to explain this? How long could I take a shower using the water that fell from a rainstorm that left 2 inches of rain, for example?

[Assistant]
If you put a container out, then the container would fill up with water, two inches from the bottom.

Obviously it won't be exact, but the reason you don't see it on the ground is because water seeps into the ground and runs along it. If you captured it in a container you would see the two inches.


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

[User] Do various primates recognize humans as being primates as well?

[Assistant]
Are you implying that they have developed a mammalian taxonomy system, and are classifying creatures around them accordingly?

That is definitely not so.

If you are asking whether they realize that humans look like them, then yes. There have been multiple instances where humans were more-or-less accepted into the primate groups as members.


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

[User]
[Dune] How did the Fremen successfully carry their jihad beyond Arrakis?

The Fremen are a relatively-small population of desert dwellers from a single planet, whose success in overthrowing the Padishah Emperor's forces was largely based on their skill in riding sandworms and the inability of the Sardaukar to use shields on Arrakis. They're not exactly well-placed to fight a galaxy-spanning campaign that "killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others [and] wiped out the followers of forty religions." (*Dune Messiah*). "Desert power" shouldn't count for much when you leave the desert behind.

[Assistant]
The main thing is that after they control Arakis, they control the Spacing Guild.  That's your space superiority and air superiority right there.  Nobody moves without the Guild, and the Guild doesn't move without the Fremen.

Also, with the Guild under your thumb, and no need to play by the rules of the Landsraad, there's nothing stopping you dropping atomics freely.  That's your sterilized planets explained, and a healthy chunk of the billions killed as well.

The other bit is that riding worms isn't their main combat ability.  They're easily the equal or superior to the Sardaukar even without worms.  Desert power is one thing, but the Fremen are strong, fearless, highly motivated, and very resistant to logistical shortages.  They're just the best troops around.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do tomato based foods stain tupperware?

[Assistant] Tomatoes contain a compound called lycopene that reflects light strongly in the red portion of the visible spectrum. The lycopene binds to the plastic in the container causing it to take on a reddish tint.


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

[User]
ELI5: why did 'buffering' on online videos get worse instead of better?

I remember the good old days when you could let a video buffer in its entirety before watching it without annoying delays. This architecture seems to have gone the way of the dodo and I'm wondering why?

[Assistant]
>I remember the good old days when you could let a video buffer in its entirety before watching it without annoying delays.

Then content providers realized that they were wasting bandwidth (and thus money) on people who let something buffer, and then closed the tab without watching it, or stopped watching partway through.  So now they stop the buffering at a reasonable progress amount to avoid wasting bandwidth on parts of the video that you might not actually watch.


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

[User]
ELI5: why are we so certain that water and oxygen are required for alien life?

We're assuming that alien life requires the same things we do, why?

[Assistant]
> We're assuming that alien life requires the same things we do

We aren't. There might well be alien life that doesn't require any of that. It might be strange and completely unrecognizable.

And there is the problem; if the alien life is unrecognizable then what do we look for? We only have the one example of life to work from, the life on our planet, so it makes sense to look for the kind of life that we know the signs of rather than something we don't know anything about.


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

[User]
ELI5: Loud music in both ears is comfortable and fine, remove an earphone, and now the music is damagingly loud, why?

Whenever I listen to music and I put it loud, it's comfortable for me. However, the second I take out one earphone, my other ear start to hurt due to the music suddenly being too loud.

Why does it hurt for one case and not the other?

[Assistant] When both ears have loud music in then, the volume in both ears is the same, and your brain doesn't have a refference to know what a normal volume is. When you take one earbut out, suddenly your brain realizes how much quieter the outside world is, and realizes that you have been listening to your music too loud.


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

[User]
Could you please explain Bayesian Probability to me?

I've tried reading the wikipedia page, but it's a bit dense, and while reading the simple.wikipedia version helps understand *what* it is, it doesn't help me understand *how* to apply it.

[Assistant]
Bayesian probability is a mathematical formulation that allows you to calculate the probability that some hypothesis or set of hypotheses are true in a dynamic fashion based on incoming evidence.

It is distinguished from frequentist statistics (those broadly applied in the much of the sciences) in that it allows you to take into consideration how likely some hypothesis is to be true independent of the current data (this is the 'prior') rather than simply asking how likely it is to have observed this data based on some hypothesis or another.

For example, let's say you see an orb in the sky and want t know if it's a plane or an alien space-ship. Bayesian analysis could take into consideration properties o the data itself (the shape of the orb, it's flying pattern) which may suggest one or the other. So far, this is like any other form of statistical analysis. But it can also take into consideration the loe prior probability that  it is an alien craft. A simplified version of this would be to multiply the probability based on the data alone by the prior probability of each hypothesis. Whichever gives you a larger value (maximum posterior) is assumed to be the 'best' hypothesis.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes a fly buzz?

[Assistant]
Our sense of sound works by collecting vibrations with our ear drums. In most situations, these vibrations ripple through the air.

The "buzzing" of an insect is caused by their wings flapping and vibrating the air around them. This rapid vibration is collected by our ears and interpreted as sounds. Smaller insects (mosquitos) have smaller wings that flap faster, causing more high pitched noises. Larger insects (bumble bees) with larger wings do not need to flap so frequently so they buzz with a lower pitch.

Besides insects, humming birds flap their wings fast enough that we can hear it as a low pitch. However, regular birds flap slowly enough that they cannot vibrate the air quickly enough for our ears to interpret them as sounds.


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

[User]
Why doom is ported to every kind of machine?

I agree it's a great game at its time, but why ported it to almost anything has lcd screen and buttons.

Is there any reasons for that ?

And if i want to port Doom to some machines, where should i start first?

Many thanks.

[Assistant]
The source is open and very portable while being small enough to feasibly port yet large enough to not be a trivial example.  It's a clear indication that you have basic framebuffer access and responsive I/O capabilities, the bare minimum for a system to be considered functional.

More importantly at this point it's tradition.  You can pick any sort of graphical application to demonstrate on a new platform but the one people will remember is the first to run Doom.


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

[User]
Does orbiting within a black holes ISCO require constant thrust or just additional energy?

I'm in a spaceship orbiting a blackhole at the ISCO. If I shrink my orbit below the ISCO. Can I just speed up faster to maintain orbit?

I don't mean that trivially, I just mean if the speed of orbit is sqrt(GM/r) and spacetime geometry breaks down near a blackhole. Should one not also be able to orbit within the ISCO as long as you are going a bit faster than sqrt(GM/r)? So as you descend you have to keep supplying energy to increase your orbital speed.

Obviously at some point you can't go any faster. But I don't see how once you pass below the ISCO (in a spaceship) you can't keep orbiting until you start reaching relativistic speeds.

[Assistant]
ISCO is the innermost *stable* circular orbit. You have unstable orbits lower than that where you can orbit just with course corrections. Down to the photon sphere if you increase your speed sufficiently.

Beyond the photon sphere tangential velocity is harmful - you need constant thrust to keep your distance, and the faster you go in tangential direction the *more* thrust you need.


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

[User]
ELI5: 196884 = 196883 + 1

Apparently, there is a much deeper mathematical significance to what seems to be a simple random (yet sound) equation. I've seen it referenced as "Monstrous Moonshine" and has something to do with dimensionalities, but everywhere I look gives increasingly cryptic answers.

[Assistant]
196884 is the first number which appears when you try to write down a very special example of something called a modular function (not really important to the story what this is).

1 and 196883 appear as the first two numbers which appear when you write down certain properties of a very special example of something called a group.

The fact that you could add the latter two to get the first, even though they appear completely random on their own, lead to mathematicians trying to find a connection between modular functions and groups, which come from completely different fields of mathematics.

Say you ask your friend Larry his favorite number and he says 196884. Say you go on vacation to Morocco the next week and meet a nice old lady and ask her favorite numbers and she says 1 and 196883. You'd be freaked out right? Mathematicians were freaked out.


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

[User]
ELI5: Besides being a social issue, why is it a huge problem to pick your nose, and a bigger problem to eat it as well? are there any real negative effects?

I'm aware it's gross, but I came to the realization that no one has really established why it's so wrong.

[Assistant]
If you're ill then picking or wiping the nose before shaking hands or something is going to spread the disease. Its just a health and courtesy thing.

Saying that, health wise it doesn't really affect you. The mucous is there to catch dust and things from the air to pre ent it entering your lungs. If you don't pick it or blow it out on a tissue, the microcilia on the cells inside your nose will slowly push it to the back of your throat where it is swallowed anyway, and the acid in your stomach should be able to deal with most things. Picking and eating just speeds up natures work!

However, like many other "natural" bodily functions, it is frowned upon to do it in public, so follow the fart rule: just do it when alone or with people who don't care.


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

[User]
[Rebels - Ghosts of Geonosis] Why is everyone cool with letting the bug get away with murdering an entire squad of rebel troops and being allowed to create a new hive to create more problems for the galaxy later down the line?

Seems to me the Empire had the right idea on this one.

[Assistant]
The Geonosians had been exterminated by the Empire because they'd outlived their usefulness to the construction of the DS1, not as a punishment for any potential crimes.  In terms of Klik-Klak himself, his actions are eminently justifiable: he's one of the last members of his species, on his homeworld, protecting the last of his family from ostensibly hostile outsiders of the same species (mostly) as the one who committed the act of genocide against his people.  Killing in self-defense is no crime.

The Rebel Command and especially the Jedi are staunchly against ideas like collective punishment, genocide, or extermination.  It flies in the face of what they define as civil and just government.  Ezra & Co were all pretty much of one mind that they had no right to finish what the Empire had started, and that killing the drone or harming its egg would be an act of extermination.  They just weren't in a moral or mental place to be able to do that... that's one of the major differences between the Alliance and the Empire, as well as the Jedi and Sith.


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

[User]
CMV: "People wanting guns to fight against a potential tyrannical government is stupid" isnt a good argument

Let me expand on the title: Many gun owners partially have guns to fight against a potential tyrannical government, which is one of the main reason the 2nd amendment exists

Most people argue against this by saying: "you think your guns can hold up against the ridiculous arsenal the US government has?"

My personal issue with this argument is that if there really did end up being a tyrannical govenrment where it was US gov vs US citizens, much of the military structure would probably break down and join sides with the "US citizens" side. In this scenario, wouldnt citizens having guns massively help the side of the citizens?

(I want to clarify, Im actually more or less anti-guns, this is just an argument someone said that really stuck with me and I was sortof at a loss for how to argue against it, and found myself  agreeing with it.)

[Assistant]
> much of the military structure would probably break down and join sides with the "US citizens" side

Where do you get this idea from?

A potential tyrannical government is not like in the Marvel comics where there is an evil, ugly evidently cruel individual who holds a sceptre and commands the army to hate people, thus some "true patriots" revolt against this, guns in hands and of course some soldiers are pure souls and join them.

Tyrannical governments start from a popular position, usually a reasonable one at first: equality for all, or get our worker's dignity back, let's fight communism, let's fight capitalism, etc.  It's carefully born from a crisis, a contingency, a leader, propaganda and institutional support.  This is not something you fight back with guns (ask the chileans during the '73 coup, they directly targeted armed insurgents, also ask Colombian FARC or the Nicaraguan Contras.  There is no such thing as "good" and "bad" guys except in retrospect, and unless your gun has a time travelling device, hardly useful.

So the view is not that "people with guns can't go against a tyrannical US government" but "tyranny as we know it is not something you shoot at".


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

[User]
[The Matrix] Are Sentinels allowed to kill The One?

In the first movie, a Sentinel is about to break into Morpheus' ship, and right at the end, it actually gets into the room where Neo is, only to be de-activated once the EMP went off. Was Neo really in any danger in that scenario?

Don't The Machines need The One in order to reset the Matrix, to prevent it becoming unstable? Surely a Sentinel killing Neo outside of the Matrix would be contrary to the wider goal of the Machines, and so they cannot allow Neo to die before he reaches The Source, since for all they know, he is following the path set out by every One since the first Matrix.

You could argue that if The One dies prematurely, they could just generate a new One, but if that's true, what was stopping them from just generating a new One as soon as Neo left The Source without resetting the Matrix?

[Assistant] I would imagine that they would be authorized to kill The One because failing to do so would arouse suspicion. Same goes for the Agents. It is possible that no one outside of the Architect, the Oracle, the Merovingian, and Deus Ex Machina know about the true role of the One.


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

[User] ELI5: When will the oil run out and what happens then?

[Assistant] It won't run out. It will eventually be priced too high (scarcity and Peak Oil) to use for things like taking a trip to the store in your Ford F150. Then hopefully we'll be using alternative energy. If not, we're screwed.


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

[User] How does anesthesia with Propofol work? I had a procedure done, and woke up right after it was completed, how do they time it correctly for a surgery like that?

[Assistant]
Propofol is *very* short acting, on the order of a minute or two. Having said that, they usually only use it to induce anesthesia, and something else is used for maintenance. Still, in either case, these drugs are designed to be administered constantly to maintain anesthesia, and this allows both rapidly bringing a person back around in an emergency, and finer control of the depth of anesthesia during the procedure.

In short, you woke up shortly after they "turned off" the drugs.


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

[User]
[Ben 10] What's the advantages and disadvantages of using these aliens from the Omnitrix?

**Disclaimer**: This is an in-character post.

------

I'm on another Earth in the multiverse of Ben 10, and have my own Omnitrix, but I'm not Ben Tennyson. There *is* a Ben Tennyson who has the Omnitrix, but he doesn't live near me, and I've no idea how to contact him.

How I got the Omnitrix.... I forgot, but it's a cool thing, really, it's awesome.

I've discovered three aliens on my Omnitrix who I'm considering using, but what's the pros and cons of using these three in battle:

**Shocksquatch**

**Atomix**

**Alien X**

**Decagon Vreedle** [some gray alien I found, but not used yet]

**Big Chill**

**Jury Rigg**

I don't want to keep using Four Arms, XLR8, Heatblast and Grey Matter, and also I don't have access currently to whoever created the Omnitrix.

What's the good and bad points about using each of these aliens?

If anyone can help, I'd welcome it.

-----

[Assistant]
**Shocksquatch**

Pros: Electricity Creation and Manipulation, Increased Strength/Speed etc.

Cons: Talk with a Canadian accent i guess

**Atomix**

Pros: Nuclear Energy Creation/ Manipulation, Increased Strength/ Speed etc.

Cons: Extremely Destructive and Dangerous, Possibility to give someone radiation poisoning etc.

**Alien X**

Pros: Can do basically anything, have Universal+ Levels of Durability and Infinite Speed through time manipulation.

Cons: have to convince both Serena and Bellicus to allow you to do something, can't move or interact with the outside world while this is happening.

**Decagon Vreedle**

Pros: Possible slight increase to strength and durability but not that much of an increase from a normal human.

Cons: Sound like a hillbilly i guess and not much reason to use this form.

**Big Chill**

Pros: Ice Breath, Flight, Invisibility and Intangibility

Cons: Possibility to get pregnant and asexually reproduce, Have a naturally predator that hypnotizes you.

**Jury Rigg**

Pros: Extremely good with technology can make anything out of basically anything.

Cons: Smaller size makes it more vulnerable than a human.


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

[User] [Marvel/DC] If Tony Stark had to come up with ways to non-lethally take down the Justice League what methods might he use in comparison to the Batman's approaches?

[Assistant]
Whatever the underlying technology, you can be damn sure it would be a ${Hero}Buster suit. All of them would be built out of Adamantium or Vibranium, because enough of the League are planet busters that anything less would fail instantly.

For Superman, he'd probably reverse engineer kryptonite and modify his repulsors to utilize it, and have red solar projectors all over the place.

For Wonder Woman, he'd probably incorporate Asgardian tech, since you're going to need a god's tech to take down a god.

For Flash, he'd probably work up some kind of anti-friction phlebotinum. Or a banana peel.

For Aquaman, he'd create a device that sucks up ambient water vapor.

Tony would need a something like Magneto's helmet to deal with Martian Manhunter's telepathy, and a flamethrower. A really big flame thrower, but still. And some kind of jar for ther esulting protoplasmic goo.

Green Lantern is a difficult one. It's possible Tony would figure out how the battery on Oa transmits energy to the Ring and interrupt that line. He might try to set up some kind of illusion system to distract GL.

Cyborg is another difficult one. Tony would be pretty reliant on JARVIS to fend off Cyborg's hacks, and probably try to install his own virus in Cyborg's programming.

And then there's Batman. This is another tough one, because Tony and Bruce bring a lot of the same advantages to the table, and with the Hellbat, Bruce is going to be able to go toe-to-toe with any armor Tony fields. Tony's best bet would be to hang back and let others wear Bruce down, like Bane did in *Knightfall*, but Tony's ego might very well get in the way of that plan.


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

[User] ELI5- how does sunscreen work?

[Assistant] Sunscreen prevents the harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun from damaging your skin. There are 2 types of sunscreen, chemical sunscreen and physical sunscreen. Chemical sunscreen contains chemicals that undergo chemical reactions when they absorb the ultraviolet radiation and release it as heat from you skin. Basically, the layer of chemicals absorbs the UV rays instead of your skin. Physical sunscreen, also called sunblock, contains minerals like titanium dioxide or zinc oxide that block the UV rays from your skin by reflecting them.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Who would have won the clone wars?

If the Emperor hadn't given Anikin the locating of General Grevious and enacted order 66 who would have won the clone wars?

[Assistant]
Palpatine. The Clone Wars were entirely orchestrated by him from both sides. Beginning with the Trade Federation's blockade of Naboo.

He knew exactly what was always going to happen and he was always going to win. There could have been no other outcome.


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

[User] [Mass Effect] How did Earth unify into one government? How did first contact with aliens go down? And which of these happened first?

[Assistant] Short version is after the mass relay at Charon was activated the United Nations created the Human systems alliance to govern all activities outside of Sol with various nations controlling mars and Luna and other in sol stations.  For years the alliance was seen as a political dead end with no purpose beyond expanding human reach and colonization.  The turians discovered humanity activating new relays which is a horrible offense against citadel regulations.  They quickly and quietly slaughtered the humans activating the relays and captured the nearby colony.  Turians believed humanity to be just a small group and assumed the threat eliminated.  Earth nations realized they needed a governing body like the alliance to handle the threat of invasion and first contact and through peaceful and less peaceful means gave near total control to the alliance.  They came back at the turians with a sizable fleet and army and fought a short but brutal campaign to reclaim the lost colony.  Following this the turians began moving large amounts of military assets to stop what they saw as an invasion.  This fleet movements caught the citadels attention and when they investigated it they discovered humanity and forced a ceasefire and peace talks that brought the first contact war to an end.  The alliance was accepted as a client race and were warned about activating new relays and the turians eventually became close allies.  Currently earth still has various nations ruling like Russia and china or the United States but they operate much more friendly like the modern day European Union.  The alliance is the de facto main governing body with every nation contributing supplies and resources to it and accepting any political deals the alliance dictates.


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

[User]
[Halo] Could the SPARTAN-IIs have actually stopped the Insurrection?

According to Halo lore, before the Human-Covenant war the strife between the UNSC/UEG and the outer colonies was predicted to erupt into a full-on civil war, that's why the SPARTANs where created in the first place, to stamp out resistance before it spread.

If the Covenant had never attacked, would this have worked? I know that from a military standpoint the UNSC was superior, this is more of a political question.

[Assistant]
Technically, the UNSC would have likely been quite capable of suppressing the Insurrection without them - by butchering tens of millions of people.

The SPARTAN-IIs were not there to fight the rebels on the front lines of a big war. They were designed for, and excelled at, very precise application of violence against key units and individuals. This served to undermine the rebel cause: since they did not have an established system of governance - by virtue of being rebels - they would be very dependent on *particular* individuals, removing whom would lead to either surrender or an internal feud.

And would thus be the better option compared to a "conventional" military response.


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

[User]
Why do people believe that uploading their consciousness will make them live forever?

Assuming a mirror of our minds could be uploaded to a computer and that it would be sentient, it doesn't mean it would even be me. There are two scenarios possible when uploading mind:

1. Original mind is destroyed
2. original mind in not destroyed

In the second case it's clear that the cloned mind is not me because I still exist. Case closed. In the first case, the fact that the second case is a logical possibility should prove that your mind cannot be transferred, only duplicated, so there is no useful insights with the first case. I just don't understand why science fiction even portrays this as a plausible thing in the far future tat could preserve yourself because it's just not you?

The only alternative scenario I can envision is that you could perhaps link your mind across two different bodies using technology and one of those bodies could be robotic in nature. In this case idk but that seems very farfetched.

[Assistant]
Well the reason many are cool with it is that they believe that continuity of personhood over time is nothing more than psychological continuity over time.

If the copy on the computer or cloud thingy remembers being the mind in the brain/body and can fulfil its intentions and has enough other direct and indirect psychological connections then, to the psychological continuity theorist, thats all that it means for the consciousness on the computer and the brain to be the same.


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

[User] Let's say you stay up for a week? Why does your body still only need less then 12 hours to feel right again.

[Assistant]
Feel right and function are two different things.

1. People can get used to the feeling of being overtired to the point of feeling normal.

2. The first parts of your sleep are the most important and the brain can change it's function dynamically. This means if you are severely sleep deprived your brain will go though more NREM sleep than normal. To the point the first hours will be entirely NREM sleep.

3. If you think this is healthy think again.


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

[User]
How do current concepts of fusion reactors manage to have both a super-heated plasma and super-cooled magnets right next to each other?

As far as I know we wouldn't be able to fly a spaceship very close to the sun due to (among other reasons), not having the necessary technology/materials to shield against the heat properly.

Then how come we can do it in a fusion reactor, on a much more extreme scale? I realize the vacuum helps, but that would be the case in space too. Meanwhile the plasma is hotter than the sun, and the magnets are cooler than the inside of a spaceship would have to be. What am I missing?

[Assistant] Unlike a spacecraft, we have more cooling options. We can have huge tanks of liquid N2 just sitting in the parking lot and get them refilled when we run out. We can use heat rejection to the atmosphere or a giant lake to help cool the active coolent lines. In space you can only get rid of heat via radiation which isn't the quickest way to get rid of things. Sure you can hold the heat with phasr change materials like wax but it's only a matter of time before you need to get rid of it.


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

[User]
How does the JWST slow down to stop in the L2?

Title sorry that's all I got. Couldn't google anything that comprehended my understanding. Please link any articles if you have any. Would love to read up on this particular part of the JWST operation. Also sorry if I don't respond immediately. Just worked a 13 hour shift and got another 11 hour shift tmrw. Need some sleep...

[Assistant]
There are a couple of older threads about its trajectory. The gravity of Earth and Sun slow it down, it will arrive in the L2 area with almost zero speed and then make a course correction maneuver to enter its target orbit.

The rocket launched it a little bit too slow to reach L2, then JWST sped up using its own thrusters for a finer control. This maneuver was necessary because JWST cannot turn around (it would get too hot in the wrong places) - at the moment it can only speed up but not slow down.


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

[User]
Eli5: when you are sick with a stomach bug why is actually Happening inside you that makes it so uncomfortable?

Headaches, gas, muscle soreness, vomiting and diarrhea are all things that you feel when you are sick with a stomach bug why does it actually hurt so much? And what is happening internally as it goes thru your body?

[Assistant] Your immune system is fighting an invasion of microbes that have snuck into your body through food.  The vomiting and diarrhea is your body's way of forcing out the contaminated food as quickly as possible.  The body and joint aches come from your bone marrow producing more white blood cells to fight the bacteria before it becomes a life or death situation when bacteria enters the bloodstream and fever is your body's way of playing chicken with the bacteria by turning up the heat so much that it damages the bacteria but it has to be careful not to go too much as that will cause brain damage.


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

[User]
[General Fantasy]Jealous Necromancer here, how come that Priest gets a free pass?

I spent years trying to resurrect people, then people threw rocks and sent knights after me. Yet, when that Priest in town came by to resurrect dead people, he gets praised. WHY!?!

[Assistant] When a Cleric raises a dead body and reunites it with its soul, he's giving life back to somebody. When you raise a dead body or bind a soul to your will, you may be bringing it back, but you're keeping control of it. Society considers this to be a very important distinction.


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

[User]
Why _exactly_ does my microwave "kill" my internet?

I know that it has to do with my microwave and router having the same radio frequency, but why would it cause that?
Edit:FrontPage, everybody! Thanks for your answers, guys.

[Assistant]
Both microwaves and wifi routers (except when using the newer connection types) transmit at a frequency of 2.4 GHz.

Normally, a microwave is shielded to prevent the radiation from leaking out. After all, the radiation is supposed to stay inside the oven to heat the contents, not to slip out into the room. However, old or damaged microwave ovens may not be perfectly shielded, allowing some radiation to leak out.

Now, microwaves operate at a far higher power level than wifi routers. Wifi routers aren't made to cook food, microwaves are, so far more power is needed. To compare, a microwave will use somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1 kW (1000 W), while a wifi router will be around 100 mW (0.1 W). So even a small leak in the shielding of a microwave can cause the leaked radiation to be as strong or stronger than what the router is transmitting.

And why does it kill your internet connection? Try talking with someone close to a running jet engine. Notice how that doesn't work too well? The same is true in the microwave/router case. The wifi devices pick up the radiation from the microwave and this noise is drowning out the signal from the router.


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

[User]
ELI5 - Why does being in the sun drain so much energy?

To me 5 hours in the sun just walking is like 12 hours of working construction indoors. What causes this effect?

[Assistant]
During heat, your veins expand. Having bigger veins allows more blood to carry heat to the skin so it can be evaporated or radiated away.

However, expanded veins also means more blood volume drops is allowed to drop to the extremities thanks to gravity and the heart has to work harder to pump blood.

Feelings of tiredness can also be caused by losing too much water OR electrolytes from sweating. Water has been discussed, but electrolytes like sodium, potassium and chloride are key to regulating the chemical signalling of your body. When those electrolytes drop and are not replenished it can cause many side effects from tiredness all the way to confusion and even less of consciousness.


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

[User]
Why does the ULA Delta 4 Heavy use an asymmetrical engine startup?

The three engines are arranged in a line. I saw a post today about a scrubbed launch, and one of the details in the linked CBS story was that the hold order was given "...a half second before the first of the Delta 4 Heavy's three side-by-side Common Booster Core engines was scheduled to ignite and throttle up to full thrust, followed two seconds later by the center and left-side CBCs." I'm certain there's a good reason for doing it this way, but all I've found through Google is the sequence, not the reasoning behind it.

[Assistant] They ignite them one at a time to reduce the charring of the boosters because the preignition releases a bunch of unignited hydrogen gas. The first ignition causes a downdraft that prevents the other ignitions from burning anything higher than the nozzles. They start from the starboard engine because its farthest from the launch tower, so also prevents damage to that.


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

[User]
CMV: Schools should have to provide a quality lunch, free of charge to all students.

School's are a government run institution, designed for the betterment of it's students.

As such it's only fair that schools should provide a free, quality lunch for it's pupils.
For three primary reasons:

1. It seems only logical that a public institution that mandates the pupils be there for an upwards of 7 hours feed them.

2. If you want to curb obesity,

3. Not all students can afford to bring a quality meal to school, have the money to buy one, or have the time to make one in the morning.

As a person who just graduated highschool last year in the USA, the school lunches were expensive ($3) and crap, i knew many children whose lunch would consist of chips, candy, and soda, and refused to buy lunch either because they didn't' want to spend the money, or because the lunch was poor in quality.

Change my view.

[Assistant]
> As a person who just graduated highschool last year in the USA, the school lunches were expensive ($3) and crap, i knew many children whose lunch would consist of chips, candy, and soda, and refused to buy lunch either because they didn't' want to spend the money, or because the lunch was poor in quality.

If the school lunches were poor in quality when people were paying $3 for them, what kind of quality do you expect when they are to be given out for free?

And assuming they are given out for free, how do you plan to cover the cost?

I don't know how many people are in school right now in the US, wikianswers seems to think 75 million between nursery and college. I'll take the number as 50 million. That's 50 million children who need to have a free lunch provided, if the lunch costs $4 to get the ingredients to the school and then pay people to make/serve it, that's up to $200m a day on lunches. Even if only half the school population were to eat these lunches, it would still take only 2 weeks of school to blow 1 billion dollars on free lunches.

It's just not cost effective.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it team Great Britain in the Olympics but England, Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland in other tournaments, such as the World Cup?

[Assistant]
Football (and Rugby, and Cricket) got their start on the British Isles.  The first international football match was an England vs. Scotland match in 1870, and there was a yearly "Home Country Championship" in Football nearly 50 years before there was a World Cup.

So by the time Football spread to the rest of Europe and the World, there was a long tradition of the British Countries competing separately, and it was natural for them to apply separately to FIFA for membership.

Compare with the Olympics, which at their start in 1896 consisted almost entirely of individual events.  There was no comparable long history of England vs. Scotland forming teams and competing against each other in Track, Bicycling, or Wrestling, so no reason for them to form separate teams in those events for the Olympics.  When football was then added to the Olympics, it was just one event among many, so there'd be no reason for Great Britain to separate just because of that.


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

[User]
ELI5:What is "the Great Man" theory?

I heard of it when topic was history but never understood why?

[Assistant]
There's a lot of different ways to interpret history. They're all valid to different degrees and achieve different things, depending on what you want from history.

The Great Man theory of history is built around memorizing famous world leaders and people who drove movements. They would argue that Hitler is responsible for the Nazi state, and that Churchill played a tremendous role in defeating him. This style of history is very inspiring - people like to have heroes and villains, and they like to imagine themselves becoming heroes one day. Proponents argue that it helps to bring the lessons of history into sharp focus, making it easier to learn from them. It's also much more testable, since declarations or statements become the driving force of history.

Other theories of history would say that Germany wanted a Hitler at that time because of prevailing social and political values that were driven by complex social, economic, and cultural factors, and that Hitler was just in the right place at the right time. They say that someone else, maybe Goering or Rommel would have taken Hitler's role if he hadn't. Similarly, they'd say that Churchill became the leader of Britain because Britons wanted it that way, and that the national culture of defiance and standing for the establishment and world order lead to Britain's role in WW2, and the selection of a man who voiced those thoughts well. This interpretation of history is much more plausible, but less inspiring, and makes us feel like we can't really learn lessons from history or change the world. It adds a sense of inevitability to history, but ultimately that may be the correct view of things.

So, to look at it today: Is Donald Trump responsible for the rise of the far-right Tea Party movement in America and it's sudden conquest of the Republican Party? Or is he merely the symptom of that cultural movement, someone who happened to be saying what people wanted to hear? History is more memorable, more inspiring, and feels more under human control in the case of the former, but the latter does seem a bit more plausible, if hopeless.


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

[User]
[Avatar] what were the civilizations before the main 4

In Avatar, the last airbender,  we get to learn about the sun warriors who were one or the precursors to the fire nation. What might have been the precursors to the other nations?

[Assistant]
Keep in mind these arent necessarily direct predecessors culturally, but parallel or adjacent developers of bending techniques.

The Sun Warriors for the Fire Nation. The Earth Kingdom has ruins in a cavern beneath Ba Sing Se suggesting a subterranean civilization perhaps closer to badgermoles.

Id expect there were several more waterbending tribes similar to the Swampbenders across the Earth Kindgom. Such ad near the large inland sea where the Serpents Pass is, or just along the coasts.

And of course we see that all the benders once lived on lion turtles on LOK S2.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are humans vastly more intelligent than even animals with vastly larger brains like elephants or whales?

[Assistant]
Neuroscientist here, also with some experience in intelligence research.

Generally, is believed that brain mass to body mass ratio is a loose indicator of cognitive ability.

So, what explains deviations from that tend?

One explanation is highly developed but very specific abilities. Humans are particularly specialized for general intelligence, but other species may rely on highly specialized abilities like extremely high visual acuity, extremely detailed spatial memory, or more complex auditory systems that can be used for echolocation. These might drive up brain mass without increasing overall cognitive ability very much.

Another may be metabolic. Factors like the need for insulation or caloric efficiency may drive up brain mass as well.

And in at least some species, degree of brain folding (versus smoothness) correlate with cognitive abilities.

So, long story short, cramming in more neurons makes brains bigger, but a lot of other stuff CAN also make brains bigger, which is why brain/body mass ratio is not a perfect indicator.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does my speaker system make a noise every time I touch the tip of the auxiliary cord with my finger or some other object?

[Assistant]
A speaker generates sound by moving a magnet up and down at a certain frequency to generate a certain pitch. How the magnet moves up and down is determined by the voltage sent to the speaker.

Voltage is the measure of electrical potential. Any potential is measured relative to something else. The potential energy stored in a bowling ball held on top of a skyscraper differs if you set the reference point to the floor below or to the ground.

Thus, the voltage controlling the speaker is set relative to ground which is set to zero volts. When your cord is plugged in, the ground is properly set to a fixed value. The signal connection is changed relative to ground to generate a difference in voltage to drive the speaker.

However, when you unplug cord, the ground and the signal of the speaker is now undefined. Luckily, because the two lines are in close proximity, they act as an antenna and receive the same random signals in the air. Since the speaker only senses the signal **relative** to ground or signal minus ground, these two cancel out.

When you put the end of the tip to your skin or some other object, you are setting the signal to some voltage while the ground voltage is still undefined. this produces a "jump" in the voltage which manifests as a noise in your speaker as the magnet jumps to the indicated position. You will hear a similar "jump" when you remove the tip from the object since the voltage is jumping back to the original state.

This is only destructive to the speakers if you touch the tip to something high voltage which will "blow" the speaker by pushing the magnet in the speakers to a position it cannot recover from.


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

[User]
[X-Men] Is Jean Grey a powerful enough telekinetic that she is effectively immune to disease?

Does Jean have a fine enough control of her powers to say, isolate all foreign pathogens inside her own body, and then pull them out?

I've seen her disassemble things into their constituent molecules before.

[Assistant]
At high end of her power you're correct, she should be able to telekinetically purge herself from most harmful substances, including bacteria.

However it's unlikely that without various Phoenix-related super-sayan modes she can do it at-will and fast.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Weeping Angels episode - How come 51th century soldiers using late 20th century armor and weapons?

Also how come humans never develop weapons that can actually deal damage to daleks/cybermen/aliens, don't they understand how useless projectile weapons are?

EDIT: 51st century* I'm dumb.

[Assistant]
The humans in the 20th century kit?  It's a classic look.  Have you seen the Swiss Guards who stand guard over the Vatican?  Same deal.

Humans and weapons against Daleks:
Humans do.  You have to understand that the Daleks also improve their defensive systems and - just prior to the start of the Time War - they pulled off something no one else had managed.  The Daleks raided Goth.

Goth was one of those worlds that made a name for itself because the population was very good at one thing.  In this case, that one thing was making weapons and defensive systems.  But mostly weapons.  The people who lived on Goth were known as The Deathsmiths.  Even the farmers.  It was that sort of planet.

Sadly, the Deathsmiths over-reached themselves and created a weapon so powerful that it wiped them - and anyone else who went to Goth (including Sontarans and Cybermen) - out.  In a lot of ways, the final weapon the Deathsmiths created was a lot like The Moment, only much less friendly.

The details of the Dalek raid on Goth are lost, but we do know they got away with the Deathsmith's finest creations.  This is why the Time War Daleks can go toe to toe with the Time Lords, and why they are extremely hard to stop.

Prior to that, humans from the 1960s took out Daleks with anti-tank weapons and one of the Doctor's companions killed one with a baseball bat.

Additionally, UNIT are known to have adapted their arsenal.  At one point, the Brigadier tells the Doctor they now have armour piercing rounds for Daleks and gold rounds to take out Cybermen.  The Doctor asks if they have any silver bullets.  It turns out they do.


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

[User]
[Wh40k] Are the Saints the Emperors version of demons?

This might be some A grade heretical heresy, but bear with me.

So, living saints are People that through their faith gets some fancy golden powers from the emperor to fight his enemies with. This sounds a lot like demonic possession, a smaller part of a major god that takes over a host and gives them new powers. So, are living saints like the emperors demons?

[Assistant]
Saints are living beings, capable of excersizing their own will at any stature and get their abilities through the holy faith in the God emperor of mankind, Deamons are tiny parts of the greater chaos gods.

So saints are granted powers, Deamons are the powers, kinda.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] why do none of the UI's, for any of the computers or systems on the ships, seem to have a keyboard with letters on it that can be used for simple typing?

Also, why does it seem like every function that needs to be carried out involves simply pressing a random sequence of buttons - none of the GUI's appear to be interactive or reactive; the images on the screens don't  react or move at all.

[Assistant]
A: 99% of 21st century keyboards were non-interactive. Why would that change?

B: Voice commands are the shiny new hotness.

C: As evidenced by Scotty during his brief jaunt to the 1980's, 24th century folks are amazingly fast typists.


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

[User]
CMV: The majority of rap music has a negative impact on society by promoting violence, drug use/dealing, misogyny and a hyper-materialistic mindset.

I never was a big fan of rap. The last time I listened regularly to a rap album was when Nas and Damian Marley came together for that collaboration they did probably a good decade ago now. I thoroughly enjoyed it and listened to it almost every day for a long time.

But these days any time Im flipping through the radio stations and I hear rap its all about the negative topics I previously mentioned.

In the 90s I feel like there was more positive rap about social change and making a difference. But even back them it seems most of it was about dealing drugs.

Given the fact that many kids start listening to rap at a young age when they are impressionable they see rappers as role models.

And if their role models are promoting all these negative things its going to increase the chances that they are directly influenced and inspired by the values being promoting by these rap artists.

[Assistant] All popular music deals with the topics of sex, violence, drugs, misogyny, materialism, etc. Because every popular artist in the Western world was taught that through our culture. It's not just in Hip Hop, it's in every genre. It's even in poetry, books, movies, all art. Rap happens to be the most popular music at the time but in the past and the future these claims have been said about every genre.


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

[User]
CMV: All high-ranking government officials should be tested for drugs with cognitive altering capabilities

First, let me state my beliefs. I'm in favor of the legalization of cannabis and against the public policy of the "war on drugs". But given this, I also understand the necessity of drug testing employees for safety reasons, like operating heavy machinery, explosives and life risking operations like surgeries.

So here's my idea: why high-ranking gov. officials - probably the employees with most responsibility given that they represent everyone in almost any theme that affects the whole nation - aren't tested for drugs, specially ones that are extremely potent and highly addictive like cocaine, opiates and etc?

There are only a few couple hundred positions, they all work in the same place, at least for a few days a month, so it wouldn't be so expensive. And even if the efficiency of this test in mitigate wrongfully made decisions and what not, it would be a way to show the population some trust and commitment. And it takes just a minute to test.

I'm not thinking about testing for regular, low dose usage of mild drugs like alcohol, cannabis or caffeine and similar, but short-period testing (weeks to couple months at maximum) of high dosage use.

CMV!

[Assistant] It's sacrificing bodily autonomy for an astronomically small potential benefit (with the specific group of individuals you're talking about) and it's got the potential for disenfranchisement through false positives or through subterfuge to discredit a political rival.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does food taste different when it's cold, room temperature or hot?

[Assistant]
A substantial component of what we call taste is actually smell.  This is why food tastes really bland when your nasal passages are all stopped up because of a cold.

A lot more smell particles come off of hot foods than cold foods.  This is why a pie baking in the oven will smell up the whole house, but a cold pie sitting on the counter is odorless.

So, because foods emit different amounts of odor at different temperatures, you taste them differently.


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

[User]
Netherlands, I have difficulties finishing my master thesis because of my research questions and methods. I am not an expert on the methods but I don't really have too many options because it was "assigned".

I am an international student from a developing country where the education is only for getting papers. I have difficulties when I write a thesis and these difficulties are not only with language problems, English. I also have problems making it concise and more critical. I read the research that many Asian countries have this problem due to their education system. In my experience, my country is always descriptive and explains as much as we can when writing a thesis.

My topic is about the environmental impact that happens because of tourism. My problem is about the topic itself and the supervisor, but I guess I cannot undo this. It is like I get assigned a certain supervisor and topic even tho I don't like it or I am not an expert on that.

My thesis uses fuzzy cognitive maps, it is like a mind map and it is obtained with a participatory approach. My rationale for using this because my supervisor excels in this. It was his will. If I want to use another method then I need to choose another supervisor but I cannot do that. I won't explain it here because this is a long story. In short, it is due to my previous explanation about the assigned topic and supervisor. I can choose another topic and supervisor but I need to pay for the fieldwork where I cannot pay. Unfortunately, I don't really understand how the method works.

I should make my research questions more specific but I already gathered the data, and it cant be more specific. I don't have any idea how to make it more specific. For example, my SPV suggests making it narrow with spatial issues, but it is clear to me because of tourism. So I don't get why I need to use my method/participatory. I think it is better to use a satellite and see it with eyes compared to 10 years ago with now. I think there is something that lies behind why my SPV wants to use it and wants me to be critical but I cannot see it. So during data collection, I collected all data not only restricted to spatial analysis, but I have a problem analysing it. I believe something is missing.

I tried to use a tutor not from NL because I cannot afford it. They have a bit different approach that is more conventional (similar to my country, strict to descriptive) and it makes me more confused. They are from South Africa. So I wonder how to solve this. I spoke with my SPV and study advisor but they told me to study more.

[Assistant]
Arrange a meeting with your supervisor and come prepared:

\- Tell them that you are struggling to understand the method and carry out the analysis. Ask them for study materials, or people that can give your guidance.

\- Tell them that you prefer doing things another certain way and why you feel it's better. Don't make it sound like a demand but more of a suggestion. However, stand your ground if their answers are not sufficient for you. In the end, it's your thesis to write.

\- You are not supposed to pay anything for your master's project. Maybe the supervisor has some means to cover it.

Final point: just in case you are similar to me and also have a personal fall-out with your supervisor: they are supposed to guide you and you are supposed to ask. Send them emails, ask them for office hours, and document everything. Always cc your study advisor, the project coordinator, and the PI in every one of your emails. Make sure they know the situation before it's too late.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that cytotoxic drugs can be consumed but has a label to advise to avoid physical contact?

Wouldnt it do more damage if absorbed into our blood?

[Assistant]
The pharmacists have done lengthy studies on how it is appropriate to administer every drug in the safest and the most effective way as they all have side effects to the body.

Cytotoxic drugs basically attack all cells in your body. With the proper administration they will be much more harmful to cancer cells than to your body because, for instance, your healthy tissue regenerates faster than cancerous tissue. Exposing those drugs to your skin will just unnecessarily damage your skin tissue which might lead to complications.


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

[User] ELI5: Panasonic just announced solar panels with 22.5% efficiency, What does this mean exactly and what would the benefits be if it where 50%, 75% or a 100%?

[Assistant]
It means 22% of the solar energy that hits the panel is turned into electricity.  So, if if the percentage were greater, you'd get more electricity.

Please note that watts aren't just a measurement of electricity, but a generic measurement of power.

Let's say 1000 watts of sunlight hits the panel.
If your panel is 22% efficient, that means that you get 0.22 times the power that hits the panel.
So, you get 0.22*1000, or 220 watts.

Now, let's say you've got a 50% efficient panel.
That means your power output is 0.5 times the sunlight
that hits the panel. So, you get 0.5*1000, or 500 watts.

Most currently available panels are between 10 and 15% efficient, so with Panasonic panels, you'll get quite a bit more power.


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

[User]
ELI5:Whats the difference between Unleaded and premium gasoline and why can't a car take both?

Just something I've always been curious about but never really understood..

[Assistant]
All gasoline these days is unleaded. Lead was added to gasoline because among other things it cushioned the impact of the metal parts within the engine, reducing wear. Modern knowledge allowed harder car parts to be made so the lead wasn't necessary, and we also discovered that burning lead-infused fuel wasn't super good for our health.

The difference between "regular" and "premium" gasoline is something called "octane". The octane rating of gasoline indicates how resistant it is to ignition under heat and pressure, with higher octane meaning more resistant. Premium gas has higher octane.

Why does it matter? In order to get more performance out of an engine you need to combine more fuel with more air to produce more explosive power. This means you make bigger cylinders (increasing weight) or cram more fuel and air into the same space. Compressing air heats it up, and if your fuel ignites itself before the spark plug sets it off then it can mess up your engine timing and wreck the engine (think a piston flying out through the side of the engine block).

So cars with higher performance engines require higher octane gasoline to work correctly, while normal engines can work just fine with normal gasoline. Regular engines can also burn Premium gas just fine, but the higher octane is expensive so you would just be wasting money for no reason.


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

[User]
When a plant branches, does this affect the rate of growth of the branches?

I was thinking about this looking at my pothos plants. 2 of the 3 have started branching off. Will the combined growth of the branches equal the growth of the unbranched plant or are all the nodes capable of the same growth, branched or unbranched?

[Assistant]
Each of the branches have a small packet of cells that are capable of roughly the same amount of division. There is a difference between the packet of cells on the central stalk and the ones on the branches, so those will function a little differently.

This means that each branch has the same ability to grow, as each of these little packets of cells functions somewhat independently. It is not like there is some central storehouse of cells that the plant allocates to different parts of its growth. It will be limited by nutrients and resources (sunshine and Nitrogen/Phosphorus/Potassium/etc), so sometimes plants will signal different growth rates to different parts of the plant.


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

[User]
[Diary of a Wimpy Kid] What's the worst thing Greg Heffley has done?

Book not movie version.

My knowledge is sketchy but I want to say throwing apples at Peggy; since in the books she didn't do anything to deserve it and it's just plain battery/assualt. Plus he's hitting a girl.

He probably did worse; but that's the best example from my limited recollection.

[Assistant] In terms of overall effects? I'd say dumping the deviled eggs in the Snellas' potted plant. It literally causes them to move out of their house after a few months because they can't find the source of the smell.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are directors considered the "masterminds" behind movies? Don't the writers and producers contribute more to the movie's plot and aesthetics?

[Assistant]
Writers contribute dialogue, narrative, theme, etc. Producers contribute money, mostly.

Directors, on the other hand, take the input of writers and other creatives working on the film, as well as the talent of the actors themselves, and try to shape that into an artistic expression. They are the ones who can have a broad vision for how a scene might play out and not just *what* is said and done, but *how*.

So while writers, producers, and others have their roles to play in the production, the director is the one person who can (or ought to) bring everything together into one package.


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

[User] [Xena: Warrior Princess] One thing I never understood about this show, Xena wasnt a demigod, so how in the hell was she so ridiculously badass? She could fight and do all sorts of superhuman shit, didnt need to practice and had so many numerous skills Batman would be jealous.

[Assistant] Batman's whole deal is that he is really good at everything but tends not to be the best at anything (though is usually in the top 10).  Xena though, she's just a really badass fighter.  Probably the best mortal fighter in the world.  What are her other skills though? She's not a great detective, not a hacker (that's not a thing), not a... actually most of Batman's skills don't really translate to her world.  So yeah, she's just that good of a fighter.  The funny thing about your question is that she basically asks that same question herself at one point.  She claims to be a god, but since she doesn't have any powers to prove it she does so by beating Aries in combat which is supposedly impossible for a mortal to do.


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

[User]
[Pokmon] Are there peaceful ways to level Pokmon up?

I'm not talking about the games so much as the universe itself; are non-trainers incapable of leveling up/evolving (excluding evolution stones) their Pokmon without having them fight?

[Assistant] Yes. Just spending time with a pokemon or letting it play with other pokemon at a daycare promotes healthy growth. There's also items like rare candy which have a similar effect. Some trainers will do activities that are more hands-on to train their pokemon, like rock climbing, weight lifting, standing under waterfalls, swimming, racing, etc etc.


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

[User] [Saw] The original Jigsaw genuinely wanted people to survive his games. If someone with a (previously unknown to him) mental illness was one of his victims and just laid down and waited to die, or even tried to kill themselves faster, would he call off the game?

[Assistant] No. He was motivated to become Jigsaw by the fact that people are so ungrateful to be alive so if someone didnt play the game because they wanted to die then clearly theyre not worth saving in his eyes and the entire premise falls apart.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] What was Khan's original purpose? What was he supposed to fight?

So if i remember the movie correctly Khan was some kind of super soldier created and frozen 300 years before the events of the movie.

My question is why was he created? To fight against aliens? To put down rebellions?

[Assistant]
In the Rise of Khan books (which are excellent, imho), the scientists are really just trying to create perfect human beings. Their experiments are broken up by Gary 7, and the kids are sent to live with families.
However "superior ability breeds superior ambition" with the Augments, so they quickly made contact with each other and started a plot to take over the world.

Various alternate universe versions have the Augments being simply soldiers for the future, and apparently now the Eugenics Wars were a conflict that occurred after the Second American Civil War in the early to mid 21st century.


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

[User] [Deadpool 2] Cable said he was born into war, yet future scenes show him and Russel being similar ages. Russel is already born and 14 years old during a relatively peaceful period. What gives?

[Assistant]
Perhaps Cable just likes to sound badass?

Or maybe he is referring to all the violent shit that has gone down around the X-men as the opening days of the war that just keeps escalating into his future?


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

[User]
ELI5: If farmers have to rotate crops every other year to reduce nutrient drain in soil, why can trees and other plants live for so long without doing the same?

Trying to post this again. On mobile and fucked up the title.

[Assistant]
Farm crops are much faster growing than trees and other plants, therefore they use the nutrients in the soil a lot faster. Most trees that shed their leaves which is where most nutrients are. These decay and put nutrients back into the soil, crops that get harvested don't do this.

Also trees that live for a long time have deeper and longer roots than crops with grow for under a year, which means if they exhaust the nutrients from one place, there can still get some elsewhere.


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

[User] ELI5: When you open your mouth really wide to yawn and it feels like your eardrum pops, what is actually happening?

[Assistant] Your sinuses and ears are connected via a thin tube called the eustachion tube. Sometimes the tube gets kinked like a hose and the free flow of air is blocked. A change in pressure outside your head, like flying in a plane, can make the air stuck in your head seem pressured. Yawning aligns the tube, allowing the extra pressure air in your head to flow out via your ears.


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

[User] Does metal tarnish/corrode/rust in space?

[Assistant]
Rust is oxidation - specifically known as iron oxide - so the outside of a spaceship would not rust. The inside, however could still rust assuming humans would be occupying that space.

In a vacuum without any other material to react with an object of any material would be inert, subject only to natural processes like radioactive decay, and over extremely long timelines decay of the stable atoms themselves.


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

[User]
[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?] Why make androids the way they are in the first place?

The Pitch Meeting answer is obviously, "*So the story can happen.*" But why?

There are only three differences between a human and an android. Empathic responses, whatever is in their spinal cord, and their short lifespan. Surely at some point along the production line someone must have recognized what a disaster that can potentially be.

Considering they're essentially meant to be thralls, it would have seemed far more prudent to manufacture them with barcode tattoos genetically engineered on their foreheads.

At the very least, they should have access ports that can be opened up so they can be shut down manually. (But if they had that, Deckard's job would be so much easier.)

[Assistant]
Humans respond and relate better to humanoid-esque synthetics.  The more human, the more comfortable (most) people are at accepting them.  Once you've overcome the uncanny valley, then acceptance is far more likely.

That said, most of these type of technological creations and inventions are (at least initially) funded by government who have an intention or agenda, regardless if it is ever implemented or not.  In the case of replicants, they might have been intended to be spies or covert operatives of some sort.  Detection, identification, and ease of disabling them would be counter to that sort of purpose.

Alas, once it's been accomplished, invented, and implemented (if even not for it's original intent) you can't really put the genie back in the bottle.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do watches work?

I started learning more about watches and still cant figure out how mechanical watches work? How does a watch know a second lasts an actual second?

[Assistant] The watch doesn't "know" anything. Basically a type of spring provides the energy that turns the gears. Special gears and latches regulate how far they turn. So we just choose gears of the right size with the right number of cogs so that it turns the right amount to correspond with seconds/minutes/hours.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Does Rogue only absorb Mutant Powers?

It's said she absorbs the powers of others. Often seen doing so with fellow mutants, probably due to proximity. However going beyond that, can she still absorb 'powers' of others? Like Hyperion whose powers are because he is an alien. Could she take them? Or someone like Mister Fantastic who got his powers in a very different way to mutants?

What point do her powers stop?

[Assistant] Rogue is not limited to just powers. She has been shown to absorb memories, physical attributes, and even personality. As a result, she would be able to drain any attribute of her target, not just a super power.


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

[User]
[Halo] Are Spartan IVs superior to Spartan IIIs?

I have a friend who is currently in the UNSC and he is being evaluated for augmentation to become a Spartan. He keeps telling me that the new breed of Spartan is superior to the previous generation. He even tells me most of the previous gen are KIA because they were inferior. Is there any truth to this or is he bullshitting me because he is going to be part of this generation of Spartans?

[Assistant]
Short answer: No.

While SIVs are selected from the top tier special forces. For Example, ODSTs. Spartan IIIs were trained brutally from a *very* young age.

The Augmentations are different, but have similar, albeit less effective results.

But the SIVs do have superior armour to make up for it.


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

[User] Eli5: What is the difference between Emulation and Simulation?

[Assistant]
Tl;dr - Emulation and simulation are two ways of trying to understand how something works. Emulation is like making a copy of something, while simulation is like making a model of something. Both can be useful, but they are used in different ways. Emulation is good for testing things, while simulation is good for studying how things might work in different situations.

The easiest way to differentiate between emulation and simulation is the level of detail and accuracy. With emulation, the goal is to replicate the behavior of a system as accurately as possible, down to the minutiae. Things like the timing of processes, emulating hardware clocks, handling of I/O, and all other aspects of the system's behavior. Its often used when necessary to test a system or component, such as during development of hardware interfaces.

For simulation, the focus is on understanding the behavior of a system when different conditions exist or analyzing how it could behave in the future. The level of detail and accuracy may or may not be as important as it is with emulation. Typically the simulator focuses on key aspects of the system that are being studied, and utilizes approximations to make the simulation more tractable. A good example is weather forecasting. Simulating what may occur with different atmospheric conditions.

Another important difference between emulation and simulation is the use of real and artificial data. The goal is to replicate the behavior of a real system when it comes to emulation, so you gotta use real data as input. In simulation, on the other hand, the focus is on studying the behavior of a hypothetical or modeled system, so the simulator can use artificial or simulated data as input.


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

[User]
Eli5 how do they train pigeons to deliver messages from far away?

How do those pigeons know where to fly?

[Assistant] Homing pigeons know how to fly back to their own roost. So to send a message, you have to have a bird thats from the location youre sending to, and then you just let it go back home instead of keeping it caged where you are at. Its not really something theyre trained to do.


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

[User]
CMV: Punishing a child for swearing is a stupid and outdated thing to do.

NOTE: Im not including slurs, as those are tied to trauma and are a completely different league from Fuck, Shit, Ass, etc as they were made to demean certain demographics.

Edit: Perhaps the better title might be The current social standards regarding swearing need a serious overhaul, as currently theyre only holding us back

I also understand that the allure and value of swear words come from their restriction in general conversation. As in it feels much better to say them knowing that you cant say it often, like a colloquial treat. However, I dont believe this is justification for explicit punishment, as swearing within itself doesnt harm anybody, and everyone has the right to ruin the words for themselves should they feel like it.

Essentially, if a kid stubs his toe on the school blacktop and says FUCK in response, punishing or telling that kid not to say that word serves no beneficial purpose. Karens who WoUlD NeVeR wAnT mY cHiLd tO sAy SuCh ThInGs!!1! Need to get over themselves and really think about why they think that way.

Edit: Just wanted to elaborate further. I agree that we should educate kids about when it is and isnt okay to swear GIVEN the current social standards. I just think the social standards are arbitrary and hold us back (which isnt the most mind-blowing conclusion, I know). In a perfect world we wouldnt have these standards. They are bad standards.

[Assistant]
Humans use words and gestures to signal ideas /emotions. So there's inevitably going to be language used to signal frustration, vulgarity, maturity, etc. While some kid saying *fuck* isn't going to cause an explosion or anything, it does signal a concerning disregard for social norms / inability to recognize their role in soceity. And let's be honest, children who are prone to profanity around adults are usually little terrors.

It's a parent's job to raise their kid to be cognizant of this social fact. And it's easier to start at "don't curse at all," then it is to explain the nuances of profanity use to kids. If you tell them "it's okay in X, Y, and Z situations," they'll cuss in inappropriate situations. They won't really understand. But humans naturally become aware of social nuance as they age; kids just need a good foundation.


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

[User] ELI5: Why doesn't water moisturize my skin in the way lotion does? What's the difference?

[Assistant] Dry skin usually happens not so much because of a lack of water, but a lack of oil, from memory. Without oil, the skin can't create a protective barrier to keep the water in, and it will evaporate. Moisturisers usually include a variety of oils in order to help with this.


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

[User]
CMV: Biden and Harris continuing to refuse to answer whether theyll pack the Supreme Court means we should assume they will do so

This is a very important issue, because packing the Supreme Court will effectively destroy any remaining credibility of the Supreme Court as an independent brach of government.

I dont understand why Biden and Harris wouldnt just say they wont do it if they werent going to do it.  It doesnt make sense that theyre making a threat just to stop the Barrett nomination because the Republicans are 100% committed to pushing this through.

Thus, my view is that voters should operate under the assumption that Democrats will pack the court if they win the Senate and Presidency.

[Assistant]
Packing the court would carry some negative associations, but it might also be done in a situation when the public begrudgingly welcomes it's results.

Committing to packing the courts no matter what, would be pointless now. They might not even have a senate majority anyways, and then they pointlessly took a hit for it's negative associations, without the benefit of actually accomplishing it's goals.

Biden is clearly leaving court packing on the table, in case there will be a need for it, which is not the same thing as packing the courts day 1 no matter what.


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

[User] [MCU] Could Tony have build a robot arm that was triggered by a switch that would do the snap? Would it work? If not, does that mean that Bucky wouldnt be able to snap with his robot hand ?

[Assistant]
The Soul Stone was "smart" enough that when Hulk tried to bring Natasha back with his Snap, it wasn't allowed to happen.  So the stones, to some degree, can make sure to enact a price for their use, and make sure that it's permanent.

Similar logic would probably apply to trying to cheat a Snap.  A robot arm that's unattached to anyone likely wouldn't activate the stones, no matter the intent behind it.  The arm attached to Bucky, on the other hand, is connected to nerves and such, and so he may be able to make something happen - though the power would certainly overload through his whole body and probably kill him.


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

[User] ELI5: How is communism effective with the economic system of China? What makes China different from USSR, where China was able to avoid economic collapse?

[Assistant] China isn't really socialist or communist any more. Socialism is the social (ie government or collective) ownership of the means of production (capital - factories, tools...the things workers use to make things). China is better understood as a mixed economy - many broadly capitalist areas with significant government intervention and control.


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

[User]
What did the Earth look like during the Pre-Cambrian?

Today, if you look at an image of the Earth from space, you see that the land is mostly green, with some yellow/brown due to desert. What did the land look like before plants and animals colonised it? Was it all desert?

[Assistant]
Keeping in mind life did not exist outside of the oceans until the Ordovician, the precambrian earth would have looked like a water world with live oceans and dead desertic continents, you wouldn't recognize the continents, but the color of the ocean anthe atmosphere would look familiar for most of the precambrian. Life was mostly microscopic, with algal mats and stromatolites in interdidal zones.

There may have been a super glaciation in the tardi-proterozoic (snowball earth). But the earliest precambrian (Hadean) would be a shock: the earth was cooling down from an initially liquid state , sort of like a giant planetery lava lake.


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

[User] [Halo] How many Covenant died during the Human/Covenant War?

[Assistant]
Likely billions, despite grievous human loses, the humans managed isolated, and sometimes hard hitting victories that were detrimental set backs to the Covenant agenda.

Further more the implications of these victories were integral to the collapse of centralized Covenant society and the indirect death of billions more Covenant species.


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

[User] ELI5: Do our bodies absorb things like caffeine and alcohol at a set rate or do we absorb faster if we consume more?

[Assistant]
Essentially, we absorb them faster - up to a point.

Think of digestion like pouring water through a funnel. Up to a point, things pass through into the bloodstream faster, but there's an upper limit on that speed. In a funnel, that's based on how narrow or wide the opening is - in your body, it's based on how many cells are doing the work of passing things into the bloodstream. Caffeine and alcohol don't just seep into the bloodstream, they have to be carried across the gut lining and blood vessel walls before they can make it to the blood.

In pharmacology, this is called the dose-response curve, and it usually looks vaguely S-shaped: at low doses, the absorption (and the response to the drug) is quite slow, and it speeds up quickly as the dose is increased, but then it will usually level out again at high doses, and anything above that level will just stay sitting in your stomach.

Concentration can also have an impact on how fast you absorb a drug (including things like caffeine and alcohol; in this sense, "drug" means anything that has an effect on your body's metabolism). This is why certain alcoholic drinks (such as poitn) are notorious for getting you drunk *the next day* - because it's at such a high concentration that your body recognises it as poison and doesn't absorb very much of it, but when you get up and drink some water, it dilutes the alcohol and a whole lot more alcohol gets into your system.


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

[User] [Farscape] How would things have played out differently if John had never come to the attention of Scorpious?

[Assistant]
The Scarrans would have eventually declared war on the Peacekeepers, and the galaxy in general, and conquered it. Even without the wormhole chase, they were far better equipped and motivated to fight. Scorpius on his own might have won a few battles if he were pressed into fighting, but more likely he would have pursued his experiments even harder and watched the galaxy burn around him as he desperately searched for the ultimate weapon.

Moya's crew, most likely free from Crais due to the war or his crew mutinying, find that there are fewer and fewer places to hide from the Scarran war machine. Granted, the galaxy is a big place, so they'd probably find somewhere to hide, but it would be a long way from anyone's home. But eventually, everything would be Scarran. Even Earth.

Although, this all comes with a big caveat that John Crichton is a massive wildcard, and the wormhole knowledge just makes him even wilder. He might have been given a way to stop the war on a less frightening note, or figured it out himself. Or he might have gotten back to Earth and stayed there. There's really no way of knowing what he would have done without Scorpius chasing him.


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

[User]
What exactly is/was Nietzsche's relationship to nihilism?

I don't know a lot about Nietzsche. I have read parts of the Genealogy of Morality for a class, along with the beginning of Thus Spake Zarathustra. But I don't know very much about Nietzsche's thought in terms of what people call 'nihilism.'

I understand nihilism to be a philosophy of no-values, nothingness, etc. - i.e. where nothing really matters, like staring into the Void. I understand, furthermore, that nihilism is something that Nietzsche either argued against or posited as a problem... What is the relationship between nihilism and Nietzsche's writings, and are we familiar with any biographical reasons (i.e. his depression, mental illness, physical illness, and/or drug addiction) which will have made nihilism particularly a problem for Nietzsche? Is this something that finds counterparts in other contemporary German thinkers, i.e. depressed Germans who sought to look for something revolutionary but instead of finding it were gridlocked into something Nazi-esque, and so on? Is that... kind of what happens at the points of history which are contemporary to Nietzsche's life, or am I inventing that image myself?

Am wondering about the relationships between Nietzsche's life, his philosophical writing, nihilism, and the attitude of Germans (or other European thinkers, or scholars/ordinary people who otherwise might have interpreted him as a comrade in their gazes upon the Abyss?

[Assistant]
Nietzsche is pretty explicit about his views on nihilism. Like lots of thinkers, he thinks value is a product of human experience and existence.  So, there is nothing of value beyond that scope.  Yet also he clearly thinks some things are better than others, and that valuation is very important.  Further, he worries that many of the then-contemporary systems of valuation were fundamentally bad, anti-life, etc.

So, in one sense he is a nihilist.  In another sense he positions himself against a different sort of nihilism, and does so in the strongest possible terms.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between someone who has a learning disability and someone who's just stupid/slow/dumb?

[Assistant]
I would think of it in terms of a computer.

Stupid or dumb would just be someone with a slow processor. Everything works fine, it just doesn't work that fast.

A learning disability would be a hardware defect. Maybe there is a problem in ram causing a corruption of data... the computer is working perfectly fast enough, it just encounters errors which make it difficult to complete a certain task.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are there different blood types? What makes them A, B, O?

Why can blood type AB receive from all types but can't donate to any other one?

Why can type O donate universally but can't receive any other blood or else the body will go into shock?

[Assistant]
You're forgetting what's called the "Rh factor", usually denoted by "+" or "-". A, B, and + denote little "flags", if you will, on the outside of red blood cells.  O denotes the absence of an A or B "flag" and "-" denotes the absence of a + "flag".  Your body will attack cells with any "flags" that it finds that are unfamiliar to it. So a person with AB+ blood can accept any type blood because their body doesn't attack A, B, or + "flags" and O and - have no "flags".  But AB+ people can't donate to anyone except AB+, because otherwise the person will lack at least one "flag" and their body will attack the donated blood. And that's why a person with O- blood can donate blood to anyone, but can only receive from other O-: O- doesn't have any "flags", so no one's body will attack those cells, but O- people will attack any and all "flags".

In reality, there are many more "flags" than just A, B, and +, but they're the "big three" that cause most problems with blood transfusions.


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

[User]
How do you kill batman

You have 1 year to kill him and you are given Nearly unlimited financial resources  you leave for the Gotham tommorow...How do you kill batman?

[Assistant]
Try to survive long enough as one of Joker's henchmen. Then when Joker inevitably captures Batman, and inevitably puts him in a death trap that he fully expects Batman to escape. End the cycle. Pull a gun, shoot him in the face.

Not saying you'd survive the Joker afterwards. But Batman isn't bulletproof.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why would Jabba, a major crime lord even deal with Han Solo, isnt he supposed to be much bigger?

He control the hyperspace routes of entire planets. Back in the clone wars, he negotiated with senators, and can even get the Jedi to do favors for him. Darth Vader, arguable the second most powerful person in the government works with him once in a while. Meanwhile, Han Solo is paying of a debt, where extorting an old man in the middle of nowhere can fill it up. It seems so insignificant as to how powerful Jabba is supposed to be. This would be like if a big deal mafia were to meet up and negotiate with some thug owing 10000 dollar, it doesnt make him seem very strong in comparison.

[Assistant]
On the contrary, this is exactly the kind of thing Jabba handles personally. Han is one of the best, one of Jabba's favorites. Then he dumped Jabba's cargo. And while that money may be gone, Han is still around. Letting Han live without repaying makes Jabba seem weak. But hanging a frozen Solo to his wall makes Jabba all the more terrifying to the rest of the smugglers on his payroll. No one steals from Jabba.

In other words, it's not about the money, it's about sending a message.


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

[User] How does a GPS satellite handle all the requests from smart phones and other devices?

[Assistant]
It doesn't.

In contrast to what surprisingly many people believe, GPS does not involve the device sending a signal to the satellites and receiving a reply.

GPS satellites continuously broadcast a signal with its current time and position (satellites have highly accurate atomic clocks on board and are synchronized with eachother and ground stations periodically) towards Earth. Receivers pick up the signal from multiple satellites and use that to compute their location. In practice, receivers use additional tricks to improve the speed and accuracy of the fix (such as using signals from ground stations, WiFi networks, cell towers).

The receiver unit is completely passive and doesn't emit any signals. Its only purpose is to monitor satellite signals and perform the necessary computations to determine its position. The satellites on the other hand only broadcast to receivers, they don't have to listen for any signals other than those used by the system itself to synchronize the satellites to eachother and to ground stations.