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

[User]
CMV: Amazon is essentially ruining the E-commerce industry by trying to be a monopoly.

I was selling for Amazon.com after getting off eBay.

I went off eBay because of the lack of seller protection they have and how eBay AND PayPal both have control of your money. This is a scammers playgrounds

I went on Amazon and its much better in terms of scammer protection but their policies are more stricter. This is Amazon's playground.

Amazon changed its rule so that if you ship out products to customers yourself, you essentially will receive no protection against pretty much anything.

If you ship all of your products out to their Fullfilment center and let them send and package it for you then they will claim all liabilities for it.. except customer returns.

So I chose Fullfilment center, no brainier right? Wrong.

Once I did that, they absolutely require invoices from your suppliers and once you get approved, they will monitor on how well your product is moving. If it moves well, they will reach out to your supplier and start selling your product and undercutting your prices. This happened to me twice.

How can amazon do this? Well because they have the luxury of not being expensed the hefty 15% referral fee they charge everybody and pretty much every seller they are competing against are also essentially funding them by paying all the fees.

They are doing this WHILE they made it the standard to making shipping free and accepting returns no questions asked.

Returns are absolutely the worse because if the customer returns the product simply because they didn't want it anymore..you are stuck with a product that has lost half its value and will most likely take 2-3x more work to move it to cut the loss.

Literally the only way I can see e-commerce working for a individual is if they can offer a innovative product that can't be easily copied by Chinese manufacturers or Amazon but we all know this.

Some people justify this as saying to look at amazon as a advertising expense. I can't. It was like I was paying my marketer a hefty percentage off each sale and they realized "hey this moves pretty good, hope you don't mind if we get in it too." Which essentially turns into paying my marketer a percentage to compete.

Amazon(and eBay) don't care because they know they'll have an influx of sellers because everybody wants money. They only care about losing buyers because they know nobody wants to spend money.

Don't get me wrong, amazon works great for some sellers and amazon creates alot of jobs but only if they have some kind of control over your business.

That being said, I'm sticking with amazon as a buyer and most likely just ordering from "shipped and sold by Amazon.com" because they most likely will be offering the lowest prices and I will abuse that return option with them with no remorse.

[Assistant]
Why would a single excellent e-commerce site ruin the e-commerce industry? What about the e-commerce industry requires multiple lower quality storefronts?

Id say Amazon has actually radically improved the e-commerce industry by reducing lead time, reducing costs, and driving inefficient competitors out of the market. It definitely sucks for small sellers, but society is under no obligation to assure an outcome that is good for small retailers. The quality of the e-commerce industry is not directly related to the health of small retailers, if the larger retailers have sufficient product coverage.


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

[User] ELI5: If you accidentally swallow something while breathing in, does it go into your lungs? If so, would it just stay there for ever? If not, what stops it?

[Assistant]
It depends on what you inhale, and if it actually makes it down inside the lungs proper. Typically, if it is food, you'll either cough it up eventually, or absorb it.

For non-organics, you may cough it up, or need to have it extracted by a doctor. If you don't see it actually come out, you should see a doctor, as if it gets all the way into your lungs, it is difficult for the body to remove on its own.

There have been cases of children inhaling small objects by accident only to find them still in their lungs well into adulthood.

Inhaling an object is a significant source of foreign bacteria, and can lead to pneumonia.

TLDR: we are pretty good at keeping stuff from actually going into our lungs, but fairly terrible at undoing it if we succeed.


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

[User] [Spongebob] If you were Plankton, how would you get the Secret Formula?

[Assistant]
I'd get ahold of a gun.

Walk in the front door, shoot Squidward square in the chest.

Spongebob comes out to investigate, it may take multiple rounds to bring him down due to his sponge-like texture.

Mr Krabs is hiding under his desk. Reload the gun, and empty it into the desk. Reload again. Check to see if he's dead. He is, the desk is made of wood. The combination for the safe is the date on which he found his daughter Pearl.

She lies dead at her home, having been tortured to get this information. Her final hours were a symphony of agony.

Open the safe, the formula is inside. Everything you've ever dreamed of, finally yours.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that Carbon is black in colour, when diamonds are transparent and clear?

Remove if duplicate...

For those who don't know, Diamonds are made of Carbon.  Just really curious why.

[Assistant] It's because of the way in which the carbon atoms are bonded. In diamonds they bond tetrahedrally with a bond angle of 109.5 degrees (meaning each carbon atom is 109.5 degrees from all others it is bonded to) each carbon is bonded to 4 other carbons as well. In graphite, each carbon is bonded to only 3 others, so it's bond angle is 120 degrees. Graphite also forms sheets that overlap instead of 1 single structure. The differences in these bond angles, number of carbon bonds along with shape of the carbons bonded causes it to have different properties than diamonds. The difference properties now alter is light absorption which alters the color.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why exactly movies are released on BR/DVD waaay after the release?

We live in digitized world, why aren't movies digitally available right after the release? AFAIK there's no other industry so withheld by one entity (movie theater). It's like games would not be available AFTER you can play them in arcades for couple of months first.
I apologize if my question is confusing, English is my second language.

[Assistant]
It is an agreement so that the movie studios can make more money. By having a tiered release it allows the studios (and industries) to make more money off the release of a movie.

If a movie was released in theaters, on BR/DVD, on HBO/Showtime, and on Netflix all at once, most everyone would just watch it on the easiest format available to them. Mostly it would be renting the movie and others would use a streaming service.

By releasing the movie in theaters first, all the people willing an able will pay a lot to see it in theaters. Later the BR/DVD is sold and people who can buy it. Lastly the movie is made available on streaming services. Doing this you even get some people to do all three: see it in theaters, buy the disc, and pay for a streaming service that has the movie.


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

[User]
ELI5: If blood continuously flows throughout the body, what happens to the blood that follows down a vein where a limb was amputated?

I'm not sure if i phrased the question in a way that explains what I mean so let me ask my question using mario kart as an example. The racers follow the track all around the course until returning to the start the same way the blood circulates the veins inside the body and returns to the heart. If I were to delete a portion of the track, the racers would reach a dead end and have nowhere to go. So why is it not the same with an amputation? I understand there would be more than one direction to travel but the "track" has essentially been deleted for some of these veins and I imagine veins aren't two-way steets where it can just turn around and follow a different path. Wouldn't blood just continuously hit this dead end and build up? Does the body somehow know not to send blood down that direction anymore? Does the blood left in this vein turn bad or unsafe to return to the main circulatory system over time?

I chopped the tip of my finger off at work yesterday and all the blood has had me thinking about this so im quite curious.

Edit: thanks foe the answers/awards. I'd like to reply a bit more but uhh... it hurts to type lol.

[Assistant] A racetrack is oversimplified. More realistically, all the veins, arteries, capillaries, etc are like a giant neighborhood, not strictly a circle with only one way to do it. So you have a fleet of mail people delivering to all those houses, and if a section of the neighborhood gets cut off, all the packages can still be delivered to all the houses that haven't been cut off via all the other connecting streets. The main supply and return veins and arteries have hundreds of thousands of branches where blood can flow between those main lines. The vascular system is the single most redundant system in basically every creature that has one.


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

[User]
How does Object Oriented Ontology identify what counts as an object?

As I understand it, Object Oriented Ontology treats actual and virtual objects, such as tables and the concept of marriage, respectively, as objects. However I am unsure why we would not say that the table is not an object but rather there are four legs and a slab of wood that are objects. Is it that the constituents of objects overlap?

[Assistant]
Any region of matter can be granted objecthood. The table plus the chairs under it could all be considered a single object. The table plus the chairs under it plus the room they are in could be considered a single object. "Table" and "leg" and "slab of wood" are *essences* - our idea of what those things are - which we apply to regions of matter when we make assumptions like "This object is *this specific object*."

See Husserl's part-whole theory.


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

[User] [40K] Why are there no good gods?

[Assistant]
The Big Four are many-faceted. For example, buried in the layers of rage and murder and hatred that form Khorne is a god of Justice. It's just that the negative aspects overwhelm the positive, what with the galaxy being so shitty. So "Justice" is normally manifested in tearing people's faces off and drinking out of their eyeballs. If a "good" martial god were to arise then Khorne would lay claim to it and attempt to control it - look what happened to Khaine. Khorne laid claim and he and Slaanesh fought over the Eldar War God.

(See also Nurgle's capture of the compassionate Eldar God Isha)


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

[User] ELI5: Is MSG really bad for you and why?

[Assistant] MSG sensitivity, at least in the vast majority of cases, is psychosomatic. In every trial where MSG is administered blind (i.e. in a pill so you can't taste whether or not you have the placebo), people who report themselves to be MSG-sensitive have not actually reacted to it. Of course, psychosomatic conditions are still *real* in some sense, but if we stopped talking about MSG sensitivity like it's an actual thing it would almost completely stop being one.


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

[User] ELI5: In medical terms, when they say someone has, "lost a lot of blood," what does "a lot" mean?

[Assistant]
Try to picture 5 litres of blood. That's about 13 or so regular cans of Pepsi, and also roughly (give or take depending on gender/size/etc) the amount of blood in a person. Your average blood donation takes about 8% of that, so pretty much just one can of Pepsis worth.

However... should you find yourself unlucky enough to lose more than 20% (...About 3 cans of Pepsi) they go into what is known as Hypovolemic shock. Its pretty nasty.

So yeah, medically speaking, a fair representation of "a lot" would be near or greater than 20% of your blood, or roughly 2-3 cans of Pepsi's worth.


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

[User]
The Charlie Hebdo shooting

Everything related to this incident is to be posted here.

[Assistant]
For those unfamiliar with what happened:

2 masked gunmen entered Charlie Hebdo's headquarters, armed with AK rifles, shotguns, and an RPG. They entered by forcing a cartoonist at gunpoint to enter in the passcode to the building. They shouted, "Allahu Akbar!" and then open fired.

They shot and killed 12 people, and wounded an additional 11. Two that were killed were police officers. One officer was executed.

Witnesses report that they asked for specific staff members by name. Witnesses also reported that they identified as Al-Qaeda.

The gunmen escaped in a getaway car, hijacked another car, and then ran over a pedestrian and shot at other police cars.

The incident is the deadliest mass murder to occur on French soil since 1989.


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

[User] ELI5: What keeps a panting dog from hyperventilating ?

[Assistant] Panting in dogs tends to be shallow breaths an they're not moving a ton of air, which prevents them from blowing off all their carbon dioxide (CO2) and getting respiratory alkalosis (high blood pH which causes an acid/base imbalance). But not always... dogs that are taking fast, deep breaths will suffer from the same hyperventilation syndrome as people. The body is more sensitive to a build-up of CO2 to tell us when to breathe than a lack of oxygen. Hyperventilating causes you to expel more CO2 than usual which will cause your body to stop signaling you to take a breath and you won't get sufficient oxygen. It also causes alkalosis where the blood pH increases. A dog panting regularly isn't moving more air than a dog taking in slower, deep breaths, so hyperventilation isn't an issue. The issue comes when there is labored breathing or heavy panting, which will cause these issues. Dogs are also more prone to aerophagia, where they gulp air while panting heavily and distend out their stomachs. Aerophagia can rarely lead to bloat, but can be quite uncomfortable. Questions?


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

[User] ELI5: Why do cockroaches flip upside down when sprayed with an insecticide?

[Assistant] Many pesticides are organophosphates.  This means they are essentially a very dilute form of nerve agent.  Some of the most lethal poisons on Earth were discovered when scientists were trying to research pesticides.  Anyway, the principle mechanism for death by nerve agent is that the toxin causes all the muscles in the body to experience uncontrollable contractions.  If the dying insects are twitching back and forth, thats because their bodies are seizing.  Its actually a very horrible way to die.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a fly have so much energy to use it's wings for as long as it does?

[Assistant] Super adapted muscles/metabolism for flight. The flight muscles in insects can be up to 1/5th of their body mass. But it's really all about efficiency. Your cells can use aerobic or anaerobic metabolism to produce ATP from glucose (and sometimes lipids and other stuff). During aerobic metabolism - when oxygen is available to the cell - breaking down one glucose molecule yields something like 30 ATP. When cells can't get enough oxygen, they instead use other molecules in its place, but the process is way less efficient - you get 3 molecules of ATP per glucose. In mammals, oxygen is carried through our blood by proteins called hemoglobins. The eli5 version of this is that it means if your muscles are working really hard, eg you're sprinting, they will use more oxygen than can be released from the hemoglobin and your cells will have to use anaerobic respiration for energy. Flying insects, on the other hand, don't have hemoglobin at all. Oxygen travels through their bodies as a gas, and they have a network of tubes designed to provide it directly to their muscle cells, so their muscle cells have virtually infinite oxygen and never use anaerobic metabolism for energy. They also have by far the largest aerobic scope in the animal kingdom. That means they can generate energy by breaking down glucose around 75 times faster when working hard then when resting, and they are able to switch between these rates nearly instantaneously by very tight regulation of the enzymes involved. By comparison, we can at best increase respiration rates by about 20 times, and it takes a long time for our cells to slow down respiration so a lot of "fuel" is wasted.


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

[User]
eli5 : Why do cloud move as a whole thing and not dissolve in the wind?

I live in a windy place. Right now, I am looking at clouds moving really fast. But cloud are just water vapor no? So how can they keep their shape and move as a whole piece instead of just being blown away by the wind?

Edit : thank you for all those detailed explanation ! I guess I'll spend way more time looking at clouds now !!

[Assistant]
They do not move as a whole. Each individual tiny droplet of water in the cloud is moving independently of all the other tiny little droplets of water.

But they are all moving independently based on essentially the same forces being applied to them. If the wind is blowing in One direction and doesn't have a lot of different cheering forces, then it is going to push the whole cloud in one direction, and there won't be a bunch of forces present to rip the cloud apart.


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

[User]
How does GoDaddy own domain names? How do you get a domain?

How does GoDaddy sell domains? Who gives them the right to control addresses (and the internet)? Who did GoDaddy buy their site from? Must you use GoDaddy or a similar company if you wanted to make a website? If not, how do you make a website of your own, without a second party?

[Assistant]
Okay, here we go.

ICANN is the organization that controls domain names worldwide.  Companies get approved as domain registrars.  GoDaddy, NameCheap, and hundreds of other companies can register a domain for you.  They have to make sure it's unique, and they have to point their domain name servers (DNS's) to where you domain is hosted.

Once you own a domain name, you then need to host it somewhere.  That does NOT need to be the same place you registered it.  When you buy domain hosting, the host will tell you what to set your DNS settings to.  You go to your registrar and set them there.

Then, when someone types in your URL, your computer does a couple of things (for this example, let's say you registered domain.com at GoDaddy, you host your site on BlueHost, and you use Comcast):

* You type in domain.com in the URL bar on your browser
* Comcast says "who owns the registration for domain.com?  Oh, GoDaddy?  Ok, let's ping them and find out where it is."
* GoDaddy says "domain.com is hosted by BlueHost, at IP address 1.2.3.127"
* Your browser then requests 1.2.3.127, which is where your site is actually hosted on Bluehost, and displays the home page (index.html or index.php).

DNS servers update across the internet on a time schedule ranging from 5 minutes to 48 hours.  That's why, sometimes when a site is moving to a new host, it takes a while before it becomes available to you again.


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

[User]
How come supernovae produce heavy elements, but the big bang didn't?

It makes some intuitive sense to me that lighter elements (helium through iron, I believe) are synthesized in stars, but the heavier elements require a more energetic environment, namely a supernova.  Why is it that the most energetic event ever only produced hydrogen and deuterium?

[Assistant] Because it wasn't an explosion. It wasn't a force pressing atoms already in existence into each other causing them to fuse to higher mass nuclei. The early big bang is too hot to even form protons and neutrons, let alone nuclei to speak of. Then, as it cools, it can form the early protons and neutrons, but they are too "hot" to bind, then it cools a bit more and if they bind at all in this phase, they bind mostly into helium and a little lithium, and maybe a scant amount of beryllium if memory serves. But then it cools too much for them to keep binding into larger structures. That ends up requiring gravity and time, to pull them together into stars and for stars to put on a gravitational force to push them together again.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the visual effects industry doing so poorly?

I'm an animation student who wants to go into the film industry. I know that the visual effects industry has been doing pretty bad, and within the last few weeks it has been getting attention due to:

1. Rhythm and Hues, one of the largest and best VFX studios in the US filing for bankruptcy.

2. Protest at the Oscars, and Rhythm and Hues being cut off the stage in the middle of their speech (their chance to get their voice heard) after they won Best Visual Effects for Life of Pi.

Rhythm and Hues has seen the worst of it. But seemingly all VFX studios, whether they're in LA, Canada, or the UK have been doing pretty bad. So what's going on with the VFX industry? I've heard a lot of words going around. Outsourcing, globalization, tax incentives (how do those work?), unions. What the heck do these words mean and what is happening to the VFX industry? Why is it that films are more and more utilizing VFX, yet the industry is getting worse and worse?

[Assistant]
As far as your point #2 goes, ignore the conspiracy-theory crowd. That guy was cut off because he went *way* over the allotted time. If anybody thinks he was cut off because he was about to spill a big secret, they're kidding themselves.

But back to your larger point, the VFX industry is collapsing because of a simple labor surplus. For fifteen years now we've been breeding compositors and roto artists and riggers and lighters by the tens of thousands, bringing up these kids who think they're gonna get a sweet job playing with a computer all day making dinosaurs or fighting robots or whatever. Despite the fact that demand for that kind of work is at an all-time high with no sign of plateauing, the *astonishing* oversaturation of the supply side has driven the price down below the point of sustainability for the big, expensive houses like DD and Rhythm.

Basically, you're seeing the collapse of a speculative bubble. It's just one in which the speculation was all on the supply side: "I love computers and sitting in the dark for sixteen hours a day. I'll learn Maya and be an animator because there's *always* gonna be work for me there!" Now that the demand is overserved, the price has dropped out, and the bubble's collapsed.

The fix is for six out of seven VFX artists to give it up and go be baristas for a few years. Which is happening, since it's no longer possible to make a good living in VFX in the expensive global northwest. Once the supply-side oversaturation resolves, the market price will stabilize and it'll be possible to stay in business as a VFX facility again.

(Meanwhile, VFX facilities need to diversify *yesterday.* If you're running a VFX house and you're getting the lion's share of your revenue from three shows a year, you are about to be homeless, and you need to panic.)


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

[User]
What do the dot product/the tensor product of two vectors represent geometrically?

So the cross product isn't too hard to understand conceptually, since there's an actual geometric representation for what it is (if a x b = c, then c is perpendicular to a and b and has a magnitude equal to the area of the parallelogram made by a and b (E: that goes in the direction according to the right-hand rule)). But what about the dot/tensor product? I know how to do them, but what exactly do they represent geometrically?

[Assistant]
The dot product of **u** and **v** is |**u**||**v**|cos(), where  is the angle between **u** and **v**.

The tensor product of **u** and **v** is a bit more complicated. This is also called the outer product of **u** and **v**. If we represent **u** as a column vector, then the outer product **u**  **v** is the matrix **u****v**^(T). Note that (**u**  **v**)**x** = (**v  x**)**u**, which is just a multiple of the fixed vector **u**. Hence **u**  **v** is a rank-1 linear mapping from **R**^(n) to **R**^(n), which means the image is one-dimensional. Its image is just the span of the vector **u**, i.e., the line through the origin containing the vector **u**. So **u**  **v** is a projection (although it is not necessarily an orthogonal projection). The transformation **u**  **v** generally projects a vector **x** onto the line spanned by **u** and then multiplies it by some scalar (that depends on **x**).

---

Also, for the cross product, your description is not enough to uniquely define the cross product since there are two possible vectors with the two properties you have described. You must also declare that the direction of **a** x **b** is determined by the right-hand rule. This means that if **a** and **b** are linearly independent, then the ordered basis (**a**, **b**, **a** x **b**) is right-handed, i.e., the determinant of the matrix whose columns are **a**, **b**, and **a** x **b** is positive.


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

[User] ELI5 Why do we get blisters?

[Assistant]
You know when you want to work on something outdoors, like a car or a porch, and you cover it with a tarpaulin to protect it from the weather?

Blisters are nature's tarpaulins. They protect the area beneath while it is being repaired.


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

[User] Could we eradicate the common cold if everyone who currently has the cold quarantined themselves and didn't give it to anyone?

[Assistant]
This has been adressed by Randall Munroe in his What If book. His answer is in theory yes, although it would be extremely difficult to pull off.

Also we might eventually acquire something similar again from animals.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there no nuclear-powered civilian ships that can run indefinitely like the military ships?

[Assistant]
Because nuclear power is uneconomical for civilian shipping.

Running a reactor is incredibly expensive and the regulations are *very* restrictive. It's simply much cheaper to just run diesel or bunker fuel.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why cant you spend dirty money like regular, untraceable cash? Why does it have to be put into a bank?

In other words, why does the money have to be laundered? Couldnt you just pay for everything using physical cash?

[Assistant] You can, as long as it's "everyday people" sums. You don't have to launder $2K. But if it's millions, people will get suspicious about how you can afford the stuff you buy, no matter how you buy it. And then you better have a plausible explanation, which is exactly what laundering aims to create.


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

[User] [Fantasy] Is there a reason so many fantasy stories don't include gunpowder?

[Assistant]
It really depends on the universe.

In the Forgotten Realms universe, gunpowder is inert because the god of gnomes got tired of gnomes inventing it and blowing themselves up. Gnomes still blow themselves up, but now they have to work harder at it.

Other universes gunpowder is a highly kept secret.

Still others never bothered to weaponize it because magic is so useful. For example, in How the Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom gunpowder and cannons exist but how much magic you can pack into something depends entirely on its mass. So an arrow or spear will always be able to deal magnitudes more damage than a bullet just because of how much you can enchant them.


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

[User]
CMV: Companies should be fines the amount they make from breaking the law, instead of a standard amount.

When a company does something like dump chemicals in the ground because its cheaper than disposing of them properly, theyll make tons of money from it. I dont blame companies for this- their goal is to make as much money as they can while spending as little as they can. If they get caught, the punishment is usually a fine, as opposed to some form of incarceration. This fine can be much less than the amount the company made breaking the law. Often, the explanation I see for why a company will do this not just once, but again and again is because they make more than the fee costs. Why shouldnt we charge them the amount they made?

Edit: A word.

[Assistant]
This system would still incentivize breaking the law. If they get away with it, they make a profit. If they're caught, they pay back the profit but still break even. So there's no cost to rolling the dice.

Really the only way to effectively disincentivize the illegal conduct is to fine them much more than they profited from it. You have to make the expected return on breaking the law negative.


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

[User] [DC] Would Batman kill to protect his secret identity? What does he usually do when someone he doesn't trust to keep it, learns about it?

[Assistant]
When the Riddler found out, Batman was simply able to talk him out of telling anyone by pointing out that the information is only valuble because it's scarce; If Riddler were to blow the lid off it, he'd no longer have the satisfaction of being the only person who figured it out.

It's implied that quite a few of Batman's rogues have cracked it and simply didn't tell anyone because the information wasn't relevant to their goals or it would upset whatever "game" they were playing with Batman. Batman eventually went for the kill on Joker when he started leveraging the information during the Endgame arc, but he'd known for a while beforehand, and it was concurrent with Joker releasing a zombie virus, attempting to nuke the city, and becoming immortal via a flawed lazarus pit, so that's not the specific reason why Batman escalated.


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

[User] How powerful is EU Darth Vader compared to Darth Vader from the movies?

[Assistant] Well, pretty powerful, when you consider that he is widely regarded as the guy pulling all the strings (not that people will talk about this openly, you understand) that continue to stymie the membership efforts of Turkey.


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

[User]
[Dune] Is it possible to bend time if you take enough spice?

The Guild Navigators took spice in order to bend space and create efficient interstellar travel. If they took enough spice, could they bend space and time and go time travelling?

[Assistant]
That's not how spice works. The Guild Navigators could not bend space, that's not how they traveled. The Navigators took spice in order to expand their mental capacities to be able to make complex calculations and gain limited prescience which allowed for safe route calculations in interstellar travel.

Basically spice was a substitute for navigational computers since AI more advanced than a simple calculator was banned.


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

[User]
[Pokmon] What prevents me from using my pokballs to store people or objects?

It stands to reason that if the balls can safely store and retrieve all these weird-ass creatures made of rock, sludge and god knows what else then it should also work for people and objects. You also see Ash catch all these big-ass pokmon and as soon as they are inside the pokball their weight is negated. He can carry a Snorlax and a Charizard on his belt without his pants falling down.

So why are they underutilizing this awesome technology?

* Your friend broke his leg while you two were hiking? Don't bother waiting for a rescue chopper. Just pokeball his ass and walk to the nearest hospital.

* Can't find parking? Put your car in a pokball.

*  Terrorists have taken people hostage? Put a bunch of SWAT guys in pokballs and chuck them on the roof so that they can quietly enter the building without alerting them.

I'm just scratching the surface here. I mean just think of what this would mean for the construction and shipping industries.

[Assistant]
First of all, they are used for item storage. Why do you think items are always shown in them? And why can you carry all of them? Nesting.

There are a shitload of safeguards. Pokeballs (distinguished from Itemballs) only can work on Pokmon because it captures genetic specifics and elemental energy. We don't have that energy. Also, while there are some good uses for humanballs, that's more dangerous than any weapon.


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

[User] [League of Legends] Why was the league created in the first place? By who and when?

[Assistant]
This is a little tricky to answer in-universe because a lot of the lore has recently been removed or rewritten, but before that happened:

The continent of Valoran suffered from constant war, including magical warfare that was literally destroying the land. To keep everything from being destroyed, powerful magicians called Summoners banded together and established the League of Legends as a more peaceful means to resolve political disputes. Instead of fighting with armies, Summoners would summon a team of champions to fight instead. These battles quickly replaced traditional war and also became the most popular pasttime in Valoran.

Most champions joined the League voluntarily, either to represent their city-state, or for fame, glory etc. But a few who are considered too dangerous (such as Fiddlesticks) are imprisoned in the Institute of War (league headquarters) by the Summoners and are only allowed out to fight.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Hagrid's Motorcycle

If Hagrid's motorcycle can use magic to fly, why does it need a working motor?

[Assistant]
Magic is finicky and weird in some cases. A lot of enchanted muggle objects operate on the property that their input is mundane, but the output is magical. The Deluminator is clicked like a lighter, but it puts out lights. The street entrance to the Ministry is a telephone booth, with a code that is dialed in. Maybe the flying motorbike is operated like a regular bike, but the enchanted engine makes this one fly?

Alternatively, since it's actually Sirius Black's bike that Hagrid was borrowing, Sirius painstakingly preserved the original engine sound to piss off his mother.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why is force-choke considered a darkside only power? Isn't it just the usual force telekinesis, just applied to someone's windpipe?

Is it just considered dishonourable for Jedi to use it? It's a lot less dishonourable than slicing someone's arm off with a light sabre.

[Assistant]
It doesn't kill right away and it's intended for suffering and that will lead to the dark side.

When dueling to the death with light sabers, death usually comes quick and both parties know what to expect.  After all that is honorable combat.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are medicines made?

I'm assuming, for medicines which originated from plants, it's not a case of 'squeeze the juice out of a load of foxgloves and get digitalis' any more. I'm vaguely aware of 'synthesising' drugs. How does this work? What about drugs that don't originate from plants?

EDIT: explained! Thanks all :)

[Assistant] Synthetic organic chemistry. The more complex the molecule, the longer the synthesis. It's hard as fuck. Not only is it hard to actually make (and with the correct stereochemistry), then you have to make it economically viable on a production scale. Pharmaceuticals are expensive for a reason.


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

[User] [General Sci-Fi] Its well established lore that had Indiana Jones done nothing at all; the Ark would never have been found. Are there other examples like this; where the protagonist is only the hero, because of their meddling?

[Assistant]
Tommy Jarvis in *Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives* ends up having a mental breakdown as he and a buddy are digging up the long-and-currently-permenantly-corpse of Jason Voorhees to cremate it, stabbing it with a metal fence post. Cue two bolts of lightning striking said post, bringing Jason back to life. But this time, as an immortal revenant, therefore ensuring he can never be truly stopped

until his newly cybernetic body burned up in 2455 Earths atmosphere, but the point is that the kid who had actually killed Jason for good caused him to *come back stronger*.


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

[User]
Why is the English alphabet organized the way it is?

Or any language for that matter. I realize there is coorelation to the Phoenician alphabet, but is there any other reason behind why we go "a,b,c,d,...."?

[Assistant]
As you alluded to, we (English/Germanic/Romance) get it from the Romans. They got if from the Greeks and Etruscans. The Greeks got it from the Phoenicians. Probably etc.

There may have been a logical order to it originally. It might have just sounded nice and therefore memorable in the order it was written. There's a whole thing about number associations to alphabets but that likely came after the order was roughly established. People have hypotheses, no clear answers. It's not clear that we'll ever know one way or the other.


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

[User]
CMV: US census terminology should be changed.

Americans of European descent get called white. They dont get called European Bc they dont want to be associated with Europe.

But yet, Americans of Asian descent get called Asian even if they dont know anything about Asia and have been Americanized.

Same thing with Americans of African descent and Hispanic descent. Americans of African descent sometimes get called African American instead of black American even if they know nothing of Africa. Americans of hispanic descent get called hispanic even if they know nothing about hispanic culture and have been Americanized.

Everyone is automatically associated with a different location but Americans of European descent because they get called white and not European.

The USA government should either 1)Replace the word white with European 2)Call hispanics mestizos or native and call Asians an alternative word that has nothing to do with Asia. For black Americans, they do get called black, but whenever people are having a formal conversation or its educational like in a textbook, they say African American. They should always get called black American

I know that Hispanic is not a race and I dont consider it a race. Im a mestizo Hispanic (I was born in Mexico.) And there can white hispanics, black Hispanics, Asian Hispanics, etc. But when people think of a Hispanic, they either think of a mestizo or Native. People made it into a race and thats why I said that Hispanics should get called mestizo or native depending on their race.

One more thing, native (short for Native American,) is a race and people should be able to call them that even if theres no cultural connections.

Also, north Africans and Middle Easterners should get a separate category Bc theyre legally white but people dont see them as such. An example are Arabs.

[Assistant]
> Everyone is automatically associated with a different location but Americans of European descent because they get called white and not European.
>
> The USA government should either 1)Replace the word white with European 2)Call hispanics mestizos or native and call Asians an alternative word that has nothing to do with Asia. For black Americans, they do get called black, but whenever people are having a formal conversation or its educational like in a textbook, they say African American. They should always get called black American

Shouldn't a census use whatever language is typically used (in similar, polite discourse), rather than try to make something up just for use in the census? A census is all about asking questions as unambiguously as possible, so that it is easily understood by everyone, using terminology that people are already familiar with.


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

[User] ELI5: How does building muscle work? Why does using your muscles result in larger more developed ones?

[Assistant]
**What are they?**
Muscles are made of cells, like the rest of your body, but these cells are special. Skeletal muscle cells in particular are kind of long and stringy, and these strings can grow in pretty much any direction, and in multiple directions. Picture an octopus or something. These are what make a muscle do work - electrical signals from the nervous system can activate a chemical reaction, causing the muscle fibers to contract, with force, placing active muscle fibers and everything they pull against under stress. This causes damage to the cell membranes - if the damage is minor, it can simply heal itself, but...

Cells patch larger tears in their membranes by growing new fibers out of the site. The end of a newly grown fiber is "sticky," causing the fiber to attach to any other muscle cells it may grow in to. If the fiber remains attached for long enough, it will permanently integrate itself into the cell it's attached to. As a result, multiple cell nuclei end up being enclosed by the same membrane - so it's hard to say where one cell ends and another begins.

All this growth requires protein and other nutrition.

**Maybe start here**

When you work out by lifting heavy weights, you put a lot of stress on your muscles, and actually end up doing quite a bit of damage to them. They take a few days to patch the widespread tearing with newly grown muscle fibers. These fibers grow in all different directions. Skeletal muscles can only do work in one direction, though - so fibers growing "against the grain" contribute to muscle mass but add nothing to muscle strength.

Wait, there's more!

Keep in mind that the "sticky end" of a new fiber becomes more strongly anchored over time - until then, it's far easier to "unstick" it than it is to damage it. This is what causes the fibers to eventually grow in the same direction - pulling (and widening) at an angle to other actively contracting fibers puts far more stress on a single strand compared to contracting in parallel.

However, this "migration" process takes much longer than simply growing more muscle fibers. Some fibers attach more strongly or migrate more quickly than others.

Poorly positioned fibers, if allowed to anchor permanently, greatly (and permanently) increase the occurrence of additional "cross grain" fibers forming after the next workout, especially on the outer surface of the bundle. Without invoking a mathematical explanation, let's just say it's messy.

The two cycles are different lengths. Repair and growth are complete after a couple of days. Migration is more of an optimization process, and may take weeks or even months to approach 100%. This is a big part of why lifting heavy weights as often as possible usually results in big muscles with poor performance and no definition, and why mass gain drops off over time, and why a point of no return exists where definition is concerned.


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

[User]
Does infrared light penetrate copper?

If I place a copper plate above my head in broad daylight, the place will block visible light and I will be in its shade; but what about infrared or ultraviolet light, do they penetrate the plate?

[Assistant] No. Light is basically a changing electromagnetic field. Good conductors, such as copper, will react to that by moving electrons around, which will end up reflecting the light. Thus, they reflect light of all wavelengths. At least until you get to the really high energy stuff that's better thought of as particles instead of waves.


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

[User]
[Fallout 4] How come pre war world had no colored TVs?

I mean, colored TVs have been around since the 60s or so, and I'm pretty sure a society that has nuclear powered everything would eventually invent a colored TV to the masses. And I can't think of a read on for why the populace wouldn't want something like that.

[Assistant]
In 1947, the Transistor was invented.

The transistor is to modern electronics what the wheel is to transportation. Pretty much every device you use today has a transistor in it and it is credited with having caused a technological revolution on par with fire in terms of importance in the history of the human species.

In Fallout, the Transistor wasn't invented in 1947 which had all sorts of knock on effects in terms of technological development, including the lack of colour TV's.

By the time the Transistor was developed in 2067, the world was already circling the toilet and nobody got around developing a cheap colour TV for the masses.

EDIT: Colour film probably existed though, and so it's entirely possible that the silver screens of America actively suppressed technological progress in home entertainment, akin to how the petroleum industry suppressed the development of the electric car in our world.


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

[User]
eli5 How do small birds not blow away when its windy?

Its really windy here today and Im watching this bird feeder swing back and forth.  How do the really tiny birds not blow away in the wind?  Do they hide in a nest and grip onto it to stay still?

[Assistant]
Birds are blown around when the wind blows.  Watch one when it flies past the edge of a building, and you'll see the wind blow it.

Birds can fly, and wind is always a potential thing, so they just learned to deal with it.  If the wind blows one left, they just steer back to the right to compensate.

To remain still, birds need protection from their nest, or the tree the nest is in, or the building next to the tree where the nest is located.  Birds pick places to hang out during windy periods with these features in mind.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why does shooting a door in some cases lock it and in others open it? What do they do that decides the outcome?

[Assistant]
Actually, for door locks, there's typically two different designs for electronic locks depending on the need - fail-open and fail-secure.

Fail-open systems unlock doors when power is cut; fail-secure systems *lock* those doors instead.


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

[User]
ELI5: What exactly is the issue with bees right now, why are people concerned about them?

The bug/insect, just for clarification.

[Assistant] Bees are *very* important in the process of pollinating plants and crops. They do it on a constant basis, as a process of living. It's the easiest form of "free labor" you can have. There's been a big issue in recent years where bees have been dropping rapidly in number, which can cause a huge dent in the farming industry and in nature itself.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why did they clone a Mandalorian instead of someone strong in the force?

[Assistant]
Because they were created soldiers, not jedi.  They wanted loyal, physically strong troopers who could easy be trained in massive numbers and very quickly follow orders and die because they were told to. They were also part of a plan to discredit Jedi to the populace and make them look like power hungry warmongering rogues, so making a bunch of jedi soldier woudl have completely renderes that plan moot.

Jango was a near perfect physical and mental specimum.  He was exactly what they wanted.


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

[User]
ELI5: How and why people develop irrational fears and phobias?

There are many people among us with Irrational fears, like fear of spiders "Arachnophobia" (Not like normal fear which is common but really exaggerates one, people that can literally fade if they see one)
or fear from the ocean, or Ancraophobia or Anemophobia Both terms are used to define the fear of wind, I'm sure there is many more examples.

So how this is happen and why??

[Assistant]
Phobias are the typical example of the manner in which the brain exhibits a One Time Learning or a Single Type Generalisation. Usually, it takes a minimum of 3 experiences to generalise for the brain to learn.
Fear is something which is essential for survival. Fear protects us. However, with fear, the brain responds contextually. For example, if you burn your hand by touching a hot stove, the next time you're going to be careful about it. This is because your brain learns that a hot stove is going to burn you. At the same time your brain also knows that it is safe to go near a stove as long as you don't touch it. Further, your brain may also learn that it is also safe to test touching the stove really quickly, to check whether it is hot or not - and if it is not hot, then it's perfectly safe to touch the stove.
Now, if your brain has an overwhelmingly strong response to the first time you touch a hot stove - either because you burnt yourself so extremely badly that you had to undergo tremendous trauma and stress or because you were punished by someone so severely that you underwent extreme trauma or stress, the chances are that in future, every time you see a stove your brain begins to undergo the same trauma and stress, resulting in a phobia. Your brain is no longer in a position to contextualize the learning.
In extreme phobic cases, just looking at a photo of the stove may result in the phobic response.


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

[User]
ELI5 How does a fridge make things cold?

I have had this question in my head for the longest time, and I just cant wrap my mind around it. How does a fridge make what is inside it cold? I am familiar already with the concept of adding heat by adding energy, but the other way around just doesnt seem to work... Do refrigerators just subtract (?) energy from within themselves? Do they just rely on wind and cold air?

[Assistant] It was already known that compressing a gas makes it hot. Someone got the neat idea that, well, what if we let it cool down, then uncompress it again? It'll be really cold! That's basically how refrigerator and air conditioning compressors work.


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

[User]
If molecules of water were the size of the cherry, droplet would be size of the Earth. Is this true?

I read this somewhere, but it seems too mindblowing to be true. I mean, I know molecules are really smal, but come on...

[Assistant]
OK let's see. First let's lay out the numbers.

Assuming we're talking about pure water:

1 drop of water = 0.05 mL

1 mole = 6.022  10^23 molecules

1 mole of water = 18 grams = 18 mL

Now let's find out how many moles of water are in a drop.

0.05 mL  18 mL = 0.0028 moles

And how many molecules in 0.0028 moles.

0.0028  (6.022  10^23) = 1.69  10^21

If a cherry is 2 cm in diameter and a perfect sphere the area it occupies is.

(4/3)  pi  r^3 = 4.2  10^-6 m^3

Multiply by the number of molecules.

(4.2  10^-6 m^3)  (1.69  10^21) = 7.1  10^15 m^3

The volume of the earth is 1.1  10^21 m^3

As you can see between the two figures, the difference in volume would be 6.5  10^-6 that of earth's.

Or if a cherry were a water molecule, the earth would be about 155,000 water drops.


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

[User]
How do Americans see Richard Nixon?

We've had an impeached president here in Brazil for corruption but he's now a senator, even though most of the public opinion goes against him... Unfortunately, a big part of Brazilian politicians is extremely corrupt.

Anyway, it's pretty clear to me that Americans have huge respect for its former presidents and I really admire that, but what about Richard Nixon? Is he hated? Or is he respected despite of what happened to him? Thanks!

[Assistant]
That really depends on the political leanings of the American in question, it's a big and polarized nation.

That said, most people who remember him would tell you he did some pretty alright stuff.  He was right-wing at the time, but would be closer to centrist these days.  What he did that got him impeached (Watergate and the cover-up that proceeded) is universally pretty hated on the hand.

So we look back on him as a snake-like asshole who was pretty OK at his job.  There's no chance in hell he would have ever held elected office ever again, he doesn't even really get to do speaking engagements.


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

[User]
[Multiple Universes] How do giant citys in futuristic settings deal with earthquakes?

For example, the world of blade-runner or any cyberpunk-esque city. Many discuss how when they couldn't expand out anymore, they began to build up. With the new being built on top of the old. Wouldn't this mean that the neglected undercity would be prone to structural failure? What if Coruscant had an earth quake?

To parahphrase on the sheer verticality of these cities, a companion in KOTOR 2 says: "Be careful where you walk in Nar-Shadaa, or you'll fall for hours."

[Assistant]
Modern earthquake proof buildings are usually designed to sway during an earthquake, which disperses the energy. Some can move several meters, and the amount of movement is usually based the power of the earthquake. A huge earthquake hit Tokyo a few years back, and exactly zero buildings fell down.

In sci-fi versions of Earth, this technology is integrated directly into the foundation of the mega-city itself.

For planets like Coruscant, the planet's heavy terraforming has completely eliminated earthquakes. (Which are caused by the molten/liquid core)


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

[User]
[Avatar: The Last Airbender] Why did the Yuyan Archers never make a return?

The most successful attempt to capture the avatar in history was at the hands of the Yuyan archers. Without the Blue Spirit to save him, I'm not sure how Aang would have survived that prison.

So given that the Fire Nation has this incredibly useful tool, why won't they use them to capture the Avatar?

[Assistant]
Note that when General Zhao first asks for the Yuyan Archers, he's refused- it's deemed a vanity project. They're at war, and they need the archers in the war, not tracking down a single 12 year old with no better information then "probably somewhere in the earth kingdom". It's only when Zhao pulls rank that he's able to force them to do so.

With his death, it seems likely the archers were sent back to the front lines where they belong.


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

[User]
CMV: College athletes should be paid for playing

I don't play college sports. But I am a huge fan of them. I did play high school sports though, so between the two I do have a general idea of what it's like. I'm in college now and I know people who are in collegiate sports. The amount of work that they have to put in is unreal. College athletes have no time for a job. Between class and their sport their whole day is taken up. The amount of stress that a normal college student experiences is bad, but it can be even worse for a collegiate athlete. This is why I think they should be paid. How're student athletes supposed to pay for food and other essentials? They can't earn it from working a job, because they don't have time. I understand that a lot of people will bring up the fact most of them get some sort of scholarship which makes their school free or at least somewhat free. Those scholarships were earned and it's not like that's unfair. Even with these scholarships, that doesn't provide them money in their pockets for food, groceries, or even gas. For students who're going through tons of stress, who put on even more stress from sports to not be able to afford meal isn't fair. The amount of time and work they put in should be rewarded. I don't believe that they should become rich by any means, but I do believe a set amount of pay for them that would allow for them to afford every day essentials would be great. I don't really see anything wrong with my opinion as the good out ways the bad. But I would be very interested in hearing others thoughts and opinions so I can broaden my view on this topic. Where would the money come from? That would be one of this biggest discussions that would come from this topic. I strongly believe in this topic as I think it's the only right thing to do. I don't for a second believe that college athletes should be walking around campus for four years with no money in their pockets. They are on TV every week playing their hearts out. They are risking their bodies for their sports. Injuries can happen in a matter of seconds. It's not right that they should have to worry about how they're going to pay for dinner. These athletes are talked about on social media every day. They're even on Sportscaster. Student athletes have their names in the news every week as they become well known. Fans even buy their jerseys. People walk around saying that they're their favorite player. Now why is it that they don't get reciprocated for any of this? College athletes do the same as pro players, just without the money, and a school load added on. They deserve money for what they do. I can barely pay for the things I need and I work six days a week on top of my schooling. Now imagine my position, but for a student athlete who doesn't have a job. There's no money involved whatsoever. On top of this, a lot of them came from bad homes, so they don't even have their families to help. It's not right for a collegiate athlete to risk their body, have their name in the media, all without pay. College athletes should be paid for playing.

[Assistant]
I think the mistake here is that certain individual athletes could make an incredible amount of money for the school, but the vast majority of college sports athletes, especially with title 9, actually cost schools money by a significant amount.

For official sports sponsored by the NCAA, NAIA and NJCAA the maximum limit is 177,559 full scholarships, although not all of those are awarded.

Depending on the school, private vrs public, academic prestige, housing costs ect, an individual scholarship can be worth over 100k per year.

Sure Sam Darnold made USC way more money than he recieved during his 3 years there, but some backup guard on scholarship probably didnt, and the title 9 women's sports surely didnt(not trying to stir the pot here, but women's team sports with the possible exception of soccer just do not generate revenue).

Its a pooled way of looking at something. Not dissimilar to an insurance pool.


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

[User]
ELI5: If someone leaked the entirety of windows source code, would people be able to incorporate it into other operating systems in a way that allows windows applications and libraries to be used?

If so, how? If not, why?

[Assistant]
Legally, no.  They could not use the leaked/stolen code in their own OS, because it is leaked/stolen.  Microsoft still owns the rights to it.  The same way they can't take a windows machine and reverse engineer the code from it (legally)

Illegally, they could try, but Microsoft would have them so tied up in lawsuits it wouldn't be worth the effort

However, there are already programs out there to allow Windows programs to run on other OSes, such as WINE.


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

[User]
Is the amount of water on earth always constant, and has it always been that way?

I understand we might find new sources or water reserves, but essentially it would not be "new" water right, just water we hadn't discovered?   Is all the water on earth a remnant from the earth's formation?

[Assistant]
The amount is not constant, though it is practically constant.

We can get water a couple ways:

When it falls to Earth from space, there is a lot of water vapor and ice floating around up there.

And, to a much lesser degree, when hydrogen reacts with oxygen this is new water. Every time you burn a hydrogen flame you are creating new water that didn't exist. Though this accounts for much less water than the former process does.

We do lose a bit of water, as particularly energetic water reaches the upper atmosphere and blows away on the solar winds and the like. Though this is currently pretty negligible.

Overall our total water supply on Earth is pretty stable.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Have the Borg ever assimilated anything that disagreed with them besides Hugh?

For example what would happen if the Borg assimilated a strong spiritual individual who embodied a Fool, not in the sense of actually being an idiot but rather just lacking ambition or malice in favor of essentially farting around like Buddha, someone who embraces irrationality and really just laughs about most situations.

Would the Borg be able to filter them out once they were consumed? Or is the collective going to find itself essentially bird-watching intermittently interrupting its logical self?

[Assistant]
>Would the Borg be able to filter them out once they were consumed?

Yes.

Hugh was different in that he was already a part of the collective.  The Borg eliminate such individuality during assimilation, but a member of the collective *learning* individuality is a separate thing.  When Hugh reconnected to the collective hive mind the concept of individuality spread throughout the whole collective instantly.  It was a more potent "virus" than any data could have ever conceived to infect them with.  Hugh's experience with the enterprise crew nearly destroyed the Borg.


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

[User] [chemistry]When a hot beverage releases steam does the concentration of let's say coffee increase?

[Assistant] It depends on the temperature and the compounds of the beverage. If the temperature is just enough to make the liquid (e.g. water) evaporate, yes, it is going to increase the concentration of the other compounds because the volume of the solvent (water) is decreasing and the amount of the compound (e.g. salt) stays the same. On the other hand, if the temperature is high enough to evaporate the solvent and the solute, the concentration will change in a different way.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do some female creatures eat their mate after mating?

That doesn't make any evolutionary sense. It seems like natural selection would have wiped them out.

[Assistant]
>That doesn't make any evolutionary sense.

Oh, but it does. Evolution is one cold bitch.

After mating, the females have gotten the genetic material they need from the male, and thus have no more use for them, except as a source of food, which helps ensure she has the nutrients necessary to develop successful eggs.

And from an evolutionary perspective, the male has accomplished what he needs to at that point, as well, and is thus free to die, his genetic future assured.


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

[User]
If one of the goals of exercise is to get the heart rate elevated, do things like anxiety or low BP help work the heart out?

I've been told to set a HR when one exercises and try to keep it above that point to maximize the workout.
I wonder: is there a difference, in terms of improving cardiac function, between running vs. anxiety, sitting in a hot shower, HR medications, etc?

[Assistant]
Exercise produces an accelerated heart rate since the body is working harder to respond to physical stressors. While this does stress the heart, it can help reduce resting blood pressure and heart rate since it trains the heart to be more efficient.

Anxiety, chronic tachycardia, and hypotension-induced tachycardia are the heart working hard *at rest*. This is the opposite of the effect that exercise has on the heart.


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

[User] ELI5: What stage of sleep are you in under anesthesia, and why does it feel like no time has passed?

[Assistant]
Technically, you aren't sleeping. General anesthesia stops certain brain functions and places your brain into a state of true unconscious. This is why anesthesiologists are so important, because it's a very fine line between the amount needed to kncock someone out and the amount needed shut down too much brain function and kill them.

Interesting fact, unlike local anesthetics which paralyze the nerves to reduce or eliminate pain, general anesthesia doesn't stop your nerves from sensing or sending signal. Studies have been done that show that people's nerves fire like crazy during surgeries, but the general anesthesia prevents the brain from registering it.


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

[User]
Is it possible to produce energy from the differential between ambient temperature and absolute zero?

I understand that constructions such as thermocouples can produce electricity as a result of a temperature gradient.  What I am curious about is whether it is theoretically possible to, for example, have some sort of crystalline structure that naturally converts a large amount of its thermal energy to electrical energy.  Or is this prohibited by physical theory?

[Assistant] So essentially this theoretical substance would spontaneously get colder on its own, its heat flowing out of it into the ambient?  Nope.  That's not how the universe works.  You have to spend energy to make that happen, it doesn't do it on its own.  Otherwise refrigerators wouldn't need to be plugged in.


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

[User]
ELI5: What makes thunder's sound?

How is it produced, and in general, what is it?

[Assistant] The thunder is a by-product of the lightning. When the lightning bolt travels through air, it very rapidly heats it. The air expands very rapidly as a result, causing a pressure wave to be created and travel through the air. Pressure waves in air = sound.


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

[User]
CMV: I know I am wrong, but I feel robbed when I have to pay taxes. I don't feel evasion as a crime and I hate the Government. Please, change my view.

I've been living in Romania and there have been almost 70 years since our Governments have been stealing our money and spent it on things which didn't concern our welfare but only the interests of an elite. That's why I formed this condition to consider paying taxes a stupid thing.

Recently though, Romania has started to spend the budget more wisely (thanks to our Justice which has been sending to jail lots of corrupt politicians), by my reflex seems to have survived: I simply cannot cope with the idea of paying the Government. I feel it's a waste of money (even though I know it isn't necessarily)

[Assistant] I agree with you that the Romanian govt. should spend its money more wisely. The strongest justification for taxation is that it is *supposed to* provide for things that the free market cannot (basic welfare, roads, street signs etc.) and that one would be paying to live on the land owned by the state (as one would a landlord), for the state has the power to prosecute you for otherwise disobeying and can basically kick you out if it so desires.


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

[User]
[X-Men Movie Universe] How radically did Wolverine change the timeline?

**SPOILERS:** Minor spoilers for Deadpool, and some pretty major spoilers for "X-Men: Days of Future Past".

-----------

At the end of "X-Men: Days of Future Past", Wolverine essentially has amnesia from 1973, when he temporarily drowned to death, to "The Future" (which is really Logan's Present?) when he wakes up again.
Logan has no memory of this new timeline, despite technically having existed in it.

The important part here, is that everyone who had died in Logan's future (and some of his past) is now still alive.

Now, in Deadpool, we see Colossus again, except that he seems to be older, and now has a thick Eastern European accent.

My question is, is this a result of Logan changing the timeline? Did he change so much that he changed where Colossus grew up, and maybe even who raised him?

Or are these two movies existing in different realities? It doesn't seem that way, thanks to certain fourth-wall-breaking references Deadpool makes to the actors who portray Xavier. (Although, even he mentions in this moment how confusing the timeline is getting.)

[Assistant]
> Now, in Deadpool, we see Colossus again, except that he seems to be older, and now has a thick Eastern European accent.

Well, the age thing... it's been 10 years. People get older.

As to the accent: because of the timeline change, some students are pulled to the school at different points in time - certainly Logan was there sooner. And because of the rather spectacular events that were broadcast, popular opinions of mutants may have been different.

In the previous timeline, Colossus may have come to the US earlier in his childhood, so lost his Russian accent. In this timeline, because of less persecution, he may have come to the US at a later date, so he retains his accent.


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

[User] ELI5: How does floodwater stay so high for so long above sea level?

[Assistant] In a flood, the extra water has nowhere to go -- it can't go into the ground like on a day of average rain because the ground is already saturated (filled) with water, so it just stays on the surface.


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

[User] If you throw a waterproof speaker under water, and then dive under water yourself, can you hear the sound?

[Assistant]
Yes.  Basically sound has a huge problem crossing a barrier where there is a large "Impedance mismatch"  like between water and air.  When sound hits that "soft release" (because the air's impedance is much less than the water impedance) it gets reflected back into the water and doesn't radiate out efficiently.  You have a similar problem of sound starting in the air and moving to the water.

However, for sound created in water, you should be able to hear it in the water.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the world bank, how was it founded, and what authority does it wield internationally?

[Assistant]
The World Bank was founded after WWII, as part of a larger reshaping of the global economy under US leadership.

As its name suggests, it is a bank. Like all banks, it is in the business of lending money. But unlike a normal bank, which lends money to people and companies, the World Bank (and the International Monetary Fund\*) lends money to countries.

Sometimes these loans are for specific projects that a country needs to finance. Sometimes they're emergency bailouts to countries that are having financial issues. In recent years, the World Bank and IMF have concentrated on loans to developing countries to reduce poverty.

> **what authority does it wield internationally?**

The same as any other bank. It doesn't have a direct way to force countries to pay back loans, it relies on its members to exert pressure individually

\**The World Bank and IMF are sister institutions that do the same job. The difference is that the World Bank is traditionally led by an American and the IMF by a European.*


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

[User] ELI5: Why are triangles the most stable shape in construction/engineering?

[Assistant]
A quick way to visualize this for yourself is to get 4 popsicle sticks or some other small stick like that - toothpicks would also work (they aren't necessary if you can picture this mentally).

Take 3 of the sticks and try to touch the ends together to make a triangle. What you will find is that there is only one triangle that can be made and in order to change the shape of that triangle and the angle between any of the two sticks you would have to change the length of one of the sticks.

Now take 4 sticks and touch the ends together to make a quadrilateral. Did you make a square? Or perhaps a rhombus of some sort? What you'll notice is that using those exact same sticks you can make many different shapes by changing the angles without having to change the length of the sticks.

For this reason when if you have a square structure it is easier for it to change shape than when you have a triangle structure. In other words, it's easier for the square structure to longer be square than it is for the triangle to no longer be triangle.

There are other shapes such as circles which are very strong as well depending on the circumstances and arches which are often used in architecture to distribute weight more evenly, but for the simplicity of being able to use multiple straight lengths of material a triangle is the easiest to build of the structurally sound shapes.


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

[User] [MCU Civil War] Vision could have ended the fight pretty quickly. Why didn't he start fighting until near the end of the airport scene?

[Assistant]
Because they weren't really trying to beat them up.  They wanted to convince them to cooperate.

If Vision came in and upped the ante right from the get go then Tony would be bringing a gun to a knife fight.  They kind of overkill would instantly change the dynamic of the fight.  Which would make it much much harder to convince Cap and the others.  Despite the fight, brute force wasn't the first choice because Tony knows being beaten up doesn't stop Cap.

In the comic universe, there's a point of no return where one side kills a hero on Cap's side.  It was sort of an accident, but after that shit got real in a hurry.


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

[User]
I think all non-specialized academic tests should be "open book", CMV.

I believe the fundamental purpose of education should be to teach students how to think critically, to find, synthesize, and properly use data, and how to determine what constitutes a reliable source of information.

Therefore, I think the U.S. education system, from kindergarten through university, should adopt the practice of allowing students to use whatever material sources the instructor(s) used to create the exams, while the student is taking it.

I think reasonable exceptions could be made for exams that are highly specific to a field of knowledge (e.g. medical, legal, etc), but that for general purpose testing across standardized subjects (math, science, social studies, etc), they should all be open-book.

In my opinion, the current testing model only establishes how good a student is at rote memorization. CMV?

[Assistant]
I'll only respond to "the current testing model only establishes how good a student is at rote memorization" -- and assert that having an open book test can have exactly the same effect, which is just rote copying without understanding.

I fully agree that there are situations where an open book, or open notes, or "one equation page" is exactly the right approach. No need to memorize a bunch of equations to prove that you know how to use them -- often it's much more important to understand which equations apply in which scenarios, and prove that you can go through the exercise of making connections between them and appropriately applying them throughout a problem.

However, there are a lot times where an open-book test would have the opposite effect. You must understand that knowledge and wisdom is not the sum of knowledge at your fingertips (otherwise we could all be geniuses with a wikipedia query not far off), but rather the CONNECTIONS we make between concepts and facts. If a test on the Civil War asks for the causes of the civil war, and you open your book and just copy down the subheadings for the chapter "causes", you'll get the question right but by not *understanding* the causes you'll never make connections with the economy panics at the same time in another course, or draw parallels to more contemporary events, and so on. This becomes even more important as later education builds on existing beds of knowledge -- if you're taking physics, are you going to haul around your calculus book because you never really learned how to integrate? And then are you also going to carry around a trig book because you just copied things out of tables? For higher-level learning, you need a foundation, and you won't have it if you just copied things down.

tl;dr: There's really no point to education if you think it's just a collection of facts to be memorized, and there's no point to education if you think it's just a collection of facts to be referenced.


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

[User]
[Hellboy 2004] What were those giant tentacled aliens trapped in crystal?

How did they contact Rasputin? Why did they want to destroy Earth?

[Assistant]
It's one of the Ogdu Jahad. Basically lovecraftian "gods" that are destined to bring about the apocalypse.

I don't know the exact specifics but basically they were imprisoned ages ago and Rasputin was trying to free them and kick start the apocalypse.


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

[User] [The Simpsons] When Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. How did this happen?

[Assistant] Unlike a piano, skeletons aren't that durable. The first time he hit that rib, he used enough force to crack it a little, and that crack changed the tone for the second time he hit it. There's a reason why humans use pianos instead of the bones of our enemies to make music from, greater consistency.


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

[User]
Is chocolate actually poison to dogs? If so, why?

Growing up we're always taught the chocolate is just about the worst thing you can feed to a dog. However, my dog (a roughly 8 year old black lab mix) has gotten into her fair share of chocolate in her days. She has never once gotten sick from it.

Somebody please explain to me if this chocolate rule is just a myth or if there are exceptions. What reason do we have to believe that chocolate causes dogs harm in the first place?

[Assistant]
Chocolate contains high quantities of a molecule called theobromine, which is related to caffeine in both structure and function (though, ironically, it contains no bromine).  Unlike humans, dogs and cats lack the enzyme to quickly metabolize theobromine, so it builds up and can cause symptoms similar to caffeine overdose.

One little piece of chocolate probably won't kill a dog, but if they eat a lot of it, it could be fatal.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do some people snore and some people don't?

I know snoring is caused by relaxed muscles but why doesn't this happen to everyone? And why are some peoples' snoring worse than others?

EDIT: I post this late at night, I go to bed, and I wake up with more upvotes than I imagined. Thanks for all the answers!

[Assistant]
The basics of snoring is that the pipes (airways) are not fully open. does the same thing as when you let air out of a balloon and the opening makes a noise by hitting against itself. If you hold the mouth of the balloon fully open the air comes our very quickly and quietly.

Usually the muscles of the throat are strong enough even when asleep to hold the airways completely open, but there are various reasons that they might not be strong enough.

A common cause of snoring is being overweight. The extra fat around the throat presses on the air passages and pushes them partly closed so they vibrate when air passes through. This is the same mechanism as obstructive sleep apnea, which is when the airways are pushed completely closed and the person stops breathing temporarily.

Other causes may include nasal congestion/ other causes of excessive mucous production, enlarged tonsils (or adenoids in children), sleeping your back (tongue falls back in the throat, causing partial blockage), excessive relaxation caused by sleeping medications or alcohol, or anatomical variations which change the position of parts of the airways in relation to each other.

I hope this helps!

Source: medical student, with some help form wikipedia.


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

[User] [Harry Potter movies] Why were Bellatrix and Voldemort the only ones vaporized by a seemingly regular attack spell?

[Assistant]
Bellatrix was turned to stone (some think it was *duro*) and then detonates, probably with *reducto*

Voldemort was not kind by a regular spell, since his wand recognized the ENEMY, and Voldemorts wand wouldn't kill Harry. And he evaporated, since his body was magically-created and had nothing to hold it together.


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

[User] Because of dominant genes, eventually, will the entire world's population have dark eyes, hair, and skin?

[Assistant] No. Because when alleles mix they are not inextricably altered, a person with both a dominant and a recessive allele is able to pass on either allele to his progeny with an equal probability. Unless society selects for one of the alleles, meaning people will be more likely to mate with a person with a certain phenotype thus decreasing the total frequency of an allele, then the relative concentrations of dominant and recessive alleles will remain the same.


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

[User]
eli5 Why do many audiophiles store lossless music even though it's supposedly the same as 320kbps MP3 to the human ear?

EDIT: What I've gathered from the comments so far is that the higher frequencies getting cut off doesn't matter but the lower audible frequencies also get distorted on MP3. Supposedly, that's where the extra quality in lossless lies.

Also it matters when you EQ audio.

Is that all? YMMV, but I cannot hear the difference between any MP3 256kbps and up and lossless on my Etymotic ER2XR.

[Assistant]
* Technically it's not the same because using the MP3 format removes information from the original recording.
* Also many of them believe it's possible to hear the difference.
* But the main reason is because we used sell music in a lossless format (compact discs) all the time.
* Data-compressed audio only became a popular format when music started being distributed over the internet at a time when the kind of data throughput required for lossless audio wasn't available.
* So going *back* to a lossless format isn't really a big deal.


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

[User]
[Batman] What exactly is Joker Venom?

I wonder what toxin it actually is. Anyone got any guesses?

[Assistant] It's supposed to be a unique compound of different chemicals, with a composition pretty much unknown to everyone except the Joker himself, and which he is constantly tweaking to suit different applications and what ingredients he happens to have access to at the moment.


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

[User]
[TDKR] Everybody knows that Batman died protecting the people of Gotham. But what's the official story for Bruce Wayne's death?

The billionaire, not the Bat.

[Assistant] Since the death of Batman and the almost catastrophic destruction of Gotham, the city of Gotham is slowly recovering from the terror attack of the terrorist organization, "The League of Shadows". Many of Gotham's elite, including famous socialite and philantropist Bruce Wayne were killed as  Bane released thousands of criminals from the Blackgate maximum security prison. Stay tune for the exclusive interview with former Police Commissioner Gordon on Gotham and his relationship with the vigilante Batman.


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

[User] eli5 Why isn't water flammable? It's made of a flammable gas(hydrogen) and a fuel source for fire(oxygen), yet not only is it non flammable, it's the go to source for putting out fires.

[Assistant]
Because it's already been burned.

Essentially the flammable gas (which is the fuel source) met up with the oxidizer (the thing that makes fuel burn) and did its thing.  The reaction released energy in the form of heat, just like all burning does, and the result is water.


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

[User] [Spongebob] Why doesn't Plankton just pay someone to buy a Krabby Patty for him?

[Assistant] I guess because he doesn't really wants to *know* the formula, he wants to humiliate Mr. Krabs above all things. So stealing the formula right in front of his eyes and then making him suffer immensely by taking away all his customers and therefore money would be the ultimate revenge for Plankton.


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

[User]
[WALL-E] How come the WALL-E units aren't as advanced as the Axiom units, if they were made at the same time?

You'd think they'd especially try to make the WALL-Es more advanced, since they're kinda needed to clean up your planet.

[Assistant] Because they do different things.  The WALL units, models A through E, are designed to compact trash for an indefinite amount of time with minimal to no repair without caring for looks, while the Axiom units are designed to be seen and perform different actions.  Think of how mobile the Axiom units are compared to the WALL units, and what that means for their abilities.  How easy do you think an Axiom can repair its levitation ability compared to a WALL unit swapping out manufactured treads?


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

[User] [LotR] I have heard it said that Morgoth, Saurons master, had Middle Earth itself as his ring. What is meant by this?

[Assistant] It means he literally dispersed his own power throughout Middle Earth just like Sauron did with his ring. An example of this is the gold of Middle Earth. The reason dwarven kings seem to be driven mad with greed and evil creatures like dragons hoard it is because portions of Mogoths corrupting influence is held in gold.


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

[User] ELI5: How did people search for web pages before the first search engine was made?

[Assistant]
We didn't.

First, remember that the World Wide Web (and the commercial Internet) are fairly *recent* additions to the internet as a whole. And when the WWW got started, you'd just go to the main website for whatever school or other entity you were looking for. They usually had indexes of what was on them. For example, if students and faculty had personal webpages, there was usually a directory.

So there was that, plus word of mouth (or text of usenet post).

Eventually we got index sites. You'd go on there and you could go by category - kind of like a yellow pages. If you wanted to be on an index site, you had to actually go and submit your page/site. Then they added a search function to those.

Eventually there was enough interconnectivity to facilitate running a program that could go out there and find and index new websites, and the modern search engine was born.


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

[User] What is the difference between volts, watts, and amps?

[Assistant]
**Volt** is the difference of potential, you can think of like a difference of pressure that dictates where the wind (in the case of eletricity, the current) is going to flow.

**Amp** is a mesure of current, or how many eletric charged particles are flowing thru something at a given time.

**Watt** mesures power, it represents how much energy is being transferred to(or taken away from) something at a given time.


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

[User]
How can very small children remember language, people, etc. and yet not retain any memories?

Infants and young children surly remember how to speak, certain faces, and a number of other things. So why is it that upon aging they cannot recall memories? Thanks!

[Assistant]
Associative learning is intact even in baby insects.  Babies *are* forming and retaining memories, but they're doing it at the same time that they're forming a hippocampus, the structure that will be used for conscious learning and memory down the road.  It's present at birth, and used off and on throughout infancy, but takes a while to shape up and become the default assembly tool of sensory information.

tl;dr:  They retain memories, even at birth, but they aren't consciously learned, or even consciously accessible till the brain structures are in place.


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

[User]
[DC] How would Batman react and what would he do if he accidentally killed a innocent guy?

Let's say he fight Joker and throw a batarang at him. However, despite his skills in throwing, the clown dodge the projectile and it instead hit a innocent guy. The guy, called Bob, gets his throat sliced. Batman unintentionally hit a innocent in the heat of action despite his usual extreme carefulness. Bruce momentarily gets shocked at what he did but that was enough for the Joker to knock him out cold. He then wake up after hours has passed. He discover that he's bound to a chair and see the Joker in front of him. The clown begin to mock and make fun of him for having accidentally killed a innocent. Anyway, Bruce eventually gets himself free and beat the Joker up. After that, he then proceed to verify if Bob is still alive. Unfortunately, he learn that Bob bled to death and that he's really responsible for his death. To make things even more interesting, let's just say that Bob was actually a 8 years old boy.

[Assistant] He would brood. He would feel awful, beat himself up, and vaguely think about giving up the cowl. Then he would talk to people, Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, Robin, and after lengthy self attack would decide he had done everything he could, it was to some extent an accident, but that in the end it was the criminals fault fundamentally. He may shed a tear or two, and would always hold it on his conscience as a burden he accepts, and then he would go back to being the Batman.


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

[User]
[Wolfenstein] So, it's over, the nazis are gone, the world is free once again. What happens to Germany now?

They committed such horrible crimes, their nationalism lead to the death of who knows how many people, they conquered the entire world, they became the biggest and most advanced empire to ever exist, and they undoubtfully were evil. Now, one could argue "It was the nazis, not the Germans", howerer, we can't risk Germany becoming this big again, they already started 2 world wars and the second one resulted in them conquering the entire world, Jews would have probably become extinct by this time if it wasn't for BJ Blazkowicz. What do we do with Germany? Do we separate them in several nations again? Do we keep the country around but extremely limited in technology? What do we do?

[Assistant]
The government is dismantled, and what few survivors the Blazcowitz leave behind would be punished. The land would be divided up into new territories, and ultimately Earth moves on.

There's obvious resentment, but it's forgotten when the Vorticons invade. The technology that the new reich left behind is used by the latest Blazcowitz to once again save the world. His exploits lead to an increase in interest into expanding into space after BJ dismantled Venus and the Moon locations.

A new research base on Mars is set up...


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

[User]
What was it like preparing your first semester's worth of lectures?

I'm considering becoming a lecturer in the future, was wondering what it's like.

Do you normally have to start from scratch when preparing for lectures? Or did you have a contact from whom you received some help?

How long did it take?

[Assistant]
The first time you teach a lecture course it is a huge amount of work. Multiple hours of preparation for every hour of lecture. This is the case even if you have some kind of textbook or other materials (e.g., someone else's lectures) to base it on, assuming you aren't just doing a complete copy-paste job (which makes for bad teaching). It's a major endeavor.

After that, though, the preparation for subsequent years is much less  looking over, making some changes to what worked/didn't work (keep notes!), adding new things, etc. But there's no way around the fact that the first run take a lot of work, as it probably should: you're figuring out for yourself how you want this class to be, and even with the help of others that's going to be a lot of work.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Since there are people that have a phobia of going through transporters (given the possibility that they copy people and delete the original), what kind of experiments could you run to test for this concern?

[Assistant]
Interestingly, this existential concern of transporters wasn't really addressed in depth. Most of people's fears of transporters comes from some mundane malfunction that could occur during transport.

The "copy" vs. "original" is a philosophical distinction and not really subject to experimental analysis. You are broken down into subatomic particles, converted into energy, that energy is then reconverted into matter and reassembled at the destination site.


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

[User] [DC] If Ma and Pa Kent were Jewish and tried to get baby Kal-el circumcised, could they have?

[Assistant] Probably. While Supermans development of powers has changed over time it's usually written that it takes at least several years for him to absorb enough radiation to give him some powers. So as long as they do it early enough they shouldn't run into any problems.


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

[User]
[SCP] Why in the event of the end of the world is there no protocol to write down what went wrong?

They always make everyone forget it happened. Why not make someone write it down so as not to make the same mistake?

[Assistant]
There is, but the information stored off-dimension in [REDACTED].  Access limited to a small selection O-5 level personnel.

This policy was instituted after the [Redacted] Incident, in which mere knowledge of the circumstances of the incident caused an infinitely recursive end of the world Scenario.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why babies laugh at peekaboo so much

Edit: I just noticed I don't have a question mark in the title

Edit 2: I forgot the "do" after the "why"

Edit 3: Okay now that I think about it, I wrote the title like ELI5 was part of the sentence. "Explain like I'm five why babies laugh at peekaboo so much."

[Assistant] Object Permanence, or the ability to recognize that an object still exists even if it changes form (like the same amount of water just switched containers) or that it becomes hidden.  It is fascinating for them to see someone appear and disappear almost instantly.


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

[User]
[Marvel] If Bruce Banner stayed as the Hulk for a very long period of time and reverted back to Banner, would he die?

Lets say Bruce Banner became the Hulk, and didnt revert back to Banner until he aged to over 100 years old, way past the normal human lifespan.

If he reverted back to Banner, would he still be alive or drop dead? And what would happen to the Hulk?

[Assistant] Yes and no. In Hulk: The End, it starts with Bruce being over 200 years old and wanting to die, but Hulk won't let him. Hulk's healing abilities also works in Banner, but to a lesser degree, allowing him to live much longer than a normal person. But in the end of the book, Banner has a heart attack and dies, leaving the Hulk alone, and cold.