category stringclasses 9 values | question stringlengths 17 294 | prompt listlengths 1 1 | ground_truth stringlengths 32 9.64k |
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Technology | how does the 3DS's 3D work? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Your brain sees 3D normally by combining the separate pictures it gets from each of your eyes. The basic idea behind 3D graphics is to display two different images, one in each eye. If you make the two images slightly different, then the brain interprets them in the same way as your normal sight, and makes them look 3D. With 3D movies, this is done by displaying two pictures interlaced with each other so that every alternate line on the screen is a different picture and using polarised light. When you put on the glasses, the polarised lenses cancel out one of the images in one eye, so your brain gets two different pictures and makes them 3D. With the 3DS, the two images are displayed in interlaced vertical lines, and then to make sure that each eye sees a different picture, the 3DS has tiny walls that block your left eye seeing the right eye's pictures and vice versa. This diagram shows how that works: URL_0 As you move the 3D slider, the images separate or overlap more, and the walls become opaque or transparent. |
Other | Hunters wear Camo and Bright Orange... seems like they can't decide but there must be a good reason?? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Many prey animals cannot see the color orange, it looks the same as green or brown to them. So hunters wear camo with some orange to be visible to humans (don't shoot me) but invisible to prey animals (don't run away). |
Other | Why can we make burger / hot dog buns that last for weeks (even months) but regular bread still gets moldy so fast? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Do you refrigerate your bread? It lasts like over twice as long if you put bread in the refrigerator. My mom always did this so I’ve grown up always storing bread in the fridge, but I know most people don’t store bread this way. |
Economics | What exactly is a “hard pull inquiry”? And why do they do one every time you apply for a new line of credit? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Banks pay credit agencies for data on you, that's a "pull inquiry". It's to separate the type of transaction from a "seek inquiry", where they ask for data on people with certain properties, not by name. There are two kinds of "pull". A "soft pull" is the bank's idea. You are typically a customer (so they have the authority to make the pull) and they're just checking up on you. This doesn't impact your credit. When you apply for a loan the bank does a "hard pull", signaling to all the other credit report consumers that you are trying to borrow money. This impacts your credit score (for the next inquiry) by letting other banks know you're going to have more debt in the future than is reflected in the data in the credit report. |
Biology | Why do humans have to take care of their teeth when other animals like apes have teeth that are perfectly fine? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | The vast quantities of refined sugar we eat has a lot to do with it. A lot of tooth decay is caused by this. We also live a lot longer than we ‘should’. |
Other | Why do a lot of hygiene product ingredient lists say "Water (Aqua)"? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | It is a legal requirement in many countries to list cosmetic ingredients in a standard form called INCI (International nomenclature of cosmetic ingredients). The INCI names are the same in all countries using the INCI names and do not need to be translated. The INCI names are usually Latin, so aqua for water; parfum for fragrance; the Latin name of a plant, etc. Some ingredients, like water, have a common easily recognised name, so this is often included, but the Latin name must be included by law. |
Physics | ; How do magnets attract/repel reach other? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Magnets create a disturbance in the electromagnetic field around them. This disturbance interacts with electrons in the area, changing their paths. When you place two magnets near each other their magnetic fields interact. This creates a force that attracts or repels them depending on the nature of the interaction. |
Other | Why is the age for buying mature video games 17 (at least in the US)? Most other "mature" things require you to be 18 years old, so why is the video game industry different? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | The ESRB is not a governmental organization. There is no legal mechanism to determine a game's age rating, nor to prevent an underage person from buying one. Most retailers won't sell M games to minors, but that's their policy, not a law. The ratings exist purely for the convenience of the consumers. I could sell a copy of Halo at a yard sale to a ten-year-old and no laws would be broken. But if I sold him a pack of cigarettes or a six-pack of beer, I would be in serious trouble. |
Physics | Why do boiling bubbles immediately stop when you take the pan away from the heat source? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Stove is way above 100 degrees (depending on how high you set it to) -- > water is gaining energy in the form of heat -- > Water reaches 100 degrees and now it's crossed the threshold, at least at the bottom, leading to a phase transition where the kinetic energy (movement) of the molecules is high enough for them to become a gas -- > Boiling begins, water temperature does not exceed 100 degrees as all the extra energy is being used for the phase transition -- > You remove the pot from the stove -- > Immediately after, water still at 100 or justttt under, but no extra energy is being given for phase transition -- > Boiling stops seemingly immediately. |
Other | What is a brokered convention and what would that mean for the U.S. Democratic primary? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | In simplest terms, the nominees do not have a majority to become the "Democratic Nominee." A convention occurs where negotiations go on behind the scenes to try to get other nominees to drop out while delegates continue to vote and revote until a majority occurs. For instance, perhaps one nominee will promise another nominee the VP spot or a cabinet spot. What does this mean? It means that whomever is picked in the end as the nominee for the Democratic Party does not have a united party behind them. If that person does not have a united party behind them, then most likely the other major party will win the election (because a lot of people will vote for someone else - like an independent). So, if the priority is getting Trump out of the White House, the last thing the Democratic Party wants is a Brokered Convention. |
Technology | why pictures of computer screens have weird, changing patterns when you zoom in and out? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | These are called [moire interference patterns]( URL_1 ) and are caused by non-uniformly sampling the grid of pixels on the screen. In computer graphics, we use [mipmaps]( URL_0 ) to combat this. |
Technology | Why do four-wheel drive trucks operate in rear-wheel drive instead of front-wheel drive when 4x4 is disengaged? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | The standard driveline setup for a common transfer case has the rear axle (back to wheels) as the main output because it's already inline. The front axle is usually engaged via a chain in somewhat of the same process as a gear on a bicycle. Once that happens engine power is delivered to the front and back until the chain is walked off. Again this is standard practice and I'm sure there are unique designs out there that operate differently |
Psychology | When does a child (or anyone for that matter) know they “exist”? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | From an old philosophy degree: In the Cartesian sense you always know you exist intuitively, because you are thinking. Heidegger wants there to be a separate kind of "person"hood called Dasein, and it could be argued that one achieves this by stepping over from Cartesian epistemology where one concerns oneself with what things are to a system of how things relate to each other. And Kant? Well I've repressed my Kant course so someone who's better at it than me can explain that. Oh and as a bonus if you're that way inclined: How do you know you exist at all? You could be a perfectly formed but otherwise ignorant portion of [a computer simulation]( URL_0 ) EDIT: Inspired by another comment and less philosophical there's the mirror test. This is where a mark is covertly placed on someone who is then placed in front of a mirror. Before you have a real sense of self you will think that the reflection is another person with a strange mark. After you develop a sense of self you realise that person is you, and remove the mark from yourself. Broadly speaking this tends to happen at about 18 months old. |
Physics | How do heat waves effect sound waves? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Temperature changes the density of air. Cold air is denser than hot air. (Ever notice how great you car starts on a winter day, particularly with a carbureted vehicle?) The air around and above the combustion is several hundred degrees hotter than the air further away from it, and the air will be roiling and very turbulent as well. This will distort the sound. |
Technology | How does facial identification work on I phones? I shaved my head and started to wear glasses.. | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Many recognition systems use reference points on your face and measure the distance between them. Tip of your nose, corners of your eyes, tops of your ears etc. If the structural dimensions of your face match up, you're in! Glasses and hair don't have an effect, cosmetic surgery or a deformative injury may. |
Mathematics | How does the existence of irrational numbers help in disproving the 'we're living in a simulation' hypothesis? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | I think the idea is that to store an entire irrational number, you would need an infinite amount of memory. Numbers like Pi never end, so you would end up in a situation where Pi has more digits than there are atoms in the universe. However, there are *algorithms* that can be used to calculate irrational numbers to a certain degree of precision. If we were in a simulated universe, it could just calculate that number to whatever precision is required at that time. |
Physics | What make a blanket warmer than others? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Blankets do not provide heat, like an electric heater. They provide insulation, so that the heat your body provides doesn't escape. So a blanket that is better at insulating will feel warmer, because it traps your warmth better. So thicker blankets will feel warmer, as will fluffy blankets, because they contain air, which is a very good insulator. |
Earth Science | Where do those extra four minutes go every day? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | 23 hours and 56 minutes is how long it takes the Earth to make one rotation relative to the rest of the universe. However, while it is doing that, it also makes 1/365 of a revolution around the Sun. In order to face the Sun in the same direction as it did the previous day, it has to rotate for 1/365 of a rotation, which takes 4 minutes. |
Other | What is the purpose of a credit score? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | A score is just a numeric quantification of your credit worthiness, often provided as part of a paid service to consumers. Most lenders do not care about a score per se, they look at everything to determine exactly what terms of a loan they will offer. Being "on good terms with banks" isn't a precise statement. Banks also want to know how much credit you already have, how much credit have you been recently seeking or using, how often and how long have you held balances or missed payments, and so on. |
Biology | Why do horses need horseshoes? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | You don't need to if you only plan on having your horse on natural soft surfaces like dirt. If you are riding your horse on rocks, asphalt, concrete, etc. Then you need shoes. |
Other | Why haven't we (US) returned to the moon? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | The moon was a good milestone to serve as a victory in the space race, but samples showed that it is unremarkable in it’s composition. The only reason to go would be to say we have gone twice, which would be unnecessary spending. |
Chemistry | Why is brown sugar always "wet"? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Brown sugar is just regular white sugar with molasses in it, molasses is just really refined cane sugar syrup, and when added together it makes the mixture damp, not necessarily “wet”. You want brown sugar to stay damp for different baking needs and that’s why they are always added in with the eggs and wet ingredients. |
Other | How is all this new rain effecting the current Southern California drought? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | All rain helps for any drought, goes without saying. However, with the years of impact with this major drought, it will take years of normal rain & snow pact to replenish back to "normal". Snow pact up in the Sierra's is main factor in supplying with water. Even in best of seasons, it can be stressful what with never ending demands continuing to grow with population & agriculture expansions. Well folks, there's only so much to go around, isn't there. California has down the through the ages been known to have dry times & wet times. Water. That precious commodity should be used sparingly no matter what. Just because it's raining cats & dogs now, it may dry up again at any time. "1,549 Cumulative Reported Domestic Well Failures (an increase of 1 from previous report) as of January 3, 2017", in Tulare Co, a major agri. county. ... URL_0 But, everyone seems to have to have green lawns and wash their damn car every weekend. grrr. |
Technology | why is nonstop loading such a common glitch among all apps/programs? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Usually the loading screen is displayed while loading assets to ram from an external source(hard disk, network, etc). If for whatever reason the loading fails(wrong paths, corrupted files, etc) than the loading process will never succeed thus the loading screen will continue to “load” forever. Edit: There might also be cases when the loading doesn’t fail, but is way slower than usual(low download speed, hdd being used to its max speed by other apps, etc...). This will make it feel like its stuck when instead it just needs longer. This is(in my opinion) a more common case, as well written software will handle stuck cases properly(terminating with an error message, trying to reload, etc...). |
Chemistry | how do fire detectives find the start of a large fire? Is it more burnt in that specific area where it started somehow? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | > is it more burnt That’s a big part of it. If you’re investigating a house fire and you can see that the end of the house where the garage is has been almost completely burned away but the bedroom end is intact, there’s a very good chance that the fire didn’t start in the bedroom. So then you can start investigating what’s left of the garage for an ignition source. Same thing with brush fires. If you’ve got a huge field that burned, absent any wind or changes in fuel density, the origin point will be near the middle of the burned area. If there is wind, you can guess where the origin is based on wind speed and direction. |
Other | How do bailouts work? Like the one in 2008 during the housing crisis. How do they help (or supposedly help)? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | To start, the 2008 recessions is agreed to have mostly been caused by the subprime lending crisis, in which banks would give out mortgages to people that they knew would not be able to afford to pay them. They would then take these risky investments and figuratively chop them up and package them with other investments and sell these packages called securities to larger investment banks. So an investment bank would buy up a bunch of securities, and as an example, let's say that that security would be a bunch of pieces of mortgages. That bank would have 10% of a thousand mortgages, but 100 of those thousand mortgages would be subprime and doomed to fail. When those mortgages did fail, that investment bank would suddenly lose all of that money. They paid a lot of money to the mortgage companies for those securities and suddenly lost 10% of their investment (again that number is hypothetical just to help you picture it), which is a big deal for that bank. Suddenly the big investment banks are losing a lot of money, and are unable to make further investments, which is what the stock market operates on, big investors making investments. This starts a domino effect in which companies stocks are going down because those firms aren't able to invest as much and are pulling out of investment deals and even failing all together, those companies then lose money and begin laying off workers or shipping jobs over seas to cheapen the cost of production, those laid off workers now can no longer make their car and house payments and the banks that own those loans begin to lose money, and so on, and so on. What the government decided to do was give a large amount of money to the investment banks to stop them from failing so that they could continue to invest and bring the stock market back up, so that companies could continue making money on the market, so they could stop laying off workers and even hire new one's, so people could continue to make their house and car payments, and so on, and so on. Imagine Superman seeing a building falling on top of other buildings, and to stop it from crushing everything he holds the building up so that construction workers can fix the building and keep it standing. Superman in that analogy is the bailout, and the construction workers are the investors. |
Biology | What actually happens inside us during the ‘stomach drop’ moment? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | I think your body shifts the blood away from your stomach into your muscles to prepare you to act to the stressful event you are witnessing. It's the fight or flight response, your nervous system pushes adrenaline into your system and it triggers all of that fun stuff. |
Economics | Why aren't sodas sold in variety packs? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | If you really wanted cola and orange you would buy both. If manufacturers mixed the packs people may only buy one 6 pack of mixed instead of 2 packs of 6. This would lead to people buying and drinking less soda which the big corporations couldn't allow. |
Chemistry | Why does car exhaust have such a stronger smell during the winter months? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | The engine runs richer (more fuel) especially at engine start-up until it gets to normal operating temperature. The extra fuel is why the exhaust smells stronger. |
Biology | How do insect and bug species survive the winter? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Many burrow underground, or into other similar warmer/s’more insulated places. Temperatures underground (in most places) actually stay relatively stable all year long, just going a foot or two down and the ground is warmer (relatively, say slightly above freezing as opposed to blistering cold above.) Then they just go dormant, into a state of hibernation almost, where they just shut down until warmth wakes them up again. Some animals/bugs are also able to freeze and then still be alive when they thaw. |
Physics | What is the science behind how a boomerang works? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | There are four main points to understand about a boomerang: 1) You throw it vertically, not horizontally. This will be important later. 2) Airfoils. Each arm of the boomerang is a little airplane wing, which creates lift as the boomerang spins and flies. There are left-handed and right-handed boomerangs because of this; if you throw with the wrong hand it will spin "backwards" and won't produce lift. 3) Unbalanced lift. Since the boomerang is moving forward at the same time as it's spinning, the arms aren't moving through the air at the same speed. For one arm the spin and the forward motion are working together, creating more lift. For the other arm the spin and the forward motion are fighting each other, meaning less lift. This means there's more lift on one side of the boomerang than the other, so it will try to tilt to the side. 4) Gyroscopic precession. Things that are spinning resist being tilted - think of a child's top or someone spinning a basketball on their finger. It's one of the more "wtf" behaviors in basic physics: a spin around one axis and a tilting torque around a second axis combine into a turn about the third axis instead. So when the boomerang, which is spinning, tries to tilt because of the unbalanced lift, it ends up turning instead. This is why you have to throw it vertically, not horizontally: it's spinning about the left-right axis, and the unbalanced lift is trying to tilt it about the front-back axis. So it ends up turning around the up-down axis, which means it turns around and flies back to you. If you were to throw it horizontally, the axes would be different and it would turn upwards instead, flying up into the air uselessly. |
Biology | How do people actually choke on their tongues? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Your tongue looks like a big red slug with only the front part sticking in to your mouth, the rest is in your throat. If you lose muscle control - e.g. being unconcious - and lying on your back it can fall back, spread out and block your airways. Recovery position prevents this. |
Economics | What are and what is the difference between Pyramid Schemes, Ponzi Schemes, and MLMs? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Shortly after World War I, convicted forger Charles Ponzi came across and interesting and ostensibly legal way to make money. An international reply coupon (IRC) was a way for a letter mailed from abroad to provide return postage. The trick was, you bought them at the postage rate in the country of origin, but all countries would honor them, even if their rates were higher. Italy was suffering from severe postwar inflation, and IRCs could be bought very cheaply in US dollars, and exchanged for stamps worth five times as much. This was all perfectly legal, so Ponzi formed a company to make these transactions and sought out investors, promising large returns within short time frames. Here he became a victim of his own success. While the math worked out, at some point, you actually had to redeem the IRCs for stamps, then find someone who wanted to buy those stamps. He wasn't able to cut through the red tape needed to get this done before he needed to pay out his first investors. Instead of making them wait, he just used money he got from later investors. That is the essence of a Ponzi scheme, instead of making money from a business or an investment, you pay off outgoing investors with the principal from incoming investors. The scheme was so popular that things soon got out of hand. People were mortgaging their houses and giving Ponzi their life savings, and he was in control of millions. Unfortunately, even if he bought all the IRCs in Italy and sold every stamp in Boston, there was just no way to convert them into cash fast enough to give his investors a legitimate return. So he didn't bother, lived large and sued people who accused him of anything untoward. He also had a habit of not paying his debts, which eventually to his scheme being exposed for what it was. Investors demanded their money, Ponzi couldn't pay and was in fact deeply in debt. In the end, five banks collapsed, about $20 million in investors' money (over $200 million in 2015 dollars) was lost, and Ponzi went to jail and eventually died penniless. A pyramid scheme is a similar but distinct beastie. Investors are encouraged and rewarded for recruiting new investors into scheme, often getting a cut of their investment. If the rewards are small and the underlying business or investment is sound, the pyramid aspect is merely considered an incentive, and is a legal multileveled marketing (MLM) scheme. More often, just about all the money is made through the rewards for recruiting of new investors. Since that number grows geometrically, it isn't long before they run out. At that point, it is becomes a variation of a Ponzi scheme, where new investors are used to pay off old ones. Ponzi schemes can lack this recruiting element, so they are not always considered pyramid schemes. |
Economics | Why is it that even Americans that do have health insurance end up with 6 figure bills for cancer treatment? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | honestly I'm anticipating downvoting into oblivion or removal of comment but the health care industry in the states is corrupted beyond means. the reason it's 6 figures or higher is because the majority of big medical entities place a value on treatment and medicine and never on the human life. yea, they'd love for you to live but not because they care about your life but they want you to continue living to pay. sick practice here in the states, no pun |
Physics | When a light is turned on, where do the photons come from? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Actual ELI5: You know how when you're really frustrated you want to scream out and let out some energy? Well, what a light does is make a material (either a gas, like air, or a solid, like the thing inside old light bulbs) really really frustrated, and the light "screams" by emitting light instead of sound and therefore gives away a bit of it's energy. ELI'm older. Lights work by "exciting" a material, whether that be the noble gas inside a fluorescent lamp or a tungsten wire inside an incandescent bulb. When a material is excited, the electrons inside the material move to a higher energy "orbit". However, the electrons don't WANT to be in that orbit, they want to be in their home orbit. (Because they are most "stable" there, and the universe, in general, tends toward stability.) So when they get the chance, they move back down to their home orbit, but do to so they need to give off some energy. (Because an electron can't arbitrarily move from one level to another, something needs to happen to push it there or something needs to happen to allow it to fall down to a lower level.) That energy is emitted as a photon (light). So what the light has done is convert electricity into photons by a series of chemical/physical processes. The photons are NOT always there. They're created in the instant the electron moves down to the lower energy level. Remember, photons are massless, they're just a form of energy, and converting from one energy type to another is easy. EDIT: Oh and yes, photons will "cease to exist" if they are absorbed by something else. Essentially in exactly the opposite process. The photon hits the atom at a specific place and makes an electron "excited." Therefore the photon (which was just energy) has now become the "energy" that is "exciting" the electrons. It's like saying "well if I splash water at a wall the water droplets don't exist after they hit the wall." That's... partially true, but the water DID something to the wall, it made it wet. Same thing with a photon. It DOES something to the atom. So while it doesn't exist AS A PHOTON anymore, it's still there, just in a different form, just like the water on the wall. |
Psychology | why are wrecks so mesmerizing for drivers to look at? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | I don't think it is a sense of pleasure, but more an intense curiosity. Seeing the level of damage caused is very relatable to a driver, because we could all be in an accident. And then there are other reasons to slow down - to reduce risk from running over debris, to avoid sending high speed pebbles/stones at anyone involved in rescue work, or even to see if assistance is needed. |
Other | Fifth circuit? Ninth Circuit? Can someone please explain why all the different federal courts and why/how it came about? Thanks | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Our court system requires several levels of court arranged in a hierarchy - otherwise, if you have 100 equal courts, and two disagree, how can people get the final word on how to follow the law? If you have one court, how can they have time to hear all the cases? So we've got three levels of federal court. District courts are the lowest level, with a jurisdiction of part of or one whole state; circuit courts with a jurisdiction of several states, and the supreme court, with a jurisdiction of the entire country and the last word. Edit: [here's a map.]( URL_0 ) The districts are outlined, the circuits are colored in. |
Other | Even if you signed a waiver, if an establishment's ride equipment breaks/malfunctions and injures you, how is it not the establishment's fault? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Because that what a waiver does. You are saying "I understand that equipment sometimes breaks, but I am accepting that risk and want to go on the ride anyway." If you don't agree, you shouldn't sign the waiver. If you do and change your mind after, you are basically a liar. That said, no waiver protects against **criminal** activity. If it can be shown that the operators knew, or should have known, the ride was defective or not properly maintained, then you would have both a criminal and civil case against them. |
Economics | What is rent price optimization? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Means you should find a new place to rent. With rent prices going down all over the places. There is less demand than supplies so no reason to have a price increase. |
Mathematics | What is Eulers number and what does it do? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Euler’s number is the basis for growth that gets faster as more growth happens. A simple way to find it is with compound interest. Imagine you have a bank account that has a 100% yearly interest rate. How much money would you have after a year? $2.00 What if it compounded every month? $2.613035 Every week? $2.692597 If it compounds every instant, you’d get e. So e is the natural power of exponential growth. e has a bunch of other uses when you raise it to weird powers. If you put an exponential growth and decay back-to-back, you get a normal distribution. If you make exponentials oscillate from growth to decay and back you get sine / cosine functions. So e is used a lot in statistics and wave mechanics. |
Biology | Why do some body parts get cancer more than others? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | How often a body part gets cancer depends on how much it undergoes cell division. The more often it undergoes cell division, the more chances it has to make a mistake. When it makes it a mistake, it turns into cancer. Some places in your body divide more than others. Your skin, mouth, stomach and intestines have a lot of cell division because you shed a lot of skin and layers from your gut. But your brain, heart and muscle don't divide a lot which is why they don't get cancer often. It's also related to how well they heal. Your skin heals very well because it divides so often. Your heart heals very poorly (like after a heart attack) because it divides so infrequently. I don't think cell phones increase brain cancer. In children, brain cancers are different to adults. In adults, its often because of special supporting cells called glial cells that divide. Cell phones communicate using very weak microwaves. Microwaves are non-ionising and do not cause cell damage beyond heating them up a little bit. It also gets absorbed by your skin and skull. They wouldn't be affecting the brain. 'Hand cancer' doesn't usually gets worse because we catch it very quickly. Melanomas, basal cell carcinomas, squamous cell carcinomas are all cancers of the skin cells. When you spot these on your hand, you get them removed so they don't ever really become too bad. Muscles don't really get cancer and bones uncommonly get cancer. The 'hand' isn't anything special. There's no special cells in your hand that separate it from, say, your leg (besides special receptors for touch) in the same way it is different from your liver, which has hepatocytes or liver cells. Which is to say, there's no such thing as a hand cancer. |
Biology | Why do healthy foods at the stores nutrition labels always seem devoid of nutrition? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | In general it's because of companies and farmers lobbying the FDA about what essential nutrients appear on the label. Iodine is an essential nutrient, why isn't it on the label? Vitamin C is essential, but in everything; why is it on the label? When you showcase only calories, iron, vitamin c, and only a couple others nutritionally simple foods look better. |
Other | Why, or how, does music evoke emotion? Especially sadness. | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Two effects here: The lesser of the two is physiology and assonance/dissonance. As you may know, sound is a wave; every note has a different wavelength. Middle A is 440 Hz, for instance. When you go up an octave, you double the wavelength, so the next-highest A is 880 Hz, then 1760 Hz, etc. This perfectly-double ratio is easy for your brain to decode and thus relaxing/pleasing to the ear. This is called *assonance*. Similarly, a major chord uses a 5:4 and 3:2 ratio to the root note, which is simple and easy for your brain to listen to. However, when notes are combined which aren't separated by such a nice ratio, it is more difficult for your brain to decode, and thus both arousing (your brain is working harder and more 'activated') and slightly distressing (which may be interpreted as music which sounds anxious, sad, aggressive, etc). This is called *dissonance*. The other effect is cultural, and it is far, far more important than the physiological one. We find certain music sad because we have been trained to find it sad, by watching the responses of others or hearing it accompany a movie or ballet. We find marches inspiring or patriotic because we are used to hearing them as part of national celebrations. We find jock jams exciting and energy-inducing because we know them from sporting events. If you go to another culture, they may have very different emotional reactions to music - or even no emotional response at all. These days, Western musical ideas have been spread to most corners of the globe so the effect is diminished, but in areas without mass media, or areas which have retained traditional culture, it's very noticeable. |
Physics | Why would a twin at sea level age faster than a twin on a tall mountaintop? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Time is relative to speed. The faster you go the slower time appears to go from your perspective. That's why there's a universal speed limit of the speed of light, because the closer to the speed of light you travel the slower time seems to pass. If someone is at the top of a tall mountain then as the world spins around on its axis they would appear to be travelling further and thus faster, so for them time would appear to move more slowly. It's slightly lazy writing though, they wouldn't age faster than the second, they'd just have experienced more time. In fact in terms of the biological process of ageing you'd probably age faster at the top of the mountain because there's less oxygen. |
Biology | How can you hear yourself when you think? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Your mind is a powerful super computer, capable of generating the most lifelike graphics and sounds. I can sing like a 500-pound opera singer in my mind . I can play back entire portions of songs or movies, if I've heard or seen them enough times. Your brain is just that powerful. |
Chemistry | Why is the water in our drinking glass clear and colorless but all the water in Earth’s rivers /lakes/oceans blue? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Normal white light is made up of a mixture of colours. Water absorbs the red light a bit. Only a tiny amount of red light gets absorbed by a 2 inch wide glass of water. But when you look across even a few meters, like a swimming pool or even bigger, almost all the red light is gone, and it looks blue. This absorbing behaviour is called 'attenuation' and lots of water means lots more distance for the light to travel through, and so lots more distance for the colour red to 'attenuate'. |
Technology | What does 64/32bit architecture means? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | A bit is a binary digit. A decimal number like 8376 has four digits. A 32-bit number is comprised of 32 1's and 0's. A 64 bit number has 64 1's and 0's. A 32 bit computer will read and operate on, at most, 32 bits at a time. If your calculation fits within a 32 bit number (about 4 billion in decimal) then that's fine. But, if you're dealing with bigger numbers it has to do two or more calculations to give you the final answer. 64 bit computers can process more data in each cycle. Also, 64 bit computers can work with much more memory because it has more memory addresses that it can work with. |
Chemistry | How are we able to determine how old a star is and how long it will probably live? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Stars "live" for a characteristic *approximate* lifespan based on their mass, composition, and luminosity (how brightly they burn). We can pretty accurately estimate all three of these, by splitting the incoming light from a star and examining it. Different elements absorb light at different frequencies, so by studying the gaps in the spectrum of light we can tell what the star is (mostly) made of. Because stars all start off as balls of mostly-hydrogen, this also gives you some information as to how old it is. Luminosity is a matter of figuring out how far away the star is from us, and how bright it appears to be. Mass is a little more tricky, but can be inferred to some extent with a number of methods. Put it all together and you compare this star to the many others we've observed and classify it. Once you've done that, you have a pretty good idea based on its composition and luminosity just how long its lived, and how long it's likely to live. |
Technology | Why are bullet sizes usually in decimal and not just a whole number? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Because bullets are designed with very specific performance parameters in mind. In the case of the 5.56 NATO they were: * .22 Caliber * Bullet exceeding supersonic speed at 500 yards * Rifle weight of 6 lb * Magazine capacity of 20 rounds * Select fire for both semi-automatic and fully automatic use * Penetration of US steel helmet through one side at 500 yards * Penetration of .135-inch steel plate at 500 yards * Accuracy and ballistics equal to M2 ball ammunition (.30-06 Springfield) out to 500 yards * Wounding ability equal to M1 Carbine On top of all that, they wanted a round with less recoil than the M2. After development and testing of many different new ammunitions, the brand new .223 remington was the round that had the best results for the specified parameters. It was later officially adopted by the US military and renamed "Cartridge, 5.56mm Ball, M193." This round was further developed and became the 5.56×45mm NATO with the subsequent military designation of SS109 in NATO and M855 in the U.S. While 5.56 may sound arbitrary, it was the result of a 13 year project that spanned multiple countries and involved every major gun and ammunition company of the time, to create a small caliber, high velocity firearm for military use. |
Economics | If companies keep lowering wages for workers and pump their product prices, aren't they shooting them selves in the foot? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | 1. are they? lots of companies that are famous for this like amazon, walmart etc are actually making things cheaper by reducing labour costs - look at the relative cost of food now to 50 years ago for example 2. Assuming you're right, it depends on what they sell. doesn't really matter if my chandelier engineers can't afford my chandeliers since they never could anyway. 3. Businesses are incentivised to what makes them money in the next 5 years, what happens after that is anyone's guess anyway so they aren't that bothered about the company existing then. |
Chemistry | How does sugar, ice, dish soap and water clean stains from Tupperware? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Here is a great Reddit from a number of years ago about why oil and grease bond to plastic Tupperware: URL_0 It also explains why something like dish soap is a super effective agent for breaking the bonds between the grease and the plastic. The sugar is a great abrasive and sugar sticks to the surface of the the ice and bounces the sugar around in the dish enough to behave like dozens of tiny scrub pads. A wonderful way to descale a coffee pot is to fill it with ice, add a lemon slice or a few splashes of vinegar or a squeeze of lemon juice. Dump some salt in. Shake It vigorously. Dump it out. and you have a like-new coffee pot. |
Chemistry | Why aren't there many naturally occurring liquid substances on Earth? Does matter have a "preference" for being in a solid and gaseous state? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | It's largely a matter of temperature. Different substances change states at different temperatures. We are in the liquid water range, which is necessary for life as we know it. |
Physics | why do doors close easier and often slam whenever there's a window open in that room? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Air pressure. When you are closing a door on an otherwise sealed room, you are pushing air into that room, which is making the pressure in that room higher than it is outside the room, causing a bit of force which resists you closing the door. An open window reduce has that effect by giving the air somewhere to go once the pressure starts increasing. |
Other | How do all cars of the same model have a different key? How keys work? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | From my understanding there is a set rotation. Whether that rotation is 5, 10, 100 or 1000 different keys they follow the rotation. Now with newer vehicles there is also a programmable chip inside the key itself, that is linked to the specific computer that is assigned via VIN. This is as unique as a fingerprint. So even though you may have I key cut identical to another person, there is little to no chance of that key being able to open or start your car. Essentially with technology a manufacturer could theoretically make one key for every vehicle of the same model and program the chip to your individual vehicles computer, could be a way to save manufacturing costs and reduce the potential for theft. |
Biology | Why is it physically difficult to start working out again after taking only a few days to a week off? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Building muscle and endurance takes energy expenditures that the body would rather not spend, if it "thinks" it can avoid expending the energy. When you stop working out, the body starts trying to go back to a pre-workout "form" as it can use the muscle as an energy source and there's nothing indicating to it that this extra muscle is needed any more. The body "assumes" it's possible you'll face problems getting food in the near future and no longer spends energy on what it considers non-essential muscle. And over time, that will change from "not maintaining the increased muscle" to "cannibalize muscle" the longer the absence of exercise goes. As annoying as it is, the body would rather put energy storage into fat cells than muscle cells, so even if you're getting adequate food, it will try to put excess resources into fat. |
Other | Have any adventure TV shows that claim to investigate past events or find rare animals ever actually contribute to new information? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Not a one. All the content is based on published papers by the REAL scientists who go and find the data. None of them present anything new. They will sometimes provide the first FOOTAGE of something never filmed before, but was known about. |
Technology | Why have URLS got so long and complicated over the years? It used to be URL_0 | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | I remember back in 1993, my url was URL_1 An entire web history of stuff has happened since then. First of all, load balancers came into play, where the same domain actually pointed to multiple IPs. This simplified things further, such that we got to the URL_0 that you're used to. Next came virtual hosts, where the Apache httpd checked to see what domain was being queried, and sent you to a completely different machine/server based on that (so multiple domains were hosted on the same IP that pointed to whatever machine was currently available. From there, web hosting got more complicated as the domains got rarer; CDNs came into existence (content distribution networks) where the cdn. URL_2 domain actually pointed to some server geographically close to you that had the content cached. Since not all content could be cached in this way, the rest came from URL_2 which was still the original virtual host balancing system. THEN things started to move to unstructured databases. At this point, each uri, instead of being a directory path on a server somewhere, was actually an entry in a database. So they got served up as parameter values instead of as paths. Meanwhile, many sites became ad-supported by ad networks that served content off of an ad service into frames linked to the main site. This was all well and good until the WWW started switching from http (ascii text sent in the clear) to https (encrypted authenticated connections). At this point, yet another layer of tracking was needed to ensure that all the assets on the page were legit. We went through a period where most ads were still served http, most logins were https, and everything else was a mix of cleartext and encrypted by a plethora of certificates. Each part of this needed its own entry in the query to ensure the correct data was served up for the end user. Add to this sites like Amazon/Google, where the content served up is custom to each user account, and the use of AJAX and friends to serve up the actual content through back channels to a custom javascript-based client running in your browser window, and more tracking, parsing and organizing is needed to keep track of everything and make sure it is both secure, and going to/from the right system. TL;DR: the web moved from static content on a single server to dynamic content served up by numerous databases distributed globally that need to keep track of context to give you timely, context-driven data. |
Other | Why do they use [brackets] around certain words in journalism? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | It's typically a way to indicate that a direct quotation was modified from the original source, usually to either correct a slight error or to provide additional information (such as the antecedent of a pronoun) |
Mathematics | If only a set amount of digits are known of Pi, how can we use it in calculations? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Let's say you want to find the circumference of a circle. The first step is for you to measure the diameter. How accurately can you measure the diameter? Can you measure to within 1 millimeter? 1 micrometer? How many digits long will your most accurate measurement of the diameter be? That number will be much, much lower than the known digits of pi. Using many digits of pi won't be useful because you can't be sure that your measurement is accurate enough for those digits to matter. This concept is called "significant figures." It's a little bit more complicated than what I wrote, there are specific rules to follow, but that's the idea behind it. |
Technology | is there such thing as hack warrants or something similar? That security agencies can get from courts and legally hack into some target's computer? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | In the US, Law Enforcement agencies can get warrants for a variety of surveillance or actions. This may include forms of electronic surveillance, including hacking and monitoring internet, key logging, search records, phone records, bugging a room, or whatever they want that a judge approves. So yes, under monitored, approved conditions, a law enforcement agency could monitor or hack. |
Other | Why are string instruments so prevalent in music? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Many genres of music use string instruments because 1) western pop music has been heavily influenced by the emergence of the guitar as a leading sound and hence include the guitar/bass in almost all songs, 2) worldwide there are *lots* of string instruments that each produce different and unique sounds (sitar in India, Guzheng in China, and all of the orchestral instruments in Europe) and mainly 3) you can play chords and sing over string instruments, where percussion and wind instruments are harder to play many notes or sing at the same time |
Biology | How do painkillers kill pain? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Generally speaking, it's about breaking the chain of compounds that relay the sensation of pain. In order for you to feel pain, a number of things have to happen. A specialized nerve receptor called a *nociceptor* is stimulated by injury, and its job is to kick off the chain of actions that cause you to feel pain. An enzyme called COX-2 is produced, and it binds to nerve receptors. As these enzymes bind to the receptors, the nerves carry that impulse to the brain where it's interpreted as pain. The more COX-2 binding to receptors, the more intense the sensation. For over-the-counter painkillers, most work by inhibiting the production of the COX-2 enzyme. Since there's less COX-2, not as much can bind to the receptors, so the transmitted impulses are weaker and, by extension, the feeling of pain is reduced. If enough COX-2 is inhibited, it can stop the production of the pain signal altogether. Other painkillers work in different ways. Some act directly on the central nervous system to depress (reduce) the nerve impulse intensity, reducing the pain signals reaching the brain. There's no one method by which painkillers work, which is why doctors have options: when one painkiller can't give a patient relief, they can try another that uses a different mechanism of action to try to reduce the patient's pain. All painkillers, however, have side effects, and the more powerful the painkiller the more serious the side effects tend to be. This is why dosing instructions are so important. |
Other | How do suicide rates in the past few centuries compare to today? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | We simply cannot know. That information was not well documented. Most of the death records that we have from before the 1900s is from Church burial records. Since those who commit suicide were not allowed to have a funeral on Church grounds or to be buried on Church ground there was seldom a record for them. We have some records from other sources such as troop records from war, or criminal records regarding prisoners but those also get very sparse prior to the 1800s or so. |
Physics | How does Terahertz Radiation work? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | It works just like any other form of radiation, like microwaves or radio waves, just a different frequency/wavelength. The issue with treahertz (the treahertz gap) is that there aren't any cost effective technologies to use the band as optics aren't sensitive enough and electronics aren't fast enough. It's very power-intensive to generate THz waves or to power a detector to receive them. |
Physics | How does a throwing knife or tomahawk always manage to land blade first and not the handle? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | The simple answer is that they don't. Thrown weapons are designed to give you the best chance to hit with the blade, but it takes a lot of practice and even then it isn't a sure thing. People who throw knives or axes at fairs and circuses and such are entertainers working in more or less the same conditions every time. With lots of practice they can get good enough throwing *a specific weapon at a specific range into a specific target* that they can land the shot most of the time. In TV and movies they're straight up cheating. They have as many tries as they need to get the shot right, or they use special effects. You only see the end result, which makes it look like thrown weapons are extremely accurate and deadly in the hands of a skilled user, when the reality is it's more of a toss-up. The only exceptions would be weapons like throwing stars, which are designed to be sharp from every angle. Even then, they were hardly ever used as a primary killing weapon. They would instead be thrown as a distraction, or stuck in the ground in the hopes an enemy would step on them. But they were rarely, if ever, thrown at an enemy with the intent to land a killing blow. While I'm sure there were a handful of people throughout history that got extremely good at throwing sharp things and used this skill in combat, for most people throwing a knife or axe in a fight just meant you were throwing your weapon away. |
Physics | Why does hot water freeze faster than room temperature water? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | It's called the Mpemba Effect. It only happens under incredibly specific circumstances, so just filling your ice cube tray with hot water from the tap isn't necessarily going to freeze faster than cold water from your tap. There is a lot of disagreement in the scientific community about the mechanism behind the effect. The mechanism that seems most plausible to me is the circulation theory. Imagine hot water in a vessel that is placed in a freezer. The water on top is going to cool faster than the water at the bottom. So this cooler water sinks to the bottom, which brings more hot water to the surface to be cooled. This creates a very small circulation that results in the heat from the water being given off more efficiently. |
Biology | why are certain drugs more addicting than others? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Ranking which drugs are more addictive is actually a bit complicated. There are a lot of different things to think about. Here are a few important ones: Reinforcement: how likely someone is to use a substance again and again Dependence: how difficult is it to quit, and how much users feel that they need the substance Tolerance: how quickly do users feel that they need more of the substance to get the same effect, and how much is needed to satisfy cravings Withdrawal: how severe are the symptoms of withdrawal of someone stops using the substance You could make a case for which drug is more addictive based on any of these factors. For example, cocaine has very high reinforcement. It causes a very strong, very fast high. This high appears quickly, but it also wears off quickly with a crash. That crash feels much worse than the high, so users will often seek out more cocaine to reach that high again. With that said, compared to other drugs of abuse, cocaine has low dependence, low tolerance and only mild withdrawal symptoms. Meth would have a lot of similar properties to cocaine, though the high lasts much longer and is typically considered to be stronger (cause more chemical release in the brain at similar doses compared to cocaine). Meth also tends to cause more dependence than cocaine. Something like heroin, for example, would also cause a very fast high and is very reinforcing. Unlike cocaine, someone who uses heroin will be much more likely to develop both physical and psychological dependence to heroin. There is often much stronger craving and much more severe withdrawal symptoms with heroin compared to cocaine, so people who use heroin will often feel the need to reuse even if only to prevent a miserable withdrawal. As you mentioned, all of these properties will be different from drug to drug based on different effects on chemicals in the brain. Certain chemicals will be more prone to causing changes in the brain that lead to the development of dependence and tolerance. Beyond this, how quickly a drug kicks in (often related to things like the size of the drug molecule, how easily it can cross the blood brain barrier, and other properties of the drug itself) and how long a drug lasts can impact things like reinforcement and withdrawal symptoms. |
Biology | Why does stretching feel so good? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Why does stretching my hamstrings feel so unpleasant, while stretching my calves feels good? |
Mathematics | Certain strategy games like Hearts of Iron 4 and Europa Universalis have console commands (cheats) where one can artificially increase things like manpower, money etc. But if I input a really large number, say 100 million manpower the manpower number actually becomes negative. Why is that? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | It's how numbers are stored in computers. Negative numbers start with a 1 to show they are negative, so when you add up numbers that go over the limit of the datatype you will overflow and get to negative results. |
Chemistry | How does powder "clump" in liquids? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | it varies somewhat depending on the substance. salt, for instance, doesn't tend to do that. organic substances tend to have 2 ends that behave differently. one likes water, the other doesn't. when you add it to water, the water seeking sides go out and the water hating sides point in, forming a bubble. powders made of anhydrous material (there's no water in it), can enter the water and the parts on the inside pull so hard on the water that they pull the powder that has become saturated and it can't move away. think of it like a vaccuum cleaner that gets something stuck on the front. chocolate in particular has its own unique properties, as there are cases where it needs to be heated to dissolve, but can remain dissolved even when dramatically cooled. |
Other | if we know who mobsters are, where they live, and even put them on TV, why can't we arrest them? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Because for the arrest to stick, we have to convince a jury of their peers to unanimously agree on their guilt. Also, we have to make sure all the evidence we collect was gathered legally. Also, we need witnesses and victims to step forward and risk retaliation from the mobster's associates just to press charges or testify. Also, sometimes they like to hide out in countries without extradition agreements. |
Other | Why is it RGB on screen but RYB elsewhere? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | RGB are the primary colors of light, since it is additive, meaning the more you add, the closer you get to white. RYB are the primary colors of paint, since it is subtractive, meaning the more you add, the closer you get to black. |
Economics | What is tax fraud? How do people commit it? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | You know on Halloween you get all your candy, and then you have a Mommy tax, where Mommy get’s to take a couple of pieces for helping you with your costume and walking around with you? Well, tax fraud could happen two ways: 1) Maybe you hide some of your candy so that mommy can’t pick those. Maybe you think if you hide enough, mommy won’t take any. That’s tax fraud. 2) Maybe you tell mommy that you already shared your candy with daddy or your sister, and now mommy won’t take any candy. That’s tax fraud. It’s being dishonest about how much candy you have so that mommy won’t take any of it. Sometimes people are dishonest about their candy by saying that a specific pile of candy wasn’t from halloween, it was candy they already had. Sometimes people give all their candy to a friend to hold for them so that mommy can’t have any. Sometimes people put the candy in their pockets instead of the trick-or-treat bag so that it looks like they got less candy. |
Physics | Why is it easier for people (kids notably) to put their head between two bars but harder to get it out? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | The top of the head is rounded, making it easy to gradually bend bars apart a little to allow the head to slip past. The jaw, on the other hand, is a jutting and angular bone structure. It’s hard to get that to slip into a gap without a lot of pain and risking injury. |
Economics | can anyone order off the senior citizen discount menu? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | So let me put it this way. Even if it was legal for restaurants to not allow certain people to order certain items on the menu, why would they ever do that? The senior citizen discounted menu (or the kids menu for that matter) is not discounted because they really like seniors, it is discounted because the portion size is smaller. You are getting less food for less money. |
Other | How and why do people 'see' a malicious, demonic presence with their eyes when they get a sleep paralysis? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | It's a dream. Part of your brain is awake and part of it is still dreaming. A sleep demon, a hag crushing your chest, an alien abduction, they're the same experience with different costumes. |
Other | what is the purpose of paramedics giving people blankets after an accident? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | I’ve never done it on scene, unless my patient is cold. My ambulance doesn’t carry all that many blankets, so I don’t give them all away. I’ve really only seen it on TV or movies where everybody involved is wearing a blanket. |
Other | how do parking lot operators like Impark make their money? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | There are two principal ways which they can work: 1. Profit sharing. The operator gets a certain "cut" of the profits. 2. Fixed rate. The owner pays the operator a daily, monthly or yearly fee. Of course it's also possible to work on both, e.g., $10,000 per month plus 10% of monthly profits. |
Mathematics | How to Kurt Godel manage to "break" mathematics? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Godel did not "break" mathematics, but rather he proved that there existed limitations to the degree we could root complex mathematics in basic, formal logic. Philosophers and mathematicians wanted to devise a system where you could take a few basic axioms (unproved statements accepted as generally true), some rules of inference, and then construct every possible mathematical statement that was true. There are two qualities we want in a system: 1. Consistency - The system never produces a result that is false (for example: 2+2=5) 2. Completeness - If something is true, then our system is capable of producing it as a result (for example: 2+2=4 is true, so we want our system to be able to prove that). Philosophers and mathematicians spent a great deal of effort trying to develop such systems, until Godel proved that you cannot have a system that is both consistent or complete. A fully consistent system won't be complete (it won't be able to prove everything that is true) and a fully complete system won't be consistent (the system will "prove" things that are false). Needless to say, it basically shelved such efforts to ground math in pure logic, and any logical system of mathematics has to settle for being either incomplete or inconsistent. |
Other | Why do apartment buildings use vertical blinds? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Vertical blinds are easier to repair - you only have to replace the broken individual pieces. Horizontal blinds are all tied in so it typically involves a complete replacement. Further, vertical blinds are much better for sliding glass doors and the windows are frequently matched to the door. |
Technology | In video game piracy, how does cracking work? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | It really depends on the game in question - there are all manner of security systems in software. In the olden days, validation of the software's legitimacy was done by validating a license key. The games could be cracked either by developing a keygen (an algorithm that would generate a key the game would accept as legitimate) or by altering the code to accept any key as legitimate (removing/altering the algorithm that checked to see if the key was legit). Now, most games have some sort of DRM that checks in with a central server to validate that the copy is legitimate. Sometimes this can be bypassed by altering your machines host file so it can't connect to the validation server (an the software allows itself to continue to run in cases where it cannot validate) or again by altering the code to automatically return a valid response without actually checking in with the server. It is always a game of cat and mouse, though. Each time DRM is cracked, developers create new, better DRM. DRM will _always_ get cracked eventually, because so long as you know there is a key for the lock, it is only a matter of time before you figure out how to replicate the key. |
Other | Why does the sun shining make certain materials smell different? Like the sun shining through the window on the carpet, on a blanket, even the plastic blinds. Each thing has it's own distinct sun smell... Why? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | The heat may cause the scent of the material to permeate the distance further than normal; really the question your asking is how does the sun intensify the scent of materials |
Mathematics | In what ways are matrices used in the real world? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Matrices are a form of representing data in a mathematical format Without going into detail, matrices are used in many things in our everyday life, such as predicting/forecasting the weather, or calculating the statistics of diseases (such as the current pandemic) or even in finding best paths to go from point A to point B on a map We just don't get to see them because we have made software that does all the calculations on matrices behind the scenes to give us lines and shapes with pretty colours that we like/prefer to see |
Economics | What does it means that a stock has a lockup expiration? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | A lockup means certain people, usually early investors can't sell their stock for a while. This is common practice to stop early investor from selling too much stock after a company first joins the stock market. The expiration just means it's ending so they will be. Able to sell their stock as they please. Usually its not a huge deal but if anything it may cause the stock to go down a bit if a lot of people are selling. |
Physics | why is glass transparent but other things are not? As in, why can you see through glass but not say a wall? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Light is not reduced to the light we, humans, can see. As a matter of fact X-rays, Ultraviolet, Infrared, Microwaves, Radio waves, Wifi are all different types of light and Visible light is just a portion of the whole spectrum. Transparency is not reduced to visible light. Your cells are transparent to X-rays but not your skeleton and that's how doctors can examine your bones. Walls are transparent to radio waves and wifi so that's why you can listen to radio without needing an antenna outside your home and connect to the wifi from any room of your house. It happens that glass is transparent to visible light so we can see through. Now, the reason why glass is transparent to visible light and walls are transparent to radio waves has to do with their atomic structure. It is kind of complicated for an Eli5 but it is a matter of interaction between atoms and light: if the atoms interact with a specific kind of light, it can't get through unscathed so it is not transparent to that particular kind of light. If there is no interaction then the light just goes through and the result is transparency. |
Economics | How do medicine companies make money off commercials? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | > Don't people just take whatever their doctor recommends/prescribes to them? Advertising them seems pointless if your doctor has the final say on what would be best for you. Prescribing medicine and taking medicine takes both a doctor and patient. Sometimes, patients go to see their doctor and are already convinced they want a specific medicine. Sometimes that medicine is a good option for them, sometimes it's not the best (but is acceptable), sometimes it's a shitty option. Which one to prescribe is a discussion with the patient and their doctor. If people want to spend more money for a drug that isn't superior to competitors, then that's their business. Also, doctors watch TV. I see ads for new drugs all the time, and will Google it to see the mechanism of action. They're usually drugs targeting adult populations, so I will likely never prescribe them myself, but the company just got me spend a couple minutes looking at their drug. The more time they get docs to see and hear about their drug, the more likely they are to consider prescribing it. Can't prescribe something if you've never fucking heard of it, and that drug may or may not get space in whatever journals you read. |
Technology | What exactly is WiFi? Why does accessing the internet on my phone without WiFi cost me data while being on WiFi doesn't? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | WiFi is just a wireless way to be on a local computer network (aka LAN, local area network). Before WiFi, you had to have a network cable plugged into your device. & #x200B; WiFi isn't technically free, whomever owns the network is paying an internet bill. So if I'm using WiFi at my home, it's using my broadband internet which I pay $70 per month to have. If I go over my data cap, I would be paying more. & #x200B; So what we are dealing with are 2 companies providing 2 products. A wireless connection where you can be anywhere that has coverage (using their towers that they have all over the place), using their internet (and phone) connections, or a wireless connection where you connect to someone's router and use their connection to the internet. |
Economics | What is this article describing regarding Federal Reserve liquidity injections? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | In short, there is such a thing as 'money supply' and 'money demand'. If your interest rates are very low then you aren't 'creating' money. Interest rates are one way we make money out of thin air. If your interest rates are near zero, as they are now, then money supply tightens which is a problem. So the Fed 'injects' money into the economy as a way of making sure there is enough supply of money to keep the economy going. Don't think of money as the paper thing in your hand - it is a theoretical construct. What this article is suggesting is that what should be happening, banks are getting access to nearly free cash that is then lent to people in the *real* economy (say, a restaurant owner that needs capital to upgrade his/her kitchen) at a small interest rate to keep the *real* economy going - is not reliably happening. Instead, banks are using this capital to boost their economy. The solution is to raise interest rates, which will cause pain in the financial industry and consumers but for a short(ish) amount of time when everything finds a new equilibrium (or ceteris paribus if you are so inclined). |
Other | Watching the Netflix Doc on drugs business. Are the reporters held accountable by Law Enforcement for being there while they are making the cocaine? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | The answer is going to vary wildly from country to country (and in the US even state to state), but there are two general reasons that reporters can view criminal activity and not be held accountable. The first, in most places you are not legally required to report crime. This means even if you know crime is happening, as long as you do not take part or support the crime in some way, you cannot be charge in relation to the activities. The second are what's called Shield Laws. These are specific legal protections for reporters. Shield laws very wildly, but the most common things they protect are allowing reporters to keep their sources a secret and making it so that reporters cannot be asked to testify in a criminal trail. |
Earth Science | are hurricanes essentially just tornadoes that form over water? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | No, waterspouts are tornadoes over water. [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) |
Psychology | Why do people often have a harsher view of themselves than other people? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Because they have to live with it. They know what they did, and if they hate themselves for it they've been thinking about it for a while. When they see someone else, they give them the benefit of the doubt more often than not, plus it's easier to be positive and helpful towards someone else than tackling your own demons. |
Chemistry | why does soda fizz more when poured into a glass with ice as opposed to one without? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | The surface of the ice is rough until it starts to melt enough. This provides nucleation sites where the bubbles can grow more easily. It's the same principle as the mentos in diet coke thing. If you rinse the ice with water first, it won't foam up as much. Try also pouring into a dry glass vs one that you've just rinsed. The rinsed glass will foam less. |
Economics | Everyone thinks funerary services are grossly overpriced, and yet no one has swooped in to undercut everyone with a reasonably priced alternative. Why? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Most consumers of funerary services are not active comparison shoppers. They are very busy processing a life event, and an industry has grown up to exploit that situation. |
Earth Science | how do we measure the height of mountains? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | One way is geometry. Stand in a spot and measure the angle to the top. Now you know two angles and a side of a right triangle (the angle to the top from where you're standing, the default 90 degree angle of a right triangle, and the length of the side that is the distance from you to the mountain). Then you can calculate the height of the triangle which is the height of the mountain. Keep in mind this only gives you the height to the top relative to where you're standing, so if you want the height of the mountain relative to sea level you have to know how high above sea level you're measuring from. |
Biology | Why when you breathe in and out really fast it makes you dizzy ? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Breathing is just as much about carbon dioxide as it is about oxygen. CO2 isn't just a waste product that you want to get rid of - your body actually uses it as a buffer to keep the acidity of your blood balanced. CO2 isn't an acid itself, but it does turn into one very easily (carbonic acid). So the more CO2 there is in your blood, the more carbonic acid there also is, and thus the more acidic your blood gets. Less CO2, less acidic. When you breathe in and out really fast, you're expelling CO2 with every breath. That means that your blood very rapidly loses acidity, becoming more alkaline. This is not good. It's called [respiratory alkalosis]( URL_1 ), and it causes dizziness, palpitations, seizures, etc. If you're prone to hyperventilating like this, the go-to remedy for alkalosis is to hyperventilate into a paper bag. The bag will trap the CO2 you're exhaling, so that you breathe it right back in. This keeps your blood's CO2 levels, and thus its acidity, from going out of whack. Bonus note: breathing too *slowly* causes the opposite problem: [respiratory acidosis]( URL_0 ), aka your blood becoming too acidic. Gotta keep everything in balance. |
Chemistry | how is cheeto cheese made? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Pretty much any cheese can be turned into powder, if you dry the cheese either with an oven or a dehydrator it becomes very easy to crumple into powder, then you can just mix it with whey powder and whisk it until it all becomes a fine flour-like powder. Once it's powder, you can easily apply it to a number of food items, such as puffed cornmeal, thus making a cheesy snack. I can't say exactly what process they use to make their powder or what other additives they have, but it's likely Cheetos is mostly just cornmeal and powdered cheese, you could probably make them homemade pretty similar. |
Biology | When you read that flu has killed otherwise healthy people, what are the symptoms that actually take them out? Are they drowning in lung fluid or exhaustion from coughing, or what? | [
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"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | A few ways. The flu can cause intense inflammation in your lungs and you can die from respiratory failure. That's the most direct way (along with heart or organ failure, also brought on by inflammation). But the flu can kill you by making you susceptible to other bad stuff, too, because your body is weak and slow from trying to fight off the flu. In fact the most common way to die from the flu is to get it and then get pneumonia as a result. that's how the elderly usually go when it happens to them. |
Technology | How do custom email domains work? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | You need to own the domain\*. A domain is not protocol specific, it's what's used to route all TCP/IP requests to that domain. The DNS isn't just used for web. \* - If you have an agreement with the actual domain owner to forward your email elsewhere then you don't need to own it, but you do need the domain owner to work with you. That's how you can have a @gmail address without owning @gmail. |
Physics | what causes this thing where you tip a cup/glass full of liquid and the liquid instead of falling down as soon as it reaches the edge, runs along the side and falls down once it reaches the bottom of the glass/cup? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | This is called adhesion. Water is very very sticky and it likes to be attracted to things. It is far more attracted to the side of the glass than the air. Gravity has some effect, but not enough until theirs is more liquors with more mass. Water also has a property called cohesion, where it sticks to itself. This is why there is a water droplet in the first place. The molecules of water stick to each other, and therefore they go down the side of the glass to stay with the molecules that are attracted to it. |
Economics | Why do so many businesses demand deliveries between 6am and 10am? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and\n<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thin... | Usually those are slow times for customer traffic for retail-type businesses. So they can get a delivery without the truck eating up parking space and/or taking employees off the floor to deal with it. |
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