Question: What exactly is happening when turning the tuner knob on an analog radio. How does it 'grab' the specific station out of the air?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 What exactly is happening when turning the tuner knob on an analog radio. How does it 'grab' the specific station out of the air?

* The antenna on your radio is picking all broadcasts in your area at the same time. * The radio works by filtering everything out except the station you want to hear. * Turning the knob changes the resistance on the filter circuit inside your radio. * Changing the ~~resistance~~ capacitance in the circuit changes the center frequency of the filter. * When the ~~resistance~~ capacitance is *just right* the filter works best and the audio is clear.


Question: Why can’t we hear high frequency sounds as we age?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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Depth and Insight: The answer should provide thoughtful analysis or context, going beyond superficial details.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
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 Why can’t we hear high frequency sounds as we age?

Sound is fundamentally detected by "hair cells" in your inner ear, which have hairs suspended in fluid that move when the fluid is affected by an incoming sound. However, these cells die off as you age, so as you get fewer of them the sensitivity of your hearing goes down, with high frequencies being the first you notice.


Question: If swelling is the body's natural response to an injury, why do so many treatments attempt to reduce swelling?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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 If swelling is the body's natural response to an injury, why do so many treatments attempt to reduce swelling?

A lot of those biological responses, evolved in a rough survival environment where you might not have the luxury of stopping to tend to a damaged or broken bone or muscle. If you hurt yourself running from a predator, you might still have some more running to do! Part of swelling is just a side effect of healing - delivering white blood cells and platelets where they're needed and stuff like that - but a big purpose of swelling is to promote immobilization of the affected parts, so that further force and movement don't make the injury worse or interrupt healing. But if we know how to immobilize an injury with a cast or splint, and if as a society we protect and care for our wounded so they can rest, what our body does might be an overreaction. Excessive swelling can cause blood vessel damage and edema, and mess with tissue elasticity, and other bad things. In a more dangerous natural environment, that might've been a more worthwhile tradeoff. edit: many thanks to my kind award-givers and everyone who said nice things!


Question: Why were there tons of super giant creatures like dinosaurs a few million years ago, but there aren't now? Why did everything shrink in scale? Even a lot of bugs were much bigger then. Did Earth's gravity change?

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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
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 Why were there tons of super giant creatures like dinosaurs a few million years ago, but there aren't now? Why did everything shrink in scale? Even a lot of bugs were much bigger then. Did Earth's gravity change?

The prevailing theory is that our atmosphere had a lot more oxygen in it at the time (right now it's just over 20%). This let animals grow larger, especially with the scale of insects. Since most of them don't have a true respiratory system, they take in oxygen through their skin/exoskeletons. By having more O2 in the atmosphere, that made it easier to sustain larger size.


Question: how does the US get into the countries that they're at war with?

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 how does the US get into the countries that they're at war with?

The US military has a fully insane logistical apparatus and the US has a lot of allies. If the US doesn't have a neighboring allied state to invade from the USN and USMC are perfectly capable of forcing a landing and building a functional major seaport in a couple days. Most countries on Earth simply do not have the capability to meaningfully impede the US military from going wherever it's ordered to go.


Question: In the age of high definition audio why does the speaking portion of the Emergency Broadcast System sound so horrible?

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 In the age of high definition audio why does the speaking portion of the Emergency Broadcast System sound so horrible?

The emergency messaging systems aren't desgned to be slick and high tech, they're designed to be extremely robust and easily serviced. These setups date back to the cold war or even earlier and are supposed to continue providing emergency messaging capability even if there has been some natural or manmade catastrophe that has disabled all other channels of communication. So although the signal is now being displayed on your 4K television, the sound is still probably being relayed through an old AM radio system designed to survive an atomic bomb.


Question: Why does 350 degrees Farenheit seem like the 'standard' cooking temp for so many recipes?

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 Why does 350 degrees Farenheit seem like the 'standard' cooking temp for so many recipes?

It's a fair middling temperature where most cooking can occur at a decent pace without the outside burning too fast. Long ago they'd just say "cook it at a moderate flame", and had to keep that fire going just right, before the invention of oven temperature regulators that let you "set it and forget it" for a few hours. But, more importantly, it's right around the middle of the temperature range you want for a good use of the Maillard reaction: that's what gives things that beautiful golden brown. Too low and you can forget about a crispy skin or decent looking cookies... too high and while the reaction happens by the time the middle's cooked it's gone way past golden and into worthless charcoal exteriors.


Question: How does mining of cryptocurrencies work?

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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How does mining of cryptocurrencies work?

It's basically math. Let's say the first person that mined a bitcoin had to answer a simple math problem, 1+2 for example. Second person had to solve the first persons problem, plus one of his own. 1+2+6. Then he gets a bitcoin also. Third person has to solve everything that came before him plus one of his own: 1+2+6+37 Now imagine that you want to mine a bitcoin now, and a trillion other people have mined a bitcoin before you, you need to do a math problem with a trillion things added together. So that would take even the strongest computer a very very long time. Bitcoin made it so people can work on a small fraction of the big problem and earn a small fraction of that bitcoin. So if you did a million additions you might earn a hundreth or a thousandth of a bitcoin. But that's only a small part of the total answer to get the next bitcoin. Every bitcoin gets harder and harder to mine than the last ones. Eventually the math problem will get so complex that no computer in the world can solve it and that's when all bitcoin mining will end. Then people can just trade the fixed amount on the open market for goods and services, but no more will ever be made, unless they come up with something new and better. Note: I realize the actual math problem is more complex than this, but I'm trying to make it into something that anyone can understand.


Question: why do physical disc console games still have to install, often over a period of hours before eventually updating and then being playable?

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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 why do physical disc console games still have to install, often over a period of hours before eventually updating and then being playable?

Blu-Ray drives in current gen consoles don't have the bandwidth to keep up with the data demands of the game itself. So there's no way to run the game directly off the disc. (obviously this depends on the game itself, but it applies to most AAA high-profile releases at the very least, and so was applied to all games) The solution is to install the game so you don't need to worry about drive speed, you can read from the much more performant hard drive. The updates afterwards are a little different depending on how close to launch you purchase. Day 1 patches are what the developers do between the discs being printed for delivery to stores, and the release date. There's enough of a delay there that they can get some last minute fixes and additions sorted. Later down the line, updates obviously build up as part of the typical post-release support many games now see.


Question: How can meteorologists predict the weather somewhat accurately like a week prior?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How can meteorologists predict the weather somewhat accurately like a week prior?

Nowadays, there's a massive computer simulation of the atmosphere. They constantly update it with today's weather data\* to keep the simulation on track, and it's typically good for a week in advance. In fact, there are seven *different* simulations of the atmosphere going on all the time, each using a different mathematical model. The meteorologists (I presume at the NOAA) look at the results and effectively "vote" among them. That is, if five of the simulations say the same thing, and the other two are off in the weeds, then they release the forecast that the five simulations agreed on. Sometimes you get a case where none of the simulations agree on what's going to happen. The meteorologists just have to make their best guess in that case. ---- \* One of the things pilots are asked to do is radio in with what are called "pireps" (Pilot Reports). They love to know your location, your altitude, and the temperature at that altitude. The bases and tops of the clouds are also useful information. This helps feed the simulation.


Question: Venomous means harm is done with injection. Poisonous means harm is done when ingested... But is venom poisonous, and is poison venomous? Like, will eating a venomous critter poison you?

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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Venomous means harm is done with injection. Poisonous means harm is done when ingested... But is venom poisonous, and is poison venomous? Like, will eating a venomous critter poison you?

Most venoms are not poisonous. Most poisons are venomous. (That sentence is wrong, but we're having a conversation.) Venoms are *usually* proteins that are produced to do a very specific thing, they are designed to be injected into soft tissue and act very quickly. Most venoms are neurotoxins, meaning they target nerves in some way, like blocking the neurotransmitters from being released and thus paralyzing the muscle. This gets to the heart or the lungs and the victim dies. These venoms are not designed to pass through mucosal membranes like those found in the mouth, eyes, nose, etc, so if someone were to swallow it, it would pass through the esophagus with minimal damage. When it gets to the stomach it's now in a massively acidic environment. The pH is ~2, the pH of blood is ~7.4, so the stomach is ~250,000x more acidic (thanks for actually doing the math) than blood. Proteins are only stable in certain conditions, salinity, temperature, pH, all effect the protein on a molecular level. So the venom passes into the stomach, isn't stable in that environment, and is rendered "harmless". Poisons are a different story. Poison Dart Frogs, probably the most notorious poisonous animal. Arrowheads were poisoned (envenomed?) By rubbing them on the frogs, stabbing it into the frog, or "roasting them over a fire". Which shows that the poison wouldn't be able to be cooked out. But these frogs are also too poisonous to *TOUCH* the poison is on the frog's skin and is absorbed through our skin. You've probably heard of licking toads? They're also poisonous, but the poison isn't fatal and it's absorbed readily through mucosal membranes. Polar bears aren't poisonous. But their livers are, they contain an essential vitamin, which is fat soluble, at such high concentrations that it would kill you to eat. Poison by concentration. Warfarin? A massively popular heart medication? Rat poison. It's a blood thinner, and originally was made as a rat poison, but at very low levels, can be used therepuetically. Whether a poison can be used as a venom really depends on the poison. If I were to dip an arrowhead in botulism toxin, yeah, that will kill ya. Poisons can be proteins, small molecules, drug like substances, pretty much anything, it's a catch all. Venoms are pretty much just proteins, they're produced by an animal for a purpose and evolutionarily speaking it's a hell of a lot easier to produce a protein for a purpose than it is to create an enzyme or an enzymatic pathway that produces a molecule. If you look up rattlesnake venom you'll find "modified saliva", evolution took an existing structure, a salivary gland, and modified it until it produced a saliva capable of killing prey. Also, venoms are usually more than one protein, dozens of them working in concert. Toxins and poisons are generally thought of as a single molecule. Komodo Dragons? Actually venomous, the whole blood poisoning thing with bacteria was a hypothesis that was never really proven and made a good story. Their venom isn't nearly as fast acting as other venoms, which probably lead to this hypothesis of the bacteria in their mouth causing sepsis and death. A bit rambly, but I think I hit most of the key points. Edit: words and I looked up the Komodo dragon I was taught that they causes sepsis and it wasn't until recently that the venom was proven. Also looked up the poison dart frog thing.


Question: How and when did we realize stock trading was something we needed? What prompted the first companies to issue stock for outsiders to buy shares in their company?

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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How and when did we realize stock trading was something we needed? What prompted the first companies to issue stock for outsiders to buy shares in their company?

It was a long time ago (think like the 1700s) and it was necessary to fund growth and to create bigger opportunities. To start, let's understand what came before. If you were a merchant in the Middle Ages you were basically trading on your family's money. You paid for the goods, you paid for the ship to transfer them, and if that ship sunk you were in deep trouble. You were *personally liable* for the debts of your business. Even a group of people funding an expedition would be in the same boat (heh) in regards to what happened. Obviously this means that early companies tended to be a single very wealthy family and relatively limited ventures anyway. You simply couldn't fund the kind of large scale companies that you see today. There wasn't enough money in one or a few people's hands, and it was risky. A single bad deal could break an entire family. Jumping forward a bit, as business ventures got larger and more complex (because empire) people came up with an interesting idea. Instead of paying for an expedition to the Americas or to sell wool in Flanders or whatever by yourself... why not crowd fund the thing? So you would create a company, and sell ownership stakes in it to your wealthy family, friends and fools. This gave you a source of funds to make it happen without having to fund it all yourself. Everyone risked a little bit and would get paid based on their stake at the end. Of course there was still some issues with the debts of the company falling back on the owners... but this was fixed with the notion of "limited liability" which basically means that as a owner of a company you are only responsible for YOUR share of the company and if that hits zero that is the limit of what you can lose. That developed into our modern system where shares of ownership in massive companies are traded at the rate of millions a day.


Question: What is the evidence threshold that makes "evidence-based medicine" evidence-based?

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 What is the evidence threshold that makes "evidence-based medicine" evidence-based?

There isn't a specific threshold that an intervention crosses where practicing it goes from non-evidence based to evidence based. Generally, when you read clinical practice guidelines, they generally grade the strength of the recommendation and the strength of the evidence supporting it separately. For example, medication A, under these circumstances, may be recommended strongly because it has a large potential for benefit with very little possibility of causing harm, but the strength of the evidence behind it may be graded as "weak" because there hasn't been enough study. Scientific evidence isn't created equal. A retrospective study of 100 male ICU patients in one hospital in Japan that was never replicated and didn't adequately control for confounders isn't going to provide the same level of evidence that a prospective, double blind, placebo controlled, multicenter clinical trial which enrolled thousands of patients and came up with the same findings that two other studies did. Evidence based medicine means you are practicing based on the preponderance of the evidence that's out there. In some cases, there may be a great deal of evidence behind what you are doing. In other cases, there might not be a great deal of evidence but the action is reasonable based on the evidence you do have. In still other cases, there may be some evidence to support it, but we don't routinely recommend it without further study. That decision may be based on expert consensus on risk/benefit analysis, cost effectiveness or lack of confidence in the intervention. In contrast, there is "making shit up as you go" and "continuing to do shit when the evidence says what you're doing is crazy." It's true that sometimes docs do things which are reasonable based on the evidence that we have, but when we collect more data we find it wasn't as effective as we hoped, or it is effective, but only when applied to patients in groups A and B but not C or D (or in worst case scenario, harmed more people than it helped). **Then we change what we do based on this new evidence** and we collect new evidence all the time. "Alternative medicine" is a great example of not doing this. Homeopathy, which is huge in alternative medicine circles has been studied over and over and over, has never been convincingly demonstrated to be effective for, well, anything, has no plausible theory of how it could even *hope* to be effective (and as such, is unreasonable from the get go), and was totally made up by Samuel Hahnemann in the 1800s based on...no evidence whatsoever...and yet charlatans employ it as a "cure" for practically every ailment out there--including the treatment of diseases which are equally made up and have no substantial evidence to support the notion that they even exist.


Question: Would it be better for the environment to use a paper product instead of plastic for water bottles? Also is it practical to implement a paper type container

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Would it be better for the environment to use a paper product instead of plastic for water bottles? Also is it practical to implement a paper type container

It would be better for the environment if we just eliminated bottled water for the most part. There are some situations where bottled water is practical and necessary, but in most places in the civilized world it's a scam. Tap water is perfectly safe, effectively free, and widely available. People would be better off carrying re-useable containers and filling them up at the tap.


Question: Why do phone batteries die so quickly after a long time of usage compared to when you first buy the phone?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do phone batteries die so quickly after a long time of usage compared to when you first buy the phone?

A battery produces electricity through a chemical reaction. A rechargeable one uses a reaction that can be reversed by applying electricity as well. But some of the atoms undergo different reactions and from compounds and structures that cannot be reversed by applying alectricity. Over time, the amount of material in the battery that can correctly fulfull the original function decreases.


Question: Why does a debit card reader ask what kind of debit card you are using? It cancels the transaction if the wrong answer is given, so does that not mean it can tell what kind it is?

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 Why does a debit card reader ask what kind of debit card you are using? It cancels the transaction if the wrong answer is given, so does that not mean it can tell what kind it is?

US checking in. I get prompted for Credit or Debit on my card. Both go through. Credit and Debit transactions are handled by completely different systems. The differences: If you select the Credit option, the transaction is processed through Visa, Mastercard, or another major credit card brand as if it were a regular credit card (as in, a card with a revolving line of credit which is not attached to a bank account). The merchant doesn't know that this is a bank card and not a credit card. They get their money and pay a 1.5% - 3% fee on the transaction. The transaction is also subject to consumer protections regarding credit cards; the consumer is never liable for any more than $50 (every bank goes over and beyond by making the liability $0, even though they don't have to.) If you select the Debit option the terminal is now an ATM and the transaction is handled by a debit processor (the logo is on the back of the card, examples include Star, Pulse, Nyce, Accel, and Maestro). It's treated as a debit withdrawal like if you were at an ATM (though, nowadays, the actual transaction is coded in a way that the bank knows that it's a retail transaction and not an ATM withdrawal). The merchant knows it's a bank card. They get their money and pay a 0.25% - 1.5% fee on the transaction. The big differences here: Credit: * Accepted just about everywhere. * Transaction fee is more expensive for the merchant. * The money may not be debited from your account for a day or two in some cases. * Consumer protection laws exist. * May or may not be secured with a PIN (this is up to the bank and the retailer in the US). * Does not allow 'Cash Back' transactions. (This is a policy thing. Some merchants can just manually charge a larger amount and hand you the difference.) * My bank lets me accrue points on Credit transactions. Debit: * Accepted in a many places but certainly not the level of ubiquity you see with Credit. * Transaction fee is cheaper for the merchant. * The money is immediately debited from your account at the time of the purchase. Debit holds for pre-authorized fuel purchases last only minutes, not days as with credit. * The consumer protection laws on debit transactions are minimal. Most banks will protect you but, to be clear, they are not required to by law. * Always secured with a PIN. The debit protocol requires a PIN for every transaction, no exceptions. * Generally allows cash-back as an option on the terminal. The merchant is allowed to turn this feature off. * My bank does NOT let me accrue points on Debit transactions. Edit: In my attempt at being a know-it-all, it seems like I latched onto the wrong part of the post. As far as my attempt at answering as to why it's necessary to prompt for the type of transaction rather than asking the card about the transaction, I don't know the answer. My working theory, however, and this is just speculation, is that the card doesn't indicate what types of transactions are supported. If you attempt to run the wrong type of transaction, the transaction is declined and a transaction fee is accrued by the mechant. The next best thing to do is ask what type of transaction to try before attempting to run it. Some banks DO use a standardized subset of card number prefixes exclusively for debit. (This is the first four numbers of the card number.) This is how some terminals can figure out that a card has debit transaction capability.


Question: How does shorting a currency works ?

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 How does shorting a currency works ?

same as shorting a stock. you say "I am going to sell X units of this currency on that date for the price of Y" (in another currency) example: I say I will sell $1000 for 500€ in 1 month (mid-july). now you think "the dollar will be worth much more than half a euro by then, I'll take this deal". now when that amount of time (here: 1 month) is over, I have to sell you that amount of dollars at the specified price. if for some reason the US economy completely collapsed and suddenly the $1 is worth only 0.2€ I now make a fortune (since I buy the dollars I sell to you on the open market and you buy them from me for the agreed-upon price). but if it's at a 1-1 ratio I lose a ton of money and you win. so essentially its just betting on a stock/currency dropping in value


Question: How does the birthday problem work?

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 How does the birthday problem work?

The key thing to remember is that it's the probability of anyone being born on the same day, but that day can be any date on the calendar. The probability that two people are born on, say, September 9th, is quite low. But the probability that any two people have the same birthday on any day at all within the calendar is much higher. It just doesn't seem high at first.


Question: Why does bourbon amplify the flavor of vanilla?

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 Why does bourbon amplify the flavor of vanilla?

Bourbon is not that bitter, it’s actually very sweet for a liquor, much sweeter than say a rye whiskey or scotch. To be labeled as bourbon, the predominantly corn-based whiskey must be aged in charred oak barrels. The charring of the wood allows the alcohol to better absorb the wood’s flavors. In the charring process, it degrades the oak’s lignin (a polymer found in plant cells) into its three chemical components: synapealdehyde, syringealdehyde, and vanillin, which imparts characteristic vanilla flavors. URL_0


Question: why is the water in Venice so clear if the gondolas are hand powered?

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 why is the water in Venice so clear if the gondolas are hand powered?

Just far less traffic in general. Motor boats are the standard transport for most people in Venice, so propellers are everywhere. And any time anything hits the bottom of the canals, be it the poles from gondolas, trash that might be discarded, anything, it stirs up sediment, but when there’s nothing to stir it up, it settles again, so the canals clear.


Question: How is instant rice able to keep moisture and not go bad for a long time?

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 How is instant rice able to keep moisture and not go bad for a long time?

You mean the cups of rice you can just put into the microwave without adding water? It's been heat treated, just like canned food: If the food is heated to 121°C inside its container, all germs are going to die. As long as the container is never opened, no germs can get to the rice, so it can't spoil. The reason that this kind of instant rice does have best by date isn't that it will spoil, it's that the packaging slowly lets out moisture and the rice will eventually dry out. If they wanted the rice to last through the apocalypse, they would have to line the inside of the packaging with aluminum, which isn't great for microwaves.


Question: How do you work out the combined probability of 2 events? (Presuming I know the probability of both)

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 How do you work out the combined probability of 2 events? (Presuming I know the probability of both)

You have to know a little more about the data to be able to calculate the probability. If the two events are independent (the probability of one doesn't effect the probability of the other) then you can simply multiply the two numbers. Say the probability of A is 25% and B is 10%, then the probability of A and B is 0.25 \* 0.10 = 0.025 of 2.5% However, if the probability of one does effect the other, it gets more complicated. If one always causes the other, For Example: A being true always makes B true, then the probability of both is the same as the probability of A. For example, an engine failing in a car will always make the car undrivable, so the probability of both is the same as the probability of the engine failing. If they effect each other in a more complicated way, then knowing the probability each isn't enough. You have to measure the probability yourself (by collecting data) or you have to make some assumptions about the events to approximate the probabilities. For example, lets say you have two pumps in a pond, and the probability either pump failing is 10%, but probability of both failing is 7%. This is because if one pump fails, the other pump might have to work harder, and becomes much more likely to fail.


Question: Why is it we can see something, mentally acknowledge it, and still trip or run into anyways? Is this the same as pushing on a door when you clearly read it say "Pull"?

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 Why is it we can see something, mentally acknowledge it, and still trip or run into anyways? Is this the same as pushing on a door when you clearly read it say "Pull"?

The most impressive part of the human brain isn't what it notices and reacts to, but the things it filters out. You see everything, you've collected that information. When a car passes you see the licence plate but you don't memorize it, you can see a flight of stairs but not automatically count the steps, when you see words you read them, but you may not acknowledge their meaning or respond to it. So just getting the sensory input doesn't actually mean we truly acknowledge it and make adjustments to other automated behaviour we're doing. The information just doesn't get sent to the right place to actually stop the action we were taking.


Question: What actually makes one country's dollar worth less than another country's dollar?

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 What actually makes one country's dollar worth less than another country's dollar?

What *actually* makes ones currency worth more than another is just how much people are willing to pay of one for the other. It is a market rate set by the people trading (directly or indirectly). What people use to figure out what they feel its value is is more complex, usually relating to a number of economic markers. Trade and interest rates can be huge, as can the average price of goods.


Question: Before language was invented was an internal dialogue possible for humans? How would it have worked?

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 Before language was invented was an internal dialogue possible for humans? How would it have worked?

Yes. I can't tell you how it would have worked, but I am a speech therapist and I work with non speaking children and adults. Once they develop verbal language they can tell us that they had the same kind of thought functions as us, but it was produced more in concepts or pictures.


Question: If I want to become a Canadian citizen, I have to swear allegiance to the Queen of England. Why? Isn't Canada it's own country?

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 If I want to become a Canadian citizen, I have to swear allegiance to the Queen of England. Why? Isn't Canada it's own country?

You don't swear allegiance to the Queen of England - for starters, England hasn't been a kingdom since 1707 when they merged with Scotland to form the United Kingdom. And anyways, when you take your citizenship oath, you aren't swearing an oath to the Queen of the United Kingdom - you're swearing an oath to the Queen of Canada. In the 1930's the British Empire took several of its dominions (Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Irish Free State, and South Africa) and made them into their own kingdoms. Since that time, the Irish Free State and South Africa have become republics, but the other 3 are still their own kingdoms. There are also a bunch of other kingdoms like Jamaica and Belize that are now Commonwealth Realms. Essentially the deal is that Queen Elizabeth is the Queen of the United Kingdom, and the Queen of Canada, and the Queen of New Zealand, and the Queen of Australia, and the Queen of Belize (etc.) Different kingdoms, same Queen. The Commonwealth Realms have an agreement that says they'll make decisions that impact royal succession together, but other than that they're legally distinct from each other.


Question: How come musicians in rock bands don't typically use sheet music like they do in an orchestra?

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 How come musicians in rock bands don't typically use sheet music like they do in an orchestra?

Several reasons. - Rock songs are typically a lot simpler (and shorter) than classical music. That means that for a given amount of practice, they have played the music more. - Rock artists typically move around more than classical musicians, making it more essential that they be able to play without sheet music. - It is also important to note that sheet music is quite often a backup to a classical musician. Most musicians, once ready for a concert, are quite capable of playing without sheet music. The sheet music simply acts as a reminder in case of memory lapse.


Question: What is the Mandelbrot set and why is it important?

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 What is the Mandelbrot set and why is it important?

The Mandelbrot set is a kind of map of how multiplication and addition interact with each other in the complex numbers. Complex numbers are, basically, two-dimensional numbers. Whereas real numbers convey the concept of bigness and smallness (magnitude), and forwardness and backwardness (sign), complex numbers expand on this by adding 'sidewaysness'. We represent normal 'real' numbers visually as existing along a number line. Complex numbers exist in a number *plane*. Suppose I give you the instructions: - Pick a number. - Now square that number , i.e. multiply it by itself. - Now take the result, and add your original number to it. - Now take the result, and square it. - Now take the result, and add your original number. - Repeat the last two steps forever. A few different things might happen, depending on the number you picked. If you pick 1, then it goes like: 1 squared is 1, add 1 makes 2, squaring 2 makes 4, adding 1 makes 5, squaring that makes 25... Your number just gets bigger and bigger and grows toward infinity. If you pick 0.1, then squaring that gives 0.01, adding 0.1 gives 0.11, squaring that gives 0.0121, adding 0.1 gives 0.1121... things seem to stay pretty small. If you pick -1, then things are a little weirder! -1 squared is 1, then adding -1 gives 0, squaring that gives 0, adding -1 gives -1, squaring that gives 1, adding -1 gives 0... and we're in a loop. So if you liked, you could count along the entire real number line and check what happens to every single number if you play this square-and-add game with it, and shade it one colour if it remains small or goes into a loop, and shade it another colour if it grows toward infinity. The Mandelbrot set is basically the result of doing this over all the numbers in the complex number plane. Why is it important? For most people, it isn't really. It's just something to marvel at and think "Wow, how amazing that such an intricate shape comes from such a simple rule." But if you're very interested in advanced mathematics, the Mandelbrot set contains hints of a lot of other branches of math. For instance, this add-and-square-and-add-and-square game is closely related to the [logistic map]( URL_0 ), which is used for modelling a lot of natural systems, chaos theory, and even has some connections to the [distribution of the prime numbers.]( URL_2 ) [This Veritasium video]( URL_1 ) is a good overview of some of the different domains of math which are touched by the logistic equation, and its deep connection to the Mandelbrot set.


Question: How does rubbing your hand against a stainless steel remove smells?

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 How does rubbing your hand against a stainless steel remove smells?

The theory is that the chromium oxide on the outside of the steel soap bonds with sulfur that is left on your hand by "smelly" items like garlic and onions. "Liquid soap" does not bond to sulfur to help remove it and instead uses fragrances to cover up smells. Now, I can't speak to whether it actually works through the stated mechanism. Anecdotally I can say that it does help - it does not fully remove the smell, but after washing my hands with soap, smelling them, then using stainless steel and smelling them again the remaining odor is greatly diminished.


Question: How does buying a house "build equity"?

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 How does buying a house "build equity"?

Lets say a house is worth 250K. You borrow 230K and put down a 20K deposit. You now have 20K equity in the house. It's the value of your holding minus your debt. As you pay down the mortgage, your equity percentage rises until eventually you own the house. If the prices have remained stable or risen, you've also gained a paper profit that you can realize when you sell. The process of paying off the mortgage is what builds the equity.


Question: How do search engines work? Where are they searching from?

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</answer>
 How do search engines work? Where are they searching from?

So first you need an index. Pick a website, and make a note of all the terms on that website. Then follow links from that site to other sites, and repeat. Eventually you have a mapping from potential search terms to pages that contain those terms. But you can't just pull randomly from this index when someone searches for 'dog' - you need some sort of ordering, because users only want the *best* results for 'dog'. One way of figuring this out is by looking at links. You assume that a really good site about dogs is probably going to be linked to by other good sites about dogs. So you first come with a basic scoring for every site that has 'dog' in it, maybe based just on the number of times the word appears, and then you propagate those scores to the sites that each site links to. So you have three sites initially scored as '5', say, but sites A and B both link to site C, so you update C's score to be 10 to reflect the fact that other dog related sites seem to think it's a good resource. You do this over and over and over again, pushing scores between connected sites, and eventually you've got a reasonable guess at what the best sites are. Of course actual search engines do a lot more, but in a very basic sense, that's the sort of thing that's happening.


Question: How does a catalytic converter not get coated in carbon and quit working?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How does a catalytic converter not get coated in carbon and quit working?

Depends on which pipe you looked at. Typically from the engine block to (including) the catalytic converter, operating temperatures are "glowing red hot", so the unused oxygen in the exhaust has a very easy time burning the soot to CO2 and (water) steam, which are both gases (won't leave a residue). Further down the pipe, things cool down and whatever soot is left can deposit and NOT end up burned out by contact with super-hot metal.


Question: Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical in the universe, but we don't actually see it. How can people actually "gather" and store it and use as fuel?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical in the universe, but we don't actually see it. How can people actually "gather" and store it and use as fuel?

Having the ability to see something is not a requirement for being able to store it or use it. I mean, we can't see helium but we can collect and store it. We can't see air but we can store it and separate it into its constituent gases. Most of the hydrogen we collect is as a byproduct of oil and natural gas extraction, but there are many other methods, like electrolysis of water for example. It's all just chemistry.


Question: When you rub lotion into your skin and it vanishes, where does it end up?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 When you rub lotion into your skin and it vanishes, where does it end up?

Lotions, creams, and ointments are all mixes of watery ingredients (water, alcohols, stuff like that) and oily ingredients. Creams are more oily than lotions, ointments are more oily than creams. Generally, the oils are either absorbed and/or stay on your skin as a barrier, and the aqueous components are either absorbed or evaporate. Things that "moisturize" basically add some water to the dried surface skin, then make an oily barrier on the surface to prevent evaporative drying again- water goes in, oils stay on top.


Question: Why does water seem so cold after rinsing with mouthwash???

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why does water seem so cold after rinsing with mouthwash???

They do that on purpose actually. Menthol is added in small amounts and menthol triggers your cold receptors chemically. Makes them more sensitive in general for a while. There's a little actual cooling because the alcohol evaporates easily and carries away heat much like sweat cools you when it evaporates, but for the most part it's fake.


Question: Why are our bodies so resilient and self healing yet damage to the brain is permanent?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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Clarity and Organization: The answer should be well-structured, coherent, and easy to follow.
Depth and Insight: The answer should provide thoughtful analysis or context, going beyond superficial details.
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<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why are our bodies so resilient and self healing yet damage to the brain is permanent?

Our body is good at healing, but it’s rare that truly damaging injuries heal like new. Scar tissue, nerve damage, and other symptoms might last your entire life. Like the rest of our bodies, our brains can heal a truly vast amount and work around areas of damage... but only to a certain point. The brain is incredibly fragile and complex. Damage to it is not like breaking an arm.


Question: How are "albums sold" determined in this era of music streaming?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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Clarity and Organization: The answer should be well-structured, coherent, and easy to follow.
Depth and Insight: The answer should provide thoughtful analysis or context, going beyond superficial details.
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<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How are "albums sold" determined in this era of music streaming?

The music industry has a specific unit for that: the "Album-equivalent unit". A single physical album sale is defined to be equivalent to ten song downloads, or 1500 song streams. So, if you as an artist sells 5000 albums, people download your song 10.000 times, and your music was streamed 1.300.000 times, you are credited with 'selling' 6800 albums.


Question: How do materials in an alloy create a substance that has different properties to the base materials, even though no chemical reaction takes place between the materials?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
Your answer should follow these rubric criterias:
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do materials in an alloy create a substance that has different properties to the base materials, even though no chemical reaction takes place between the materials?

Steel is a good example. It's made of iron and carbon. Iron atoms are relatively large compared to carbon atoms. If all you have are iron atoms, they pack together, but there are small spaces between the atoms. If you add carbon to the mix, the smaller carbon atoms can fit into the spaces, making the alloy much sturdier than pure iron.


Question: How do album remasters work?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
Your answer should follow these rubric criterias:
Factual Accuracy: The answer must be factually correct and does not contradict the reference answer.
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Clarity and Organization: The answer should be well-structured, coherent, and easy to follow.
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<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do album remasters work?

Mastering is just transferring the final mixed tape onto a new media for sales (vinyl, CD, cassette). & #x200B; The original recording tapes for the album are very high fidelity and sound quality. Assuming it's not going to be re-mixed, they will transfer the original tape sound onto a new master. If the process of mastering has improved (or was originally not done well the first time), you can probably get a better sound out of it. & #x200B; This is similar to films. If you've ever wondered how films from the 1950's can be 4K, it's because film is incredibly high quality. It's already 4K quality when it was recorded, but, for example, VHS video tape is nowhere near 4K. It was the equivalent of 480 at best (VHS wasn't digital so it doesn't directly translate to digital resolutions). So a film from the 50's gets mastered onto VHS and it's x quality. Then DVD's come out (720p), and that movie gets re-mastered to DVD at higher quality (but it's still lower quality than the original recording), then Blu Ray comes out (1080p) and it gets remastered to that format. & #x200B; If there's an audio format improvement, the originals can be remastered to it to give you a better quality sound than previous releases on old formats or mastering techniques.


Question: How do archeologists determine the age of fossils and other prehistoric prints?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do archeologists determine the age of fossils and other prehistoric prints?

Carbon-14 dating is usually how old living things are aged. Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon that is assimilated by living things as they eat or absorb CO2 in the case of plants. Carbon-14 decays over time into Carbon-12, the most common form of carbon. Carbon-14 has a known half-life, the period of time in which half of the substance remains. Scientists know how much carbon-14 a living thing usually contains when it dies, so they can make a quite accurate judgement of how long a living thing died based on how much carbon-14 it has in it when it is found.


Question: Why can you “hear” when a cup is filling up?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
Your answer should follow these rubric criterias:
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Clarity and Organization: The answer should be well-structured, coherent, and easy to follow.
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<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why can you “hear” when a cup is filling up?

When a drop falls to a liquid at bottom of a cup, the sound waves will be absorbed and reflected by the sides of the cup. When a drop falls to a liquid at the top of a cup, the sound waves will not be absorbed and reflected by the sides of the cup. The difference in reflection and absorption will make it clear to you how full that cup is.


Question: why does a stomach flu cause muscles to ache all over your body? What mechanism is causing it?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 why does a stomach flu cause muscles to ache all over your body? What mechanism is causing it?

It's not the flu that's causing the pain. It is your immune system. Think of it like a newer model vehicle. When the computer in new cars determine that something potentially catastrophic is wrong, they will switch the car into limp mode. Typically reducing max speed, turning off climate control, and sometimes shutting off the infotainment controls. Your immune system is like the cars computer but for your body, it's trying to keep you safe...sure it might be annoying, but it's doing the right thing.


Question: Couldn't we just launch nuclear waste into the sun, how would that work and is it even possible?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Couldn't we just launch nuclear waste into the sun, how would that work and is it even possible?

Ignoring for a moment the threat posed by a catastrophic failure during launch through the atmosphere, once you get the waste out of Earth orbit there's no particular reason to hurl it into the Sun. It's actually really difficult to hit the Sun from Earth. The Earth orbits the Sun instead of falling into it because the Earth is moving sideways at 30 kilometers per second. If we want something to fall into the Sun, we can't just launch it into space and let go of it; we have to cancel out all of its orbital motion first, and that's really expensive in terms of rocketry. If we just want to be rid of the nuclear waste, we're better off going up than down—it requires far less energy to launch something up and out of the solar system forever than it does to crash the same item into the Sun.


Question: What did Bill Clinton do/What contributed to the prosperous economic state in the 90's?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 What did Bill Clinton do/What contributed to the prosperous economic state in the 90's?

Sometimes the best thing a President can do is not screw up a good thing when it's happening. The Internet was just starting to boom then, and Clinton *didn't mess it up*. He didn't create it, but he didn't stop it either (and did a good job of making sure others didn't stop it). That may not sound like much, but Presidents/Congresses have purposely or ham-handedly stifled innovation in the past for various reasons. Clinton didn't do that. He did do some things to help it too: increased education funding and funding to research universities (where many of the new technologies used by the Internet where invented), increased funding to the National Science Foundation by over 30% (again increasing the creation and adoption of new technologies), and so on. Paying for basic scientific research often pays huge dividends.


Question: how does money laundering work?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 how does money laundering work?

Someone pays for a drink 10$ and leaves no tip, you put in 10$ from the drug deal and record it as a tip. And wooopdidoo you have 20$ "legally" from the sale of drinks. Obviously, this gets more and more intricate with the amount of money and if the money is marked (from bank robbery etc) then you need entirely other methods.