Question: How do we know that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs? Why is there no crater if the asteroid was so big? And how do we know what exactly happened if it was millions of years ago?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do we know that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs? Why is there no crater if the asteroid was so big? And how do we know what exactly happened if it was millions of years ago?

Because there is a crater and we have found it: URL_0 As to whether it killed the dinosaurs; there's no definitive proof but the dating seems to line up and an impact that size would cause the kind of extinction-event level climate changes that probably killed off the larger non-avian dinosaurs


Question: Were Mitrochondrial Adam and Eve actually two real people?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Were Mitrochondrial Adam and Eve actually two real people?

The further back you go the more trivial it is for someone to have been related to all of modern humans. Not least because having 1 child can mean hundreds of thousands of descendants but also because it appears that there are periodically filters that cause the genetic lineage to shrink. It's not hard to think that there were people who has children and then after a period of famine or disease a few generations later the remaining population happened to be made up of their offspring. When these events happen over a large time scale it's inevitable that all of humanity can trace our lineage back to a single male and/or female. I can't speak for what anyone else means but i see no issue with both meanings of this being accurate. It's a good idea that is useful and it's also very probably true even if we can never identify anything useful about them


Question: How does washing your hands with soap and water remove germs?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How does washing your hands with soap and water remove germs?

Oil, dirt, and bacteria bind to soap, and the water rinses them off. It doesn't kill the bacteria unless it has some antibacterial properties added to it. "The soap molecule has two different ends, one that is hydrophilic (polar head) that binds with water and the other that is hydrophobic (non-polar hydrocarbon tail) that binds with grease and oil. When greasy dirt or oil is mixed with soapy water, the soap molecules arrange themselves into tiny clusters called micelles." URL_0


Question: How are you able to keep bandages/dressings on post surgery for an extended amount of time before it can be washed/changed without getting an infection?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How are you able to keep bandages/dressings on post surgery for an extended amount of time before it can be washed/changed without getting an infection?

Right now that bandage is a shield. It’s acting like your skin in the sense that it’s keeping all the gross things outside. Medical bandages are woven tighter, and have a denser glue that holds it together. This prevents dirt and bacteria from being absorbed. They’ll also usually have a layer of antibiotics underneath, so they’re not accidentally trapping anything when it’s first put on. As soon as they’re wet though, that can introduce bacteria. That’s why it’s important not to wash it. Source- have had multiple surgeries, dad’s a doctor, this is how it was explained to me. Call me out if any of this is wrong.


Question: Why would Homo sapiens ever migrate north into colder climate?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why would Homo sapiens ever migrate north into colder climate?

Well, back when we were migratory creatures, we wouldn't. Head north during the warner months and south fir the cooler months. But once we decided that settling down was better. The amount of fertile land and other natural resources was tempting enough for the settlers to brave a few cold months.


Question: Why is it that some materials, like ice and metal, melt but others, like wood and coal, burn?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why is it that some materials, like ice and metal, melt but others, like wood and coal, burn?

burning requires combustion. something reacting with an oxidant typically we think of carbon and oxygen. You can melt wood, but it requires specific conditions. water and metal do not combust with oxygen (or rather, water has already combusted when hydrogen and oxygen burned) so they are already relatively stable in a natural earth environment.


Question: Why do undocumented immigrants returning to Mexico drive down wages there, but proponents of relaxed immigration say they don't do the same here?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do undocumented immigrants returning to Mexico drive down wages there, but proponents of relaxed immigration say they don't do the same here?

Essentially, they're saying that competition for wages in *Mexico* will increase because of the influx of skilled workers. That is, the people gained skill in the US, and are now returning to Mexico as skilled workers--which (ironically enough) ends up meaning they're taking Mexican jobs away from Mexicans who have been there for years or decades. Since there will be an increase in skilled labor, that means there will be a corresponding increase in competition for jobs, which means wages will be driven down. > Is there someone who can explain to me economically whether undocumented immigrants are good or bad for the wages of American construction workers? It could be good or it could be bad. It's a loss of talent, which means that jobs will open up. Depending on the labor pool in the area, that could cause a feeding-frenzy of job searching that drops wages down, or it could cause a higher demand (from employers) than supply (from employees) that would drive wages up. My *personal opinion* is that the slow removal of illegal immigrants from the system (note: *slow.*) is a good thing, economically. A very fast removal would be a bad thing because it would totally upset the economy. None of that opinion even touches on whether it's a good *social policy.* EDIT: Fixed spelling mistake.


Question: How do you make beers/lagers alcohol-free?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do you make beers/lagers alcohol-free?

Most non-alcoholic beers are made by taking the normal beer from the brewing process and removing alcohol before carbonation and packaging. There are two methods for this: the easiest is to boil off as much alcohol as possible by heating the fermented beer for an extended period of time, then replacing the lost volume with water to make the beer taste as similar as possible to its alcoholic counterpart. The second is to use a reverse osmosis process where only water and ethanol are forced through a membrane, the alcohol distilled off, and the water returned to the beer. Since water and ethanol form an azeotrope (it is impossible to separate them completely without additives like drying agents) non-alcoholic beer is typically allowed to contain up to 0.5% alcohol.


Question: When does our brain choose our dominant hand?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 When does our brain choose our dominant hand?

It’s not entirely clear exactly what causes someone to be left or right handed, but it’s probably genetic. So it’s not really your brain choosing, it’s just how the chips fall when you’re conceived. The current theory is that basically the left side of your brain handles language and also controls the right arm. So as we developed written language, it became beneficial to basically have the hand you write with be controlled by the part of the brain deciding what to write. So a gene that made people right hand dominant became favorable. There isn’t actually a similar left handed gene. You either have the right handed gene, or a different gene that could wind up going either way. You could have this second gene and still be right handed.


Question: Why has Einstein been considered one of the greatest geniuses of our time?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why has Einstein been considered one of the greatest geniuses of our time?

They wanted to study his brain because his ideas were so different and he made so many discoveries. There were some differences in his brain compared to a regular one, like having more glial cells. I would argue that there have been a few people who have been idolized as geniuses after Einstein though, like Stephen Hawking.


Question: How do those needles the size of cells work? How they are made and how can you get so precise with them?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do those needles the size of cells work? How they are made and how can you get so precise with them?

I've worked on a few techniques that involve single cell injection or attachment (e.g., patch clamping). /u/Matrozi was exactly correct with the technique of making the glass tubes. This is probably the hardest part. New people would be lucky to get a single tube on their first day. We could measure the diameter of the opening by the resistance. It needed to be very small to work on a cell. In terms of why it doesn't destroy the cell, though, this is largely because the plasma membrane is self healing. The lipids are largely floating freely, held in place by their hybrophobicity and the aqueous environment on either side of the cell membrane. There are indeed structural elements within the membrane and within the cell (for eukaryotic cells, the cytoskeleton), but the cell can survive with these being poked. Ultimately I don't know how best to describe it, but it just involves hitting the cell at the right angle. For patch clamping, we used mouth suction and approached the cell at a reverse angle, sucking a part of the membrane into the tube (mouth suction is shockingly accurate compared to foot operated, fyi). For injection, I found a 45 degree angle with a particular orientation of the slope of the tip to work best. I still burst a good number of cells, though. In terms of precision, eukaryotic cells are pretty big and very easy to visualize with a light microscope. The needle is held by a geared mechanism that allows for very fine movements (a few micron increments). It takes a lot of practice because you have to move the needle in 3 dimensions (going too low breaks the tip on the glass, so even just getting the needle at the right height requires a lot of practice). It's a very "know-how" intense procedure.


Question: Do throwing knives always hit blade first?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Do throwing knives always hit blade first?

There are a couple of factors. Mainly the distance between you and the target. Professionals have practiced enough so that they can judge weather to throw the knife by the hilt or tip of the blade as that halve revolution could mean the difference between the blade hitting or not. Another factor is how hard you arebthrowimg it and how fast the blade goes.


Question: Why does room temperature water feel freezing but a room temperature room feel warm?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why does room temperature water feel freezing but a room temperature room feel warm?

When you feel hot or cold you're feeling changes in how fast your body is shedding thermal energy or absorbing it once you get over body temp. Water, partially due to its nature and partially due to just having a lot more mass in contact with you thanks to its density, can absorb MUCH more heat than air in the same amount of time. So at a given temperature difference it feels "colder" as it draws more energy out of you. This is also why a bried splash of boiling water around 200* can burn you but a blast of 400* air from opening the oven is merely uncomfortable. The water, despite the lower temperature, is carrying MUCH more energy it can impart to you.


Question: How can the sum of all natural numbers be negative?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How can the sum of all natural numbers be negative?

It's not really, but it comes from a certain natural way of assigning values to infinite sums. For example, it is certainly true that 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ... = 1. It's also the case that 1 + 1/3 + 1/9 + 1/27 + 1/81 + ... = 3/2, and that 9/10 + 9/100 + 9/1000 + ... = 1. Rather than dealing with each of these infinite sums individually, we can determine that for any sum of the form a + a\*r + a\*r^2 + a\*r^3 + ..., where -1 < r < 1, the sum is equal to a/(1-r). In the first example, we have a = 1/2 and r = 1/2, so the sum is 0.5/(1-0.5) = 1, while in the second we have a = 1 and r = 1/3 and in the third a = 9/10 and r = 1/10. Of course this is only valid for the case where -1 < r < 1 specifically: if we look at the case where a = 1 and r = 2 then we get 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + ..., which clearly grows to infinity. But if we *did* want to assign this series a finite value for some reason, then it would make some degree of sense to pick the value we'd get if we pretended like the a/(1-r) formula worked for all possible r. In that case, we would assign the value 1/(1-2) = -1 to the sum 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + .... Does this mean that "1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + ... = -1"? No, just that -1 is what our function would suggest if we extended it to the case where r = 2. There's a rather more complicated function which evaluates sums of the form 1/1^p + 1/2^p + 1/3^p + 1/4^p + .... In this case, the sum is well-defined whenever p > 1; otherwise, it diverges to infinity. But the function that gives us the value of the sum, called the "zeta function", can be applied to many values of p outside this range, just as our a/(1-r) function could be applied to many values of r outside the range -1 < r < 1. It turns out that the zeta function assigns a value of -1/12 to the case p = -1. So we might assign the value -1/12 to the series 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ..., although the sum itself does not actually exist since the series grows without bound.


Question: How does a person survive a lightening strike?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How does a person survive a lightening strike?

Direct lightning strikes are quite rare--usually what happens is that the lightning strikes the ground and the electricity travels along the ground and zaps anyone close by. Or the lightning strikes a tall object, say a tree, and an arc of electricity strikes a person standing beside the tree. The energy of the strike is far less by the time it gets to said unfortunate person. So how do people survive direct strikes? Well lightning isn't really like other electrical currents--think of it as more 'spread out'. When lightning strikes you, it actually travels over your skin (called 'flashover'). When you stick your fingers into an electrical socket, you're making direct contact with the source--so the current hits you in a much concentrated way. Lightning is also *very* quick--what causes burn damage is the heat of the air around the lightning, but because it's so quick it doesn't do too much damage. The biggest cause of death from lightning strikes are heart failures--cardiac arrest as the jolt passes through you. Edit: Sorry, forgot to say--obviously a portion of the current in a direct strike will go through you too. That's what causes the cardiac arrest, because it travels through your nervous system etc.


Question: Why do vocal harmonies of older songs sound have that rich, "airy" quality that doesn't seem to appear in modern music? (Crosby Stills and Nash, Simon and Garfunkel, et Al)

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do vocal harmonies of older songs sound have that rich, "airy" quality that doesn't seem to appear in modern music? (Crosby Stills and Nash, Simon and Garfunkel, et Al)

I see a lot of good info, but I didnt see anyone talk about this. When people sing in the same room the vibrations of their voices actually affect each other. When perfect harmonies are sung there are natural overtones created by the stacking of the sound waves. When voices are autotuned or electronically harmonized you are actually missing a lot of frequencies that natural harmonization would have, making the newer stuff sound flat and robotic.


Question: Psychologically, how do the camera angles in porn arouse you? (Potentially NSFW)

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Psychologically, how do the camera angles in porn arouse you? (Potentially NSFW)

Possible TMI, bear with me. POV porn does nothing at all for me. I don't enjoy pretending I'm having sex with the actress, I enjoy watching two people have sex. I also like to see her whole body, not a closeup of genital etc. There's probably some deep seeded psychological issue at play here, but I just know what I like.


Question: How do pencil erasers 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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do pencil erasers work?

Pencil erasers work as a very mild abrasive. They used to contain cornstarch, which is abrasive, but not more than paper. They also contain rubber and oil. When you rub the eraser over the pencilmarks, the eraser essentially sands off the layer of graphite, the rubber also gently rubs off and with it, the graphite is carried away. Leaving eraser shavings on the paper.


Question: Why do bubbles sometimes fuse?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do bubbles sometimes fuse?

Any fluid has a "surface tension", which among other things, determines how much it "shrivels" depending on its surroundings (in this case, air). The reason why water will form into a drop, for example, is that it wants to reduce its surface tension because physics ; i.e. because we don't want any unnecessary stress anywhere if we can help it. If you decide to calculate the surface tension for two bubbles, and compare it to the surface tension for one bubble that's the same size (volume) as both put together, you'll find the latter tension is lower. Therefore, it is under less stress. This is why bubbles and droplets coalesce (=fuse): because they can be under less tension together than if they were separated.


Question: What results has the Panama Papers leaks had?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 What results has the Panama Papers leaks had?

Not much. Most of Mossack Fonseca's clients were Western Europeans and most of the companies that Mossack Fonseca created were legitimate entities that were being used to carry out investment activities or purchase property in the third world. A small subset of the companies were being used for tax evasion or money laundering. In the case of Mossack Fonseca's Western European clients, most were already known to authorities as a result of the Falciani List. The Falciani List was a data dump from the Swiss Branch of HSBC detailing its facilitation of tax evasion which was obtained by the French government in 2009. The remainder of Mossack Fonseca's illegitimate clients were influential people in third world countries. This group was largely using the companies to launder money from bribes or hide their embezzling of government assets. Because the people in this group are the leaders of countries where the rule of law is very poor almost none have been prosecuted and its unlikely that any will. The one exception to this is in Brazil, where there were already corruption investigations ongoing against essentially everyone in the Brazilian government. Brazil does appear to be making a good faith effort to prosecute corruption, and a lot of the people under investigation there used Mossack Fonseca to help them launder money so presumably the leaks were of help in those investigations - though again Brazil's investigations were going on long before the leaks themselves. As for the important people at Mossack Fonseca itself - several people involved were "detained" by Panama, including Mossack Fonseca's founders. However its founders are both extremely influential in the Panamanian government and it seems doubtful that anyone from the firm will face any real repercussions as long as they remain in Panama or another friendly country. I will add there were some mid-level government resignations in Western Europe as a result of the leaks. But those resignations didn't come about because the people involved were necessarily doing anything wrong, just because of the public perception that anyone involved with Mossack Fonseca was.


Question: Why are the worst positions for your joints/muscles the most comfortable?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why are the worst positions for your joints/muscles the most comfortable?

/u/Gonzotronic has it right. It comes down to energy and efficiency. Using our muscles takes energy and work. If we're in a position where muscles aren't working, less energy is being used. Slouching is the best example. You're essentially just relaxing the muscles of your spine and trunk until most of the weight/pressure is being held by ligaments and joints (or leaning on your arm, etc). It's also why people default to lifting with a bent back. We know the dangers to our lower back in doing this yet it's more energy efficient as it uses less muscle. The second part of the question - why are these the worst positions? When we're in one position for a long time our tissue undergoes "creep" in the same way silly putty would if we held it in the air and let it fall (although much more slowly). Things slowly stretch out (ligaments, joints) and can cause discomfort as well as trigger our muscles (remember they're meant to take pressure off these tissues) to reflexively tighten to protect the now compressed or stretched ligaments and joints.


Question: Why does light go in one continuous direction? Why can't it stop, go left, right, or backwards?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why does light go in one continuous direction? Why can't it stop, go left, right, or backwards?

Technically, light is a wave, so it does go left and right. But more to the point, that would require an outside force, like a mirror. Nothing ever goes left and right when in motion. Imagine throwing a ball. Or anything really. It goes in one direction. Newtons's laws of motion.


Question: How do our eyes "get used to the dark"?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do our eyes "get used to the dark"?

Your pupil dilates, meaning it enlarges and allows more light to enter. It can take a few minutes, but once more light is allowed to enter, you're able to see more. If you shine a bright light on someone's eye, you'll see the pupil quickly shrink. Fun fact, pirates wore an eye patch because it meant when they went from the bright deck to the dark inside, they would have one eye already adjusted to the dark so they wouldn't be blind for a few minutes while their eyes adjust. Edit: I am not entirely correct. a)The pirate thing appears to be based on zero evidence. Apologies for propagating a myth. b) pupil dilation is a seconds long process, and only part of the story when it comes to night vision.


Question: The difference between eating 1500 calories without exercise vs eating 1800 calories and burning 300 calories with exercise for a man with a BMR of 1800?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 The difference between eating 1500 calories without exercise vs eating 1800 calories and burning 300 calories with exercise for a man with a BMR of 1800?

You build muscle and stimulate fat loss with exercise and burning calories. You can still lose weight by eating less, but if you also exercise you lower your risk for a lot of diseases related to your heart. Just my best guess honestly, I am not an expert on this at all.


Question: if, for example, a Greek man is taught English by an English speaking person with no speech deficiencies, why does the pronunciation come out different?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 if, for example, a Greek man is taught English by an English speaking person with no speech deficiencies, why does the pronunciation come out different?

Language is a physical skill as much as a mental one. Each language has a specific set of sounds or "phonemes" that when strung together make words. Each of those phonemes correspond to a different mouth and throat shape. Unfortunately for us, not every language shares the same set of phonemes. So each new language a human learns they need to master the physical mouth and throat shape needed to pronounce that phoneme correctly. On top of that each language has specific rules that can dictate how a letter is pronounced when in a certain position in a word. So pronouncing a phoneme at the start of the word that they have never had to before can throw off their pronunciation.


Question: Why is it that when you hit the mouth of a beer bottle from above with another bottle it foams up like crazy?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why is it that when you hit the mouth of a beer bottle from above with another bottle it foams up like crazy?

When you knock the bottle it sends a shock down through the glass. When it hits the bottom it rebounds up through the beer, forcing gas out of solution. The gas wants to leave the bottle, the beer wants to hold on to it, so the gas forces a bunch of beer out. [This]( URL_0 ) is a better explanation but is a little more advanced than ELI5


Question: How did people 100s of years ago know the shape of countries?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How did people 100s of years ago know the shape of countries?

Generally sight lines between boundary markers. Essentially most territories would use natural features (rivers, mountains, etc) to delineate the edges, but if those weren't available, it was common to set up your own markers. Large piles of stone, wooden construction and the like. When then drawing a map, it was best guess. If you look at old maps, you'll notice that the shapes are close, but not quite right. As technology progresses, you could start to take measurements off of the sun and stars to determine latitude (how far north or south you are) and that helped with accuracy, but it wasn't until our equipment got a much greater degree if accuracy in the 1800s that you started to see maps that really were accurate to within a few percent. (A few miles for very large maps.)


Question: Why is heat bad for batteries?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why is heat bad for batteries?

This happens due to a variety of factors and depends heavily on the cell chemistry. One prominent factor is the increased rate of side reactions at high temperatures that lead to loss of conducting ions. There’s also a contribution of accelerated degradation of the material structure if exposed to higher temperatures for extended durations of time.


Question: Why is inflation necessary in an economy, and why is it hard to revert 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>.
Your answer should follow these rubric criterias:
Factual Accuracy: The answer must be factually correct and does not contradict the reference answer.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why is inflation necessary in an economy, and why is it hard to revert it?

Small amounts of inflation encourages economic activity. If you know that the dollar you have now will buy less in the future, you are incentivized to spend your money now instead of holding on to it. An ideal scenario economically would be approximately zero inflation, because it is good to save money and spend money. But the disastrous scenario is *deflation*, where things will be cheaper in the future than they are now. If that is the case, nobody will buy anything and save their money, which can lead to economic collapse. To avoid this scenario, the central banks try to have a small amount of inflation to encourage spending and stay far away from the possibility of deflation.


Question: Glass is not biodegradable, and will perhaps take even longer to decompose than plastic. Why isn't it made out to be as big of an issue as plastic?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Glass is not biodegradable, and will perhaps take even longer to decompose than plastic. Why isn't it made out to be as big of an issue as plastic?

I believe that the answer lies in the fact that, if you crush up glass to extremely fine fragments, it is essentially sand. Plastic, as it breaks down, continues to float, pollute, and also mimics small water-borne organisms that larger organisms feed upon. Broken glass (sand) sinks, and essentially returns to the lifecycle of a rock.


Question: On a molecular level, what causes metal to bend permanently? Explain what causes the flexing to fail and something to finally bend.

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 On a molecular level, what causes metal to bend permanently? Explain what causes the flexing to fail and something to finally bend.

Metal atoms arrange themselves into crystalline cubes or rectangles or hexagons. Then they stack those crystals to make larger “grains” of huge numbers of atoms all arranged in the same way. When you bend metal slightly and it rebounds, those crystals and grains are flexing but the atoms are not changing positions. This is “elastic” deformation. When you bend metal significantly and it doesn’t rebound, you’ve overpowered the bonds in those crystals and forced the metal atoms to shear past eachother into a new position and deform the grains. This is “plastic” deformation. The atoms are now locked in the new configuration and you can’t go back. Some metals shear easily like gold and will bend readily, others prefer to shatter the grains instead and break in half under heavy stress without much deformation. In glass and ceramic materials the sheared bonds do not rearrange, so there’s no permanent deformation at all before the material breaks.


Question: Will water freeze if it is unable to expand?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Will water freeze if it is unable to expand?

Yes. However, such a system would be under incredible amounts of pressure. For example, frozen water stuck in a pipe can crack the pipe. Also, under extreme pressures, new crystalline structures form, giving rise to different types of ice. For example, Titan is theorized to have Ice VII, which only forms at 100000 atm pressures.


Question: Why do sounds seem louder in the cold weather rather than warm weather?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do sounds seem louder in the cold weather rather than warm weather?

Sound is a mechanical wave which means it needs a medium to propagate. What this basically means is that sound will travel with a different speed in solids, liquids and gases so we can say that the speed of sound depends on the density of the medium. & #x200B; The density of air is a bit higher in a colder weather compared to warmer one; therefore sound waves are able to reach our ears quickly via cooler air. Our ears perceive this sound as louder and clearer.


Question: When you delete something off of a phone or camera, where does it go?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 When you delete something off of a phone or camera, where does it go?

Nowhere. The data is still there. Your storage medium, be it a disk drive or flash memory, uses some storage space to keep a database of where your files are, physically, on the medium, as well as other meta-data. When you delete something, the minimum number of entries in these tables are overwritten. Typically this is simply overwriting the first byte of the entry with a binary zero, all the bits are zero (this isn't the same thing as the 0 character, which is encoded binary). That's it. Computers are as lazy as possible. Now that the entry is invalid, it can be reused when it's needed, and the blocks of storage space that contain the original file contents are no longer allocated, now that the tables have been invalidated. They'll get overwritten with new data whenever - it's up to some algorithms when to use a block, and the last deallocated is not necessarily the first used. So with the right software, you can search a disk for bytes that look like data, deduce what the bytes encode, and reconstitute the original file. Over time, as blocks get used, you'll start losing information until it's all gone. If you're security paranoid, you can get file shredders that will overwrite the original file first, before deletion. This is a good way to send flash memory to an early grave, as they're comparatively limited to the number of writes possible.


Question: Can anyone simplify parity and/or error checking in data storage context? I simply can't grasp how a parity stripe in RAID 5, for example, can rebuild missing data, but isn't actually a copy of the data.

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Can anyone simplify parity and/or error checking in data storage context? I simply can't grasp how a parity stripe in RAID 5, for example, can rebuild missing data, but isn't actually a copy of the data.

2 + 5 = 7 Stripe 1 contains: 2 Stripe 2 contains: 5 Stripe 3 contains: 7 (or, the **parity** stripe) "Oh no!! Stripe 2 went missing!!" 2 + X = 7 Solve for X 7 - 2 = **5** Ta-da, parity Now, the striping is distributed across all drives in the RAID array, which is nice, because any drive can go down. There is no dedicated parity drive like with old RAID levels. This also distributes wear evenly across the drives. You do lose space to the parity stripe. Edit for more thoughts: So, obviously, the parity stripe and all the data stripes it pertains to will never be on the same drive. The RAID controller issues stripes round robin to all the drives, so, it literally can't happen. So, when a drive goes down (and is replaced), the RAID controller queries all the parity and data stripes on all the other drives and starts rebuilding the data on the empty drive. This is why IO performance is hampered during a drive rebuild.


Question: what is the science behind weighted blankets and how do they reduce anxiety?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 what is the science behind weighted blankets and how do they reduce anxiety?

Part of it has to do with our sensory system (hearing, seeing, smelling, and feeling) our bodies are constantly getting input from those senses. For each of our senses there are inputs that make them excited or calmed. For our sense of feeling, deep pressure and compression are calming inputs while light touch can be exciting input. So a heavy blanket will give your body an input of deep pressure and compression making your brain feel calmer. It’s another reason humans hug to comfort each other, it provides pressure and compression making the person being hugged feel calmer.


Question: How does an Epipen work to help severe allergies and why don’t we use it for moderate/mild allergies?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How does an Epipen work to help severe allergies and why don’t we use it for moderate/mild allergies?

An epipen contains epinephrine, commonly known as adrenaline, one of the main hormones released by the body when PANICKING OMG THERE'S A LION. It's great for doing things like restarting your heart, lifting a car off your child, or removing blood flow from parts of your nose and throat that might be blocked by an allergic reaction, thus allowing you to breathe, but it also removes blood flow from your digestive system until your body can filter it out which... Well, apart from the explosive diahrroea brought on by extended use, your stomach will eventually dissolve it's own lining and dump a strong acid into your bloodstream, if that lining isn't grown back. Lack of blood flow inhibits your body's ability to grow back your stomach. Which in mediocre cases result in ulcers. Epinephrine is healthy if released by your body occasionally. Injecting it on a regular basis isn't.


Question: Why are conversations in series and movies in a foreign language relatively easy to understand while song lyrics in that same language are so hard to understand?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why are conversations in series and movies in a foreign language relatively easy to understand while song lyrics in that same language are so hard to understand?

Even songs in a person's native language are sometimes hard to understand. A big part of this is that the words don't have the normal emphasis and sound pattern, and grammar can be all over the place. I am teaching English in a non-english country, and I rely a lot on the cadence and context to understand what others are saying in the local language. For example: my students likely couldn't hear the difference between the words "rice" and "race", but if I say "I eat rice", it's easy for them to understand it, because I wouldn't eat a race. Songs don't always have that, and they often jump between topics/metaphors really fast.


Question: Why do records sound better than digital?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do records sound better than digital?

> I’ve always heard people say that they provide higher fidelity audio quality That is actually false. Digital can provide higher fidelity than vinyl. People will say that vinyl can "exactly reproduce" the sound wave and digital is necessarily "choppy," but neither one of those statements is true. Any analog recording still has physical limitations - something still has to physically "carve" the waveform, and it's limited by the equipment and the medium. Vinyl has to be smoother than the actual sound wave can be, and the result is that can't capture high frequencies or sudden changes. Furthermore, the recording is degraded with every playback, as it is physically worn away. As for digital, it is true that it can't perfectly reproduce a waveform. HOWEVER, *it can perfectly reproduce a signal within a given bandwidth*. This is [mathematically proven]( URL_0 ). So yes, with a sampling rate high enough, you can **perfectly** reproduce all components of the sound within the range of human hearing. You might lose subsonic and supersonic components, but you can't perceive those anyway. And if you did want to capture them, you could arbitrarily extend the bandwidth you are capturing (so your dog can't tell the difference either), and it would simply make bigger file sizes. In short, the difference you hear between vinyl and high quality digital is because the *vinyl* is imperfect. If it's "better," that's because subjectively you prefer those imperfections to a more accurate recording.


Question: Why is it not recommended to have 2 antivirus programs running at the same time?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why is it not recommended to have 2 antivirus programs running at the same time?

Antivirus 1 checks something. Antivirus 2 sees Antivirus 1 is doing something and checks it. Antivirus 1 sees Antivirus 2 is doing something and checks it. Repeat. Both Antivirus 1 and 2 are involving some serious security critical things, so they both read it as something that really needs to be checked.


Question: How do light bulbs go out?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do light bulbs go out?

If you mean "burn out": the tungsten filament inside a bulb is relatively fragile. When you turn the bulb on and off the filament heats up then cools down. Each heat/cooling cycle will put stresses on the material and over time it will develop weak spots until the material just "breaks" in a spot. Bulbs that turn on/off frequently (like in your entrance hallway, or a bedside reading lamp) will (in general) burn out quicker than ones that are infrequently turned on or are left on for long periods. Of course the bulbs for special purposes like your car headlights or the bulb in your fridge are designed to different robustness standards.


Question: Who in Luxury branded clothing companies determine the price of their items? And what is the process like?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Who in Luxury branded clothing companies determine the price of their items? And what is the process like?

Depends on the company. If it's very small - just a few people - then it's just an executive decision by whoever is running things. But in large companies, pricing is approached as its own discipline. Studies are done to analyze how people will respond to various price points; get your product in front of 1,000 people and offer it at varying prices, see how many people show interest. Then prospecti are written up - a detailed report which predicts what profits will look like at various prices, who will be buying the item, what it looks like long-term and short-term. When a decision gets made, it is probably done by committee with several levels of approval - but again, this differs from company to company.


Question: How is the distance from Earth to the sun measured if the sun is a ball of gas without a definable surface?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How is the distance from Earth to the sun measured if the sun is a ball of gas without a definable surface?

Put your thumb between your eyes and your screen. Close one eye and then switch to the other eye, you will see your thumb covering different area of your screen like it shift slightly. What is happening is that your 2 eyes are not at the same place, so the angle at which you see your thumb and screen change. We can measure that difference in angle and the distance between your two eyes and with some trigonometry calculate the distance between your eyes and the screen. & #x200B; We can do that with the earth and the sun. The problem is that the shorter the distance of your base (distance between your eyes) or the longer the distance between you and the object, the smaller the angle will be. With your eyes the distance to the sun is too big, so the angle will be too small to measure. What we need is a bigger base and the earth give us that. We can look at the sky in summer and then in winter and measure the shift in the angle compare to the stars in the background, which are a lot further away. It's called parallax. & #x200B; We can do that with some star too, but if they are too far away, even the distance between the earth in summer and winter is too small so the angle is too small to measure. So that method only work for star that are relatively close to us.


Question: If spiders' webs are the strongest fiber in the world. Why are not used as a material to build or create artifacts?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 If spiders' webs are the strongest fiber in the world. Why are not used as a material to build or create artifacts?

It is really stretchy, like insanely stretchy, it may stop a bullet, but it will be behind you after passing through you. Spider silk is an amazing material, but it is insanely hard to get hold of, it took four years to get enough for a cloth smaller than a single sheet in 2009. Currently we cannot synthesise it very well ourselves, so maybe one day we will be able to use it.


Question: Why do mobile games suck, even though phones are more powerful than good handheld gaming systems like Gameboy?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do mobile games suck, even though phones are more powerful than good handheld gaming systems like Gameboy?

This might be a snarky response but: have you purchased any 30-40$ mobile games? If you can play a game for free, what you are playing is what someone could create on a fairly small budget, in a fairly small studio, and then sell to investors in order to produce. Most of these games are riddled with ads and microtransactions because those provide a source of income that is lost by not charging players for the initial purchase. Games with an initial charge make their money through game sales; those with very low costs rely either on volume or on other methods to pay for the costs of development. Triple-A hand-held games, like Pokemon, are developed and marketed by companies that are usually very large and have entire teams dedicated to promoting the game; they also cost more to buy up-front. Finally, note that while the gameplay may be limited in "free" games, the graphics and potential are much better than older handheld systems, with social capabilities that those older systems lacked due to the connected nature of smartphones.


Question: Why do some tasks become more difficult to do when you think about 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>.
Your answer should follow these rubric criterias:
Factual Accuracy: The answer must be factually correct and does not contradict the reference answer.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do some tasks become more difficult to do when you think about it?

Because it really is "auto-pilot". You've learned, probably through repetition, how to do something well enough that your consciousness isn't involved in the process anymore. When you focus on this process you get in the way of automation, like you're stopping someone going through a checklist to bother them about the weather or something so they can't keep doing this job, so you to start over to re-activate the routine (or just slowly do it manually yourself again). There also seem to be other factors. Our consciousness seems to actually be pretty shit at most things. For example, you can give someone a problem and then either have them sit there and think about the problem for a couple of minutes before trying to solve it, or instead distract them for that time so they can't think about it before making them try to solve it, and generally people seem to do better when they *don't* have the opportunity to consciously think about the problem. Basically, most of your thinking goes on 'below the surface' and is managed by modules whose processes are completely invisible to the person, who only experiences their results as a general feeling that the answer is probably X but they can't tell you why (though if they are intelligent they can come up with plausible-sounding lies to justify those feelings, without even realizing that that's what they're doing). Conspicuous exceptions to this are problems that our brains are bad at. Randomness is one of those. Human brain can't do randomness to save its life, unless you teach it how first - and even then you gotta keep reminding it. Statistics is another. We're decent at somehow acting like intuitive bayesians (our brain isn't *actually* doing bayesian statistics, because it doesn't know statistics, but whatever it is that it is doing generates results at a close approximation of it) when it comes to stats we have direct personal experience with, but for anything else your intuitions are just crap and you have to whip out the pen and paper or otherwise consciously employ methods that you have learned how to use that aren't intuitive at all. TL;DR is our "auto pilot" systems are better at just about everything than our conscious systems are, though they need to be trained to get to that point. This does kind of beg the question of what's the point of consciousness to begin with it it keeps getting in the way of more effective processes, but you'd have to ask someone smarter than me for that one.


Question: Why does 2008 still feel like a couple of years ago?

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.
Relevance and Completeness: The answer should directly address the specific question, covering all essential aspects.
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.
Conciseness: The answer should avoid unnecessary repetition and be as clear and succinct as possible.

Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <answer> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <answer> tag and after the closing </answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why does 2008 still feel like a couple of years ago?

Probably because with each year that goes by, you have a longer frame of reference to what time feels like? I don't think I phrased that well, but what I mean is that if you are 5, one year is 20% of your entire existence. If you are 50, one year is 2% of your life. So, to get the same feeling of "long ago", it takes more years, the older you get. Same concept as why summers seem to fly by compared to when you were a kid.