Question: How is it that Amazon paid no taxes in 2017?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How is it that Amazon paid no taxes in 2017?

Companies are taxed based on their profit, not their income. If a company makes no profit, then it pays no taxes. The way that a company's costs are calculated can be complicated, particularly with stock based employee compensation. If part of an employee's pay is in the form of company stock, then that stock does not count as an "expense" until the employee actually sells it. So lets say a company earns $100 in 2015 and pays you $100 in stock in the same year. Then in 2018 you sell your stock for $100. In 2015 the company doesn't get to count your stock payment as an expense, so it pays taxes on the full $100 of income it earned. However, in 2018 when you sell your stock the company now gets to revisit its 2015 taxes to see if it paid the appropriate amount. In this example, in 2015 the company paid taxes on $100 worth of profit. But we now see that the company really had $0 worth of profit, because it actually had a $100 expense that wasn't accounted for in 2015. This means that in 2018 the company is entitled to a refund of everything that it paid in 2015. That doesn't mean the company doesn't have to pay taxes on its 2018 profit - it still does. But if the refund from 2015 is larger than its 2018 tax bill then the company will end up with a net refund. This can lead to weird situations if an abnormal amount of people decide to sell their stock in one year. 2017 happened to be one of those weird years for Amazon, which has historically paid a large percentage of its executives' compensation in the form of stock. Tax changes would have increased the amount of personal tax that Amazon employees would pay on their stock sales in 2018, and this caused Amazon employees to sell off a lot of their stock before the changes hit. This meant that in 2017 you had several years worth of stock compensation all being cashed out at the same time, which meant that Amazon was entitled to go back and obtain a refund on any prior taxes it paid from which those stock sales could have been deducted. This was further combined with a corporate tax rate decrease in 2017. Because of the way that the tax code works, Amazon is entitled to use the 2017 tax rate when it recalculates the effect of 2017 employee stock sales on its prior paid taxes. Since Amazon had paid those prior taxes at the higher, pre-2017 rate, it was entitled to even more money back when it deducted those stock sales from prior revenue in 2017. The end effect of this is that the refund that Amazon was entitled to in 2017 for these employee stock sales was greater than the amount it owed in taxes on 2017 profit, and so it was entitled to a refund. Amazon was also able to claim some tax rebates for things like creating jobs in America or investing in certain technologies, but the employee stock weirdness accounts for the overwhelming majority of the reason why Amazon did not pay federal taxes in 2017. _______________________ Also, since you're going to get some people saying "offshoring" - that has nothing to do with it. Companies have never been able to offshore to protect themselves from profit earned in the US. However, the US used to tax companies on their global profit *as well as* their US profit. Companies were able to offshore to avoid paying taxes on that global profit. As of 2017 the US no longer taxes companies on their global profit, only on their US profit, so offshoring no longer provides companies with any benefit and this had nothing to do with why Amazon paid no taxes in 2017. It should also be noted that this is in line with how every other country taxes corporate income - the US was the only major country that taxed global, rather than domestic income. There is another method of tax evasion known as transfer pricing. This is when a company obscures the costs of foreign made goods by having an intermediary purchase those goods in a country in which sharing corporate records with the IRS is illegal. Transfer pricing is illegal, and while it does occur there is no reason to believe that Amazon is engaging in it at a meaningful level. ____________________________ Finally, another tax issue that Amazon has relates to state sales taxes. Prior to June of this year, a company was only required to pay sales taxes in states in which it had a presence. Although Amazon has a presence in most states, very few of the goods sold on Amazon are actually sold *by* Amazon. Rather, most goods sold on Amazon are sold *by* 3rd party sellers, and its rare that that the seller has a presence in the same state as the buyer. Amazon was able to take advantage of this by refusing to collect sales taxes on behalf of those 3rd party sellers in most cases, which was technically legal and resulted in Amazon and its 3rd party sellers largely avoiding state sales taxes. In June the Supreme Court decided Wayfair v. South Dakota, which makes Amazon's practice illegal. Its not really clear what is going on with this right now, and we'll know more about the sales tax situation at the start of next year as state tax authorities start issuing guidance on how to comply with Wayfair.


Question: How does planes proceed if they noticed an SOS with survivors on an Island ?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
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<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
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 How does planes proceed if they noticed an SOS with survivors on an Island ?

They would note the location and call it in to Air Traffic Control. Air Traffic Control would coordinate with the appropriate authorities to handle a rescue operation. Most planes require a runway to actually land on, so you can't really just land to pick up the survivors. For similar reasons, you won't be able to get the survivors off in a plane most of the time. Depending on range, a Search and Rescue helicopter may come to pick them up, but if that's impractical, they will at least try to find a way to deliver food and water while arranging for a boat to come and do the actual pickup. This is what actually happened a couple weeks ago. URL_0


Question: What the hell is kombucha and why do people drink it?

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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
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 What the hell is kombucha and why do people drink it?

It's fermented tea, made with a lot of sugar and something called a SCOBY (Symbioitic culture of bacteria and yeast) which, over the course of a few weeks eats the sugar in the tea and spits out bacteria from the previous batches along with some carbon dioxide and a bit of alcohol, but not really enough to get drunk on. The end result is a moderately sour, carbonated tea with bacteria that are said to help with digestion.


Question: Why is it that when you look at a calculator head-on, you can see all of the numbers on the display, but when you look at it from a side angle some parts of the numbers disappear into the background?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why is it that when you look at a calculator head-on, you can see all of the numbers on the display, but when you look at it from a side angle some parts of the numbers disappear into the background?

LCDs work on the basis of the polarization of light. There are a few layers in a LCD: Two polarizing filters, 2 layers of glass, and the liquid crystal in the center. Polarization is when you can get all the rays of light lined up in rows using a filter or some other method. Once all of the rays are aligned, they will only pass through another polarization filter if they are in the same orientation. You can see this if you have two pairs of polarized sunglasses. Try putting one lens over the other, and then rotating one while keeping the other stationary. You will see that in a certain orientation, you can see through them both, but when you rotate one 90 degrees, they become completely opaque. The LCD is arranged like this: \-------------------- Polarizer film Glass Liquid Crystal Glass Polarizer film Mirror (or backlight) \-------------------- & #x200B; When the light passes through the first polarizer, it gets aligned to one orientation. Then, it passes through another polarizer and to the bottom, where it bounces off a mirror. Then, it passes back through the Liquid Crystal, and out the top through the polarizer. The liquid crystal has the interesting property of being able to twist the orientation of the light. The glass is coated with a transparent coating that is electrically conductive. This coating is masked to form the shape of the segments on the display. When energized, the liquid crystal rotates all the light going through it, which is then blocked by the polarizer since it is now oriented differently. However, a side effect of the polarized light is that it likes to travel in a straight line. If you tilt the display, your eyes no longer see the polarized light because it is not pointing in that direction. It's rather hard to explain in only text, so if you want an illustration, the wikipedia page on LCD displays has a nice diagram illustrating this. & #x200B; Edit: crappy wording, fixed.


Question: How is paper made into sheets. Is it made as a big mass, like a cube, which is cut super thin, or is it made flat and rolled into a ream?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How is paper made into sheets. Is it made as a big mass, like a cube, which is cut super thin, or is it made flat and rolled into a ream?

It’s made from small fibres that are combined using a bonding agent and then compressed, removing excess moisture and heated to dry. Lots of videos available on YouTube. You can make your own paper if you make the effort, it’s been made for thousands of years


Question: If you eat something that causes stomach cramps quickly, why is their often difficulty at the other end of the alimentary canal so quickly?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 If you eat something that causes stomach cramps quickly, why is their often difficulty at the other end of the alimentary canal so quickly?

Food passing through your body is less like a car going down a road, and is instead more like a package moving along a conveyer belt. In this analogy peristalsis is the movement of the conveyer belt. When something is irritating to an earlier portion of this belt, the whole thing speeds up. While it still may take a while for the irritating substance to pass through, things already closer to the end of the system will begin to be expelled more rapidly.


Question: If the center of our galaxy is tens thousands of light years away and hypothetically collapsed on itself, we wouldn't know for tens of thousands of years. So then in the meantime, what exactly is our solar system orbiting, if it no longer exists?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 If the center of our galaxy is tens thousands of light years away and hypothetically collapsed on itself, we wouldn't know for tens of thousands of years. So then in the meantime, what exactly is our solar system orbiting, if it no longer exists?

1. Orbiting what used to be there, because its gravity is still propagating toward us at the speed of light. 2. Even after it collapses, it will still have the same total mass, hence the same total gravity.


Question: Do any animals besides humans find enjoyment in listening to music?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Do any animals besides humans find enjoyment in listening to music?

I think it would be really hard to qualify "enjoyment" in many species but I would imagine you could see changes in behavior linked to the music- start playing it and seeing a head bob in a parrot for example. But even we can't really qualify how we enjoy or choose our musical tastes you know? I know there was a study on dogs for classical music that found when played in the shelter it reduced stress levels. Hard to say if it was drowning out other dogs barking or if the inherent music itself was doing the trick.


Question: What is that 0.01% of bacteria that disinfectants can not kill?

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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 What is that 0.01% of bacteria that disinfectants can not kill?

Not really a bacteria, just producers covering their ass to not get sued for false advertisement if that disinfectant doesn't kill something.


Question: why is driving so exhausting?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 why is driving so exhausting?

While driving you're constantly analyzing, making decisions, and doing micro-corrections. Scanning the road for potential hazards and other drivers, looking for curves that require you to adjust speed or potholes and debris that you need to avoid, making a million tiny corrections on the steering wheel to stay in your lane, etc. If you have been driving for a couple years (or even months) then your body does a lot of this subconsciously. So while it seems like you're not doing much, your body is constantly working to avoid danger


Question: Why does the journey on the way back feel shorter than the one there?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why does the journey on the way back feel shorter than the one there?

Unfortunately this will get deleted because it's not an explanation but it reminded me of an experiment I did. I used to jog laps around our large horse pasture every afternoon because our dirt road at the time was a bit to beat up for it. By the end I was always totally spent and the last lap took for-ev-er. I wondered if - like the effect you mentioned - I ran the last lap in the opposite direction if it would seem faster. It did! It totally zipped by and I didn't even feel as worn out by the end. Very weird but interesting psychological trick.


Question: What is the difference between utilitarian and deontology?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
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 What is the difference between utilitarian and deontology?

Deontology is based on a series of ethics, kind of moral rules, rights and wrongs, if you will. They are based in various theologies (see; kants universal maxims, etc) and inform what is considered the ethical greater good/outcome in this philosophy. Is it informed very heavily by a bunch of people's ideas of what is moral/good and is hugely variable. There are very old school ethics and more contemporary ones. This variability means it's hugely subjective and one can pick and choose which deontological philosophy to apply. Utilitarianism is based on consequences....decisions are made to ensure the consequence always = the greater good of all outcomes. It is relatively more objective however still open to philosophical discussion because there are many philosophical layers when determining the net good of an outcome. This ethic is applied on a case by case basis and there are no other rules or moral obligations to guide your decision other than purely maximising good for the greatest amount of people


Question: What is a "head rush"?

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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 What is a "head rush"?

Orthostatic hypotension. When you stand up too quickly your blood pressure will suddenly drop. This is because blood has pooled in your legs. Normally your blood vessels constrict upon standing to push blood back to your heart, but pooled blood causes a brief delay in this. As a result, there is inadequate blood flow to your brain. Even though this only lasts a few moments, its enough to cause issues. If adequate blood flow is not restored, the head rush sensations will get steadily worse for about 10 seconds, at which point you pass out. So the rush sensation is the first stage of passing out.


Question: What exactly is the Bermuda Triangle? Why do ships supposedly get lost within it?

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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 What exactly is the Bermuda Triangle? Why do ships supposedly get lost within it?

The Bermuda triangle is just a region in the Atlantic ocean that has a higher than average amount of traffic. It is one of the busiest shipping areas in the world, and also has a higher than average concentration of flights passing through it. As a result the total number of ships and planes that have gone missing there is higher than most other regions, but the number of missing per 10,000 ships/flights passing through that region is about the same as anywhere else.


Question: What does it mean when something will cost the economy?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 What does it mean when something will cost the economy?

You are using something known as the broken window fallacy. The fallacy is that breaking windows is economically productive because it causes money to be spent repairing them. In reality if the money didn't go to fixing windows it would likely have gone to something else so by breaking the windows you are dividing economic activity that would have taken place into the window repair industry. There are cases where it is not a fallacy, but that is economics that at best is above ELI5 level. And I realize I am only answering about half the question, but u/loveandsubmit has the rest of if well covered.


Question: Why are strokes and vertebral artery dissections more common after going to the chiropractor?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why are strokes and vertebral artery dissections more common after going to the chiropractor?

Because chiropractic isn’t actually a medical treatment, it’s pseudoscience. It’s generally harmless, but since there’s little-to-no proof backing up its effectiveness, less-skilled chiropractors can often make problems worse - especially since a lot of the time they lack even the training to know where a lot of arteries are.


Question: how does a (formula 1) car wheel spin without much resistance?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 how does a (formula 1) car wheel spin without much resistance?

Each part in an F1 car is built to precise specifications in not just weight but also mileage. Parts are usually made of high strength, low weight materials like titanium and carbon fibre. And they get swapped out during pitstops and over the race weekend. So they don't have to last for a long time, or even an entire race weekend. Unlike a family car where parts are built for endurance rather than performance. P.S. Great start to the race, but looks like it's settled down to the usual fare now.


Question: Why does math often times use two very similiar looking letters?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why does math often times use two very similiar looking letters?

It's not so much that they wanted them to look the same, it's just that when you're dealing with two similar things, it's helpful conceptually to use consecutive letters (because then if you have to you can expand your process and just use the next letter). Unfortunately we do a lot of math so a lot of letters are already spoken for in the sort of "standard" (if there is such a thing) notation and a lot of letters are spoken for more than once.


Question: Why is it that when new video game consoles/devices launch they always run out of supply?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
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<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why is it that when new video game consoles/devices launch they always run out of supply?

First: They underestimate the demand. Second: A perceived or reported shortage spurs more buyers. Third: They are ramping up production. Fourth: Sheer cussedness.


Question: How do video game companies continuously fail to properly distribute their new console every time a new one launches?

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For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do video game companies continuously fail to properly distribute their new console every time a new one launches?

Because it's expensive to contract/build manufacturing capacity to immediately meet the initial surge of demand. Imagine building 20 factories to just make PS5s, then start closing them one per month over the next year because you've already met the demand. How much money would be wasted in the construction of those facilities/training of those workers, which is now useless because you're overproducing? They plan manufacturing capacity in order to meet long-term demand, not initial demand, because that initial demand is very short-lived. It's not worth investing in huge production capacity.


Question: Why did people think Beanie Babies would be valuable in the future, and why aren't they?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why did people think Beanie Babies would be valuable in the future, and why aren't they?

Collectibles tend to go up in value over time, as they get rarer and new collectors want to get older items. Because of that, the oldest or "first editions" of collectibles tend to be the rarest and therefore the most valuable - like how a Spider-Man #1 comic can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. So Beanie Babies tried to play into that by limiting their runs of toys and retiring designs after a few months. Because of this, people started to think "Oh, people like these things. I'll bet they'll be around for a while. If I hold onto a few of these 'early run' toys, they'll be worth much more in the future." Seems like a solid plan, right? But there's two big issues that ruin that plan: 1. Since thousands of people were hoarding these bears, the "scarcity" requirement for a collectible didn't really exist. There are a small number of good-quality Spider-Man #1 comics available - these were sold to kids in the '60's. Most of them were ripped up, drawn on, spilled on, and tossed away. The few remaining ones are the exception, and that creates value. 2. Since the majority of buyers were adults trying to collect them, there wasn't much of an emotional connection made. Other collectibles (comics, toys, baseball cards, etc) tend to have some emotional value - we loved them as children, they're an important part of some memory or an icon of history, etc. Kids weren't really playing with Beanie Babies because adults were buying them for themselves, so nobody grew up with fond memories of playing with their Beanie Babies. So because of that, while their value has increased over time, they didn't scale the way people thought, and the idea that they'd be worth thousands or millions over a few decades didn't pan out.


Question: How does hail manage to stay solid long enough to hit the ground in 100+ degree weather?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How does hail manage to stay solid long enough to hit the ground in 100+ degree weather?

It's below freezing high up in the clouds where the hail is formed. When it gets so heavy that the up drafts within the storm can no longer support its weight it falls. At that height it only takes a couple of minutes for the hailstones to fall to the ground. It takes far longer than that for the hailstones to completely melt.


Question: Why are rubber gloves almost impossible to put on with wet hands when water usually makes things slippery?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why are rubber gloves almost impossible to put on with wet hands when water usually makes things slippery?

Because of [wet friction ]( URL_0 ). Rubber and latex are soft, flexible materials, as they stretch out, surface area increases, increasing friction. Normally with dry hands. The rubber molecules have few places on the skin to bond to as it slides past so there is little friction. Water on the hands fills all the little cracks and lines on the hands, bonding to the skin. The rubber then bonds to the surface molecules of the water, as the surface area of the rubber increases, so does the friction, until you cant slide your hand any further upwards and have to peel the glove off


Question: How do pencil erasers work?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final 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: What makes a jet engine different from a propeller or rocket engine?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 What makes a jet engine different from a propeller or rocket engine?

A jet engine works by sucking in air through a series of fans, compressing it, mixing it with fuel, and igniting it. The hot exhaust gases then exit out the rear of the engine, passing through more fans (the turbine) that in turn drives the compressor fans at the front via a shaft. The hot exhaust gases create pressure that drives the engine (and anything attached) forward. A rocket engine works by mixing fuel + and oxidizer to create a chemical reaction, which in turn creates hot exhaust. The major difference between a Jet Engine and a Rocket is that the Rocket has to bring it's oxidizer (air supply) along with it, while the Jet engine sucks in air from the outside. A propeller meanwhile is a number of smaller airplane wings that push air as it spins. So long as a propeller is spinning it pushes air and generates thrust. Propellers can be spun by a number of things like piston engines, or even jet engines. A Jet engine with a propeller attached is called a turbo-prop, and it works by attaching the turbine (the fans in the exhaust) to a drive shaft and gearbox that turns the propeller. By why use a turbo prop instead of a jet engine? These engines are slower, but much more fuel efficient than jets making them ideal for smaller commuter aircraft. The turbines are also much lighter than piston engines creating much more power to weight.


Question: How do they measure the efficiency of a weather man? Are certain weather men "better" than the others just because they predicted the weather correctly more times?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How do they measure the efficiency of a weather man? Are certain weather men "better" than the others just because they predicted the weather correctly more times?

There can be a big difference between the "weatherman" you see on TV and a *meteorologist* that is responsible for creating forecasts. Generally speaking modern forecasts are very accurate, but can be easily misunderstood by people. For instance if a forecast is 50% chance of rain, that doesn't necessarily mean every spot in the area has a 50/50 chance of rain. It means that in a percentage of the area the forecast covers there's a percentage chance of rain. So while there's almost no chance it will rain at your house it's almost definitely going to rain a few towns over.


Question: Why are some elements solid, liquid or gas in normal Earthlike conditions?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why are some elements solid, liquid or gas in normal Earthlike conditions?

Well for starters, pure carbon isn't a gas, it's most common forms (allotropes) are graphite and diamond which are both crystalline like silicon. As for why similar atomic numbered elements behave differently, i.e. Lithium and Helium the increasing number of electrons (in line with atomic number) is the biggest determinant of physical structure and state. For example, the noble gases are grouped vertically because in that position of the periodic table they all share the same property, that their outer shell (valence) electrons are completely full. E.g. Helium has two electrons which fills the first shell, Neon has ten, two to fill the first shell and eight for the second. As such the periodic table is mostly referred to by groups which form the columns because this (for the most part) is based on how many outer shell electrons they have which determines their bonding behaviour both with other elements and with atoms of their own element. These bonds have varying strengths with weaker strengths tending to produce gases and liquids and solids ever increasing in strength. Tldr: Elements next to each other have different numbers of electrons in their outer shell whereas columns share this number and are therefore more similar in properties such as being solid, liquid or gas.


Question: Why do all the planets in space appear so perfectly spherical?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do all the planets in space appear so perfectly spherical?

This is because gravity pulls evenly from every direction so it forms a sphere. When they formed gravity pulled all the matter together and a ball naturally forms. Gravity continues acting on the planet to keep its shape, although planets are slightly wider at their equater because of spinning on their axis. This creates some force pulling out. Think if you blow a bubble the air inside and out is creating an even force and it makes a sphere shape.


Question: How are bugs created in programs?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How are bugs created in programs?

Because humans miss things. If I were to say, ask you to go build a house, how well would you do? I'm sure you considered wall placement and stair placement; but did you remember electrical or plumbing? What about hookups for water/gas/sewer? Any space for your septic field? Well, whenever a development team is told "go make this" it is a very similar process. They sit down and discuss all the things they need to consider and as they start to implement they think of more and go back to the drawing board. Eventually, they think they are done and the ship the product to the customer. And they miss stuff. Always. What they miss may vary from the wild corner case no one thought of (like hook up for solar panels) to the "how the hell, you must have not even tested this because there is no front door". Source: am software developer


Question: Why are Nuclear Plants watercooled instead or other methods such as refrigeration?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why are Nuclear Plants watercooled instead or other methods such as refrigeration?

The heat would have to be taken out of the refrigeration plant somehow. This would just add a lot of extra equipment and expense for no benefit. That being said, some nuclear plants don't use bodies of water for their heat sink.


Question: - how does the cost of rent get to be so high in some areas? Will it ever go back down?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 - how does the cost of rent get to be so high in some areas? Will it ever go back down?

As others have noted, it is due to supply and demand. Part of the problem is that because of the rise of services like AirBnb, there are now people that rent multiple apartments in multiple buildings just to put them on Airbnb and rent them out to travelers 52 weeks out of ths year. You can make much more money in vacation rentals vs residential rentals. This has the effect of both reducing the supply of apartments and increasing the demand for them, thus raising the price per month. This practice is especially prevalent in cities that get a lot of tourism, like NYC or Miami, Florida.


Question: Why is "one to many" not considered as a function?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why is "one to many" not considered as a function?

Because I believe the definition of 'function' is: "Any relation from sets A to B such that every element of A has one and only one image in B". Do correct me if I'm wrong.


Question: What are the limits and legitimate expectations when a person/persons are held liable for an enourmous sum (ie: cost of a wildfire/cost of crppling a stock exchange/bank)? They must be allowed to buy food I assume. What happens to the debt upon death?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 What are the limits and legitimate expectations when a person/persons are held liable for an enourmous sum (ie: cost of a wildfire/cost of crppling a stock exchange/bank)? They must be allowed to buy food I assume. What happens to the debt upon death?

The details are typically set by a judge, but the main idea is that someone ordered to pay money they don't have will have will first hand over all of their wealth (savings, stocks, potentially home equity). Then they have their wages "garnished." This means that the court will take a percentage of all their earnings until the debt is payed back. Presumably any other windfalls (inheritance, lottery winnings, etc.) would also be owed to the court. Debts are generally discharged upon death. It would be deeply problematic for children to inherit the debts of their parents.


Question: Why does including numbers and special characters in a password make it stronger if a hypothetical brute force hacker has no prior information about the composition of the password?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why does including numbers and special characters in a password make it stronger if a hypothetical brute force hacker has no prior information about the composition of the password?

Imagine you have a password lock, but it is only one character and can only be a 1 or a 0. Pretty easy to crack isn't it? There are only two possible combinations, you've got a 50/50 chance of guessing it on the first try. Now imagine the same one character password can be any number between 0 and 9. Guessing the password just got five times harder. If instead it can only be a letter between a and z, including capital letters, guessing becomes almost 50 times harder. Experts call the number of possible combinations a password could be the "key space" and the larger the key space is, the harder it is to crack. Computers can guess tens of thousands of passwords per second, so making things hard for a computer involves using the biggest possible key space you can. By using numbers 0-9, letters between aA and zZ and all the special characters found on most keyboards you have roughly 90 possible one character answers. Every additional character used multiplies the number of combinations. Example, with every character having 90 possible answers and two characters required is 90x90 or 8100 possible combinations. A three letter password would have 729,000 possible combinations. A 12 character password has BILLIONS of possible combinations. All of this assumes a user will use a random selection of passwords. In the real world though people prefer to use very simple passwords, often easily remembered phrases. Many hacking attempts start by running through the 100 or so very commonly used passwords. (As a former I.T. pro, the number of people using "password123" or "LetMeIn" is depressing) Forcing users to use at least one capital letter, one number and one special character is something of a compromise between the best practice and what actually works for humans.


Question: Why did the Soviet Union collapse, and did Mikhail Gorbachev do anything that contributed to the collapse or would it have collapsed anyway?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why did the Soviet Union collapse, and did Mikhail Gorbachev do anything that contributed to the collapse or would it have collapsed anyway?

That is a question that thousands of authors have written books about. We could write a ten thousand word answer and still not scratch the surface. But the basic thing is that the USSR was built as an extremely rigid top down hierarchy. The government would set ambitious goals for the economy which sometimes could never be met, but if you were the boss of the factory, and you didn't meet your goals, you would be arrested and sentenced to hard labor for an undetermined time. So you treated your employees harshly and demanded that your goals for them be reached. Sometimes those goals could not be reached no matter what they did, so the quality of everything had to be sacrificed, and lies told about things like quality inspections. For any example, the leading cause of house fires in the USSR was exploding television sets, because they were so poorly made, because the factory had to meet its set goal, regardless of whether or not it had enough materials or skilled laborers. So... everyone knew the system was severely broken. This rigid system was put in place back in the early days of the USSR in order to force modernization at any cost. Imperial Russia was also very top heavy and had a very few rich folks massively exploiting the millions of poor folks, and so the USSR was determined to drag or force the country into the 20th century. But by the 1980's the system had just become so corrupted, and soooo inefficient, that nothing was getting done. Every time a new leader was "elected" it always went to the oldest and most senior guy on the politburo, no matter how incompetent or ancient he was. No one wanted to change anything for fear of upsetting the system. But they all knew what they were doing wasn't working and the country was on a definite downhill slide. The country wanted reform so they finally picked Gorbachev, and he was relatively young, I think he was 57 when he took over. He tried to shake things up, and bring in some much needed reforms, called "glasnost" but by then it was too little and too late. The Warsaw Pact countries all started to break away and become democratic and the whole thing started coming unravelled. Rather than let his country end up in a Civil War, the politburo decided to vote itself out of existence. Here's a good example of how broken things were. A visitor from the USA reported seeing someone selling burnt out light bulbs on the streets of Moscow for a few rubles each. He asked around because he couldn't understand why anyone would buy a burnt out light bulb. Turns out there were no light bulbs available in the stores, so people would buy these bulbs, take them to work, swap them out with a working lightbulb, and then they had one to fix their lighting at home.


Question: Why are Greek letters used as variables in math?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why are Greek letters used as variables in math?

1. The ancient Greeks did a lot of very important math. 2. You run out of letters quite quickly. Two-letter variables usually aren't used because they could also mean a multiplication of the two single-letter variables that were used somewhere else. That's why people use Greek characters.


Question: Why are most flags shaped like a rectangles?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why are most flags shaped like a rectangles?

Well, its easier to bring a rectangular shape up a flagpole and having it longer (wider) makes it more visible. So the logical reason is that they would want something visible and easy to haul up


Question: - How does higher horsepower benefit large propeller driven airplanes?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 - How does higher horsepower benefit large propeller driven airplanes?

There's two things going on. One is that the geometry (prop diameter) pins down your RPM but not your torque. Up to the limits of stalling the propeller blades, if you have more power you can put more pitch on the blades, or add more blades, or put bigger blades, or all three, and generate more thrust from the same diameter propeller. Most high performance propellers are constant-speed, they adjust power by adjusting pitch. The more power available, the more pitch you can put on before RPM starts to drop off, the more thrust you can get, the faster you can go. It's not co-incidence that really high power turboprops either have ludicrously large diameters (Russian Bear bomber), incredibly wide blades (Lockheed P-3), or both (Airbus A400M). The other thing is that piston propeller planes generally have fairly terrible climb characteristics (because climb is a function of engine power and even very large piston engines pale in comparison to the power of gas turbines). More power means better rate of climb at constant speed so, even if the airplane already tapped out on absolute airspeed, having more power can give you better climb rate. In a dogfight, which is all about energy management, a larger engine also allows you to recover energy faster. Edit: typo


Question: Why is it bad to use flash photography around art / artifacts?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why is it bad to use flash photography around art / artifacts?

I would imagine it’s the same reason why cellphones cause airplanes to crash and gas tanks to blow up. They don’t. They just want people to pay attention to what they are doing instead of taking photos. Also flashes are super annoying. Could you imagine trying to enjoy a painting in a dimly lit room and suddenly 30 bright lights flash in your face? Now you have little light blobs burned into your vision ruining the rest of you art viewing for a few minutes. Also a lot of art has glass over it so a flash would just reflect off and look terrible anyway. Ever tried to take a picture of an aquarium with a flash? Doesn’t work.


Question: Why we cant just launch all our garbage into space?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why we cant just launch all our garbage into space?

Financial/practical implications are the only reason it isn't being done. Yeah, if it cost us a few hundred dollars to aim a rocket hauling tons of garbage into the nearest black hole, we would probably do it. But it's stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid expensive and unpractical with our current technology. If a billionaire wanted to do something with the garbage, they would be better served putting their money towards recycling technologies.


Question: Why do people post questions on here that they could easily find out in 30 seconds via Google?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do people post questions on here that they could easily find out in 30 seconds via Google?

For the same reason you asked a [subjective or speculative quetions]( URL_0 ); they don't read rule #2 or they think it doesn't apply to them. It's a common problem in this subreddit.


Question: Why do we need 4 Hydrogens to make 1 Helium ?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do we need 4 Hydrogens to make 1 Helium ?

The simplest hydrogen nucleus consists of one proton. The helium nucleus consists of 2 protons and 2 neutrons. To fuse hydrogen to helium, two protons have to be converted to two neutrons. So in total 4 hydrogen nuclei are needed to form 1 helium nuclei. (this is a multistage process so this is a simplified explanation)


Question: Why does a glass of water taste “stale” after it sits out overnight?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why does a glass of water taste “stale” after it sits out overnight?

A couple of factors can affect the taste: Temperature: the water left out overnight will be at room temperature but fresh tap/filtered water is usually cooler since it comes from pipes underground. Much like how a warm soda/beer tastes different compared to a cold one, temperature can greatly affect the taste. Chlorine: tap water has added chlorine which is disolved in the water. The chlorine will slowly out-gas and leave the water over time. The water left overnight will have less chlorine taste. Other gases: other gases in the air will dissolve into the water and can affect the taste. For example, carbon dioxide disolved in water will make it more acidic. Living things: hopefully you haven't left the water out for too many days! Algae and bacteria can grow to large concentrations in the water if it's not replaced or cleaned. This is how water can "go bad" if not stored properly.


Question: Can one buy another, specific individual's debt (e.g., mortgage, student loans, credit card, auto)?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Can one buy another, specific individual's debt (e.g., mortgage, student loans, credit card, auto)?

I don't know how it works in the real world or with indviduals. When you buy debt you don't pay for all of it but get all of it. For example, if I have a customer who owes 1000$ but I need cash now I can sell it to a company for 900$ now. They follow up with the customer and take responsibility for it. In other words as if they lent the money.


Question: How does a company separate from a parent company, or rather, how is the parent company compensated for the lost value?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How does a company separate from a parent company, or rather, how is the parent company compensated for the lost value?

Any company, be it parent or a subsidiary/child company, has shares, meaning who owns the company (Simple way to imagine it would be- if a company has 100 shares, each share is 1% of the company, limited liability companies simply have owners, who own some % of the company). The shareholders can be other companies, or physical people. If a majority of shares are owned by another company (more than 50%), it is a parent company. In order for a subsidiary to gain independence from the parent, someone else needs to obtain a majority of shares from the parent. When people say that a company separates from it's parent company, it, most likely, means that the parent has sold its shares in the subsidiary and the subsidiary has a new majority shareholders, and the parent has been compensated for these shares. Also, to discuss one of your examples, in case of Bungie, Microsoft retained its right to the Halo franchise, which was most of the compensation, while still remaining a minority stakeholder. So Bungie came to an agreement with Microsoft, that it would give up the franchise for it's own independence, since franchises like this are worth more than any physical assets the company might have had. You might think that a large part of the value of the company came from the employees that worked and developed at Bungie, however people can't be classified as assets, therefore the only real value in the company were its franchises.


Question: How does math actually work in life and the universe?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How does math actually work in life and the universe?

Sorry for the long winded answer, I kind of like math a lot. Math as logic and a description of the world: Numbers are a concept that just exists logically. There can be one of something, two of something etc., and if you cut something down the middle, there can be a half of something. It also follows that if you put the two halves back together, it equals a whole thing. You could call this simple, obvious, or not the answer you were looking for, but the bottom line is that this type of logic must exist in order for our world to make sense. If you could cut something in half, stick the halves back together, and get any quantity other than one, you would be generating or destroying matter or energy, which is fundamentally not something that is possible in our universe. So this logic is the basis of counting and simple math like adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing, and when you do these mathematical operations, the answers reflect what happens in the real world when you, for example, add two groups of sheep together; 5 sheep "plus" 8 sheep is equal to the number you get when you count the group of them together: 13. Math as a tool for rockets and other cool stuff: I'll start out by saying that math works so well because if we try to use an equation to describe something and it's wrong, then we simply don't use it. Using the logic from the last section, you can use math as a tool to describe physical concepts or things in the real world; the volume of a box is its length times it's width times it's height, and you can test that if you have a box and a ruler. The area of a circle is πr² (at some point, some Mathematician proved this using simpler logic that was already accepted as true). There are tons and tons of equations like these that describe all kinds of concepts and things that people observed or came up with. Now on to rockets. There is math that describes every part of a rocket. When you ignite the rocket fuel, it expands in volume by a certain amount. People in laboratories got paid a lot of money at some point to experiment and see if they could make a fuel that expands the most when it ignites, because the more it expands, the more force/thrust you can generate. By doing tests and measuring things, you can come up with an equation to describe how much force you can exert on the rocket by igniting fuel, and these equations tell you how much weight you can lift with your rocket (how heavy your rocket and your cargo can be). So people do these tests for a living, and then they maybe build a test rocket and ignite some fuel to see if their equations were right and can be trusted. There are also equations that describe how the rocket will orbit the earth based on how far you are from the earth, how fast you're going, and in what direction you're traveling. Using these equations you can plan out your mission, and figure out when you need to ignite the rockets in order to land yourself on the moon or back on the earth. I'm an engineering student, and most of my classes involve learning the equations to describe certain things.Someimes we do experiments where we try to use some equations to predict an outcome (like how much this fuel will expand when you ignite it) and then we ignite the fuel and measure how much it expanded (they would teach us how to go about measuring that) and see if our predictions were right.


Question: Why are viruses such as HIV so hard to create a cure for after all these years?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why are viruses such as HIV so hard to create a cure for after all these years?

HIV targets the cells responsible for hunting them. By doing this, if a cell gets to "know" a type of weakened version if it, but not entirely the same, the virus can still take over the cell in question without being munched into non-functional bits and pieces, and use the included resistance to the weakened type as a base for a new generation of virus. That's why infecting yourself with HIV by having Good Times with multiple partners who are also infected is a sure way to have a Bad Time: the possibility of the other having a different version of the virus than yours is highly likely. The virus only becomes stronger and stronger and your cocktail of repression medication more and more ineffective, until your body can't properly protect you from invading germs or viruses, at which point you might even die from a scratch of a dirty piece of metal. It also happens that the HIV virus has more than one way to infect a preferred cell, which makes eradicating it even harder.


Question: How could people back in the day wear so much clothes during the summer?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How could people back in the day wear so much clothes during the summer?

This [video]( URL_0 ) offers a first hand experience of doing just that


Question: What was the first thing that was used to define how long one second is?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 What was the first thing that was used to define how long one second is?

Clocks weren't accurate enough to measure time to the second until the 17th century. The first clocks to do this were pendulum clocks, which were first invented in 1656 by Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens. One second was defined as being equal to 1/86,400 of a mean solar day. This is easy to derive from the fact that there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a mean solar day. In 1956, the second was redefined in terms of a year rather than a day to make it more accurate. The new second was defined as the fraction 1⁄31,556,925.9747 of the tropical year 1899 on December 31st at 12:00 (Epoch January 0 1900). Finally, in 1967, a second was redefined as exactly 9,192,631,770 cycles of the radiation produced by the transition between two levels of cesium 133, as measured using atomic clocks.


Question: How can water vaporise at every temperature if it requires heat from outside?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How can water vaporise at every temperature if it requires heat from outside?

What happens when water (or any other liquid) evaporates, is that a molecule of the liquid at the surface has enough individual energy in order to overcome the attraction of local inter molecular forces. The temperature of the water is essentially the average energy over all the molecules; it does not represent the actual energy of every single molecule. As such, some molecules will have less energy and some will have more. As they move around and bump into each other, energy is exchanged and constantly in flux. Because of this, at any point some molecule of water at the surface might have enough energy to escape and become vapor. The lower the temperature, the slower this process, of course.


Question: How are mountains (or mountain ranges) formed far away from plate boundaries - is it a sort of crumpling effect?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 How are mountains (or mountain ranges) formed far away from plate boundaries - is it a sort of crumpling effect?

There are a number of ways mountains can form but the biggest mountain ranges are formed near plate boundries. However a geologists definition of what is near might differ from what you consider near. For example while it is obvious that the Sierra Nevada is forming due to the Pacific Ocean plates colliding with the North American plate due to its proximity the plates interacted differently tens of millions of years ago and the same process took place much further inland creating the Rocky Mountains. Other mountain ranges such as the Appalachians are currently far from active plate boundries but were formed during previous collisions, in this case between North America and Africa. But of course there are exceptions such as Hawaii which is not near any plate boundries but still have a cute little mountain range going.


Question: Why do computers have a blue screen of death?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do computers have a blue screen of death?

It’s a simplified interface to explain why the computer failed. If it just shut off on you when it died, you might not know and might not ever do anything about it. The BSOD is a result of a quick diagnostic, providing an error code so you can start troubleshooting. I hope this helped!


Question: how do phones take your voice and make it come out of another phone?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant first thinks about the reasoning process in the mind and then provides the user with the answer. The reasoning process and answer are enclosed within <thinking> </thinking> and
<answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <thinking> reasoning process here </thinking><answer> answer here </answer>.
Response Format rules:
- Always start your response with <thinking> tag and end with </answer>.
- Do not include any text or commentary before the opening <thinking> tag or after the closing </answer> tag.
- Do not include any text or commentary between the closing </thinking> tag and the opening <answer> tag.
For example, your response follow this format:
<thinking>
[Your detailed chain-of-thought goes here]
</thinking>
<answer>
[Your final answer goes here]
</answer>
 how do phones take your voice and make it come out of another phone?

With modern technology, it goes like this: Your voice moves a diaphram/magnet in the microphone of your phone (or a similar technology). That magnet is inside of a coil of wire, and the moving magnet induces a small electrical current in the coil. That signal is amplified and turned into a voltage by circuits in the phone. That [voltage waveform]( URL_1 ) of your voice is then sampled (measured) many times per second, turning it into a stream of numbers that represents the same thing. Those numbers are stored in binary (1s and 0s) because that's what digital computer circuits can easily manipulate. Now the phone needs to send that stream of binary numbers somewhere, like a cell tower. It initiates a call over radio (light that is so deep red that our eyes can't see it). The radio signals are [modulated]( URL_0 ) to carry information that the cell tower can decode. After the connection between the cell tower and your phone is set up, the phone sends that stream of binary numbers to the tower. Of course, it also sends other information first, most notably what number the call is supposed to go to and who it is from. The cell tower has information about where to forward that data, usually over a land link (wires) to a central switch, which then forwards it on to another switch, etc. etc. until it gets to a cell tower near the recipient's phone. All of this data communication is similar to that between your phone and the tower, except it isn't using radio. The voltage signals are sent using various encoding schemes using regular wires or optical fiber links. If optical fiber links, the signals must again be converted to light, but not radio. Eventually the data gets to the cell tower nearest the recipient and the process goes in reverse, with that stream of numbers getting to the recipient's phone and turned back into a voltage/current to excite a speaker in the phone, turning it into sound. Of course, all of this happens very very fast. Computers are good at that.