Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why are mother in laws portrayed as bad people in American culture?	[ "It's pretty much a cultural thing. Women have a tendency to want the best for their daughters and \"meddle\" in their affairs at the trivial level more than male parents do to ensure it happens. And they typically want more time and more frequent visits with their daughters than the fathers do. This distraction i...	[ "Hi OP, this is a cultural question, so it would greatly assist anyone considering answering if you could specify which culture you're asking about. For example, the name of a cultural group / country / geographic region, plus a rough time period. Otherwise, this question is simply too broad, as it encompasses almo...
When you donate a kidney, how do they decide which one to take?	[ "I nearly donated one earlier this year. They take the smaller of the two in order to leave the donor with the strongest one." ]	[ "The risk is part of the reason that these kinds of trades aren't exactly popular, and why they don't happen all that often. That said, there are ways you can mitigate the risk a bit; use a trusted third party, set up the trade in an area where you have control, come up with extra collateral. Or just kill them over...
Why can our modern understanding of physics only explain the movement and balance of hydrogen but not of other elements?	[ "No, this isn't true. Hydrogen is special because we have analytic expressions for all the physical quantities we are interested in. For more complicated atoms, we can only calculate them numerically, but for the most part we can do this to arbitrary precision if we really wanted to. The fact that many quantities a...	[ "HFT makes EMH true, in a pretty real sense. The role of stock traders is to act on any idiosyncratic information they have, and to do so until their information content cannot be exploited any more. The essence of EMH is that in equilibrium, all information has already been acted on. Thus you only make money (re...
In recipes, why don’t we bake cakes and other baked goods to certain temperature, like we do with meat? For example, if I’m cooking brownies isn’t there a standard temperature at which they are done? And wouldn’t that make it easier to not over or undercook them?	[ "Cooking meat to temp is primarily to kill off bacteria. While it does affect the result in terms of texture and taste, it doesn't change the overall structure of what you're eating. A steak is still a steak at 135° or 160° or even raw at room temp. Baking is more of a chemical process. Just getting the center of a...	[ "Let's say you want to travel to Chicago from Atlanta by car. Can you predict your exact position at any given time? No. You can predict where you are going to be in the next few seconds but as you look further ahead you lose accuracy. Sure, you could say, \"I'll be near Indy around 6pm on this road, but you don't ...
If both Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt comets are the remnants of our solar systems formation, why is the Oort Cloud spherical and the Kuiper Belt a disk?	[ "the whole solar system started out as a cloud of dust, and when the sun formed at the center, only the inner stuff was made into a disk, the outer material being to far away to be pulled into a disk. [here's why stuff even became discular](_URL_2_)" ]	[ "Stability. 1. Circles are very hard to deform compared to other shapes. This means the \"wing\" will not flutter or collapse, which is the main problem when working with paper. 2. Having all of that weight at the bottom means it won't flip over, and won't roll over. It also looks like it is placed so that the more...
Use of the stack vs. heap for memory	[ "The heap allows random access. The stack does not. You can get out from the stack only what you just put in. You lose local variables when you return from functions, etc. Since function calls layer on top of each other (think Inception's dream levels), they can only return in order from the newest \"lowest level\"...	[ "Not a \"real\" historian here, but given the fact that we can remember a Ephesian arsonist (Herostratus) despite damnatio memoriae, there is no way in heck that a big official from Rome would be forgotten due to it, although I dunno if there is any difference in DM between Greece and Rome." ]
why are hillucinations in Schizophrenia and body paralysis always evil?	[ "I used to live next door to Schizophrenic lady (who had stopped taking her meds), and she was often laughing and talking to imaginary people in a pleasant way" ]	[ "You know how people thought there's some angry god that throws lightning bolts when you do or don't do something? Well people are afraid of things they don't understand." ]
Why are bugs attracted to electric light, but not fire; they're both bright and warm?	[ "I often see bugs flying into our fire pit, attracted by it. Makes me sad every time. Perhaps you haven't recognized their actions because they immediately incinerate?" ]	[ "Quantum mechanics, or more specific the Pauli exclusion principle. Electrons are fermions, which means you cannot have two of them in the same state. When your hand is far away from whatever you touch then you have electrons in states in your hand and the object to be touched has electrons in its states - no probl...
Dr. Who. Basic premise / History / Popularity and where to begin if one has never watched it.	[ "[Doctor Who: 47 Years in 6 Minutes ](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "If you're looking for a very brief and quick example for 1 gallon all grain brewing [this](_URL_0_) is a great example. That is all grain though, and if you are looking to start with a simpler version, you will use malt extract as opposed to all grain, which pretty much starts the brewing process at the wort. The...
what’s the difference between rap and hip-hop?	[ "Hip-hop is the broader culture that was originally conceived of as having four elements: MCing, DJing, Graffiti, and Breakdancing. “Rapping” refers to one of the four elements (MCing) and more broadly speaking “Rap Music” is a combination of 2 of the 4 (DJing/MCing). But that’s more of the old-head hip-hop versio...	[ "Salt & Pepper season our food. They make it taste better. Spices & Herbs flavor our food. They make it taste different. Season everything. source: Chef." ]
Does my brain actively "follow" the storyline of my dreams while I'm asleep? I keep waking up at the perfect times.	[ "I'm not an expert on dreaming. However, my understanding is that you don't dream in \"real time\". What seems to evolve over a 5 minute period, for example, may only take a fraction of a second in actual time spent dreaming. Your mind can adjust the chronology to suit the circumstances." ]	[ "If you could definitively answer this and prove your theory, you'd probably win a Nobel Prize. There is a lot of theory on how memory works, but no one knows for sure. The best explanation would be that somehow the right combination of neurons in your head fired in just the right way to trigger that memory. I thi...
Do companies gain anything by geo-restricting their videos (specifically on YouTube)? Why does this happen so much?	[ "An insane legal mess. CBS probably sold the exclusive rights to the Late Show to some Canadian company. Allowing Canadian viewers to watch the show on their YouTube channel would violate their contract with the company that has the Canadian rights." ]	[ "The countries in the Universal Postal Union have agreed on common standards. If I pay the proper international postage rate in the United States, then any postal service will deliver to the proper address in their country after receiving the letter from the U.S. Postal Service, regardless of the local postage rate...
Why does food taste different when it's cold, room temperature or hot?	[ "A substantial component of what we call taste is actually smell. This is why food tastes really bland when your nasal passages are all stopped up because of a cold. A lot more smell particles come off of hot foods than cold foods. This is why a pie baking in the oven will smell up the whole house, but a cold pie ...	[ "Neural adaption. Basically, your brain only cares about a change in stimuli rather than every stimulus that comes along. Your brain knows how to ignore a stimulus if it isn't changing. So, if you are tasting/feeling the same thing all the time, your brain is going to ignore it." ]
why is the asterix used to edit text messages	[ "I don't know where it originated, but I've seen it since the 90's, Back in chat rooms and instant messaging. I didn't see it in text message until long after. So I at least know it may have originated there and not via text messaging. Hopefully someone with more knowledge can elaborate." ]	[ "Typically words that have a legitimate definition aside from being a curse word are not censored. For example, \"bitch\" is a term for a female dog, and \"ass\" is another word for a donkey." ]
Why did Nixon resign?	[ "Nixon resigned because the House was about to vote to impeach him for obstructing justice in the Watergate investigation. Nixon had his key advisers hire some guys to break into the opposing political party's headquarters and steal their things and then tried to cover it up. Because his role in the cover-up was b...	[ "This is like asking \"why does a fire burn itself out - what's the point of using up all the fuel if it can't sustain itself?\"." ]
If a nuclear bomb is dropped on other nuclear bombs that are idle on the ground, will it create a double explosion or do these weapons need to become 'activated' in order for them to be able to detonate?	[ "Detonating a nuclear bomb is a very precise process, a lot of complicated things have to happen in just the right order. Even the most primitive bombs would be unlikely to go off in a high order explosion just because of a nearby explosion, nuclear or not. Modern nuclear weapons are actually deliberately designed ...	[ "It's similar to the principles behind a volcano. Pressure keeps building up and building up in one specific point. However, there is some strong material resisting that pressure, in the volcano case it is the dirt, rock, and metal sitting above it, and in the book case it's the pages sitting under the press. Howev...
How do Newtonian forces like inertia affect movement in space?	[ "HannibalLex is partially true. The crew members in the space station are not being \"pushed back\" by a force, but rather by the lack of any force working on them. They remain in the same location relative to the universe, it is only the station that is moving around them." ]	[ "The current recommended training regime of astronauts on ISS will keep most of their muscle mass and bone density or even increase them in places. There is still some refinements needed to make it perfect as there is some issues with bone density in the pelvic region as the astronauts do not balance enough when th...
When does a history book become obsolete?	[ "Your book may not necessarily be obsolete, or an unreliable source. This is the checklist I use for evaluating books. Publisher: is it published by an academically reputable publishing house? Author credentials: is the author qualified within the field they’re writing about? Citations: has this book been cited i...	[ "This sounds like a \"polltype question\" which is not appropriate for askhistorians. sorry." ]
[Meta] To source or not to source?	[ "I don't think your postulation on what gets upvoted is an accurate reflection of reality. The citation rules on this sub are nowhere close to an academic level of rigor. The rule is this: if you state a fact, be prepared to give a source for it. This is not just because people don't believe you; it's also because ...	[ "Imagine you have 100 doors, and there is a prize behind one. You pick one door and then 98 others are opened. The prize is either behind your door, or the other one that is unopened. Should you switch? Absolutely, because you had a 1/100 shot of guessing right with your first pick, and a 99/100 chance if you swit...
What do pain relieving drugs exactly do and whats the difference between advil and Tylenol?	[ "There are several types of OTC pain relievers. Advil (ibuprofen) belongs to a class known as NSAIDs. Non-Steroidal Anti Inflammatory drugs. Some other well known NSAIDS are naproxen sodium (Aleve) and Ketorolac (Toradol). NSAIDs work by stopping the body's inflammation response. These drugs inhibit certain enzymes...	[ "Trademarks are for things to do with branding, like logos, slogans, brand names etc.. Copyrights are for creative works like books, films, music, web sites etc.." ]
Why does the 1st pancake you cook on a pan always turn out bad?	[ "Because I'm terrible at making pancakes. For the record, the rest are no better." ]	[ "Angles my friend. Try taking a knife and sliding it across a piece of fruit like a razor, then try the same thing smashing it perpendicular. One won't do a damn thing, the other slices the fruit wide open." ]
Algae blooms throughout South Florida lakes.	[ "An algae bloom occurs when the water has too many nutrients in it. A common man-made cause is the run-off from fertilizer into waterways next to farms. The algae covers the surface of the water, blocking out light and reducing the oxygen content, which starves many of the other organisms. It's a serious disruption...	[ "From what I have read, it seems the biggest environmental problem is oil leakage. NOAA has this report of oil pollution from shipwrecks, including merchant ships sunk in WWII: _URL_1_ But the worst is not in US coastal waters, but in Pacific. For example, more than 50 sunken ships/boats in the Ironbottom Sound, s...
Is it possible to make a 3-D representation of a 4-dimensional object?	[ "We only get a rough idea of a two dimensional sketch of a three dimensional object because we look at the world from a single, two-dimensional perspective. We must interact with something to understand it in three dimensions. (Looking at it from atleast two different viewpoints) To represent something with four di...	[ "Everything on board the ship will experience time to behave normally. You can not experience your own time dilation, and neither can the camera. You can also say that you are in fact stationary and experiencing no time dilation, and it is the solar system that is moving relative to the ship, since there is no abso...
In etymology, how does one know the 'root' of where the word originated from? Isn't it possible that the word originated further than we think?	[ "Mostly when you talk about the root in etymology you talk about how far back you can trace things which usually end up something Latin, Greek or ancient Indo-European at that point you usually can't trace it an further because nobody knows what came before because nobody wrote anything down." ]	[ "First off you need to aquire LOTS of samples from populations all over the world, tens of thousands at least. The more the better. You begin to compare all of this data from the genomes you collected with known migration patterns of ancient peoples and indigenous populations. Then you use computers to crunch all t...
Why are so many people struggling with basic grammar - you're/your, it's/its, there/they're, etc.	[ "Many people simply don't care enough to pay attention to the difference. It really doesn't matter to most people if you use \"it's\" or \"its\" as long as they feel like their point is getting across. For instance, in the sentence that you just read, I could have used \"there\" or \"they're\" instead of \"their\",...	[ "That's just it. It takes a while to amass information and use it. An animal just does whatever comes natural, aka 'instinct'. But humans are taught and trained and learn and practice and... and... Layers and layers of information and training to get us to the point where we can actually achieve more than the previ...
Why did the first stage of the Saturn V use different fuel from the second and third stage?	[ "Other responses got it right describing the pros and cons, but there's something I'd like to add: cost. This shouldn't be neglected. The lowest stage is always the largest, carrying roughly 1/2 of the rocket's total mass at liftoff. That's why there's a lot to save by using a cheap fuel here and leaving the most e...	[ "When a plant grows it is utilizing substances called \"metabolites\" which is basically the stuff that allows the tree to grow. \"Primary Metabolites\" are the ones that help the tree actually physically grow bigger, they help the leaves grow in size, they help the roots grow deeper into the ground etc. Then there...
How do they make bamboo, which is circular, into flat flooring which looks like one piece?	[ "It's large bamboo, cut into strips, planed or steamed into rectangles, then edge-glued into sheets. If you look you can see the dark patches which are the nodes in the original bamboo - think of the \"knuckles\" in a piece of grass, which is essentially all bamboo is. Those dark patches stretch across just one str...	[ "Life makes trade-offs: being good at anything has a cost, usually in energy, but sometimes in other things. In general, you can only be good at a couple of things. Influenza is really good at being durable. Influenza spreads quickly between humans because it can last anywhere: in the air, in the cold, etc. It keep...
Why do I remember trying to fall asleep, but not actually the falling asleep itself?	[ "I had [what I assume was] a lucid dream once as I was falling asleep. It felt like I was being sucked into a black hole and sounded like bullet trains whizzing passed my ears. I joked to my roommate that this is why people don't remember falling asleep, it's traumatizing. He's in medical school, so I expected his ...	[ "There are a few factors at work here : Moſt chairs are deſigned to ſit at about knee height ; they generally ſupport your back, and more importantly, your butt and legs. Toilets are uſually lower, and they are made with a large hole in the middle, into which you ſink a little. This lower height, lack of ſupport,...
Why can’t we remember things at a time when we want to, but we can remember them later? Why can’t we just access all of our knowledge at once?	[ "State Dependent Learning: we remember something best when our bodies and minds are in a similar state when we learned it. See: Beer Fest Encoding Specificity: we remember best when we are in the same context. For example, you remember what food you need to cook in your kitchen but your mind is blank at the grocery...	[ "They are kept in the device's RAM as you use the app, so that when you scroll back up, they are instantly available. Some apps may run out of RAM or otherwise optimize to save it, so the data will be erased from the RAM and lost, thus when you scroll back up, then it must re-load the data from the internet." ]
Why Native American Tribes are associated with opening casinos?	[ "Because of a loophole. Native American land is considered not territory of the state it is in and thus does not have to follow state laws (but Federal ones still apply). There are several states that forbid gambling, however this does not apply to Native American reservations. Therefore, some have opted to open th...	[ "What color is the skin of most of the people who make and utilize those drawings? Theres your answer" ]
How hasn't the Flint water crisis been resolved yet?	[ "The pipes where lined with lead and the corrosive river water stripped the sealant off. Replacing all of it wont be cheap, and will take quite a bit of time. We are talking hundreds of miles of pipes that need to be ripped out of the ground and replaced." ]	[ "Because many gateways have not finished certifying with the various processors on the backend. So in many cases the stores have the hardware and are ready, and are just waiting for their POS and/or gateway provider to support EMV." ]
Why exactly does rubbing your tongue on another person's tongue (a.k.a. making out or French kiss) feel so good?	[ "Lots of nerve endings on the lips and tongue, to which you're applying a (relatively) gentle, warm, soft stimulus. So it does feel good on a purely physical level. More than that, though, kissing is extremely gratifying on a psychological/emotional level. The knowledge that someone (whom you presumably like and fe...	[ "You've pretty much got it. When you combine a bunch of ingredients in a flavored liquid, at first the flavors of the liquid will either just coat the pieces or barely penetrate the surface. As you let it sit, the flavors penetrate deeper into each piece of food, and each ingredient starts to give up its own juices...
Why doesn't light emitted radially from inside the event horizon of a black hole escape?	[ "Inside of the event horizon of a black hole, there is no direction that one can travel that leads to outside of the event horizon. Space-time is warped in such a way that every single direction you can point in leads to the singularity at the center of the black hole." ]	[ "The \"proper\" answer requires a good understanding of graduate-level mathematics and physics. But an ELI5 answer is basically that if you take the equations we use that describe general relativity, and the equations we use that describe quantum mechanics, and try to apply them to the same situation (such as the s...
Why does ice crack sometimes when its put into a drink?	[ "The same reason hot glass or ceramic cracks if you put it in cold water. Differential thermal expansion. This is why Pyrex is so much better for extreme temperature fluctuations. Pyrex is borosilicate glass and the boron allows a degree of flexibility upon thermal expansion or contraction. Ice is like silicate gla...	[ "The table is a little tilted. Cheap particle board restaurant tables will sag over time, so even if it seems flat, part of it is not. Add a relatively heavy, full glass and moisture to lubricate the surface, and you have just enough for it to slide." ]
How can television shows film illegal activity and the broadcast it without prosecution?	[ "You have to be able to prove that the crime was actually being committed, which is easy for some crimes because footage of it being committed is undeniable (murder, rape, running a stop light). Other crimes, like doing illegal drugs have to be caught in the act. If you have a video of someone snorting cocaine, the...	[ "There are a lot of people in the world who don't care about laws, or the laws of other countries, or the property rights of other people. For example if you stole a piece of art from someone in England that a wealthy member of the royal family in Saudi Arabia wanted they probably don't care at all that it was stol...
If I was standing on the moon, how high would I have to jump to not get pulled back by the moon's gravity?	[ "I think what you are asking for is escape velocity, not distance of jump. But as far as distance goes, you have to remember that in space, there is no such thing as 0 gravity (except maybe Lagrangian points, but thats a special case). You are always going to be attracted to some planet, whether it's the earth, the...	[ "The biggest and hardest problem is how to take off from Mars again after you land. This is assuming that you've already figured out how to deliver several hundred times as much mass as we've moved to Mars in all exploration so far and keep humans alive in interplanetary space and on the Martian surface for years. ...
Why don’t airports and air travel companies update from the staticky ATC systems to something that is able to be more clearly heard and understood.	[ "Your cellphone also loses signal if it goes into a tunnel. Your cellphone is fm radio, pretty, nice, but weak signal. Plans are on lower frequencies, AM radio. Shittier quality but a much stronger signal strength." ]	[ "if it ain't broke, don't fix it? I, personally, have no desire to swap out my toilet every 2 years when the newest gimmick comes along, as well as paying for any gimmick. I don't need a toilet that sings to me, tells me the weather, analyzes my wee's sugar content (I know it's horrible), etc, etc. An 'american sty...
Why are some televisions in the same house 1 or 2 seconds out of sync?	[ "Is one HD and another SD. This is they only time this happens in my house. The HD channels are a second or two behind SD so that when you switch to HD, you can easily compare the quality with the same past few seconds from the SD channel." ]	[ "I think the responses you've got so far indicate that it isn't very reliable. The whole thing is based on a sample. A sample of people are given set top boxes that monitor what they are watching. This sample is then scaled up to the whole population with weighting bias added in so that they can account for the 'av...
Why can't we train our cells to be immune to biological attacks in the same way that bacteria trains itself to be immune to antibiotics?	[ "Bacteria don't train themselves to become immune to antibiotics. When bacteria reproduce, there are random generic mutations. Occasionally, a mutation will occur that grants resistance to an antibiotic. When someone takes antibiotics, they kill off all the non-resistant bacteria. But if they don't take enough, the...	[ "Your PC can run any program that's on it at any time. But your Android smartphone can only run programs downloaded from the app store unless you change an option deep in settings, and your iPhone can't run programs from unknown sources at all (unless you jailbreak it) And because viruses are computer programs that...
Banks betting against their own clients	[ "Let's say you wanted to gamble at the horse track. You think Three-Legged Limpet is the horse to win on (despite having only three legs). You decide to place a $100 bet, but you don't have $100 on you now (payday isn't until tomorrow). The bookie agrees to take only $20, with the understanding that you will pay up...	[ "It is beneficial for airlines to fill empty seats and hotels to fill empty rooms, rather than to leave them empty. They form agreements with these companies to offer lower priced rooms, but often do so in secret so that the consumer doesn't know precisely which hotel or flight they are getting such a deal on. This...
Is the cholesterol listed on food packaging the "bad" kind (LDL), the "good" kind (HDL) or a mix of the two.	[ "Cholesterol listed on food is the actual molecule known as cholesterol. LDL and HDL refer to transporters of cholesterol in your blood. HDL picks up cholesterol from around the body and brings it to the liver, thus is considered good. LDL does roughly the opposite, and is therefore considered less good. The health...	[ "Basically, the type of backlighting. They are both LCDs, but the older type uses a fluorescent backlight and the newer type uses LEDs. LED-backlit TVs use a little less power, and while I have seen fluorescent backlights burn out, I've never seen that happen (yet) to an LED display." ]
Why is there no cure for tinnitus?	[ "There is no cure from tinnitus because it is extremely difficult to know the exact cause of tinnitus. In some cases, tinnitus can be linked to vascular problems and sometimes tumour, but in a lot of cases, tinnitus has no known cause. For that reason, it is practically impossible to find a cure for something that ...	[ "It takes a while to implement the changes. How would you like it if the law changed overnight and you had to pay fees/go to jail next day without having a chance to adapt yet." ]
How do we know that tides are caused by the moon?	[ "The short answer is: an awful lot of correlation. First of all, the tides always follow the moon's position in the sky, and change time throughout the month in a way that matches the moon's shift from being visible in the early morning or late at night. Second, the tides get stronger when the moon is closer to the...	[ "You can't calculate it. You have to determine it experimentally. The first measurement was done by Cavendish using a very sensitive torsional beam: _URL_0_" ]
Are there any historical documents that we know to exist but are not available to historians?	[ "People collect a wide variety of different things. Old manuscripts, weapons, armor, coins, artifacts and art. Many of these private collectors allow no insight into their collections. Some for fear of confiscation (which may be well founded in some cases) others for private reasons. Some allow non-destructive exam...	[ "BTW, for those that are downvoting this question, I would appreciate it if you could take a moment to explain the motivation. On reddit in general I could care less if something I write gets downvoted, but here in askHistorians it decreases the chances something I ask will get answered so if I am breaking some sor...
Is there any non-Biblical historical backing for the Ark of the Covenant? What was the story behind it? What inspired it to be written about?	[ "You'd be better off asking this question in /r/AcademicBiblical." ]	[ "Hi - we as mods have approved this thread, because while this is a homework question, it is asking for clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself, which is fine according to [our rules](_URL_1_). This policy is further explained in this [Rules Roundtable thread](_URL_3_) and this [META Thread](_URL_...
How does coffee work? Does the manner of preparation or the ratio of ingredients affect my caffeine dose?	[ "As said before, hotter water means better solvent. And the longer the coffee is in contact with the water, the more caffeine will be dissolved. And there is a max caffeine (the max in the coffee itself). The french press contains a lot of caffeine if you compare it to espresso-based coffee (short extraction time)....	[ "Very often they’re actually remixes or edits. One major factor is time. On the album versions they tend to be longer, because nobody minds. There are different edits and mixes, for radio and ones for video. While less of a factor today due to much better electronics, another problem was speakers. When watching a ...
Why whenever I'm sleeping in a car ride home, i wake up right before i reach my house?	[ "If you've been on the highway, you'll notice the slowing down, stops/starts and turns, most likely." ]	[ "This sounds like an extreme example of \"Tip of my Tongue\". _URL_0_ I can't really give an overly scientific answer as to what causes it (some interesting articles on that page, though), but I'd imagine that it's just a \"brain fart\", kinda like deja vu. It's a problem with long-term semantic memory recall. (Se...
Theory Thursday \| Academic/Professional History Free-for-All	[ "Currently working on State theory for my thesis; Instrumentalism, Structuralism, and world-system analysis. Has anyone else worked with these concepts? Where do you fall on the Instrumentalism-Structurtalism debate?" ]	[ "Just to clarify what namer98 told us mods when asking if it was okay to post this: All questions need to be submitted to Professor Sarna by email before the AMA. It is not \"live\" like the AMAs we host here in AskHistorians. So, please go to that r/Judaism thread to post your questions before the time of ...
What did steppe nomads do to children with Down Syndrome or similar diseases?	[ "People in the ancient world generally frowned on any sort of physical disability even if it was injury from war. Exposure was a common practice not only for Spartans in the movie 300, but most ancient and many primitive societies. It's very likely that steppe nomads would have engaged in similar practices if child...	[ "A woman named Frances Wright did something like what you are asking in 1824. In Memphis, TN she bought two thousand acres of land from Andrew Jackson and would buy slaves. On this land she set up a co-operative labor system where they could basically work off their price of purchase and then they would be set free...
Did the Soviet Union shoot deserters and those who retreated during battle? If so, how often?	[ "[This earlier answer of miine](_URL_0_) will likely be of interest for you, touching on this issue." ]	[ "You'll probably find examples of this in the early Reconstruction period, but I couldn't provide specific examples as that's not my field of expertise. However, former slaves did at times find themselves in unique situations that allowed them to subvert the standard order. In 1768, the 29th Regiment of Foot was di...
How catastrophic the Burning of the Alexandrian Library was to the development of the sciences at the time?	[ "hi! this is a pretty popular question. Not discouraging other responses, but there are several posts on this subject in the FAQ * [Library of Alexandria](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "Cities like that can only exist if the people there can make a lot of money from the location. When the craftsmen and traders could no longer easily buy and sell goods due to near constant warfare during the reign of the Seleucid empire, people started to leave for (hopefully) greener pastures. The ones who remain...
Was there ever a time when gunpowder and knights took the battlefield together?	[ "You may be interested in some of the threads in the '[Early firearms](_URL_0_)' section of the Popular Questions pages." ]	[ "New answers are always welcome here, but while waiting for them, you may be interested in reading these old threads: * [How did European late medieval/early renaissance pike squares compare to classical phalanxes? Going head to head, would a phalanx of Athenian hoplites stand a chance against a square of Swiss pik...
Random flashes of light when my eyes are closed at night after going to bed.	[ "You might want to get that checked out with an Opthalmologist. Seeing bright flashes of light inside your eyes is usually due to the retinal cells getting stimulated by movement or traction. Not keen on scare mongering, but in rare situations it can be a precursor to retinal detachment." ]	[ "UPDATE! A colleague with superior google skills figured it out. It's caused by many nocturnal species of birds that tend to migrate southward behind cold fronts. Their nocturnal migration appears around radar locations as a circular formation with radars that are behind a cold front showing larger, darker formatio...
how did the US become so dependent on China-made goods and what persons made it happen?	[ "In the 60s and 70s, Regan reduced the taxation of capital gains over 1 mil from 70% to 30%, loosing a good portion of tax revenue, reducing education subsidies and creating a poorly educated and unskilled workforce. Entering the age of globalization and technology starting in the 1980 through the present, a new gr...	[ "I feel like this question is a bit outside of this subreddit's scope, it's really more of an economics question, plus if you look at [this graph](_URL_0_) then you can see that they were at very similar levels until around 20 years ago when they diverged, so anything following that violates the subreddits 20 year ...
Can anyone recommend a historically accurate movie about the Medieval Period that I can show to my 5th-6th grade students?	[ "Slightly off-track, but why does it have to be a movie?My aunt teaches that age-group History, and sometimes will show them a sketch-show called \"Horrible Histories\". Its a BBC comedy sketch show that is aimed towards children, has high-level professional actors in it, its very educational and its hilarious aswe...	[ "Hi - we as mods have approved this thread, because while this is a homework question, it is asking for clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself, which is fine according to [our rules](_URL_1_). This policy is further explained in this [Rules Roundtable thread](_URL_3_) and this [META Thread](_URL_...
Are Wind systems affected by continents?	[ "Yes. Here's a map of wind patterns in the lower atmosphere in Dec-Feb. The effect of continents is pretty obvious: _URL_1_ The continents affect wind patterns in three basic ways: 1) Mountain ranges block the wind at low altitudes. Because of [constraints caused by Earth's rotation](_URL_0_), the air can't just fl...	[ "There is not one but a few different models for the continets. Some of them are just for classification. Some are used to differentiate what is one landmass and what is another. I thing the most common models used are the geopolitical and historic political one. These differentiate between what you could roughly c...
Why do electrical appliances such as alarm clocks have so few buttons, wouldn't it make more sense (and simplify setting up) to have a button to activate each feature (brightness, alarms, time, date, radio)?	[ "I actually work on the automotive industry, so not actually appliances but I believe the reasons are the same. Quick answer: saving money Long answer: most of the appliances we use at home are produced in large quantities and believe it or not, currently the most expensive items on an electronic device bill-of-ma...	[ "Different flowers are pollinated by different insects. These insects will have differing patterns of behavior and so some will be nocturnal and some will be diurnal. So the flowers will evolve mechanisms which allow them to gauge the time of day (probably by level of UV, or visible light hitting basic light recept...
What is entropy, how do we know how it works and does it have many real life applications?	[ "Wikipedia defines it pretty well: [_URL_2_](_URL_2_) . There is even a Intro to Entropy page: [_URL_1_](_URL_0_) . Read that one to wrap your head around the concept; I will admit that it is not easy. (Entropy as a concept is interesting to me because it seems less real than 'energy' or temperature, but real...	[ "Your employer takes money out of your paycheck throughout the year to pay your local, state, and federal taxes. The amount they take out, however, is just an estimate how much tax you will probably owe at the end of the year. There's no way for the state, local, and federal governments to know what you actually do...
Why do some things taste better when they're hot?	[ "At least part of the answer has to be that, heating food excites odor molecules. Smells better = tastes better. Plus texture." ]	[ "Foods that have high concentrations of fat and sugars were scarce on the african plains our species grew up in. These foods are high energy foods that were important for our survival. Because they were rare and difficult to attain we evolved sophisticated mechanisms that make us crave them." ]
The "UFO" over the West Coast tonight and the blue haze it left behind.	[ "> Also why weren't the people there made well aware of the rocket testing taking place. I mean the US military is hardly in the habit of announcing that kind of weapon tests beforehand (edit:though apparently they did reserve the airspace for tests beforehand, which caused some flights into LA to take different pa...	[ "Since the question has already been answered, I'm just going to throw in a plug for my favourite app for answering these kinds of questions, [Google Sky Map](_URL_0_). Just point it at whatever is confusing you, and it tells you what and where everything is." ]
Why does water that has been left in a bottle for a while taste worse than water fresh from the tap?	[ "Water sitting in a bottle can leech chemicals and tastes from the bottle, depending on what type it is. Things grow in water, like bacteria. So while it's sitting there, things that make it taste funny are potentially multiplying in the water, although these things aren't generally harmful to you. Water can absorb...	[ "commercialism. if you were happy with your old stuff, you wouldn't need to buy new stuff. all the designers and manufacturers come out with new looking stuff and market the old stuff as ugly and new stuff as pretty in order to make money. our tastes are hugely influenced by others." ]
Why is the tip of the flame the hottest part?	[ "The _tip_? The tip is not the hottest part. The _base_ is. One only needs to look at the colour of the flame. The light emitted is due to blackbody radiation of soot and other molecules in the flame. Therefore, the hotter the flame, the lower the wavelength of photon emitted. Let's examine a typical [candle](_URL_...	[ "Skin is made from 7 different types of layers, but on your lips the top layer (called the stratum corneum or “corny layer”) is very thin. This, combined with lots of nerve endings in your lips, helps you get a lot of textural information about food and other things you put your mouth to. (Think of how a baby tries...
Why is water necessary for life to be found?	[ "This depends on your definition of life. Water is quite unique. It can solve, and thus transport, many things like nutrients or minerals which is very important for cellular life. Also it's liquid at a temperature where there is a good mixture of reactive elements in solid, liquid and gaseous form. If we are expec...	[ "The simple answer is the different molecules will produce different absorption lines after light reflects off of the planet. Since we can easily check the absorption lines of different substances on earth we can easily determine what is present in nearby planets and stars and such." ]
Would a modern day space suit, either Baumgartner's or the ISS astronauts', be suitable for the surface of Mars?	[ "I am not an expert, but I suspect not. Although anything that can protect against the temperatures and vacuum of space could certainly do the same in the atmosphere of Mars, I don't think they are designed with dust in mind, which Mars has plenty of. I think over time the wind-blown dust would destroy seals/gasket...	[ "Imagine if a bunch of dudes rolled into your town with guns, shot everyone in charge, beheaded a few people, and then made everyone else dress like it was 1600AD. Men to wear britches and pageboys, women must have weird pointy hats and huge dresses. When some other guys came around and booted the Shakespearean Mil...
How does stimming help someone feel better and why is it socially unacceptable to do so?	[ "Stimming is a way to help with excess sensory issues - it's like the body's own \"fidget\" toy. Some stim to block out the excess sensory inputs that surround them. Others stim to provide their own excess sensory input when needed. The more violent stims (such as the headbanging you mentioned) occur as a means of ...	[ "Zoochosis is a term used to describe animals held in artificial environments that proceed to display aberrant, compulsive behavior patterns. Abnormal behavior can include repeated pacing, rocking (pervasive developmental disability/Autism), emesis (bulimia verosa) overgrooming (trichotillomania), coprophagia and s...
How come my smartphone GPS requires constant access to the cellular network (data) for it to work, while a dedicated GPS device (e.g. TomTom, Garmin, etc) works just fine without it?	[ "It doesn't. It might need data to download google maps info. But with an navigation app on my phone that has maps saved locally, I don't need data at all for satnav usage." ]	[ "Because is costs them money to bring that signal to you. Why does a gas station charge you 99 cents for a bottle of water when it falls out of the sky for free?" ]
Why is it when round objects spin at a certain speed they appear motionless?	[ "Your eyes have a frame rate per second, when an object is spinning and matches your eyes frame rate they appear motionless. This is why helicopters blades will appear motionless on high speed cameras" ]	[ "Grab a tennis ball and a lamp. Turn off every other light in the room. Hold up the tennis ball. Half is lit, half is dark. If you are looking from the side (you can see the lamp and the ball) you can see some of the dark side of the ball. The ONLY way to see nothing but lit ball is to have the lamp directly behin...
What causes pins and needles and what biologically happens when we feel them?	[ "Are you talking when your arm falls asleep kind of feeling? Lets assume you are. One of the jobs of your nervous system is to constantly send signals to your brain about what's going on. So your arm, for instance, is sending signals to the brain: things like, it's cold in this room, or someone is touching your arm...	[ "There are a few factors at work here : Moſt chairs are deſigned to ſit at about knee height ; they generally ſupport your back, and more importantly, your butt and legs. Toilets are uſually lower, and they are made with a large hole in the middle, into which you ſink a little. This lower height, lack of ſupport,...
If all organisms carry out Mitosis, why can some animals grow back limbs while others cannot?	[ "Mitosis is the ability for a single cell to split. Regeneration is the ability for trillions of cells to split and structure themselves into a viable limb complete with muscles and bone structure. It really comes down to level of complication and extent of regeneration. As well, the time it takes to grow a limb is...	[ "Transferred cells cancerous or not are subject to the hosts immune system. They would be [rejected](_URL_1_) in the vast majority of scenarios. When scientists study human cancer in mice, they use a mouse that hs a defective immune system to allow acceptance of the cancer cells. Cancer patients are not allowed to ...
Why do people react negatively (or even violently) when presented with evidence that challenge their world view?	[ "Psychology major here. We've focused (in my social psychology classes, in particular) on the idea of cognitive dissonance. What this means is: You perceive the world in one way. Reality comes along and shows that you might be wrong. You have two options, according to conventional information processing: accommodat...	[ "Hi OP, this is a cultural question, so it would greatly assist anyone considering answering if you could specify which culture you're asking about. For example, the name of a cultural group / country / geographic region, plus a rough time period. Otherwise, this question is simply too broad, as it encompasses almo...
How come it seems like there are many more cloudy and gray days during winter than in summer?	[ "The weather patterns allow for much stronger low pressure systems, which surround themselves in cloud cover. The sun also isn't as intense so it burns through fewer clouds. And finally, it isn't hot enough to produce the capped atmosphere that prevents clouds from forming in the midwest on hot humid summer days." ...	[ "Thick and thin are referring to density, I.e. how much air is contained in a given volume. On planets like earth the atmosphere's density changes because gravity pulls it down. The air high in the atmosphere pushes down on the air lower in the atmosphere, compressing it and increasing its density. So, in places wi...
Why do we use low energy radiation like microwaves to heat things? Why is higher frequency radiation less efficient despite it's transmitting more energy?	[ "In principle we can blast our food with electromagnetic radiation of any (reasonable) frequency. But how much radiation is absorbed by matter varies strongly with frequency. Microwave radiation happens to be in a part of the EM spectrum that is good at exciting rotational modes in polar molecules (such as water)."...	[ "A hot plate of food does in fact have more energy (technically), but it has the same amount of \"food energy\". Food energy is the energy stored in chemical bonds within your meal, which is where the energy you body uses comes from. Check out [this](_URL_0_) thread! Richard Wrangham has written a lot of current ...
The Declaration of Independence	[ "The Declaration of Independence is like a breakup letter between the US and Great Britain. The colonies of America were with Great Britain, but didn't like the king, and didn't like taking orders from someone so far away. You see, the colonies and Great Britain were in a long distance relationship, and the coloni...	[ "Congrats! You've asked what may be the single most-asked question on /r/AskHistorians. That's good news, because it means we have [a big FAQ file devoted to your question](_URL_1_). Check it out, and I hope it helps! Edit: And [here](_URL_0_) is a great answer from /u/talondearg, who answers it quite a bit." ]
Billions of years ago when the universe was considerably smaller, was matter smaller too? Was there less space separating the electron from nuclei and was the width of a single proton less?	[ "No. The size of atoms depends on a few fundamental physical constants. You can look at the formula for the [Bohr radius](_URL_0_) to see this: a_0_ = hbar/(m_e_\\c\\alpha) On the right hand side you have the Planck constant, the mass of the electron, the speed of light, and the fine structure constant. To th...	[ "Predictions of possible intelligent lifeforms are very difficult to make because we simply don't have enough data about what life can even be, much less what can be intelligent. However there is likely to be a range of body sizes for life due to the difficulty in moving materials and signals if the body size is to...
What does the common person seek to gain from denying climate change?	[ "Start with the other side. If the climate is changing, why should the average person agree? You probably answer that with \"They can act to change things and not destroy the planet\", that's the common argument. What people get by denying climate change is freedom not to act. If the action you're suggestin...	[ "The film \"A Knight's Tale\" is surprisingly accurate to the spirit of the times, apparently. Also, Jurgen Habermas states that during pre-Renaissance (or Enlightenment) times, there was a marked divide between 'private' and 'public.' To Habermas, things and people that were public mattered, and thus, a celebrity ...
The intuition behind the fundamental theorem of algebra	[ "I think you're a little mixed up, it's not that a nth degree polynomial crosses the x axis n times, it's that the polynomial has n roots, some of which may or may not be imaginary. But then certian polynomials had roots that didn't seem to exist. For instance if you have x^2 = -1 as a root you can't really solve t...	[ "Custom and practice. If you build it and it falls down, you do it again differently. When it works, you keep it like that. That, and people weren't stupid or uneducated - the Greeks were fairly capable mathematicians, as were the Egyptians" ]
Can you culture a colony of bacteria from pus?	[ "Yes, live bacteria can be found mixed in with the pus and can be cultured. When we take cultures at the hospital to send to Micro you want to make sure to get into the wound/infection but the pus is the majority of what you will swab. It is important to note as mentioned in the other reply that the agar you use is...	[ "It's not building \"immunity\", it's building up a tolerance for an allergen. Allergies should be handled by a qualified doctor, never try to do it on your own. Allergic shock can result and sometimes death." ]
What calendar did Romans use?	[ "A.D. and B.C. were not utilized until over a thousand years later, I believe. Typically Romans remembered \"eras\" by the ruler of that time period. I.E. \"My son was born in the first year of Emperor/Ruler []'s term\"" ]	[ "Based on the Latin \"Numero\". Same thing for pounds (lb) \"Libra Pundum\"." ]
Integral of (x+1) can be solved in 2 ways and gets 2 solutions, why?	[ "They're still the same. The two constants you've given the same name aren't really the same. If you call the second c for d, then you should find that d = c – ½. The c just means that integrals are defined uniquely only up to constants. Two different antideravatives may differ by a constant." ]	[ "If you are cooking potatoes you don't need to look at them to know when they're done. You can simply set a timer and take them off it rings. In the same way we usually know how many iterations of some calculation is needed until we should arrive at the correct result. In some instances this is not exactly the cas...
Al-Qaeda/US Embassy Shutdown ELI5 Discussion	[ "Could it be possible that there isn't any actual attack coming, but rather that that this is just a scare-tactic by the Obama Administration? It seems like great timing that, the minute we learn about just how big the NSA is, the NSA gets publicly touted as some kind of knight-in-shining-armor. The Obama Administr...	[ "Hi there -- while we've approved this question, we would like to remind potential respondents of our [current events](_URL_0_) (AKA \"20-year\") rule -- it's fine to discuss events through 1997 (inclusive) and their effects, but not events after 1997. Thanks!" ]
Why is Tylenol dosed by weight for children, but not adults?	[ "Both Tylenol and Aspirin can be extremely toxic. It's actually very common to see overdoses in the ER from them. When I worked in the chemistry lab at a hospital, they were on our urine drug screen along with the \"hardcore\" drugs people usually think of people overdosing on (i.e. heroin). I saw more screens posi...	[ "Because companies like TurboTax have lobbied against filling directly or the IRS filling for you for years and years. They say it's too complicated. The IRS has all the information in hand to just send you a bill for what you owe. Makes me so upset." ]
The Arthurian legend was largely developed in France through the middle ages (when England and France were significant rivals). Why did the English embrace a largely French creation? Were there any misgivings? What about from the French side?	[ "Follow on question - given that the boundaries of England and France were somewhat in flux during this time, was the Arthur legend thought of as \"ours\" or \"theirs\" by English subjects on the (now) French mainland? How did the Arthur legend, which has modern connotations of national identity, fit into the cultu...	[ "You may be interested in the dairy and especially cheese tradition of the Great Lakes region. Especially centered in Wisconsin. There's a National Historic Cheesemaking Center in Wisconsin and its website has a little write-up on the history of cheese. I don't know much about the topic, but I thought I could provi...
What would happen if you took way too much LSD? I'm talking hundreds of times more than your optimal dose.	[ "But does this affect your personality? I have heard read (somewhere on Reddit, no citation) that hallucinogens can permanently change your neural pathways, ultimately change your personality. Can anyone confirm or deny?" ]	[ "Memory limits. Your short term memory can only hold [about seven](_URL_0_) things at once. Most algorithms (for which read: functionally all algorithms that you're going to be able to do with your brain) for multiplying large numbers involve working one digit at a time, so we need to store those digits as separate...
How, when putting in contacts, do they always stay in the correct spot over your iris?	[ "Because the contact lens is shaped just like center, which is called the cornea, while the rest of the eye has different curves. So the contact lens rests at the spot where it is most comfortable" ]	[ "The orbit the ISS is in is very inclined. Here's a good visualization: _URL_0_ Now imagine a point on the ground at Earth's equator. The Earth is spinning under the space station so this point on the ground will pass under the ISS's orbit. After 12 hours that point has moved 180 degrees and will pass under the ISS...
Are there any recordings of the mental deterioration of torturers?	[ "[Vasili Blokhin](_URL_2_) , the person who executed the most number of people single handedly in history (which included 7000 Polish prisoners alone during the Katyn massacre) reportedly went mad after his enforced retirement upon the death of Stalin, ending up an alcoholic and commiting suicide in 1955. *Stalin A...	[ "This has been done before, with animals. Here is a video allegedly showing an old Russian experiment done with a dog. It looks real to me, but, then so did The Wizard of Oz. Warning, it might be disturbing and upsetting to watch. _URL_0_" ]
Why didn't net neutrality or blanket surveillance issues play a bigger part in mid term elections this year?	[ "With only a handful of exceptions, there are no major-party candidates on the national scene who give more than lip service to keeping net neutrality or who stand opposed to the NSA's wide-net surveillance tactics. There's nothing much to debate, when the Democrats and Republicans don't disagree." ]	[ "Can you clarify your question? I see a map of a county in AZ detailed with geographic representations, and another map of the town boundaries in MA. You should look at similar maps to compare the 2 [MA](_URL_1_) and [AZ](_URL_3_) If you're asking about the make up of the political boundaries (i.e. Why does AZ not ...
Why does orange juice from Tropicana taste different from Simply Orange if they're both 100% Orange Juice?	[ "Back in the day--maybe pre-1990s?--year-round fresh (not frozen, not concentrate) OJ was not as common and was more expensive. Then, some great new process was devised and it became more common and cheaper. With the new process, it's squeezed, then stored in vats for months at a time. This process caused it to los...	[ "In a big chain supermarket, distributors are actually PAYING the store for shelf space... that's why the brand name kids cereal is at arms' reach, while generic or \"off brand\" KaKa poofs are on the bottom shelf. A small specialty store only has so many brands to deal with, and some of these places import only on...
Why do our energy levels diminish as we age?	[ "Kids don't have more energy than adults. Adults can outrun, out walk, and out perform in any energy demanding task there is. What kids have is excitement and playfulness. It is more of a psychological drive than anything else. If an adult is truly motivated or excited about a sport or activity, you can see that ad...	[ "Every time you make a copy of a cell, there is a chance for errors. For example when you photocopy a first print, it is pretty crisp and close to the original, but there are a few minor discrepencies. Now if you photocopy the copy, it gets more distorted, and so on until some letters get hard to read, it gets diff...
What is dark matter, and how is it relevant to our understanding of the universe?	[ "In a nutshell: We can calculate how much matter should be out there by observing gravity and its effects. But we can't actually find whatever mass out there is causing all that gravity. But we're really confident in those calculations. But we're not observing the matter. So we reason that there must be *some...	[ "Watch this video by Veritasium: _URL_1_ I think it answers your questions." ]
How do people pitch ideas to companies and not get them stolen?	[ "Companies do this all the time. You need to thoroughly document your idea, preferably with a lawyer witnessing, before you go and pitch it to a major company. Write everything down and date it, and make sure everything is a legally recognized document. Always cover your own ass." ]	[ "Sound works like numbers. If I give you 3 apples and you give me 5 apples back, I can just subtract 3 from 5 to know that you added 2 apples to the pile. If I play a sound while you record a sound, I can just subtract what I played from what you recorded to find out what you said." ]
. What is the relationship between congress, the senate and the house?	[ "Congress is comprised of two parts, the Senate and the House. The main difference is how states are represented. For the senate, every state gets 2 representatives. For the house, each state gets representatives proportional to their population. So California, Texas, and NY get a shit ton of house members in compa...	[ "Since this is a homework question, we expect a little more effort from you. What research have you done so far for your paper? What are your findings so far? Is there anything specific you have a question about?" ]
did people of high social class have much longer life expectancy in classical times?	[ "People of all classes often lived well beyond the mean life expectancy throughout history. This is because mean life expectancy at birth was hugely influenced by high infant mortality and other relatively early deaths (first childbirth, military service, etc.) - if you made it to thirty, odds were always good that...	[ "As a reminder, [top-level answers](_URL_0_) in this community need to be \"comprehensive and imformative.\" Single-links to Wikipedia and unsourced opinions do not clear that bar. This question already rests on a part of history hamstrung by the fuzzy diagnostics of diseases in the past and an almost unavoidable b...
Has superconductivity ever been observed in ions before?	[ "No, it has never been observed in a solution and also will never be. Superconductivity is an effect which arises due to the crystal structure of some solids. Like in semiconductors (and isolators), it is the electric potential created by the regularly spaced atoms which allows electrons to flow in a certain way." ...	[ "It's accidental in the SM given the field content---when you write down all allowed terms in the Lagrangian for the quark sector, you can get rid of all but one unitary matrix, the CKM matrix. You can put CKM in the mass matrix so gauge interactions are diagonal (this is the 'flavor basis') or in the gauge interac...
How do animals keep from biting themselves?	[ "Most animals don't have jaws that move like ours' do - especially carnivorous predators. Our mouth and teeth are designed to have a grinding action, whereas pure carnivores have more of a cut/rip/tear kind of thing going. That said, animals that can do it do often bite their tongue (dogs can do that when they're...	[ "Conveniently, PBS' It's Okay to Be Smart covered exactly this [a few days ago](_URL_0_). The short answer, if you don't want to watch the video, is because scratching causes very minor pain that cancels out the itchy signal (pain neurons override pretty much everything) and also releases serotonin to help soothe...
I've read that Anarchist forces during the Spanish Civil War were fully democratic, with promotions and even orders being decided by direct vote among each unit. Is this true? And how did this affect their performance on the field of battle?	[ "As a kind of add-on question, there were also anarchist militia groups active in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War. Were they organized very differently from the other armed groups during the war?" ]	[ "Hoplites fighting in phalanx formation would inevitably suffer \"friendly fire\" casualties as both sides of the spear had a spike on them. Once two opposing phalanxes met on the battlefield the men with leveled spears in the first few ranks would tend to only focus on the enemy to their front and forget that the ...
How can computers generate random numbers when they just read instructions (code)?	[ "1.)Computers can use random source like bytes read from the disk, bytes coming in from the Internet to the NIC. These bytes are all added together to provide the system's random bytes. On Linux there is a file in the filesystem hierarchy called /dev/random. Reading from this file gives you random bytes, but it is ...	[ "If you could drop the counter into the same position in exactly the same way and the game was in exactly the same state then it would fall exactly the same way. However, you can't do that because even though it may seem like you are doing things the same way on the large scale, on the small scale there are very ti...
What was stopping neutral countries from being invaded later?	[ "Switzerland was indeed very worried about being invaded by the Nazis. This is why many banks collaborated with the Nazis to launder money and empty Jewish bank accounts. Franco also worried about staying neutral in Spain. He did not want Hitler in his country. Hitler sent Wilhelm Canaris, head of German Intellige...	[ "These areas are labeled on both the first and second maps, so we can understand the third map to follow the same idea. The first map has a note below the key stating \"Ungeordnete kleine Gebiete sind weiß gelassen\" which means \"Insignificant small territories were left white.\" The second map labels them \"nich...
Why do companies send emails from a no-reply address?	[ "When you send out hundreds of thousands of emails you are guaranteed to get bounced emails, either someone signed up with a bad address, their account got deleted, their inbox is full, the server is down, the server is overloaded, etc. You just always get bounced emails. The no-reply address is an automated addres...	[ "Their claim hasn't been verified in any scientific way. If I gave 10000 people a sugar pill and 1000 of them lost weight I could legally claim that the pill helps with weight loss. It wouldn't make the claim true, and the results might not be repeated in a larger sample population. The disclaimer would keep people...
Headphones in an MRI machine?	[ "[Not all headphones need to include magnets](_URL_0_). Also [check out these MRI-safe headsets](_URL_1_). The simplest way is to remove the source of the sound to somewhere far from the machine, and using hollow tubes to carry the sound to your ear (much like how a stethoscope works). In fact, older airplanes stil...	[ "They actually debunked that, same with that nonsense about listening to classical music in the womb making your child smarter. It was all just BS to sell some cds. I'll see if I can find an article about it, and I'll edit this to put it in. And now to see if this answer is long enough, or if it will get auto-modd...
The difference between .rar and .zip	[ "Different algorithms to try and compress data. In general, RAR is slower than ZIP, but it will compress the data more, giving you a smaller file. RAR is especially good at compressing multimedia files. Another feature of RAR is that you can split it into many smaller chunks, so you can have, for instance, five 20M...	[ "The way x264 compresses video is more efficient. ie, you have less data loss for every mb you shave off" ]

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