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used car pricing. | 1. people highball their car because potential buyers will haggle down the price. that is a near guarantee, so they list the car higher.
2. people wildly overestimate the value of their car. it might have 200k+ miles and there might be a crack in the manifold... but it drives like a dream!
3. dealerships generally price used cars higher
4. people don't understand used car pricing. not just #2, they might have had work done on the car recently or there are aftermarket parts that they are including in the price of the car when in reality none of that matters. | [
"The growth of the Internet has fueled the availability of information on the prices of used cars. This information was once only available in trade publications that dealers had access to. There are now numerous sources for used car pricing. Multiple sources of used car pricing means that listed values from differ... |
The Colombian conflict from the 60s until 1994. Anyone know any good resources? | I can't recommend it because I haven't read it yet and I'm not a historian, but the [book list](_URL_0_) has one book on Colombia. It covers a wider area, but it's worth pointing out if you're interested in the subject.
To the mods: I'm technically referring to the book list and not making a rogue recommendation, so please don't delete.
> The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation in Spite of Itself by David Bushnell (1993). A single-volume account of the history of Colombia best for those who want to learn the nuts and bolts of Colombian history. While certainly a multivolume approach would be preferable, the book should be a starting place for those who wish to become familiar with post-colonial Colombian history.
OT: I actually found this book yesterday at a flea market. I wanted to get it, so it was kind of remarkable. | [
"The 1992 Colombian energy crisis was a crisis of the Colombian energy sector during the presidency of César Gaviria, from May 2, 1992, to February 7, 1993, caused by El Niño. El Niño caused droughts across much of the country, which lowered reservoir levels at many of its principal hydroelectric dams and a further... |
Why was the Domus Aurea in Rome buried? | It was not abandoned wholesale, as many think. The Flavian emperors who came to power after Nero's death in 69 had listened to public opinion, and the Roman public was not very happy with Nero's capricious building program. We get scattered reference to the building as "hated." Tacitus (*Annales* 15.52) makes a character say that the best place to murder Nero was *in illa invisa et spoliis civium exstructa domo* ("in that house, hated and erected from the plunder of the citizens"). Vespasian immediately drained the great lake Nero had created and started construction of the Amphitheater on its spot, thus opening up the whole area to foot traffic again (Nero's park had been like a blood clot as far as circulation in the city). A lot of the art which had been in the Domus was rededicated in the Temple of Peace. But the main structure of the Domus survived Nero's death, and was apparently still in use, though probably on a smaller scale. We find a lot of Neronian-era brickwork that survives intact with evidence of re-use all the way up to 104 CE. Vespasian's son Titus built his Baths nearby, but not on top of the Domus, and Pliny the Elder visited the Domus and saw artwork there in 79 (*NH* 36.37, famously). A major fire on the Palatine in 81 CE seems to have destroyed a lot, because we hear about Domitian being obsessed with the restoration. Trajan was still trying to finish Domitian's plans for the restoration when another fire, in 104, ended the building for good. It was at this point that Trajan decided to put baths on top of the whole structure. We find a lot of evidence of architectural efforts to turn the Domus into a reinforced substructure, with most of the rooms filled with rubble to provide a solid foundation. The reason for this was probably expediency: the Domus had been massive, and its ruins were easier used as a base than cleared away to start from scratch. This act preserved the Golden House for posterity, because the sealing off of the rooms and the filling of the cavities with rubble fill protected the substructure from the elements and especially moisture. There were little entrances into the Domus ruins beneath Trajan's Baths for centuries, probably back into the medieval period, and we know that many Renaissance painters descended into the grottos for inspiration (and hence the Italian term *grotesque*).
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"The tomb of the Roman emperor Hadrian, also called Hadrian's mole, was erected on the right bank of the Tiber, between AD 134 and 139. Originally the mausoleum was a decorated cylinder, with a garden top and golden quadriga. Hadrian's ashes were placed here a year after his death in Baiae in 138, together with tho... |
Why Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity didn't expand into the rest of Sub-Sahara Africa? | Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity had a distinct connection to the landed nobility and ruling houses of Ethiopia--through Biblical connections--and the theology in question was tied very strongly to SW Asia. People further inland did not gain anything from conversion to a religion that recognized a special sacred status for the head of a foreign polity; even most of the people in Ethiopia itself weren't Christians until relatively late (and to this day, a large percentage are Muslim). Basically, there were no adherents who saw an advantage to adopting a religious isolate that put them in a certain subordinate position. Islam, which did not demand these things, had a far greater lure through its trade enclaves; indeed the Nubian Christian kingdoms to the west of Ethiopia converted to Islam (or had "revolutions") in the early second millennium because Christianity was simply not as useful when your major external trade comes via Islam. The Sultanate of Adal and other people of the horn also took on Islam fairly readily. The only place for Ethiopia to expand was south on the highlands, and those areas were not receptive--they were made up of culturally different people to whom the belief that the Ethiopian emperors were legitimate through their descent from King Solomon (or Moses, if you believe one of the Zagwe stories) meant nothing. Marcus's short *History of Ethiopia* talks about some of this in much greater detail, but the state/religion link can't be emphasized enough.
**TL,DR: Ethiopian Orthodoxy endured in Ethiopia because it was tightly connected to the state's basis of legitimacy. Anywhere else it might have found a good reception, Islam would eventually find a better one.** | [
"With the emergence of Islam in the 7th century, Ethiopia's Christians became isolated from the rest of the Christian world. The head of the Ethiopian church has been appointed by the patriarch of the Coptic church in Egypt, and Ethiopian monks had certain rights in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Et... |
How does prolonged use of pharmaceutical hypnotics (drugs used to treat insomnia) affect the human brain? | Just this morning, in Denmark, there were a big fuss in the news concerning an increased number of pharmaceutical hypnotics persciptions for children (age 0-11) and teens (age 12-19). In relation to what the OP is asking, if someone know, how does hopnotics affect children (babies and toddlers) in the long term, saying 10-15-20 years into the future? How addictive can hopnotics be? | [
"A review of the literature regarding hypnotics including the nonbenzodiazepine Z drugs concluded that these drugs cause an unjustifiable risk to the individual and to public health and lack evidence of long-term effectiveness due to tolerance. The risks include dependence, accidents, and other adverse effects. Gra... |
how do doctors get prescription medication? can they prescribe them to themselves or do they need to go to another doctor? | They could prescribe for themselves, but they probably go to other doctors for a neutral point of view. Most doctors also are rich enough to go to another doctor when they're sick.
Source: My grandfather was/is (he's like part time at the age of 73) a doctor. | [
"Physicians control the distribution of prescription drugs. Some hospitals and clinics stipulate patients must buy prescription drugs from the hospitals or directly from the physicians who make the prescriptions. Such a restriction aims to prevent the loss of sales on prescription drugs to retailers, but retailing ... |
How did German citizens feel about American "invaders" towards the end of the war? How aware were they of the reasoning behind the war and how did they feel about their own government? | A gentle reminder that our rules don't allow for [personal anecdotes and speculation](_URL_0_). | [
"German Americans were sometimes accused of being too sympathetic to the German Empire. Former president Theodore Roosevelt denounced \"hyphenated Americanism\", insisting that dual loyalties were impossible in wartime. A small minority came out for Germany, or ridiculed the British. About 1% of the 480,000 enemy a... |
How do bacteria and viruses "know" where things are? | For viruses: They don't. Viruses enter a cell basically by "Velcro" -- they have a protein that will specifically stick to one of your normal cell proteins, and enter the cell that way. This is why viruses have "tropism" or in other words, they will only infect certain cell types which have that special protein they stick to (like HIV and CD4 t cells). So they are basically just wandering around in a random environment, blown about by the winds in some romantic way, until they stick to something and get engulfed.
Also, viruses don't "fight". They just enter a host cell, then start using the cell's protein making machinery to make their OWN proteins. Once enough proteins are made to make a bunch of new viruses, the cell bursts open releasing the new viruses, which then randomly enter other cells. There's some more complex things here, viruses which lay dormant vs bust open every cell they can. But that's the gist of it. | [
"Bacteria exist in water, soil and food, on skin, and intestinal tract normal flora. The assortment of microbes that exist in the environment and on human bodies is enormous. The human body has billions of bacteria which creates the normal flora fighting against the invading pathogens. Bacteria frequently occur in ... |
If a human was thrown out into space, what would kill him first? Low pressure, low temperature, or lack of oxygen? | Lack of oxygen, although if you hold your breath there might be significant physical damage to your lungs. The low pressure environment of space would rapidly de-oxygenate your blood, whereas cooling would occur (relatively) slowly due to the lack of thermal transfer other than radiative cooling. Your skin's elasticity would be able to combat the low pressure to an extent, although I don't know if it's known what the volume increase of total body vacuum exposure would result in. In any case, I expect asphyxia would kill you first.
_URL_1_
_URL_0_
edit: words are hard.
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"Human physiology is adapted to living within the atmosphere of Earth, and a certain amount of oxygen is required in the air we breathe. If the body does not get enough oxygen, then the astronaut is at risk of becoming unconscious and dying from hypoxia. In the vacuum of space, gas exchange in the lungs continues a... |
What do you think about the parallel universes theory? | This comes up a *lot.* It appears to be a widespread misapprehension.
There *is no* "parallel universe" theory. Seriously. Not kidding. No such theory exists. No such *hypothesis* exists. It's all been made up by the peddlers of science-fiction stories.
There are questions about whether the fundamental constants — or *apparent* constants anyway — that define how physics essentially works could be anything other than what they are. The general consensus is probably not, but we don't yet understand the way in which these things are inevitable. So room is left for the possibility that the fundamental constants could have had other values, but they just happen not to.
One way of *interpreting* that possibility is to say, "Well heck, maybe every possible universe exists in some sense, and we just happen to be in this one."
But I really can't emphasize this strongly enough: That's *not a theory.* It's an *idea,* but there's absolutely zero possibility that that idea could ever be tested, experimentally. If "another universe" exists — and just typing that gives me a headache because of the logical impossibility of it — and we're someday able to tell it, then it's not "another universe" at all, is it? It's part of *the one universe that exists,* which contains everything that ever has been or ever will be.
So long story short? No. Not taken seriously. But not like "Oh, that's a fringe theory which nobody expects to pan out." Not taken seriously in the sense that there is no such theory as what you've described. It's all a combination of *way too much science fiction* in our culture, and bad communication about actual theories. | [
"A parallel universe, also known as a parallel dimension, alternate universe or alternate reality, is a hypothetical self-contained plane of existence, co-existing with one's own. The sum of all potential parallel universes that constitute reality is often called a “multiverse\". While the three terms are generally... |
why do stadiums have such a short lifespan relative to other buildings? | Stadiums are basically concrete and aluminum seats. All the glitz goes in the boxes and high dollar seating. Then you have the dick measuring going on between owners over who has the best stadium. When they can find a government, local or state, to pay for it they want a bigger dick so they cut the maintenance and it goes to shit faster. | [
"Even though modular stadiums are built for permanent, long-term use, they still unite the many advantages offered by temporary construction, because they are quickly and cost-efficiently built with prefabricated modules. The modular construction also has another great benefit, which will become even more significa... |
Can a curved universe explain the accelerating expansion of the universe? | The accelerating expansion of the universe isn't due to a gravitational pull between galaxies. The space itself between galaxies is expanding. Which is why we view objects farther away from us as traveling faster away from us. The more distance in between, the more space that gets in between, so the faster it looks like its moving away. The speed of objects traveling away from us differs from the local speed of objects due to a gravitational acceleration from another object. | [
"The accelerating expansion of the universe is the observation that the expansion of the universe is such that the velocity at which a distant galaxy is receding from the observer is continuously increasing with time.\n",
"Another type of model, the backreaction conjecture, was proposed by cosmologist Syksy Räsän... |
Back in the days of Pangaea, was there nothing but ocean on the other side of the Earth? Or were there other continents, now lost? | It is a common misconception when looking at modern 2D maps that they only show half of the Earth's surface, when in fact it shows the entire surface. What you see is what you get with Pangaea. | [
"At the end of the Silurian period (c. 420 million years ago) the Iapetus Ocean had completely disappeared and the combined mass of the three continents formed the \"new\" continent of Laurasia, which would itself be the northern component of the singular supercontinent of Pangaea.\n",
"During the Permian, all th... |
Photons and relativity | The simple answer is that there is no photon's perspective, so the question isn't particularly meaningful.
If that doesn't satisfy you: photons, when propagating, don't behave like particles at all -- they're just oscillating electrical and magnetic fields spreading through space. It's only when they interact with something that they can be said to act *at all* like a photon. | [
"Photonics is related to quantum optics, optomechanics, electro-optics, optoelectronics and quantum electronics. However, each area has slightly different connotations by scientific and government communities and in the marketplace. Quantum optics often connotes fundamental research, whereas photonics is used to co... |
why is fried food crispy? | Water is absorbed from the molecules surrounding the food items. When the h2o is freed the intermolecular bonds weaken and the item becomes crispy. | [
"There are a number of techniques to achieve crispiness when cooking. Frying food can make it crispy, such seen in French fries. A breading coating using flour, egg wash, and bread crumbs will provide a layer of crispiness. Baking and roasting impart crispiness, as well, as noted in the skin of Peking duck or perni... |
Why did no Medieval European country recreate a Roman style army? | There are several ways to look at your question.
It seems, though, that rather than speaking of professional standing armies in and of themselves, you're more curious about the tactics and such.
For that, first, you should look at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. In a battle between a Roman army led by the Emperor Valens himself, and a coalition of various Goths, Avars, and Huns, the Romans suffered one of the worst defeats in their history at the hands of the Goths, largely due to a Gothic cavalry charge crushing the left Roman flank. (Maurice's Strategikon, George T. Dennis translation)
After the battle, the Romans began integrating the "tribal" (used here to describe the various Germanic, Hunnic, and Avar groups) warriors into their armies and adjusting their tactics.
By the time the late 6th century rolls around, the Roman army itself had undergone massive changes, thanks to changes in technology and the adaptation of tactics from the Goths, Huns and Avars.. According to Maurice's Strategikon (a Roman military strategy handbook, written by the Emperor Maurice), among the most important skills for Roman soldiers was the ability to fire arrows "...rapidly mounted on his horse at a run, to the front, the rear, the right, the left."
As to why cavalry became more important, there are a few theories. One in particular was pointed out in the introduction to the Strategikon by George T. Dennis, the translator. According to him, the stirrup had begun to come into widespread use, allowing a mounted lancer greater stability in the saddle, this providing more force for their thrusts. This, along with the invention of the high-backed saddle, allowed the early cavalry of late antiquity to evolve into the medieval knight.
If I've overlooked anything, please let me know! I'm always looking for an opportunity to learn. | [
"After the defeat of Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium empire held on. The barbarian kingdoms had already set up their kingdoms in place, they started the process of recruiting and the advancement of soldiers. A warrior was highly respected according to the barbarian tradition, a brave war... |
1440p, 2k, 4k resolutions; what are they and why would i ever need these? | Yes, your eyes would tell a difference.
As good as 1080p is, there is still more information that could be displayed on screen with a higher resolution.
This information would likely be crisper edges, better definition of features, and most importantly, less aliasing.
Aliasing is when an object creates a stuttered line, due to pieces of the line being displayed by lines of pixels. There are current technologies in your TV and computer which help *blend* the edges to have the lines perceived by the eye as a straight line, and not stuttered.
Higher resolutions would fill the lines on screen at a rate closer to what the human eye can perceive, and therefore make everything look closer to real life. Apple calls this "retina" screens, as the resolution is so high, the eye cannot distinguish between the pixels.
The key is going to be getting media to catch up and create 4000k quality movies and TV shows. In the meantime, it's likely that gaming will lead the way, just as it did in the last generation.
TL:DR: Yes. You'll notice a difference. | [
"This resolution, sometimes referred to as 4K UHD or 4K2K, has a 16:9 aspect ratio and 8,294,400 pixels. It is double the size of Full HD (19201080) in both dimensions for a total of four times as many pixels, and triple the size of HD (1280720) in both dimensions for a total of nine times as many pixels. 38402160 ... |
Why does music make it easier to memorize things? | Storing memory and recalling memory are each improved with recruitments of more neurons coding for and recalling that memory. Additionally, when that memory is tied to another, easy-to-recall memory (such as a familiar tune), the signal fidelity is much better (compared to extraneous neural noise). Recalling a musical tune (and, say, humming it) would (at least) involve a large network of neurons from frontal, auditory-association and motor cortices. So, if you memorize something to a memorable tune and think of that tune when trying to recall it, the neuronal networks governing two processes are tied to one another, leading to better performance. | [
"Despite the universality of music, enculturation has a pronounced effect on individuals' memory for music. Evidence suggests that people develop their cognitive understanding of music from their cultures. People are best at recognizing and remembering music in the style of their native culture, and their music rec... |
Why do some people have photographic memory, yet a normal person without one can still remember a huge quantity of information, such as the meaning of hundreds and thousands of words? What's the scientific difference between those two types of memory? | No one has a photographic memory. It has never been proven to exist in the real world. It's merely a creation of art/literature/film for the sake of plot.
Some people certainly have good memories, some of which are downright amazing, but no one has ever been recorded to have had a truly photographic (sometimes called Eidetic) memory.
Sources:
[Scientific American](_URL_0_)
[PSU](_URL_1_)
[Slate](_URL_2_)
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"BULLET::::- There is no scientific evidence for the existence of \"photographic\" memory in adults (the ability to remember images with so high a precision as to mimic a camera), but some young children have eidetic memory. Many people have claimed to have a photographic memory, but those people have been shown to... |
What would the inside of sun look like to the human eye? | It would appear brilliantly bright for a short time. The photons from fusion would still be very high energy, but the photons from temperature would not. It would emit lots of ultraviolet, blinding you, but also visible light.
It's a short time because the gamma rays would make short work of you. The radiation exposure would turn your DNA into little ruined fragments. | [
"The visible outer surface of the Sun is called the photosphere. Above this layer is a thin region known as the chromosphere. This is surrounded by a transition region of rapidly increasing temperatures, and finally by the super-heated corona.\n",
"The visible surface of the Sun, the photosphere, is the layer bel... |
how is your brain able to recreate the sound of, for example, a song, perfectly in your head so it seems like you can hear it? | technically speaking, your brain is not recreating the sound of that song, it's only recalling its experience of it just like most other experiences it recalls, so your question is really a far more general one about how memories are stored.
However in the case of music there are probably a lot of areas of the brain triggered depending on the qualities of the music itself (does it have lyrics, is it more strongly melodic or rhythmic) or the context in which you heard it, i.e. where were you when you heard it, who were you with, etc.
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"On 31 January 2012 Brian Pasley and colleagues of University of California Berkeley published their paper in PLoS Biology wherein subjects' internal neural processing of auditory information was decoded and reconstructed as sound on computer by gathering and analyzing electrical signals directly from subjects' bra... |
why are american doctors so willing to prescribe strong painkillers when doctors in every other country aren't? | **Tl;dr: It all boils down to different medical training and different laws.**
American doctors prescribe pain medication to prevent chronic pain, which is much more difficult to treat. Also, it is much more difficult for Americans to buy strong pain medications over the counter. In many Asian countries, prescription pain killers could be bought over the counter, so I have met many people who have self-medicated and taken tranquilizers (which don't do a good job at relieving pain) for minor jaw aches related to TMJ. Also, in my understanding, ~~lidocaine~~ codeine could be purchased fairly easily in European countries due to more lax regulations.
EDIT: Thanks /u/shlogan! | [
"Some prescription painkillers have been found to be addictive, and unintentional poisoning deaths in the United States have skyrocketed since the 1990s according to the National Safety Council. Prescriber education guidelines as well as patient education, prescription drug monitoring programs and regulation of pai... |
What is the lower limit of the number of cells that can make up a multi-celled organism? | The difference between a small colony and a true multicellular organism are probably arbitrary. Some protists like slime molds and volvox are capable of both unicellular and multicellular aggregations.
If you want a functional definition, I’d say that a multicellular organism would be any entity in which cells are held together by some form of cell-cell adhesion, like tight junctions, beta cetenin, desmosome, or adherens junction. Those are all various protein complexes that hold cells together and enable some degree of basic cell-cell communication, such as polarization (telling the cells in a row which side is right/left up or down). So for a number, I’d say 2. | [
"Most living species have at least one upper limit on the number of times the cells of a member can divide. This is called the Hayflick limit, although number of cell divisions does not strictly control lifespan.\n",
"Cell size is highly variable among organisms, with some algae such as \"Caulerpa taxifolia\" bei... |
why do fish float upside down when dead or dying? | Fish have a pocket of air called a "swim bladder" that they use to help themselves swim up and down.
When a fish is healthy, they usually use chemical reactions to add or remove gas to the pocket, or just gulp in air and burp it out.
When a fish is dying, it starts to lose control of the pocket and may wind up overfilling it and becoming unable to remain upright. | [
"It might be expected that fish would flee the potential suffocation, but they are often quickly rendered unconscious and doomed. Slow moving bottom-dwelling creatures like clams, lobsters and oysters are unable to escape. All colonial animals are extinguished. The normal re-mineralization and recycling that occurs... |
how do doctors determine if a sickness (specifically, topical) is caused by a bacteria, virus, or fungus? | They can either swab it and see what grows on media suited for microbial growth or through an immunoassay which uses antibodies and color indicators to identify specific probable species. | [
"In addition to the symptoms, an X-ray or computerised tomography (CT) scan of the infected area provides clues for making the diagnosis. Whenever possible, a doctor sends a sample of infected material to a laboratory to confirm identification of the fungus.\n",
"The biology of how an infection causes disease in ... |
they said "the water doesn't have an expiration date, the plastic bottle does" so how come honey that comes in a plastic bottle doesn't expire? | Whoever said that is wrong.
The FDA and IWBA can't find any evidence that age matters to plastic water bottles. The FDA has ruled that there is no limit to the shelf life of bottled water, and no company has even insinuated that the expiration is related to the plastic.
In 1987, New Jersey passed a law requiring all bottles of water to be stamped with an expiration date 2 years after the bottling date. Since you can't identify which bottles will wind up shipped to NJ, companies just stamped all bottles with a 2-year expiration to ensure compliance.
They never passed that law for Honey, which is why plastic honey bottles don't have an expiration.
Although the law was repealed in 2006, companies had figured out people will throw out "expired" water and buy more, it actually increases sales, so they kept printing it "voluntarily". | [
"In the United States, according to the National Honey Board (an organization supervised by the United States Department of Agriculture), \"honey stipulates a pure product that does not allow for the addition of any other substance... this includes, but is not limited to, water or other sweeteners\".\n",
"While s... |
how are new domain extensions (such as .tech, .xyz, ect) created? | ICANN originally had domains for countries as well as the ones for organizations (com/org/net etc). Recently, though, ICANN opened it up and allowed anyone with too much money to register a top level domain. | [
"They can be downloaded from the online repository (TER) directly from the backend, and are installed and updated with a few clicks. Every extension is identified by a unique extension key (for example, \"tt_news\"). Also, developers can share new or modified extensions by uploading them to the repository.\n",
"I... |
what makes vlc able to play virtually any format and others players can’t? | Sheer force of will and engineering. The VLC devs have put a lot of time and effort into making sure they use the right codecs at the right time for the right reasons. The result is a good media player. | [
"Because VLC is a packet-based media player it plays almost all video content. It can play some, even if they're damaged, incomplete, or unfinished, such as files that are still downloading via a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. It also plays m2t MPEG transport streams (.TS) files while they are still being digitized fr... |
why are records still made of vinyl? i know they're more of a collector's item nowadays, but haven't we invented any materials that are more durable or would otherwise be better for the job? |
Audio for records is recorded to a surface that is scratched, then a mold is made, then a metal cast is made, called a master, then that metal mold is used to press vinyl into the shape of the recording.
Vinyl is used because it is easier to get a good copy of the mold without sticking to the metal.
It's just cheaper and easier, and lasts long enough that most people don't notice the quality degrading.
Edit: a couple of people have objected to me leaving out an electroplating step. I will say, my explanation is basically correct. I am not an expert, this is ELI5, one part of the casting step used is electroplating, the terms used vary widely. The part I called a master, is also called a couple of other things at the same step. Enjoy the ELI5 it is technically correct, the best kind of correct, and terms differ in use.
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"In spite of their flaws, such as the lack of portability, records still have enthusiastic supporters. Vinyl records continue to be manufactured and sold today, especially by independent rock bands and labels, although record sales are considered to be a niche market composed of audiophiles, collectors, and DJs. Ol... |
what is a "confirmed kill"? is this a real military term or more a hollywood myth? | It's real. The military keeps records of sniper kills, the range, the weapon used...etc. Traditionally it wasn't publicly discussed and was sort of a "don't talk about fight club" rule among snipers, but Hollywood has popularized the term. | [
"Death of a President is a 2006 British docudrama political thriller film about the fictional assassination of George W. Bush, the 43rd and at the time, incumbent U.S. President, on 19 October 2007 in Chicago, Illinois. The film is presented as a future history docudrama and uses actors, archival video footage as w... |
would a gallon of water weigh the sams as a gallon of ice? | Your subject and the text in the post ask two difference questions,
> Would a gallon of water weigh the sams as a gallon of ice?
> I mean if you take a gallon of water and weigh it, then take that same gallon of water and freeze it.
The subject is a gallon of water and a gallon of ice, That is not the same as if you freeze a gallon of water because water expand when it freezes. So when you freeze a gallon of water the ice volume is larger then a gallon.
A gallon of ice and a gallon of water does not weigh the same because ice float. If the weight per volume ie density was the same ice would not float but could be suspended in the water at any depth.
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"In 2002, Nestlé insisted on a smaller container to increase profits and so the standard US half gallon (2 quarts) container (1.89 L) was downsized to 1.75 quarts (1.65 L) container. In May 2008, the 1.75 quart container was further downsized to 1.5 quarts (1.42 L). Most other ice cream manufacturers, with the nota... |
Since tidal force from the Moon moves such large quantities of water every day, do I weigh less at high tide? | You weigh a tiny amount less when the moon is directly overhead.
High tide occurs when the moon is overhead *and* when it's directly underneath. Tidal forces arise from the gradient of the moon's gravitational field across the Earth.
The moon pulls harder on the parts of the Earth closest to it than the parts furthest away. This amounts to a net "stretching" effect, once you subtract the average force.
Perhaps [this image](_URL_0_) makes it a bit easier to understand. | [
"Most places experience two high tides each day, occurring at intervals of about 12 hours and 25 minutes. This is half the 24 hours and 50 minute period that it takes for the Earth to make a complete revolution and return the Moon to its previous position relative to an observer. The Moon's mass is some 27 million ... |
Anyone know of any sources on the Republic of Pirates? | I actually [just picked up this book](_URL_0_) today! It was recommended to me by a flaired user on this subreddit and I think it's in the subreddit book list. | [
"The Republic of Pirates is the nomenclature for the base or stronghold of a loose confederacy run by privateers-turned-pirates in Nassau on New Providence island in the Bahamas for about eleven years from 1706 until 1718. Although not a state or republic in a formal sense, it was governed by its own informal 'Code... |
After reading about more and more exoplanets in the science media, I got to wondering what the most earth-like planet yet discovered is? Is there anything anywhere near the "habitable" zone yet discovered? | This isn't directed at you, but more general musing. I've noticed that every time there is a big exoplanet announcement, every body seems to forget the last exoplanet announcement. It's not that people weren't aware of them, each one generates dozens of questions here. Curious.
Anyway, here is the most recent: _URL_1_ . Here is the one before that: _URL_0_ | [
"In 2010, Kaltenegger explored whether we could observe geological activity, that is very important for habitability, on exoplanets, finding that about 10 times Pinatubo eruptions could be detected around the closest exoplanets, showing us if other planets are similar to our own Earth. In 2011, she led a team to mo... |
the newly discovered state of matter, "time crystals." what are it's properties, and what does it mean for scientific advancements? | I'm far from an expert on this, but this is what I understood when I read about them.
A regular crystal is a physical structure that does not change through time. A time crystal is a structure that does change through time, but does so predictably, on a cycle. If you have one that is on a 3 second loop, then at every time the cycle hits 1 second the crystal looks exactly the same as every other time it hits one second. The same for 2 seconds and 3 seconds. | [
"The idea of a time crystal was first described by Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek in 2012. Later work developed a more precise definition for time crystals. It was proven that they cannot exist in equilibrium. Then, in 2014 Krzysztof Sacha predicted the behaviour of discrete time crystals in a periodically-driven man... |
why aren't there symptoms of high blood pressure? | High blood pressure can cause symptoms, which may include:
* Severe headache (tension in capillary walls in the head).
* Fatigue or confusion.
* Vision problems (pressure on the retina).
* Chest pain (tension in capillary walls of the heart).
* Difficulty breathing (edema in the chest).
* Irregular heartbeat.
* Blood in the urine (burst capillaries in the kidneys).
* Pounding in your chest, neck, or ears.
The problem is when blood pressure is high enough to cause chronic health problems, but not so high as to cause acute symptoms. That's why checking your blood pressure regularly is very important. | [
"Because there are no symptoms with high blood pressure, people can have the condition without knowing it. Diagnosing high blood pressure early can help prevent heart disease, stroke, eye problems, and chronic kidney disease.\n",
"Lower blood pressure is a side effect of certain herbal medicines, which can also i... |
Is the nucleus of an atom organized in any way, like the electron cloud is? | There are different theories for dealing with nucleons. The nucleus is a very complex object. That is because there are multi-body interactions between all the nucleons (protons and neutrons). The shell theory works very well and is very similar to how the electrons are organized into shells. The main difference is that there are protons and neutrons so the shells are filled for each nucleon separately. Protons and neutrons are distinguishable from each other so you can have 2 protons and 2 neutrons in the first s shell without violating Pauli Exclusion. The nucleons can gain energy and move up shells and then fall down to the ground state. When electrons do that we call the photons emitted x rays. When the nucleons de-excite by cascading down levels we call those photons gamma rays. | [
"Electrons, like other particles, have properties of both a particle and a wave. The electron cloud is a region inside the potential well where each electron forms a type of three-dimensional standing wave—a wave form that does not move relative to the nucleus. This behavior is defined by an atomic orbital, a mathe... |
What sort of role was planned for smaller members of NATO in the event of a Soviet attack? | I can't answer, but Albania, Slovakia (as part of Czechoslovakia) and Romania were all members of the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. | [
"For much of the Cold War, to combat the overwhelming Soviet supremacy in armour and men, NATO planned to use much of West German territory as a flood plain in a defence in depth to absorb and disperse the momentum of a massed Soviet attack. Mobile anti-tank teams and counterattacking NATO armies would seek to cut ... |
How were black people treated in 20th century Britain as compared to America? | British Pathé's five minute 1955 short ["Our Jamaican Problem"](_URL_0_) offers a snapshot of some of the racial attitudes in mid-century Britain, when there was a strong wave of immigration from its (then) colonies in the Caribbean. Films like this would have been shown as part of the newsreel preceding the screening of the feature film at cinemas. | [
"Post-Second World War Britain had a shortage of labour, which led to official policies to attract workers from the British Empire and Commonwealth countries. These people were placed in low-pay, low-skill employment, which forced them to live in poor housing. Economic circumstances and what were seen by many in th... |
why are most computer related numbers even? | Computers use binary numbers. We use decimal numbers.
Binary Decimal
1 1
10 2
100 4
1000 8
10000 16
100000 32
1000000 64
So in computer-ese, numbers like 64 and 16 are round numbers. | [
"Numbers has been well received in the press, notably for its text-based formulas, clean looks and ease-of-use. Macworld has given it high marks, especially newer versions, awarding Numbers '09 four mice out of five. They did point out a number of common issues, especially problems exporting to Excel and the inabil... |
Questions about herbivores and their digestive capacity | Q1) Most insects do not degrade cellulose, e.g. caterpillars excrete most of it. Leaf cutter ants use fungus gardens to break down cellulose whereas termites have gut bacteria to break down wood. Vertebrates also need bacteria in their guts to due it.
Q2) I don't think you need any special enzymes to degrade chloroplasts
Q3) unclear what you mean
Animals that don't digest cellulose just crap it out
| [
"A large percentage of herbivores have mutualistic gut flora that help them digest plant matter, which is more difficult to digest than animal prey. This flora is made up of cellulose-digesting protozoans or bacteria.\n",
"Herbivores digest cellulose by microbial fermentation. Monogastric herbivores which can dig... |
Deodorant dependance? | Probably a genuine observation but with a bogus explanation. Both acne and [strong "adult" body odor](_URL_0_) are common symptoms of the onset of puberty. Should we believe that the bad smell of teen school locker rooms is exclusively caused by the students who as little kids were forced to (needlessly?) start using deodorants long before puberty?
Anecdote: the kids in my family all started reeking as teenagers, and only started using underarm products then. Also, that was the end of weekly "bath night." Daily showers became necessary.
Observation: if I wash my shirts in a small amount of chlorine bleach (1/4cu per load) then my underarms will only start reeking after days, not hours. Very reliable effect: the normally-washed shirts always trigger my underarm stench within a workday, while bleach-sterilized shirts do not. I conclude that shower/scrubbing with soap is greatly reducing skin bacteria population, while laundry detergent and high dryer temperatures are not. I wonder if washers/dryers might even provide a good environment for breeding bacteria on the cloth?
| [
"A deodorant is a substance applied to the body to prevent or mask (hide) body odor due to bacterial breakdown of perspiration in the armpits, groin, and feet, and in some cases vaginal secretions. A subclass of deodorants, called antiperspirants, prevents sweating itself, typically by blocking sweat glands. Antipe... |
In Aristotle's *Politics*, he refers to "the ancients". When people in classical Greece referred to Ancient times, how many years ago are they taking about. | We can't say with any definitive authority who "the ancients" in total were in the mind of Aristotle however we do know some specific individuals that he considered to be part of that group and can draw some inferences from that information. As a matter of obvious formality, let me start by stating that Aristotle lived from 384-322 BCE so obviously his usage of the phrase "the ancients" will be skewed based on their distance in time from his own period.
Some of the individuals he uses that phrase for are actually not 'ancient' at all. For example, towards the end of Part XV of Book Three Aristotle mentions 'the ancients' and then immediately, in that frame of reference, names Dionysus the Elder, a statesman who lived 432-367 BCE. That's someone who lived around 15-20 years in Aristotle's own lifetime and he's still got 'the ancients' tagged on him.
On the other hand, in Part V and XIV of 'Politics', Aristotle goes the opposite direction by including Homer as one of 'the ancients'. Now we are all, I'm sure, aware of how difficult the Homeric Question is today but putting aside the single authorship question and trying to place ourselves in Aristotle's mind, we can assume (with reasonable doubt) that he would believe something in the ballpark of the running estimate of Homer's age at the time, placing Homer to have lived sometime around 1,000 BCE.
Other people that Aristotle seems to include as "ancients" are: Pittacus (640-568 BCE), the legendary Solon (638-558 BCE), and a few figures from Persian history.
It seems important to note here that when Aristotle refers to "the ancients", he seems to be invoking "ancestors" rather than "the Magi of the time-before-time" that the word "ancients" seems to imply. Some of the individuals he refers to by the term have only been dead (to him) for 150 years whereas others may have been gone up to 700 years at least. I keep trying to find a better word to translate the Greek with but I can only think of "predecessors". That's obviously not a great translation of the word for linguistic purposes but from a cultural-literary standpoint it provides ample context for what Aristotle means when he says 'the ancients', namely that its generally anyone who came before.
For further reading I'd recommend [Dr. John Palmer's essay on "Aristotle and the Ancient Theologians" ](_URL_0_). | [
"Aristotle (; \"Aristotélēs\", ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, the founder of the Lyceum and the Peripatetic school of philosophy and Aristotelian tradition. Along with his teacher Plato, he has been called the \"Father of Western Philosophy\". His writings cover... |
Why does petting an animal relieve stress? | Petting an animal stimulates a release of oxytocin (sometimes seen as the "feel good" hormone). That said the mechanism for this release remains unclear. We are fairly certain that Oxycontin receptors are found in both an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala. Both of these areas of the brain play a role in emotional processing. There is a correlation between increased serum levels of oxytocin and activities that would be considered related to bonding such as sexual intercourse, breast feeding, or petting an animal. | [
"Because dogs often bark excessively due to stress, boredom, or frustration, changing aspects of an animal's environment to make them more content is a suitable way to quiet them down, rather than forcibly silencing a distressed animal. Spending more time with an animal, such as playing, walking, and other bonding ... |
why do i have to manually select "heat" or "cool" when choosing thermostat temperature? | Because it's really expensive to switch constantly between heating and cooling to maintain a specific temperature, so normally only one is set up to work at a time, so that during the summer you set cool down to 60, it cools slightly past it, then waits for the outside to heat it up, then it cools again.
The alternative would be the AC turning on to cool down to 60, then when the sun goes behind the cloud and it drops it 59 it turns on your heater, which heats to 61, then the AC kicks on, then the heater, and so on.
More expensive systems could resolve this by allowing you to set a range, but most houses aren't set up with this. | [
"A thermostat, when set to \"cool\", will only turn on when the ambient temperature of the surrounding room is above the set temperature. Thus, if the controlled space has a temperature normally above the desired setting when the heating/cooling system is off, it would be wise to keep the thermostat set to \"cool\"... |
If helmets are designed to protect against shrapnel, why do modern helmets not follow the brodie-type shape, which seems optimal to protect against shrapnel coming from above? | The design of the Brodie helmet (or M1917 for the American-made version) is really a product of the conflict that it was introduced during: the First World War. The executive summary here is that of all the things that can kill you in trench warfare that a helmet will protect against (so excluding chemical attacks, actually machine gun fire while attacking an enemy trench, that sort of thing), someone trying to bombard your dugout with artillery is the one you're likely to face most often. By comparison, the likelihood of someone throwing a grenade into your trench is low on a day-to-day basis, as is the risk of stepping on a mine.
In conflicts after WWI, infantry regained some of their former utility as maneuver elements, which meant they were exposed to all the usual stuff (grenades, mines, that kind of thing) again more regularly. Beyond that, starting with WWII there existed an increased emphasis on urban warfare, and after WWII there was a dramatically decreased emphasis on symmetrical warfare. And in general in asymmetrical warfare if you're on the side that issues purpose-made helmets, you're also on the side that's using the artillery.
**TL;DR** On a modern battlefield a regular army soldier can expect to encounter a wider variety of explosives, and most of them are being used by people without access to airburst artillery. | [
"These helmets are used for urban search and rescue, technical rescue, and medical rescue applications and are shaped differently from traditional fire helmets. Most designs are derived from them, but feature a lower profile and elimination of excess protective area to facilitate better freedom of movement for the ... |
are organs allergic? | Allergies are when the host is incorrectly identifying allergens as foreign invaders. If your receive an organ, you aren't allergic to it; rather, your body detects that it is foreign and attacks it. I guess it's similar to an allergy, but not really. | [
"An allergic response is a hypersensitive immune reaction to a substance that normally is harmless or would not cause an immune response in everyone. An allergic response may cause harmful symptoms such as itching or inflammation or tissue injury.\n",
"Symptoms of an allergic reaction include rash, itching, swell... |
How Were Medieval Noblewomen Trained In Administration? | Oh, hey, I'd been meaning to respond to this for a few days now.
The main thing to note is that medieval noblewomen weren't just administrators of estates when their husbands were away in royal service, crusading, etc. They generally tended to be the managers of the household, its personnel, its revenues and expenditures, and the like. In general, the symbol of the lady's authority was the keys that hung at her side.
But that leads to the question of how they were trained. In the first place, outside of the convent, and elite woman's training nearly always happened in the confines of the household, and it was usually part of her growing up that she'd learn things like "womanly skills" like embroidery, but then also skills like how to run a household and also how to read and write.
Women might learn to read and write from their mothers -- later medieval art often shows St. Anne teaching the Blessed Virgin Mary from a books -- or from a cleric who was a tutor. In the same way, they'd learn the skills of running a household from their mother or senior members of their household. She might also serve as a lady in waiting to a more prominent noblewoman where she'd polish her various skill sets.
One thing about lots of medieval training is that it was "on the job training." You see this with apprenticeship, but you also see it with everything from architects to knights to parish priests.
It wasn't just OJT, though. As the Middle Ages went on, you'd also have written guides to estate management. One of the earlier ones comes from England. Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253, wrote a guide to household management that covers everything from how to record expenses to basic guidelines in how to make a hire of staff. It's written for a noblewoman and it's written in the English dialect of Old French (what is sometimes called Anglo-Norman or Anglo-French) so we can see how that sort of thing ties into a woman's literacy.
Tl;Dr -- the lady would learn about household management as part of her growing up, by on the job training, through a manual, or some combination of the three.
Hope that helps!
**Further Reading**
\[NB: This is a bit Anglo-Centric a list, since I specialize in England.\]
Primary Sources
Labarge, Margaret Wade. *Mistresses, Maids, and Men: Baronial Life in the Thirteenth Century* .London: Phoenix, 2003.
This is a study and limited edition the household roles of the De Montfort family, one of the earliest surviving set of household records from medieval England.
*Walter of Henley and Other Treatises* on Estate Management and Accounting. Edited and translated by Dorothea Oschinsky. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
Three manuals of household management in both the original and in translation.
Secondary sources
Mate, Mavis E. *Women in Medieval English Society.* Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
A general introduction to medieval women's life, and so it also touches on the household.
Archer, Rowena. “‘How ladies ... who live on their manors ought to manage their households and estates’: Women as Landholders and Administrators in the Later Middle Ages.” In *Woman is a Worthy Wight: Women in English Society, c. 1200 – 1500*, edited by. P. J. P. Goldberg, 149-81. Wolfeboro Falls, NH: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1992.
What it says on the can.
Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B. and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, eds. *Households, Women, and Christianities in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.* Turnhout: Brepols, 2005.
A collection of essays on women's religious role in the elite houeshold.
Wilkinson, Louise J. *Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England.* London: Continuum International Publishing, 2012.
A bio of a thirteenth-century noblewoman at the heart of power politics in the Barons' War of the 1250s and 60s and also a good snapshot of the live of noblewomen in general. | [
"Court appointments are the traditional positions within a royal, ducal, or noble household. In the early Middle Ages, when such households were established, most court officials had either domestic or military duties; the monarch's closest advisers were those who served in the household. However, as time went by, ... |
is there a species of animals or plants that have no native habitat? | Well, there are some crop and livestock species whose wild ancestors are either extinct or not identified. Cows are descended from aurochs, which have been extinct since the 1600s; it's hard to say what, if anything, is the native range of the domesticated cow. Silkworms are in a similar situation. Maize (corn) seems to be descended from a family of grassy plants called teosinte, but it's not clear which species it came from, or even if that species is still around. | [
"In 1997, the United States Navy contracted a vegetation survey that identified about 280 species of terrestrial vascular plants on Diego Garcia. None of these was endemic, and another survey in 2005 identified just 36 species as \"native\", meaning arriving without the assistance of humans, and found elsewhere in ... |
What was the response (if any) when Romans encountered Buddhism? | The closest thing we have to a response are literary depictions of the *gymnosophists* ("naked wise man"), which basically translates to "naked wise men". From what descriptions we have it is difficult to know whether these are Jain, Buddhist, Ajivika or Vedic Hindu. In fact it is probably best to think of these as highly fluid categories at the time, and so these are some sort of "generic" sramana (sort of personal ascetic) monks. They don't seem to have had a direct influence on classical philosophy but many observers were highly impressed by their devotion to spiritual pursuits. One in particular, Kalanos, traveled with Alexander the Great, and at the end of his life chose self immolation over slowly wasting away.
That being said, I personally believe that Buddhism was highly influential in the development of Western monasticism, but there isn't really any direct evidence. | [
"Several instances of interaction between Buddhism and the Roman Empire are documented by Classical and early Christian writers. Roman historical accounts describe an embassy sent by the Indian king Pandion (Pandya?), also named Porus, to Augustus around 13 CE. The embassy was travelling with a diplomatic letter in... |
how does downloading data/files work? | Data travels across the internet in packets. Each packet can carry a maximum of 1,500 bytes. Around these packets is a wrapper with a header and a footer. The information contained in the wrapper tells computers what kind of data is in the packet, how it fits together with other data, where the data came from and the data's final destination.
When you send an e-mail to someone, the message breaks up into packets that travel across the network. Different packets from the same message don't have to follow the same path. That's part of what makes the Internet so robust and fast. Packets will travel from one machine to another until they reach their destination. As the packets arrive, the computer receiving the data assembles the packets like a puzzle, recreating the message.
All data transfers across the Internet work on this principle. It helps networks manage traffic -- if one pathway becomes clogged with traffic, packets can go through a different route. This is different from the traditional phone system, which creates a dedicated circuit through a series of switches. All information through the old analog phone system would pass back and forth between a dedicated connection. If something happened to that connection, the call would end.
That's not the case with traffic across IP networks. If one connection should fail, data can travel across an alternate route. This works for individual networks and the Internet as a whole. For instance, even if a packet doesn't make it to the destination, the machine receiving the data can determine which packet is missing by referencing the other packets. It can send a message to the machine sending the data to send it again, creating redundancy. This all happens in the span of just a few milliseconds.
Src:
_URL_0_
Edit: removed useless information | [
"BULLET::::- Download – In computer networks, download means to receive data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar systems. This contrasts with uploading, where data is sent \"to\" a remote server. A \"download\" is a file offered for downloa... |
Why do historic paintings around the world of battle scenes and other dramatic events seem to always have emotionless faces on the people in it? | Hi, I just ran into this question while searching for something. You might like this thread:
* [Why do people in medieval art look bored or indifferent when being killed?](_URL_0_) by */u/silverionmox*
| [
"During the American Civil War (1861–65), Haley Sims and Alexander Gardner began recreating scenes of battle in order to overcome the limitations of early photography with regard to the recording of moving objects. Their reconfigured scenes were designed to intensify the visual and emotional effects of battle. Gard... |
what the heck is an 'open source platform' for website building? | Open Source is a phrase used to describe a methodology of software development. Instead of keeping the code closed and only allowing people use the software when it's assembled, they share the base code with everyone so they can work with it as well.
This inspires people to find bugs, security flaws, and bad features, then develop and submit their own fixes and improvements. Open Source software, if we'll used and popular, can be very security and full-featured, as well as kept up to date and modern. | [
"Open-source architecture relies upon amateurs as much as experienced professionals, the \"genius of the mass\" as much as that of the individual, eroding the binary distinction between author and audience. Like social software, it recognises the core role of multiple users at every stage of the project – whether a... |
This is probably a dumb question, but what form of matter is light? | Light is none of those.
Light is made of photons, which are fundamental particles (completely separate from protons, electrons, neutrons). Photons are particles but also have wave-like properties, and were classically described as traveling electromagnetic waves.
Photons are massless, never decay (as far as we know), and always travel at the speed of light. | [
"At the end of the 19th century, light was thought to consist of waves of electromagnetic fields which propagated according to Maxwell's equations, while matter was thought to consist of localized particles (See History of wave and particle duality). In 1900, this division was exposed to doubt, when, investigating ... |
why is sport such a significant part of our society? | My theory for the prevalence of sport in nearly every culture is that this acts as an outlet for our innate competitive instincts. In terms of an evolutionary advantage, communities that had this outlet perhaps had less internal violence which gave that community a better shot at survival.
In the modern world, the popularity of any one sport over another is largely a matter of how well it can be depicted by the media. A professor of mine, who did some research in this field discussed this phenomenon.
Lastly, in answer to how every football (or any other sport) match is the same, that is only true in the extremely primitive sense that all books are just ink and paper, and all music is simply vibration. While not untrue, the fans presumably find the complexities and intricacies that invariably differ from match to match to be very different. | [
"1) Sport is not simply sport but a means of government, a means of pressure on public opinion and a mode of ideological framing of the populations and of parts of the youth, and this in all countries of the world, in totalitarian countries as well as in so called democratic countries. This was noticeable during th... |
When passing the event horizon of a black hole there are no paths leading away from the center, but are there longer or shorter paths towards the center? | Yes there are, depending on your angular momentum. | [
"An observer crossing the event horizon of a non-rotating and uncharged (or Schwarzschild) black hole cannot avoid the central singularity, which lies in the future world line of everything within the horizon. Thus one cannot avoid spaghettification by the tidal forces of the central singularity.\n",
"The event h... |
Why is the Collatz Conjecture, a seemingly easy to understand problem, so difficult to prove? If it could be proven that any starting number eventually reaches a smaller number in the chain, would that be proof of the conjecture? | Second part is easy: Yes, that would be sufficient.
First part is much harder to find a satisfying answer to.
In general, one can say that many conjectures about natural number are easy to understand, but very difficult to prove, especially if they involve the combination of multiplication and addition. The most famous example is Goldbach's conjecture: Every even integer > 2 is the sum of two primes. Easy to understand, easy to check with computers up to really large numbers, but still unsolved.
I would say this problem is slowly getting into the reach of modern mathematics, and there is progress - for example, Harald Helfgott could prove weak Goldbach last year (Every odd integer greater > 5 is the sum of three primes). It's a weaker result, but still a great thing for Mathematics.
Let me give you an idea how the proof works: Weak Goldbach and strong Goldbach both get "easier" for large numbers. Heuristically speaking, because the larger the number, the more primes are available which can appear in the sum. Helfgott's found a "classical" mathematical proof that weak Goldbach holds for all sufficiently large numbers, and could give an explicit estimate for the lower bound, something like "the conjecture holds for all numbers greater than 10^30". All the numbers between 7 and that constant were then checked by computers.
(Actually, estimates for the lower bound have been known for quite some time, but they were _much_ too large. Helfgott could considerably reduce the estimate).
I am not aware of any reason why Collatz should become easier for large numbers, which makes a similar approach unfeasible. Moreover, I don't think there are a lot of tools with which math can attack a problem like that (in contrast to number theory, which has been in focus of Math for quite some time). So, in other words, in order to solve Collatz you would have to have some really deep and original ideas.
| [
"If Legendre's conjecture is true, the gap between any prime \"p\" and the next largest prime would always be at most on the order of formula_1; in big O notation, the gaps are formula_2. Two stronger conjectures, Andrica's conjecture and Oppermann's conjecture, also both imply that the gaps have the same magnitude... |
How prominent was the KGB in the USA? | The [VENONA intercepts](_URL_5_) and the opening of the Soviet Archives (see Haynes and Klehr) showed a much greater involvement of the KGB in the US and in the workings of the US government than had been previously thought.
The KGB had both above board and under cover agents working in the US. Mainly, they recruited Americans who were true believers (often coming from the [Communist Party of the United States](_URL_6_) which took orders from Moscow) to do their dirty work for them.
As the reputation of communism went into decline by the Carter and Reagan years, KGB agents had trouble finding true believers, and so started doing field work themselves. During the [Able Archer 83](_URL_4_) exercise in 1983, they had to track VIPs and check on lights burning at night in defense buildings themselves, which would have been unthinkable even 10 or 20 years earlier.
The KGB had many successes, ranging from the hidden control of the CPUSA, to technological espionage ([Directorate T](_URL_3_)), to owning [Harry Dexter White](_URL_0_) founder of the IMF and assistant secretary of the Treasury, to acquiring double agents like [Ames](_URL_7_) and [Philby](_URL_8_), to the successful theft of nuclear secrets vis a vis the [Rosenbergs](_URL_1_) and [Fuchs](_URL_2_). | [
"The Russian KGB was a recurring antagonist in the history of Stony Man. As the most famous and important intelligence agency of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the KGB attempted to spread Soviet influence, and communism in general, wherever and whenever the opportunity arose. This was often accomplished usin... |
what is the difference between pro-life and pro-choice abortion? | Pro-Life puts the life of the fetus as the most important factor in the choice to have an abortion or not, and is therefore the position where you are against letting women have the option of an abortion.
Pro-Choice puts the woman's right to choose what to do with her own body as the most important factor, and is therefore the position of letting women have the option of having an abortion if necessary.
In other words, while being pro-life makes you anti-abortion, being pro-choice does NOT make you "pro-abortion", its just the position of letting women make their own choices. | [
"The description \"pro-life\" was adopted by the right-to-life (anti-abortion) movement in the United States following the Supreme Court 1973 decision \"Roe v. Wade\", which held that a woman may terminate her pregnancy prior to the viability of the fetus outside of the womb and may also terminate her pregnancy \"s... |
Russian troop movements WW1 | In 1915, the president of France requested 300,000 Russian troops be sent to France, in return for a large shipment of munitions. This was rejected out of hand by the commander of the Russian army, but in 1916 Czar Nicholas II agreed to send a small number of Russian troops to the western front. One brigade went to France, and another ended up on the Salonika front. Total number of Russian troops sent west was just 45,000 and the ones in France became disbanded during the mutiny of the French army in the spring of 1917. The early stages of the Russian revolution (before the Bolshiviks seized power) radicalized the Russian soldiers in France, and Marshal Petain did not want the small number of Russian soldiers in France infecting his army with socialist ideas.
The Russian soldiers you saw in that cemetery were more likely to have been Russian prisoners of war, captured on the eastern front, who died in German prisoner of war camps. The Russian brigade who fought in France were no-where near the Belgian Dutch border. The Allies did not get close to that area until late 1918. By that time, there were no organized Russian units on the western front. | [
"The Russian Expeditionary Force () was a World War I military force sent to France by the Russian Empire. In 1915 the French requested that Russian troops be sent to fight alongside their own army on the Western Front. Initially they asked for 300,000 men, an unrealistically high figure, probably based on assumpti... |
how is it possible that my girlfriend is able to fall asleep within a minute or less? | It's difficult to speak authoritatively without knowing your girlfriend, but it could be that she's just really good at unwinding before bed.
If you can take time to relax before turning in, it'll make it far easier to fall asleep. If someone's mulling over the state of the world, finances, job stress and so on before bed then it's not conducive to falling asleep easily. | [
"Katrina Margolis states that there \"...is a space that lies between rape and consensual sex that remains unnamed and undiscussed.\" Margolis states that when a woman has \"...been drinking with a guy, and it gets past 2am, there is a certain expectation of sex if you end up together in a bedroom\"; or, \"after fl... |
why an object such as a piece of china won't stick back together on it's own after breaking | So explaining this in actual ELI5 terms might be a little hard, so to keep things simple we'll just talk about failure of brittle materials which is what you're talking about in your example with a ceramic like a piece of china. My materials professor used to say that if you don't know the answer for why a physical phenomena happens, just say lower energy, and you've got a 50% chance of being right.
It's important to understand that atoms like to arrange themselves into stable, low energy configurations. You could think of it as them wanting to fall into the easiest arrangement for them. Now through imparting energy using heat and pressure, we can force atoms arrange themselves in ways that require more effort than they would normally put in on their own. Once they are set, they tend to be very stable and seemingly content staying there. However, they are always waiting for an opportunity get back down to a lower energy configuration. When you break a piece of china, you are imparting enough energy to disrupt the bonds in the material at a specific location. This is where the crack occurs. You've basically released the atoms in that area from the configuration they were stuck in, and they settle into a lower energy configuration, namely not being attached to their partner on the other side of the crack. Now they are in a happier, lazier arrangement. So when you try to put them back together, they have no incentive to rebond with their neighbors. Hence why you can slap two pieces of china together and nothing happens. Both halves are happier the way they are now. | [
"A fracture where the bone cracks completely in two or more pieces, and the pieces move out of alignment (this type of fracture might require surgery to make sure the pieces are aligned before casting).\n",
"Also known as inherent vice, the intrinsic instability of the fabric and components of an objects can lead... |
When classifying a moon, is it based around the relative size to the planet? Or do all moons have to be a certain size or larger? | The word moon clearly describes an object that orbits something other than the main star in a system. Moons are not classified by their mass, size or composition. *Ganymede for example is the biggest one* with a diameter of 5,262 kilometers and we have just found that there are some with only a diameter of 1 kilometers orbiting Jupiter.
Moons are classified by their motion around the object they orbit. That motion could be in same direction or contrary. | [
"There is no established lower limit on what is considered a \"moon\". Every natural celestial body with an identified orbit around a planet of the Solar System, some as small as a kilometer across, has been considered a moon, though objects a tenth that size within Saturn's rings, which have not been directly obse... |
Origin of degeneracy pressure | Pauli's exclusion principle isn't *ad hoc*. It's fundamental to the nature of fermions that, unlike bosons, no two can ever be in exactly the same state. The reason is that if you swap the states of two fermions, the overall state of the system is multiplied by -1. If those two fermions were in the same state to begin with, then swapping them gives the same state *and also gives that state multiplied by -1*. Together, that means that the initial state was 0, an impossibility.
As for electron degeneracy pressure, the electrons in an object will mostly fill up all of the lowest energy states available. The energies of the states increase as the volume of the object decreases, and so in order to decrease the volume of the object, energy must be added to it in the form of work. This translates into a pressure by W = -P dV. | [
"The concept of disjoining pressure was introduced by Derjaguin (1936) as the difference between the pressure in a region of a phase adjacent to a surface confining it, and the pressure in the bulk of this phase.\n",
"Social degeneration was a widely influential concept at the interface of the social and biologic... |
why do leaves turn yellow (and other colors )? | short answer, time of year changes amount of sun. Leaves are full of colors, we usually see green cause theres a bunch of chlorophyll being activated by sun. When theres less sun the plant cuts off supply of sugars to the leaf. Chlorophyll leaves, the other colors show. Theres also other factors that make the colors red or yellow but that's the gist | [
"why some leaves turn yellow. However, the yellow color can attract aphids, so some trees turn the leaves red instead by injecting a bright pigment. The loss of chlorophyll may also contribute to the abscission process.\n",
"A particularly noticeable manifestation of pigmentation in plants is seen with autumn lea... |
If the earth were drained of water and reduced to the size of a cue ball, would I feel a rough texture? | > OK, first, how smooth is a billiard ball? According to the World Pool-Billiard Association, a pool ball is 2.25 inches in diameter, and has a tolerance of +/- 0.005 inches. In other words, it must have no pits or bumps more than 0.005 inches in height. That’s pretty smooth. The ratio of the size of an allowable bump to the size of the ball is 0.005/2.25 = about 0.002.
The Earth has a diameter of about 12,735 kilometers (on average, see below for more on this). Using the smoothness ratio from above, the Earth would be an acceptable pool ball if it had no bumps (mountains) or pits (trenches) more than 12,735 km x 0.00222 = about 28 km in size.
The highest point on Earth is the top of Mt. Everest, at 8.85 km. The deepest point on Earth is the Marianas Trench, at about 11 km deep.
Hey, those are within the tolerances! So for once, an urban legend is correct. If you shrank the Earth down to the size of a billiard ball, it would be smoother
Soure: _URL_0_ | [
"Any land surface without any potholes and other serious damages (which may potentially harm a player) can be used as a field. Generally, it is played on evenings where there is little breeze and players can be free from the scorching sun prevalent in the tropical region where the game is mostly played. Although, r... |
Following dyslexda's question, how would Han Dynasty soldiers have fared against Romans of the equivalent time? | You might be looking for /r/historicalwhatif. | [
"Marcus Licinius Crassus invaded Parthia in 53 BC, but most of his entire army was destroyed. The historian Homer H. Dubs speculated in 1941 that Roman prisoners of war who were transferred to the eastern border of the Parthian empire might later have clashed with Han troops there. Similar claims, and even a Roman ... |
How do giant cities in the desert like Phoenix get enough water? Are they sustainable? | Partly from groundwater, partly from imported water. Phoenix gets a substantial amount of its water from the Colorado River. These desert cities are built on the Basin and Range region of the U.S., and are commonly between two mountain ranges. The floors of these "valleys" are actually incredibly "deep" - kilometers thick deposits of sediments (compacted sand), which can hold quite a lot of groundwater.
The groundwater aspect is not sustainable, and the water tables are lowering quite steadily. As the water level drops, using wells costs more and more money. Also, the ground-level steadily drops, which can cause all sorts of structural issues in buildings and roads. Many cities are trying to pump water back into the ground, but that is expensive (once you remove water, the sediments compact, making it very hard to put water back in).
As for the water from the Colorado, whether or not that dries up depends entirely on the direction climate change takes in the future centuries.
Keep in mind that about 75% of the water in Arizona goes toward agriculture. If it comes down to it, the state will have to cut a balance between drawing back on its agriculture industry, and making water in cities and towns more expensive. But there *is* quite a large buffer in agriculture, so it's not like Phoenix is going to become a ghost town due to lack of water.
If I recall correctly, some places in Arizona are even shipping in drinking water via trucks. This is an expensive and wasteful solution, but not one that will disappear anytime soon. | [
"Martian cities are at the intersections of canals, where they serve as centres for trade. The canals are not entirely watertight – the small leaks create aquifers along the banks that support crops and small villages. The canal system is old, however, and not all of the ancient pumps still work or ancient bridges ... |
how do political parties besides the republicans and democrats enter the presidential race? | The same way that republicans and democrats do. The only difference is that republicans and democrats have more money and more supporters. So it's easier for an independent to just choose the side they more closely resemble. Or, people like Ron Paul, choose to run as a republican when they're actually libertarians. | [
"In United States presidential politics, voters within both the Democratic and Republican parties select their candidates for the presidential election through a series of primary elections. For this list, any candidate that has won at least one state or territory's primary or caucus for a major party or received a... |
Which charges would Eva Braun have faced (in the Nuremberg) trials if she had not commited suicide? | What exactly is a moral charge? I don't meant to sound rude, but the idea of a 'moral charge' in a legal trial is somewhat superfluous - either one is charged under a law or not.
Braun essentially had nothing to do with politics despite being part of the inner social circle around Hitler, and allowing her to have a role would have come up against basic Nazi ideology about the place of women in society and politics (pretty much none for the latter).
The process of defendant selection for the Nuremberg Trial was through a process of inter-Allied negotiation. The US was the driving force behind the trial and formulated the charges and concept of conspiracy in late 1944/early 1945. The specific selection process began really with the London Conference in June-August 1945 involving the US, UK, USSR and France. Just before the conference, US and UK officials had informal discussions in which a rough list of 16 names was informally agreed upon*. Selection went on the backburner however when the conference started and the difficult issues around negotiating the charges were played out.
The second week of August saw selection come back under discussion, and by the third week of August a definitive list was prepared. This included all but one name from the June list (Hitler), and the French and Soviet delegates insisted on a further 9 names being added making 24 in total.** This final list was supposed to be published on August 24, however at the last minute the Soviets insisted on a further six names being added, of which 2 were accepted (Raeder and Fritzsche)
Long story short, it involved diplomatic and political discussions between four nations to decide who was to be tried.
*Hitler, Schacht, Seyss-Inquart, Doenitz, Funk, Speer, Goering, Hess, von Ribbentrop, Ley, Keitel, Streicher, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank and Frick.
** Above minus Hitler and plus von Schirach, Sauckel, Jodl, Bormann, von Papen, von Neurath, and a member of the Krupp family (unclear who was intended). | [
"BULLET::::- British intelligence officers announced that exhaustive investigation indicated that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had married on April 29 and then committed suicide in a Berlin bunker the following day.\n",
"According to a fragment of her diary and the account of biographer Nerin Gun, Braun's second su... |
how do guitar frets work? | As noted buy others, each string has its own "open" note and every fret goes up one semitone. That's all the pattern there is. Obviously its possible to work out ways to play whatever notes and chords you want based on this information. The thing is, you can't possibly work it out as you play. You just have to learn the combinations for each chord or note you want to play. In that sense it is harder than piano but, as you practise, you'll find you learn the basics fairly quickly. If you come across an unfamiliar chord or two you might have to fudge it the first time and the look them up or work them out later. There are patterns of a kind in how chords are formed but finding them for yourself as you go is probably the best way to learn. | [
"The Guitaret is a rationalised lamellophone, making use of metal reeds or tines which are arranged in three rows within a white painted metal rectangular case approximately 30 centimetres long. The ends of the tines protrude slightly above the level of the casing. The player takes the guitaret with the left hand o... |
How does a flu vaccine lessen symptoms when you catch a flu variant that isn’t one of the variants in that seasons vaccination? | First, we have to understand how vaccines work, in general. The basic premise is, we take a virus/bacteria and break it down into large chunks. These chunks are the outer shell/wall of the virus/bacteria, and as with most other cells, there are proteins that are embedded into them for communication, transport, etc.
Second, we have to understand how the immune system works. There are two phases, the innate phase and the adaptive phase. The innate phase is the first line of defense. Your body recognizes something is foreign and tries to get rid of it. It knows this due to the proteins in the wall chunks, as they don't have "self" displays within them. Once they're cleared, your immune system will begin developing other proteins (antibodies) for the adaptive response in case of a repeat infection. If you get infected with the same proteins, your immune response is much quicker as the antibodies alert better killing immune cells to Ninja in and eradicate the problem.
The issue with the flu is that it mutates a lot. Changes to the DNA and RNA subsequently change the comms proteins on the viral/bacterial walls. It might change some greatly, some not at all, but the reality is, there are some antibodies hanging out that can still tag some portions of the cell for removal. They can't tag them efficiently, or in great numbers, but it reduces the viral load down to something more manageable by the innate system than if nothing at all. Your fever spikes, you feel like crap for a day or two, but by them time you've truly noticed it, your innate system has already turned the tide and is just killing off stragglers, all the while making more antibodies for the new proteins. The new antibodies begin circulating while you have the adaptive system out in great numbers already, so they begin to work quickly as well, further reducing your infective time. | [
"Influenza vaccines, also known as flu shots or flu jabs, are vaccines that protect against infection by influenza viruses. A new version of the vaccine is developed twice a year, as the influenza virus rapidly changes. While their effectiveness varies from year to year, most provide modest to high protection again... |
just because pr votes for statehood doesn't make them a state right? wouldn't congress have to vote to approve such a move? | Yes, statehood can only be granted if Congress votes for it. In fact, Congress doesn't even need the consent of the people in the territory to give them statehood (although that would be unlikely).
Bottom line, it's 100% the US Congress's decision. The vote is just an expression of interest. | [
"While the people voted in favor of statehood, numerous challenges still exist that might hamper creation of the state, including lack of Congressional support: DC currently does not have voting-level congressional representation, and the national Republican Party is against the idea of statehood, due to political ... |
why do goats totally freeze and lock up their bodies in times of stress or fear? | Not all goats do this, just myotonic goats. It's a neurological disorder. It can be fatal. This happens in other species as well. | [
"Freezing behavior or the freeze response is a reaction to specific stimuli, most commonly observed in prey animals. When a prey animal has been caught and completely overcome by the predator, it may respond by \"freezing up\" of in other words by staying complety still. Studies typically assess a conditioned freez... |
If you had a gas impermeable tube from the earth's surface to space (beyond the atmosphere) would it create a perpetual vacuum tube? | If you built a tube from the surface of the earth to space you should expect no flow. There will be a pressure and density gradient in the tube due to earth's gravity, and it will maintain the same equilibrium as the atmosphere outside the tube.
The atmospheric pressure of the ambient air at the base of the pipe doesn't send anything up the pipe, because there's an equal amount of pressure from all the matter in the pipe extending up to space.
And if that didn't convince you, consider this. Suppose I built a wall like a thousand miles tall around the United States. Would you expect the atmosphere 'lake' contained in this wall to suddenly flow out into space, just because it has a wall all the way around it? Probably not. Now, build the wall just around your city. Should this case be any different? Now, just build the wall around your house. Same thing? Now, shrink the wall down into a narrow pipe, running vertically upward. | [
"Vacuum technology is a method used to evacuate air from a closed volume by creating a pressure differential from the closed volume to some vent, the ultimate vent being the open atmosphere. When using an industrial vacuum system, a vacuum pump or generator creates this pressure differential. A variety of technical... |
If there is no absolute position or speed, and both can be measured only in relation to something else, how can there be a maximum speed (light speed) and in relation to what is that measured? | Round two, fight! I apologize for how long this got, I wasn't really keeping track and I ended up writing an essay on special relativity. **If you just want the answer to your question, scroll down to the bold.**
**Short answer:** Light doesn't actually have a reference frame, which makes it special. Everyone sees themself at rest, and light moving at the speed of light.
**Longer answer:** For those that want to get caught up, there was [this post](_URL_1_) yesterday where I wrote an essay about *reference frames* in classical physics.
Today, we're going to go on another adventure to explore how the speed of light fits into all this.
I want to come straight out and assert a two things:
1. The speed of light is the same in all inertial reference frames.
2. The laws of physics (including the constancy of the speed of light) are the same in all inertial reference frames.
So what do these words mean? *Inertial reference frame* just means you aren't being accelerated. It means you are traveling at a constant velocity, or are at rest, with respect to there frames. So that means all the frames from the last post with the alien and the car and the cell phone. Any one of these is an equally good way of looking at the universe. If I was to do an experiment in Switzerland (perhaps measure the half life of some radioactive atom), and if I did the same experiment in the nuclear reactor of a nuclear submarine, which is moving with respect to the earth, I should get the same result.
If you aren't moving at the speed of light, then you are *always at rest in your own reference frame*.
The next thing is that light, because it has a constant speed in *all* frames, it *cannot have a reference frame* in Einsteinian relativity.
Maybe a little bit of math will make this easier:
The important thing about defining a space is it's metric (how we define distance) - in Cartesian space we use the Pythagorean theorem:
ds^2 = dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2
This is Newton's way of measuring distance in the universe. Three spatial dimensions, and a time dimension that ticks on it's own, unaffected by space. For example, if your mom lives three blocks north and four blocks west, you know that she's a total of five blocks away from you on the diagonal. More importantly, there isn't really anything you can do to change the total distance *ds* between two points. There are things you can do to change the path though. For example, someone facing a different direction could rotate these directions if they don't like *your north and west*. They can call the directions something different, and the dx, dy, and dz can change, but the ds never will. Everyone is always going to agree about these distances. In this sense, *distances are invariant in classical, Newtonian physics.*
Einstein made a few modifications to this, and used a *psuedo-Euclidean* metric, which means he included a time dimension which linked space and time in the same equation. It looks like this:
ds^2 = - c^2 * dt^2 + dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2
So to define distances between points, you now have to do it with a time dependence. This is a weird way to look at this equation, so the easiest way to see this is to divide through by *dt^2*, and you'll get:
ds/dt^(2) = -c^2 + dx/dt^2 + dy/dt^2 + dz/dt^2
So those look like velocities. If you do a little bit of algebra to move the ds/dt^(2) and the c^(2) to opposite sides, you now you get something that behaves like:
(speed of light) = (speed through space) + (speed through time)
And all of special relativity falls out of that. But remember how I said that in your own frame you have to always be stationary? That can't happen for light, so *light doesn't have a reference frame in the same sense as massive objects.* So in a cutesy analogy to try and imagine what the life of a photon feels like, you might think that it experiences it's entire existence simultaneously, like the Trafalamdorians from Slaughter House V, but light fundamentally does not have a reference frame, precisely because it doesn't have a frame where its motion is entirely 'timey' because in *every* frame the light's motion is *entirely 'spacey'*, because the speed of light is constant to all observers.
Remember the Newton distances? There was the thing that everyone agreed on, it was that first *ds.* Even though you could rotate your coordinates x, y, and z to change those lengths, you couldn't change your *ds.* It's similar here, except now the role of the thing that can't change is played by the speed of light. The gist is that if you see your motion entirely in the "timey" direction because you always think your speed through space is zero. On the other hand, if you see someone moving with respect to you then you see part of their motion being through space, so *you observe that they experience less motion through time than you*. Basically, you see them in slow motion. This is where time dilation comes from.
[Another thread from last month addresses your question as well.](_URL_0_)
**Okay, on to your actual question.**
Suppose it's a big black empty universe. Just you, me, and my flashlight. And your jetpack. Suppose you and me are floating right next to each other, at rest with respect to each other, and I cut my flashlight on. What do we see? Well, it looks like the beam of light coming off my flashlight is going away from us at the speed of light. Cool, that makes sense.
Now you put on your jetpack. I cut my flashlight on, and you take off after the beam of light going at half the speed of light in my reference frame. What do we see now? I will see you, traveling at half of the speed of light, and the beam of light moving away from me at the speed of light. *But what do you see?* You also see the beam of light headed away from you at the speed of light. How crazy is that? Is your reference frame broken? Nope. What's happened is that in your frame, you are always at rest, so you experience all of your motion in the timey direction, and you're seeing me in slow motion. In my frame, you are almost keeping up with the light, but I see you experience time in slow motion. In your frame, you see the light getting away from you at the speed of light, and you see me going in slow motion (since I'm moving away from you backwards).
I'm not really explaining this too well, so I'll just stop the wall of text here. | [
"In special relativity, there is an unreachable speed, the speed of light. We can add speeds without end, but they will always be less than the speed of light. The sums of all speeds are limited by the speed of light. Additionally, the composition of two velocities is inferior to the sum of those two speeds.\n",
... |
elis: why are we so fascinated with scandinavian countries? | Because economically, politically, and socially... many of them are the best humanity has provided. Mostly stable economies, education, and lack of crime.
Not everyone agrees with that of course, but one must admit they ams gots a real sweets gigs. | [
"In the book, Sanandaji argues that particularly the left has long praised Scandinavian countries for their high levels of welfare provision and admirable societal outcomes. Although true that Scandinavian countries are successful, the author makes the case that this success pre-dates the welfare state. According t... |
Why did William the Conqueror and King Harald of Norway both try to conquer England? | Harald III Hardrada of Norway did in fact have a claim, albeit a slightly tortuous one, going back to Svein Forkbeard and Knut the Great, who controlled a North Sea empire consisting of Denmark, Norway, and England with suzerainty over the bit of Sweden we call Sweden when discussing that time period. He was ultimately succeeded by Magnus I, son of Olaf II, king of Norway--which i believe indicates that this was conceptualized as a "unification" rather than a conquest, and so the Norwegian royal line was still legitimate. Harald was Magnus' brother, and so he claimed legitimacy over the entire North Sea empire. However, Cnut's death involved the breakup of his empire, and Edward the Confessor took control of England (also Magnus had to fight to claim Denmark). Magnus' death also prompted a breakup, as Harald took Norway and Sven Estridsson took Denmark. Harald spent much of his reign trying to gain Denmark, and although he regularly defeated Svein on the battlefield he was unable to capitalize on his victories. So at Edward's death he turned to England.
William's claim was equally tortuous save the crucial bit about Edward naming him successor.
Two important things to remember is that one, England at the time was considered mostly within the Scandinavian sphere, at least by the Scandinavian, and two, practically all Medieval claims to anything are just as tortuous as Harald's, with the exception of the Holy Roman Emperor who had divine claim to all matters material as Holy Mother Church had claim over all matters immaterial, which has the virtue of simplicity. | [
"Magnus's campaign may have been part of his father's plans for an invasion of England, as control over the Kingdom of the Isles would have provided him with more troops. Historian Kelly DeVries has moreover proposed that Harald may have wanted to test the situation in England before a possible invasion, only to fi... |
Why does it take so long to 'refill' (recharge) batteries compared to other energy sources like gasoline? | It doesn't!
When you refill your tank with gas, that's not equivalent to recharging a battery, it's equivalent to throwing out the old battery and buying a new one.
Recharging the battery is analogous to filling your gas tank with organic matter and waiting a **really, really** long time for it to turn into petrochemicals. That being said, the source of energy for recharging your battery may be another question entirely. | [
"Batteries that are stored for a long period or that are discharged at a small fraction of the capacity lose capacity due to the presence of generally irreversible \"side reactions\" that consume charge carriers without producing current. This phenomenon is known as internal self-discharge. Further, when batteries ... |
How good are humans at choosing randomly? | I don't have the source at hand, but I read an article once about humans producing random numbers, and we don't seem to be very good at it. The biggest problem with human-generated strings of numbers, if I recall correctly the study used numbers 0-9, was that we tend to avoid using the same number twice in a row much more than an actual random process does. If you do statistics (more specifically, calculate correlation functions at different distances in the string), you can see an anti-bunching effect as a negative correlation.
Here is a peer-reviewed article about the topic: _URL_0_
If you don't have access, the study (which has a small sample size for my comfort, investigating only 37 people) finds the effect I mentioned above, investigating only pairs of numbers following each other, but also find an increased probability of choosing a+1 or a-1 after a prior choice of a. The authors also report personal preferences in that individual subjects had a higher probability to choose certain numbers or number pairs. | [
"Effective situation selection is not always an easy task. For instance, humans display difficulties predicting their emotional responses to future events. Therefore, they may have trouble making accurate and appropriate decisions about which emotionally relevant situations to approach or to avoid.\n",
"Evaluatio... |
what happens when i swallow my mucus. | It's not bad to swallow your mucous. Your body is designed to swallow your mucous. Your stomach is very acidic and is designed to kill microorganisms. Your stomach naturally produces mucous, so it's not like there's going to be a massive accumulation of mucous there. | [
"Esophageal dysphagia is almost always caused by disease in or adjacent to the esophagus but occasionally the lesion is in the pharynx or stomach. In many of the pathological conditions causing dysphagia, the lumen becomes progressively narrowed and indistensible. Initially only fibrous solids cause difficulty but ... |
Bombardment of German Forces in WWI | Most British monitors did not enter service until after the end of the Race to the Sea; the only monitors available were the three ex-Brazilian river monitors, *Severn*, *Humber* and *Mersey*. Other, larger monitors entered service in 1915, and did operate off the Belgian coast. The following will explain their service, and why they could not prevent the Germans operating along the coastline.
The three river monitors had been under construction for Brazil in Britain from 1913; they were purchased from the Brazilian government slightly before the start of the war, after it ran out of money to pay for them with. They mounted a light armament by the standards of WWI monitors, with two 6in guns, two 4.7in howitzers, and a few 3 pounders and machine guns for self-defence. Designed for riverine work on the Amazon, they were poor seaboats, with a low freeboard meaning their decks were awash in any sort of a sea, while crosswinds made them all but impossible to control. During their first voyage, from Barrow to Dover, the enlisted crew had to bunk down in the officer's quarters, because the enlisted quarters had flooded. Following a series of cancelled missions and minor refits, they arrived off the Belgian coast on the 10th October 1914. They were there to support the defensive line of the Belgian Army along the River Yser, near Nieuwport. They first aided the evacuation of troops from Ostend, and fully began bombardments on the 16th. Closing in to within 200 yards of the shore, they opened up a harassing fire on German troop movements towards Nieuwport. The Germans soon responded with fire from their artillery batteries, driving the monitors away from the shore. An artillery duel ensued, with the monitors attempting to suppress the German batteries. Spotting of the fire was impossible from the ships, due to the sand dunes, so contact had to be set up with the Belgian troops ashore. On the 20th, the monitors landed armed sailors to help defend the village of Westende, but it fell after the monitors had to withdraw to rearm, having fired every round of ammunition aboard. They were replaced by destroyers from the Dover Patrol, but these were less capable at engaging shore targets, with their smaller guns and deeper draughts. On the 22nd, they returned, along with the old battleship *Venerable* and a number of old cruisers. *Venerable* was much more heavily armed than the monitors, but could not approach the coast, as she drew 25 feet, meaning she had to be heeled over to extend the range of her 12in guns. While the British squadron did open fire on German positions, the weather intervened; the wind was blowing the monitors dangerously close to the sandbanks that lined the coast, while waves often rocked them so hard they were unable to fire accurately. There were also fears that the Germans were basing U-boats at Ostend, which would pose a serious threat to the operations of the squadron - and submarines from Germany were operating in the area, making a number of attacks. Operations along the coast continued, but the Germans were beginning to emplace more and more guns along the coast. During a bombardment operation on the 27th, German gunfire prevented the British squadron from closing to within 4,000 yards of the shore, and the operation had to be ended once a heavy gun was brought into action. On the 28th, three ships were heavily damaged by shellfire; the destroyer *Falcon*, and sloops *Wildfire* and *Vestal*. *Venerable* ran aground on a sandbank, but fortunately no damage was done by either the grounding, or by German fire. On the 31st, the old cruiser *Hermes*, converted to a seaplane carrier, was sunk by a submarine near Calais; this incident, combined with the great number of German batteries now well-concealed along the coastline, led to the end of concentrated operations along the Belgian coastline for the British squadron.
This episode reveals the issues that faced Royal Navy monitors attempting to bombard German troops in Belgium. The main problem they faced came from the German defences. Initially, all that they faced were a few batteries of light field guns, allowing the monitors freedom of action; the Germans soon began to set up more specialised, and heavier, coastal defence batteries. By 1918, there were 36 coastal defence batteries between Westende and Knocke, totalling five 15in guns, four 12in, twenty-four 11in, and 87 smaller guns. While the Belgian coast was mostly free of mines in 1914, dense minefields were set up by the Germans, limiting the areas where British ships could operate. The German Navy never sent heavy units into the Channel, but U-boats operated from Ostend and Zeebrugge from March 1915. A destroyer flotilla was based at these ports from March 1916, and motor torpedo boats (and remote-controlled explosive motor boats) also operated on the coastline. These posed a significant threat to the slow, unwieldy monitors. Suppressing the ports from which they operated became a key role for the monitors, preventing them bombarding German troops on the front-lines. The monitors couldn't operate in all weathers, as shown by the bombardment operation on the 22nd. With the majority of the German troops and targets inland, the monitors had difficulty controlling the fall of shot. While observers ashore could compensate for this, their utility was reduced once the front-lines settled down and consolidated. The monitors could not remain on station at all times; they had to withdraw to reload with ammunition. The river monitors also fired so many rounds that their guns had to have their barrels replaced; however, because they were needed rapidly, the 6in guns of *Severn* and *Mersey* had to be replaced with older single guns salvaged from the wreck of the battleship *Montagu*.
From November 1914, the monitors were diverted to peripheral theatres. The river monitors spent the winter protecting the east coast of England from the entirely imaginary threat of an invasion. As spring approached, they returned to Dunkirk to resume bombardments of the Belgian coast, but the weather was too rough. After that, they were sent to the Mediterranean for a planned attack on Austria-Hungary along the Danube, before being sent to East Africa to deal with the cruiser *Konigsberg* in the Rufiji Delta. Many of the newly-built monitors were also sent to the Mediterranean, to participate in the invasion of Gallipoli. This prevented operations along the Belgian coast until August 1915, when three new monitors, armed with 12in guns, were available. They were part of the Dover Patrol, under the command of Admiral Roger Bacon. Bacon was an excellent technical officer, but inexperienced in combat. The first operation of these new monitors was a bombardment of Zeebrugge on the 22nd August. This saw a new innovation to aid spotting - the placement of spotting platforms at sea, on large tripods that extended down to the seabed. They were more useful than land-based observers, but were limited by the fact that the spotters were still not much higher from the sea than those aboard the monitors. Despite the use of the tripods, the bombardment was a failure; two of the monitors suffered mechanical failures preventing them from firing more than a few shells, and the fire from the third was inaccurate. An attempt was made to repeat the operation against Ostend on the 7th September, this time using aircraft from the seaplane carrier *Riviera* to perform spotting. This failed, after the bombardment force was engaged by the four 11in guns of the newly-established *Tirpitz* battery. Little damage was done to the monitors, but the German guns outranged them, and it was clear that operations along the German coast would have to be reduced in frequency and scale until something could be done about the guns. It was hoped that the new 15in monitors coming into service would be able to deal with them. This was not to transpire. The first 15in monitor, the *Marshall Ney* arrived in Shoeburyness on the 3rd September, and took part in her first operation on the 19th. This was a joint bombardment of Zeebrugge and Ostend, with two 12in monitors and supporting ships hitting the former and *Ney* and three 12in monitors targeting the latter. The Zeebrugge force met heavy fire, with the armed yacht *Sandra* being sunk. The force at Ostend attempted an approach that was thought to be protected from the fire of the *Tirpitz* battery, but this was not to be; attempts were then made to silence the battery with *Ney*'s guns, but this was foiled by frequent mechanical issues. *Ney* had been equipped with a set of MAN diesels intended for a new oiler, which were insufficient for the bulk of the monitor, and were generally unreliable. Her sister, *Marshall Soult*, was more reliable, but still underpowered and slow. Attempts to hit Ostend, Zeebrugge, and Westende continued throughout the autumn of 1915, but to little avail. A new threat also emerged, with German aircraft making occasional, but mainly futile, attacks on the ships with bombs. In the winter of 1915-1916, exercises and tests were carried out to develop methods for coordinating fire from aircraft; this included a number of attacks on Westende. | [
"The bombardment was paused at midday, as a ruse to prompt French survivors to reveal themselves and German artillery-observation aircraft were able to fly over the battlefield unmolested by French aircraft. The 3rd, 7th and 18th corps attacked at ; the Germans used flamethrowers and storm troops followed closely w... |
Do skin grafts include nerves, and if so do they retain the sensitivity of thier original location? | No. The nerve terminals within the grafted tissue are dead.
Nerve fibers project to the skin from their cell bodies next to the spine. The underlying nerve fibers underneath the graft will slowly grow into the grafted skin, and sensation/function will return. | [
"Tissue grafts utilize nerves or other materials to bridge the two ends of the severed nerve. There are three categories of tissue grafts: autologous tissue grafts, nonautologous tissue grafts, and acellular grafts.\n",
"Autologous tissue grafts transplant nerves from a different part of the body of the patient t... |
why do ants and insects get trapped in pen circles? | There are a few different explanations for this, depending on what the circle is made of. Ants will get trapped in chalk and baking soda circles, as well. A big contender is that ants travel largely by a scent trail left behind by other ants. If you watch ants coming for pieces of food left on the floor or the sidewalk, you'll see that they take the same route. A circle made of something like ink or sodium bicarbonate or chalk can disrupt this scent trail and cause almost a wall of sorts. | [
"Since the sides of the pit consist of loose sand at its angle of repose, they afford an insecure foothold to any small insects that inadvertently venture over the edge, such as ants. Slipping to the bottom, the prey is immediately seized by the lurking antlion; if it attempts to scramble up the treacherous walls o... |
When did the English language emerge? | It depends on what you mean by the English language. The modern English language has a few main sources of vocabulary, which I'll go through chronologically. The inhabitants of Albion at first contact with recorded history probably spoke a group of Celtic languages. You then have a Roman invasion adding a little bit of Latin (for the first time - a second Latin wave will come later). In 449 a group of Germanic peoples called Angles and Saxons invaded Albion, bringing their Germanic dialects with them. The language spoken on Albion at this time is what can first be identified as "old English."
The next major addition came during the Norman conquest in the 11th century. During this era the upper classes continued speaking Norman French for quite some time, leading to a lot of French words entering the language. Throughout the entire medieval period more and more Latin also started getting adapted into the English Language through the clerical classes, leading to a second batch of Latinate vocabulary - which was much more significant than the original borrowing from Latin the late classical period.
So that's where the vocabulary from English came from, and from about 500 you could identify *something* as the "English Language"
Morphologically, however, the language changed *very* rapidly during the early modern period. Any modern English reader could read, with some difficulty, the English of Chaucer in the 14th century, though a lot of vocabulary and spelling would be unfamiliar. You could not, however, understand the spoken language, because the great vowel shift had not happened. "I see a knight" would be written like that, but pronounced (roughly) "Ee say ah kuhneeght." By the time you get to Shakespeare, however, just a few centuries later, the language (both spoken and written) would be relatively easily understandable for a modern English speaker/reader.
So to summarize - like all languages, "English" has its roots in the deep, pre-historic past, and can be traced through many centuries of development. If you're asking when you could look at the language as spoken and written, and knowing only modern English say "this is the same language" the answer is probably somewhere between the year 1300 and 1500. | [
"The English language was first introduced to the Americas by British colonization, beginning in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The language also spread to numerous other parts of the world as a result of British trade and colonisation and the spread of the former British Empire, which, by 1921, included a... |
Why is sexual dimorphism more prevalent in some species than in other to the degree that you may not be able to tell genders apart with just a look in one species but in others it's clear as day? | TL;DR: Often, monogamy
Sexual dimorphism happens when the optimal traits for males and females differ. Very frequently this is related to costly traits that help one sex (usually males) gain access to mates. Male peacocks have extremely showy plumage, which makes them an easy target for predators, but peahens are a dull brown color that blends in to the environment.
Okay... so why is it optimal for one sex to invest in flashiness, and the other to have muted coloration? It all has to do with something called [Bateman's principle](_URL_0_): because sperm is cheap to produce, a male can achieve very high fitness by mating indescriminately with as many females as he can, but females, whose egg cells are more costly to produce, don't have that ability -- usually they achieve the highest fitness by choosing the best males to mate with. Females are also more likely to provide parental care to increase the health and survival of their limited offspring.
This means that males often *have* to be flashy, even at cost to other traits like survival, in order to compete to attract any mates at all (or ideally, several). On the other hand, females rarely have trouble finding a male to mate with them, so they don't have that pressure. In fact, if they are providing maternal care (such as the peahen sitting on eggs), there will be strong natural selection against being conspicuous, to protect both herself and her young.
Now we need to identify when the distance between optimal male and female traits collapses, making them evolve to be similar. One answer is monogamy. If males only need to find one mate, and then they will provide parental care along with the mother, conspicuous traits will be a detriment, as they are already in females. You can see this dichotomy by comparing polygamous birds like pheasants and ducks to monogamous birds like penguins or hawks. The latter birds are basically indistinguisable by sex (though they must be able to tell themselves apart somehow!). | [
"Sexual dimorphism is the difference in body size between male and female members of a species as a result of intrasexual selection, which is sexual selection that acts within a sex. High sexual dimorphism and larger body size in males is a result of male-male competition for females. Primate species in which group... |
why are ligers typically much larger and heavier than both lions and tigers? | Built into your genes is code to *stop* growing. That's important because, for example, just making your heart *bigger* does not make it *better* at pumping blood. It takes additional muscle and different structure to be efficient. So if you get too big, your heart can't keep up with the need to pump blood farther and farther away from your lungs, and it gives out.
As a result, humans with gigantism tend to die in their 30s and 40s to heart failure. Similarly, ligers tend to die young relative to their parent species due to heart failure.
Anyway, it just so happens that the gene to stop growing in lions is found in genes that come from the mother, while gene to stop growing in tigers comes from the father. (More accurately, they are *activated* based on the parent's sex.)
Ligers have lion fathers and tiger mothers. So they get neither of the species' genes to stop growing, so they don't stop growing. Tigons - hybrids with a tiger father and a lion mother - grow to be about as big as, well, lions and tigers. They don't get like, *extra* stopping genes, they just have two sets that turn on about when they're supposed to so they get as big as either of their parents should be.
Side note, the portmanteau word for a hybrid depends on which is the mother and which is the father. Fathers form the first part of the word, mothers the second. For example, a Zorse is a hybrid male zebra and female horse; a hebra is a hybrid male horse and female zebra. | [
"The liger is a cross between a male lion and a tigress. Ligers are typically between in length, and weigh between or more. Because the lion sire passes on a growth-promoting gene, but the corresponding growth-inhibiting gene from the female tiger is absent, ligers grow far larger than either parent species.\n",
... |
How does hemoglobin get into the urine? | So the heme is degraded into bilirubin. The bilirubin is then excreted as bile which is important for digestion of fats in the small intestine. Then the bilirubin's degraded even more from bacteria in the intestine to urobilinogen. Some of the urobilinogen is absorbed back into the bloodstream by the hepatic portal vein, oxidised, and released into the kidneys as urobilin.
TL;DR heme is needed for bile production, urobilinogen is a byproduct that makes pee yellow {as urobilin} and poop brown {stercobilin} | [
"Urine is formed in the kidneys through a filtration of blood. The urine is then passed through the ureters to the bladder, where it is stored. During urination, the urine is passed from the bladder through the urethra to the outside of the body.\n",
"Pre-urine is formed in the tubules, when nitrogenous waste and... |
Is the origin of western monasticism based in Stoic philosophy? (3rd ask) | You will find more helpful input from /r/AcademicBiblical almost definitely (and I think especially if /u/koine_lingua is active... I *think*).
You might also get some more joy by looking for connections between early Christians and Cynics - arguments have been put forward that Jesus was basically a Cynic teacher by some, with F. Gerald Downing being the most prominent name among them. (John Dominic Crossan draws parallels between Christians and Cynics, but also points out differences between them.)
I can't think offhand if there was anything connecting Cynics to "monachi," but it feels like there might be something there.
| [
"Orthodox monasticism does not have religious orders as are found in the West, nor do they have Rules in the same sense as the Rule of St. Benedict. Rather, Eastern monastics study and draw inspiration from the writings of the Desert Fathers as well as other Church Fathers; probably the most influential of which ar... |
this was posted about 4 years, but i was wondering if there was updated information. are monster energy zero ultra drinks bad for me? if so, why? | If you're not experiencing side effects like high blood pressure or heart palpations, if you're not shaky and your decisions aren't impaired, and if you're not interfering with any medication, you're probably just fine. Are you having one, or several each day? Are you otherwise hydrating? Sleeping ok on average? Again, you're probably ok.
There are tons of studies about caffeine and long term effects. But in my 36 years I have seen those studies contradict each other a dozen times. Everyone is different. If you feel gross, switch to something with less caffeine. | [
"The caffeine content of most Monster Energy drinks is approximately 10 mg/oz (33.81 mg/100ml), or 160 mg for a 16 oz can. The packaging usually contains a warning label advising consumers against drinking more than 48 oz per day (16 oz per day in Australia). The drinks are not recommended for pregnant women or peo... |
What is your preferred explanation for the Industrial Revolution taking place in the West rather than the East? | For a contrary view from economic historians, check out *Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World* by Deirdre McCloskey and *The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1850* by Joel Mokyr.
Lots of people argue that steam (and therefore coal, which is the fuel that powers steam engines) was critical. But steam came relatively late in the Industrial Revolution; lots of iconic inventions (e.g. the flying shuttle, spinning jenny, and water frame) which vastly increased productivity in textiles, were developed before steam power came along. What is critical is technological know-how in mechanics, and that is something that England would have had even if it had no coal at all. With that knowledge, coal could be imported from abroad, or wood subsituted for coal, or failing that, animal and water power could be used - but it would still be possible to achieve massive increases in productivity. On the other hand, if this knowledge were not yet developed, then it wouldn't matter how much coal you had - no one would know what to do with it.
There is a hard to find article that illustrates this point (Deng, K. (2004), *Why did the Chinese never develop a steam engine?* History of technology 25, p. 151-171). It describes an early Chinese attempt to reverse-engineer a steam engine, which was unsuccessful because the steam engine simply used different physical principles than anything they had ever seen before. | [
"Technological advances, in areas such as railroads, steamboats, mining, and agriculture, were embraced to a higher degree in the West than the East during the Great Divergence. Technology led to increased industrialization and economic complexity in the areas of agriculture, trade, fuel and resources, further sepa... |
how long does your body take to stsrt using the carbohydrates you consume for energy? | What exactly do you mean? You are constantly using carbohydrates for energy, there is no start up time/period where you don't use carbohydrates.
Is your question about the time it takes from ingesting food to using the carbohydrates contained in it specifically? | [
"The effective overall energy unit for the available body energy is referred to as the daily glycogen generation capacity, and is used to compare the mitochondrial output of healthy individuals to that of afflicted or chronically glycogen-depleted individuals. This value is slow to change in a given individual, as ... |
how does a trade war work? what are the local and global repercussions? | A trade war is when countries begin placing tariffs on imports that specifically target certain countries.
So, imagine Country A exports loads of imaginarium at a low price. Country B also produces a lot of imaginarium too, but it's used domestically rather than being exported and it costs the domestic producers more to produce a tonne of imaginarium than it does to import a tonne of it from Country A. The imaginarium producers in Country B don't like this, as it threatens their livelihoods.
So, in response, Country B could place a tariff (a tax) on imports of imaginarium. This will raise the price, making Country A no longer competitive. Country B's domestic imaginarium producers will get a boost, but it will hurt Country A's economy. Country A responds by placing a tariff on something that Country B exports. This process then goes on and on until one side backs down.
The problem with trade wars is that, theoretically, they lead to inefficient markets. If you don't face any serious competition, then why bother innovating? Your industry is always going to be protected by your government. Ultimately, consumers are the ones who are affected. In my hypothetical, it will lead to poor quality, expensive imaginarium.
What's important to remember is that trade wars are just rounds of tariffs placed on certain commodities and items. In the end, nobody really wins, except for the people whose jobs are saved. | [
"A trade war is an economic conflict resulting from extreme protectionism in which states raise or create tariffs or other trade barriers against each other in response to trade barriers created by the other party. Increased protection causes both nations' output compositions to move towards their autarky position.... |
unicellular to multicellular evolution | Bacteria are single-celled, but even so they can behave together in groups in complex ways. If you have the time, look up "biofilms" in Wikipedia, as an example. Bacterial cells can communicate to each other in ways like: "dude, bra, this space here is totally awesome to lay down and chill" and other bacteria will get that message and join. This is an example of group behaviours in bacteria.
The organisms that are still single-celled but aren't bacteria, such yeast for example, can have groups behaviours as well, very similar to bacteria.
My thought is, is that these group behaviours flourished and developed so well in eukaryotic organisms (like yeast) until they behaved in compartmentalized groups like tissues. | [
"The Colonial Theory of Haeckel, 1874, proposes that the symbiosis of many organisms of the same species (unlike the symbiotic theory, which suggests the symbiosis of different species) led to a multicellular organism. At least some, it is presumed land-evolved, multicellularity occurs by cells separating and then ... |
Will there ever be a simultaneous eclipse of the sun and transit of venus? I imagine that it could be millions of years away, but have we worked out when? | April 5, 15,232, according to Wikipedia. | [
"In principle, the simultaneous occurrence of a Solar eclipse and a transit of a planet is possible. But these events are extremely rare because of their short durations. The next anticipated simultaneous occurrence of a Solar eclipse and a transit of Mercury will be on July 5, 6757, and a Solar eclipse and a trans... |
What impact did the video game crash of the early '80s have upon the British computer game market? | Pretty much none directly, presuming you’re talking about the North American Home Video Game Crash of 1983. These markets were very far apart from each other, though in the matter of shifting the power of computer game publishers to the fore there was to be a long term impact. In the UK there was a large financial barrier to buying into consoles, therefore it wasn’t a significant portion of the market that would arouse the gaming climate in England.
So there’s three crashes to talk about here. The Video Game Crash of 1983, the [North American Home Computer Crash of 1984](_URL_2_), and the British Computer Game Crash of 1984. The effect of the first one was shifting the focus of home console companies towards computers, most notably [Activision](_URL_0_). Activision was a very early player in the European computer game space. They set up a label called Electric Dreams to convert software from the American market to run on British systems, though they were never particularly successful. Splinters from Activision like Accolade also did a heavy amount of business with U.S Gold, who would again convert their software to systems like the ZX Spectrum.
The second of these crashes was marketplace downfall in North America which resulted from a lot of social factors as much as economic ones. Basically the C64 wiped out the market for home computers and therefore stunted the growth of the computer game marketplace. This would be a heavy burden for companies like Electronic Arts which avoided console games like the plague, but they were not aggressive about pushing into Europe at first (though they would be towards the early 90s).
Finally the British specific crash. A large amount of disorganization within the publishers, growing out of them being largely born from hobbyist ambitions, made their organizations fall apart pretty fast. The market for computer games was still growing, but they vastly overestimated how much they could sell because the boom took off so quickly. The story of [Imagine Software](_URL_4_) is the posterchild for this disaster, having placed a large amount of investment on stunting another major problem: Piracy and commercial counterfeiting.
In Britain the software was largely distributed by cassette which made it very easy to copy. Capital prevented the average consumer from buying something truly state of the art to go with their already costly system computer so British publishers were always racing towards the bottom in terms of pricing. Imagine attempted to create games which were impressive and locked via hardware to prevent piracy, ending with the company going into total bankruptcy literally on television.
There are trickle-down effects of all of these crashes. Employees from Imagine form Psygnosis which would eventually create Wipeout, a huge part of increasing the Playstation’s appeal worldwide. The eventual revival of the American home console market gave room for Sega to breach into Europe and effectively dominate the UK. The shifting of computer game publishers onto consoles would be the model followed by Eidos, of course best known for Tomb Raider. As for a direct effect of the North American Video Game Crash of 1983 to radically changing things in Europe, that’s not the case. There were less games, but on systems nobody was buying anyways.
Sources:
[The Story of U.S Gold](_URL_5_) by Chris Wilkins and Roger M Kean. One of the best “Britsoft” books out there. Gives you a very sharp look into the windows of the West-obsessed publisher which controlled a large portion of the British market in the late 1980s.
[Replay: The History of Video Games](_URL_1_) by Tristan Donovan. An alternative overview to the above-linked posts by Jimmy Maher. Also covers the 1983 Crash in a bit more explicit detail than any other current monograph.
[They Create Worlds: The British 8-Bit Computer Market: Software](_URL_3_) from Alex Smith. Alex has done more comprehensive looking into the British market than anyone I know. If you need specific sources about the claims in this episode, I can ask him. | [
"As the video game market became flooded with poor-quality cartridge games created by numerous companies attempting to enter the market, and overproduction of high-profile releases such as the Atari 2600 adaptations of \"Pac-Man\" and \"E.T.\" grossly underperformed, the popularity of personal computers for educati... |
what caused that "crackling" background sound when you played music on old gramophones? | Those records encoded the music in the shape of a spiral groove which covered one whole side of the disc. A stylus was dragged the length of the groove to get the sound that it encoded.
If the disc was dirty or the groove was damaged, there would be a crackling sound.
I called it 'campfire music' because it sounded like a crackling campfire.
actual name: "Surface noise" | [
"The instrument became increasingly popular among rock and pop bands during the psychedelic era, adding what author Thom Holmes terms \"an eerie, unearthly sound\" to their recordings. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones played a Mellotron on several of his band's songs over 1967–68. These include \"We Love You\", wh... |
what was the point of nuclear torpedoes? | I believe they were made to counter nuclear armed ships and submarines. Standard torpedoes weren't reliable enough for preventing a potential nuclear attack, they needed to make sure they could wipe out the target with a single shot.
| [
"The idea behind the nuclear warheads in a torpedo was to create a much bigger and more explosive blast. Later analysis suggested that smaller, more accurate, and faster torpedoes were more efficient and effective.\n",
"U.S. interest in a nuclear torpedo can be traced to 1943, when Captain William S. Parsons, hea... |
how parent animals can carry their young and not inflict pain/wounds. | Animals that practice such behaviour have evolved to have abundant layers of skin around the top of their neck when they are young so that their parents can carry them to safety, food, etc. As they get older, the fat and the skin becomes less prominent in comparison to the size of their neck (or entire body for that matter). | [
"An infant or toddler is more likely than other family members to be injured by an animal because they cannot defend themselves and are lower to the ground. Familiar family pets with no prior history of aggression are more likely to attack the child than unfamiliar pets from other households.\n",
"They live in so... |
Is it normal/acceptable for historians to speculate about the thoughts, feelings, motivations, and emotions of historical actors? | People's motivations and the extent of their knowledge, here, are not "somewhat speculative claims." They're conclusions that the historian reached by analyzing evidence.
What do you mean by "in the real world," anyway? How are people's motivations not part of the real world? "Islam" didn't triumph in North Africa; North Africans converted to Islam in overwhelming, near totalizing numbers (barring Jewish communities and with the exception of Egypt). That's fact. The *history*--the understanding of the past--lies in discovering why they converted. Which is to say, understanding their motivations and thoughts. And we do that by collecting evidence and analyzing it. | [
"In education, presenting information as if it were being told by a historical figure may give it greater impact. Since classical times, students have been asked to put themselves in the place of a historical figure as a way of bringing history to life. Historical figures are often represented in fiction, where fac... |
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