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what causes historical change? | Your question about alternative explanations for what causes historical change is a question of *historiography*, which can be roughly defined as the method or approach an historian takes to historical evidence. So, as you say, Marxist interpretations of history tend to emphasize economic and class struggle in its reading of historical evidence. Eric Hobsbawm's work and to a lesser extent EP Thompson's book *The Making of the English Working Class* are good examples of Marxist-leaning histories.
Two of the most notable historiographical approaches right now are social history, which emphasizes the study of social structures and history-as-a-process over individual actors, and cultural history, which (in my own interpretation as a historian of the book) seeks to understand cultural phenomena (like books!) in relation to politics, economics and other forces. In many ways these two modes of thinking about history stand in contrast to the "Great Man" theory of history, which was quite prominent in the 19th century. This approach can be summarized in a quote from one of its major proponents, Thomas Carlyle: "The history of the world is but the biography of great men". This is still often the way history is presented in popular culture. So, historical change can be seen to be caused by remarkable individuals (Great Man), social structures and ongoing processes and mass movements (social history), or by class struggle (Marxism). These are only a few different ways of approaching historical evidence, and it should be said that every historical period comes up with its own approaches. So no definitive answers about what causes historical change, but some useful ideas for thinking with! | [
"ii) Historicists are bad at imagining conditions under which an identified trend ceases. Historical generalisations may be reduced to a set of laws of higher generality (i.e. one could say that history depends upon psychology). However, in order to form predictions from these generalisations we also need specific ... |
why are my motor skills so bad for the first few minutes after i wake up? | Your brain is still rebooting.
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"Much like motor skills learning, verbal skills learning increased after a daytime nap period. Researchers Mednick and colleagues have shown that if a visual skills task [find task] is taught in the morning and repeatedly tested throughout the day, individuals will actually become worse at the task. The individuals... |
Why do inertia and gravitation cancel out? | > Can we imagine a universe where inertia increases more slowly with mass than gravity does, so that heavier objects fall faster in a vacuum?
On the level of elementary particles this is somewhat imaginable, but for objects of the same composition this creates logical contradictions. Imagine putting a small block below a big block. If heavier things fall faster, then the small block is slowing down the fall of the big block and the two stay together, falling slower than the big block alone. But that means you can see the two blocks as one even heavier object - which should fall faster than the big block alone. | [
"General covariance is the basis of general relativity, the classical theory of gravitation. Moreover, it is necessary for the consistency of any theory of quantum gravity, since it is required in order to cancel unphysical degrees of freedom with a negative norm, namely gravitons polarized along the time direction... |
is foam soap or regular soap better? | Seems like the answer to that question will depend mainly on personal preference. Me, I like regular soap, and I deliberately don't use the kind with triclosan if I have an option. | [
"Typically a mixture of different surfactants is used. Of the anionics, soap is not a common deliberate constituent of bath foam preparations because they react rapidly with \"hardness\" cations in water to produce lime soaps, which are anti-foams. Usually one or more ingredients is primarily a foam stabilizer—a su... |
When were the first dinosaur bones discovered and what was public reaction to the news? | The oldest certain find of dinosaur bones, not speculating or inferring, was by Chang Qu, 4th Century BC, Sichuan
_URL_1_
The reaction was mystification and wonder, support for the existence dragons.
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> The first discovery of dinosaur remains definitely occurred before the time that humans began recording history. The matter of what qualifies as being the first discovery of dinosaur remains is more a matter of terminology, such as when the fossilized remains that were being found were actually considered to be those of dinosaurs. The first humans to inhabit the earth undoubtedly found the remains of dinosaurs, and ancient cave renderings that have been found throughout the world verify this. These early accounts of humans possessing knowledge of the existence of the dinosaurs have caused many to speculate that some survivors of the mass extinction 65 million years ago actually shared the planet with early man, but there is no solid proof of this. Although the first person to find dinosaur remains did so thousands of years ago, it wasn't until the 1800's that scientists actually put a name on the creatures whose fossilized remains they were finding, the creatures were from then on referred to as the dinosaurs.
> The first written accounts of dinosaur remains having been found date back to the time of the ancient Greeks, who tried to explain the fossilized remains by creating epic tales of giants and mythical creatures. Chinese writings by Chang Qu that described the discovery of dragon bones 2,000 years ago also point to the discovery of fossil remains. There is no doubt that these early findings mystified those who found them, and given the curiosity of the human mind these relics begged for an explanation. Literature and beliefs regarding the origins of life on earth were altered by the discovery of fossils before they were even identified as being that of dinosaurs. Mythology and superstition was built around these enormous and strange looking bones, and from those findings there soon came stories about giants and dragons that once inhabited the earth.
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"In 1818, resident Solomon Ellsworth Jr, was blasting a hole for his well to go alongside of his house in town. While in the process, he found some foreign bones, not known at the time. These bones would last be sent to Yale University and would later determine to be Dinosaur fossils, specifically, one of a Anchisa... |
heart attacks, cardiac arrest, arrhythmia - when are cpr and defibrillators used and how? | A heart attack is a blockage in an artery that feeds the heart and so the heart muscle is being starved of oxygen.
Cardiac arrest is when the heart stops beating. This is quite often wrongly referred to as a heart attack by the media.
Arrhythmia is when the heart beats incorrectly. Basically this happens to everyone every day but is usually nothing to worry about. Some times though it can cause the heart to beat poorly which means it can't even feed itself with oxygen, or beat too fast and tire out, or beat too slow and you pass out, or just quiver and not pump at all.
CPR is used when you can't detect a pulse....... and the person is obviously unconscious. Just because you take your friend's pulse while he's sitting next to you chatting with you and you can't find it doesn't mean he needs CPR.
Defibs are used when the heart has an incorrect rhythm. It stops the heart and then the heart should, hopefully, restart with a correct, or less shitty, rhythm. They're not used to start hearts which have stopped.
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"An automated external defibrillator (AED) is a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias of ventricular fibrillation (VF) and pulseless ventricular tachycardia, and is able to treat them through defibrillation, the application of electricity which stops the ar... |
Are Sociopaths aware of their lack of empathy and other human emotions due to environmental observation of other people? | It may be better to describe the traits you are looking at in particular rather than using terms that people may confuse with another. I like this question in general because it asks whether or not people are self aware when they have a social mindset that is different from their peers. More importantly do they use it to their advantage or does it just hinder their ability to connect?
I look through the posts and I see psychopath mentioned quite a bit but that wasn't what you asked about specifically, but people assumed. So as long as we are speaking about traits of a personality disorder, sociopaths and psychopaths get lumped together and I have read a book on Psychopathy that gave me a whole different appreciation for the very wide range of affects it can have on people.
Dr. Kevin Dutton's book The Wisdom of Psychopaths was the book that really opened me up to at least understanding some core concepts behind the diagnosis and history of the disorder. I would say that yes, they can understand what makes them different. At the very least that they are different from other people. Another thing to point out is that while the disorders do breed bad apples, it's still the upbringing that holds the most weight. So the awareness in this scenario would come from childhood parenting. In the book one of the psychiatrists/psychologists that he talked to became aware of his own psychopath diagnosis while looking for others. It was his family that read his research and went back to him and told him to get tested for the warrior gene.
The core question for me here was, are people with these disorders capable of becoming aware of their differences? Yes, I think they are capable. | [
"A lack of empathy is a hallmark characteristic of psychopathy. As a consequence, Decety investigates atypical socioemotional processing and moral judgment in forensic psychopaths with a mobile MRI scanner, because they provide a natural model in which emotional and attentional processes are altered, enabling ident... |
How did they prevent counterfeiting of paper money before modern things like holograms, fluorescent ink, and microprinting? | First of all counterfeiting was punishable by a death, a grave enough consequence for most. But when death did not deter [vignettes](_URL_2_) were used. Vignettes small illustration that fades into its background without a definite border were an extremely hard thing to counterfeit. The vignette are known only to [Chinese currency and showed culturally significant history and politics](_URL_1_). The Great Wall, among them. Also appearing on the notes was an unprecedented [six different ink colors](_URL_0_
), back in 1270!
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"In the late twentieth century advances in computer and photocopy technology made it possible for people without sophisticated training to copy currency easily. In response, national engraving bureaus began to include new more sophisticated anti-counterfeiting systems such as holograms, multi-colored bills, embedde... |
Could there be any material in the solar system older than 4.5 billion years? | Sure, we even have some of them at my astronomy dept. _URL_0_ | [
"The oldest such minerals analyzed to date—small crystals of zircon from the Jack Hills of Western Australia—are at least 4.404 billion years old. Calcium–aluminium-rich inclusions—the oldest known solid constituents within meteorites that are formed within the Solar System—are 4.567 billion years old, giving a low... |
When did the color red start meaning stop and the color green start meaning go? | hi! there's always room for more input, but meanwhile, check out this post
[How did we come to choose green, yellow and red as the standard colors for traffic lights?](_URL_0_)
from the [Traffic](_URL_1_) section in the FAQ*
*see the link on the sidebar or the wiki tab | [
"Red is the international color of stop signs and stop lights on highways and intersections. It was standardized as the international color at the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals of 1968. It was chosen partly because red is the brightest color in daytime (next to orange), though it is less visible at tw... |
what are tennis players looking for when they request 3-4 tennis balls and immediately toss 1-2 of them back? | To explain this to a 5 year old, essentially they are testing (for lack of a better word) the bounce of the ball. Because they hit the ball so hard they wear and tear causing the balls to bounce in different places making the game difficult. It also loses the energy that is put into the ball when hitting it. For example, when you kick a flat football it will stop much quicker than if you were to kick a fully inflated football. | [
"BULLET::::- Quick Play- You pick the court and difficulty, the game automatically picks your opponent. This is a quick way to get into a Classic Tennis Match without having to sort through all the options.\n",
"This game requires two players, a referee and three playing sets. Each player sees only his own board,... |
how do the patterns on cows (or other animals with patterns on their skins) form? what determines their forms? | Following question: What determine our finger printing? | [
"The least dominant pattern is solid, which is essentially no pattern at all. Solid-patterned animals will simply show their base color all over. To be solid, a sheep must inherit the solid pattern from both parents – the parents could be solid themselves, or they could carry a solid allele hidden by another other ... |
why does water clean everything? | Water is a fantastic solvent. It is often called the universal solvent. | [
"Clean water is essential for hygiene, for consumption and for feeding programmes (for mixing with powdered therapeutic milk or porridge), as well as for preventing the spread of water-borne disease. As such, MSF water engineers and volunteers must create a source of clean water. This is usually achieved by modifyi... |
Continental Saxons and Anglo-Saxons? | I'll talk about questions 1, 2, and 3.
As for 4, well I think the answer's simply that the Anglo-Saxons no longer lived on the continent. They saw themselves as people who lived on *Englalond* and rightly so, because they'd been there for about 600 years at least. So even though they maintained strong ties and even sent out special missions to Christianize continental peoples out of fellow-feeling, they no longer saw the continent as their home.
Back to question 2: yes the languages were mutually intelligible. Old Saxon was a low German language, as was Old English, so the languages were very close to one another in grammar. This is because the source of the migration was the lowlands, where Holland, Denmark, and northern Germany are today. Here's what Baugh and Cable's *A History of the English Language* says about these language groups:
> In early times we distinguish as Low German tongues Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian, Old Frisian, and Old English... Old Saxon has become the essential constituent of modern Low German or Plattdeutsch; Old Low Franconian, with some mixture of Frisian and Saxon elements, is the basis of modern Dutch in the Netherlands, and Flemish in northern Belgium; and Frisian survives in the Netherland province of Friesland...
So they are very closely related languages and at least around the early to middle 9th century, we know they were mutually intelligible, and we can guess that they were probably intelligible for a decent amount of time after that. What we know comes from an interesting Old English poem called by modern editors *Genesis B*, which is a translation from Old Saxon into Old English. But it's not really a translation exactly; it's really more of a transliteration, since the meter and many of the idioms and some grammatical elements are not quite Old English in character, but more Old Saxon. It is clear that an Old English poet just wrote down a Saxon poem in his own dialect. It fits decently well enough, and if you can read Old English, you can read it but if you're very familiar with OE language and verse, you know there's something strange about the poem. The standard edition of *Genesis B* is a study called *The Saxon Genesis: An Edition of the West Saxon Genesis B and the Vatican Genesis*, which tells in detail the story of the discovery of this connection. One of my professors in grad school, AN Doane, edited it. The story is very interesting: the great scholar Eduard Sievers postulated the existence of an Old Saxon Genesis (which was mentioned in the Latin preface to the *Heliand*, the most important Old Saxon text), and it wasn't until the very end of the 19th century that the Vatican Genesis was discovered and the relationship revealed.
So this anglicized version of a Saxon poem tells us that the languages were mutually intelligible, and, maybe more importantly, that there was cultural exchange. But where was that cultural exchange centered? What kind of "community" of Saxons was there? The answer, as always in the Middle Ages, was that the community formed a little bit around Christianity and a little bit around political leadership, both of which were typically intertwined. The poems I was talking about above were conscious efforts to retell Christian stories in Old Saxon using traditional vernacular verse. It was also a part of a long battle between Charlemagne and the Saxons, after which the Saxons were subdued, and made to convert to Christianity. This was a common tactic at the time, and was spearheaded by the Carolingian kings who were basically forcing people in the countries I discussed above to convert. The great king Charlemagne had very close ties with the English, and England's best scholar, Alcuin of York, would become the head of the Palace School at Aachen, personally invited by Charlemagne. So the intellectual relationship between the Anglo-Saxon people and the Frankish court that held power in Old Saxon speaking countries was strong, and this is reflected in the sharing of the Genesis B poem. But the relationship was complicated, since Charlemagne forcibly subdued the Saxons and converted them, which was looked upon quite favorably by the Anglo-Saxons who were happy to see them converted, even if through violence, by Charlemagne, the champion of good governance and Christianity in Germany at the time.
This leads us directly to question 3: did Paganism survive? The answer is pretty much "no," but I guess it depends on how far you're willing to stretch the idea of the term paganism. Does referring to Woden in Alfred's official genealogy amount to paganism? What if Woden's just one in a long line of people who include biblical figures as well? Christianity absorbed, transformed, and sometimes didn't much change local traditional customs, including the religious customs we think of when we say paganism. All the texts we have started in a church somewhere, because that's where texts were produced and stored. So paganism as a practice didn't survive, but elements of old customs did. This is how you get the Germanic warrior Christ, or interlace pattern on a cross, or baptismal spoons from Byzantium in the Sutton Hoo ship burial. The cultures blended together.
By 1066, the English had spent about two hundred years modeling their kingship and ecclesiastical structure on the Frankish, Carolingian model. The Saxon people never had such an immensely powerful and influential political system and ecclesiastical structure like that, but that structure was active in the lands, even if under the control of another people, the Franks.
So would the Anglo-Saxons have a kind of fellow feeling and understanding that they came from the same place as the Saxons? Yes. But that relationship is filtered through hundreds of years of history by 1066 that dramatically altered the political, intellectual, and religious cultures of both peoples.
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"The Anglo-Saxons were the members of Germanic-speaking groups who migrated to the southern half of the island of Great Britain from nearby northwestern Europe and their cultural descendants. Anglo-Saxon history thus begins during the period of Sub-Roman Britain following the end of Roman control, and traces the es... |
can a us state declare independence? | It would require an act of Congress and the President to allow something like that, and they would never allow it.
The last time states tried this it started the Civil War, which was one of the bloodiest conflicts in US history. | [
"In a 15 January 2008 news release, the Republic of Lakotah proposed that independence from the United States might follow a Compact of Free Association and suggested that the independence process could resemble that of the Philippines, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia or the Marshall Islands.\n",
"A dec... |
why does benadryl feel stronger sometimes than others? | There's a few different potential reasons here. Let me break them down from simplest to most complex.
1: Alcohol can increase the drowsiness. If you've had something to drink a short while before, it will feel stronger.
2: Because you swallow the tablets, the Benadryl is absorbed through the stomach. If you've got an empty stomach, the concentration in the stomach will be higher. A higher concentration means faster absorption, and faster effects.
3: Antihistamines work by doing the opposite of what histamines do, rather than stopping the histamines. If you have more histamines already in your brain, the net effect will be less. This includes the drowsiness. | [
"Liniments are typically sold to relieve pain and stiffness, such as from sore muscular aches and strains, or arthritis. These are typically formulated from alcohol, acetone, or similar quickly evaporating solvents and contain counterirritant aromatic chemical compounds such as methyl salicilate, benzoin resin, men... |
why does coffee give me weird jittery anxiety, but other caffeinated drinks (such as tea or red bull) do not? | Do you for example, put sugar and cream in your coffee but drink sugar-free energy drinks? Sugar would do that. Tea also generally doesn't have a ton of caffiene, and as 12oz red bull has about the same caffiene as a cup of coffee (maybe a little more). So if you're drinking a couple cups of coffee instead of a single red bull, you're getting more caffiene. | [
"Coffee is darkly colored, bitter, slightly acidic and has a stimulating effect in humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is one of the most popular drinks in the world, and it can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways (e.g., espresso, French press, caffè latte). It is usually served hot, althou... |
why are spicy things generally red? | Capsaicin (the chemical usually responsible for 'spicyness') is produced by a specific group of peppers. The best known and most popular is the chili pepper, which is - you guessed it - red. But it's perfectly possible to make spicy foods that aren't. Immature peppers, for example, can be green or yellow. | [
"Off-flavours or off-flavors (see spelling differences) are taints in food products caused by the presence of undesirable compounds. They can originate in raw materials, from chemical changes during food processing and storage, and from micro-organisms. Off-flavours are a recurring issue in drinking water supply an... |
When did (working, busy) waking hours cease to be only light hours for humans? | Not at all within my area of expertise, but I have read the works of Schivelbusch - while he doesn't specifically go into different countries and such, he does show how there is a very close interplay between the invention of other light sources than the torch and flame, and the development of a night life per se (stores open at night, people outside enjoying themselves, work going on after darkness falls). This development then follows closely with new forms of light - electrical lights give rise to new forms of nightlife, such as the illuminated window in a store and so on.
Most interestingly and to actually try to answer your elaboration on the question below, Paris was illuminated in the sixteenth century, but that doesn't mean that a nightlife developed there as such - however that is how it started. Before that, the watchmen you mention were still patrolling the streets, but with a torch.
Interestingly, lighting the city was also a means of control for the government, something that Schivelbusch claims can be seen in that during the french revolution the rioters would smash the street lighting - as well as attempt to hang government officials from them, thus killing them in their own symbols. I have personally seen riots where people would smash the city lights for tactical reasons when fighting the police, but this hints at something more sinister and symbolic at play. It is really a great book :)
Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Disenchanted night: The industrialization of light in the nineteenth century. University of California Pr, 1995. | [
"In ancient and medieval cultures, the counting of hours generally started with sunrise. Before the widespread use of artificial light, societies were more concerned with the division between night and day, and daily routines often began when light was sufficient.\n",
"Early research into circadian rhythms sugges... |
How much of the aeroplanes in WWII were fitted with cameras ? | Are you referring to specifically reconnaissance aircraft or fighters with gun cameras? (not sure the latter existed at all in WWII)
Often times footage, if it exists, is only in hard copy form so perhaps if you have a specific locale you are interested in someone can direct you to who you can contact about seeing the film if it exists. | [
"The book \"BBC VFX\" (Mat Irvine and Mike Tucker) states that few First World War aircraft were still airworthy at the time of production so the majority of flying shots were achieved with 1/6 scale radio-controlled models under the guidance of long-time model aircraft expert David Boddington alongside Derek Piggo... |
What do we know about post traumatic stress in tribal societies? | According to a trauma class in grad school, some tribal societies had tribal grieving - when one person died, it wasn't just the problem of the immediate family, the entire tribe felt it and grieved as a group, which led to better results. Unfortunately I don't have the details on where this information came from.
The second aspect is more broad, which is that some part of developing or not developing PTSD is culture based. What a person understands as horrifying or traumatic or shocking can change from culture to culture, which can affect what specifically results in PTSD. If something is a sanctioned cultural act, it is less likely to cause trauma than if it is an explicit taboo, or if there is severe shame or guilt attached - something like cannibalism or human sacrifice could be an example. In a culture where that is celebrated or accepted, the rates of PTSD would potentially be lower or potentially non-existent for participants or observers for whom this is a cultural tradition.
A couple papers that look at the concept of the PTSD process are *A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder* (2000) and *In Culture and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A Proposed Conceptual Framework* (2012). The basic concept is that the interpretation and processing of the memory is what causes PTSD: "The interaction between the characteristics of the event and the processes of remembering determine whether PTSD will follow; the symptoms derive from the memory, not from the event." Apparently part of the PTSD process is the interpretation or appraisal of the memory vis a vis the person's life experience up to that point, and that life experience is influenced by culture, cultural experience, and cultural expectation.
So, potentially particular cultural or tribal grieving or coping processes could help mediate the trauma, but also the culture itself may dictate what is and what is not a "traumatic" event. At the same time, every individual is different, so there are no guarantees one way or the other who develops PTSD and who doesn't, regardless of societal coping mechanisms or cultural experience. And some things are universally traumatic, like being mauled by a bear, there are a lot of variables to account for. | [
"Historical trauma is described as collective emotional and psychological damage caused by traumatic events in a person’s lifetime and across multiple generations according to Dr. Laurelle Myhra, an expert on Native American mental health. Native Americans experience historical trauma through the effects of coloniz... |
why is oversleeping even possible? shouldn't your body wake itself up once it has gotten enough rest? | Back before the invention of artifical lighting, we had sunrise and sunset to tell us when we needed to be asleep and awake. Our bodies evolved to react to those cues, with a chemical in our brain that makes us sleepy but only when it is dark (melatonin). This chemical works along with other systems to give our sleeping times a natural rhythm (the circadian rhythm). Added to that is the natural rhythm of the wildlife around us, with different and more muffled sounds at night, and birdsong in the morning. Lots of cues from the environment that your body will get used to over time.
In the modern life we have artificial lighting and artificial stimulants that interfere with melatonin and the other ways that our sleeping rhythm is regulated. We often live cut off from nature so we don't get as many cues from our environment. Instead we regulate our sleep with alarms, which wrench you from sleep often when your body isn't ready for it at all.
And then there's all the psychological reasons we find getting up hard. The alarm often signifies time to get up and do something we don't particularly want to do. We associate it with displeasure of rude awakenings to unpleasant mornings. So we tend to fight against it, rebel against this machine telling us what to do. | [
"Nocturia is a symptom where the person complains of interrupted sleep because of an urge to void and, like the urinary frequency component, is affected by similar lifestyle and medical factors. Individual waking events are not considered abnormal, one study in Finland established two or more voids per night as aff... |
How does a body "digest" a tumor if it dies? | There are two main ways that tissues are absorbed. One is where they die by apoptosis, programmed cell death. In that case the cells themselves take care of their own dismemberment into basic chemicals and cellular fragments. The other is by necrosis and this is a much dirtier process, attracting macrophages and generating reactive oxygen species and potentially an inflammatory response. Eventually all of the cellular fragments are engulfed by macrophages and disposed of. | [
"As the tumor grows it may project outside the bowel (exophytic growth) and/or inside the bowel (intraluminal growth), but they most commonly grow exophytically such that the bulk of the tumor projects into the abdominal cavity. If the tumor outstrips its blood supply, it can necrose internally, creating a central ... |
why did "window duplication" happen on older pc systems when programs got frozen? | The screen back then was a frame buffer so when a window was displayed it was stored as pixels in it. The result is that the hidden part of a window or desktop is not stored when not visible. This was done because of the low amount of memory you had in the system compared to the amount needed to store the display information.
If you had a window and move it was back then the window or desktop behind it that har to redraw the now displayed space.
So when you move a window it gets copied or I supposed redrawn when you move it and multiple copies are created. The OS then call the window or the part of the OS responsible for the desktop and tell it to redraw its a window. If the redraw does not happen fast enough you get a trail all drawn copies of the current window when you move it
Today you draw it to a buffer that all the time or what a window is supposed to contain. The OS then uses features of the graphics card and mixes them all together so when it behind a window is always stored and can directly be displayed with help of hardware acceleration in the graphics card. this makes semitransparent windows possible in a way it was not in the past.
If you have a monitor that is 1024x768 and 16 million colors you use 1024\*768\*3/1024/1024=2.24 megabyte for a buffer for the display. It does not sound a lot today but windows 95 had a min requirement of 4 MB and 8 MB was recommended. So to store visual information of each window was problematic because of the low amount of system memory
Today with a 1080P display you only need 6MB for a complete screen. But memory today are in most cases 1000x larger than back in the win 95 days. So the windows design changes when computer have enough memory to store what is needed. | [
"An important problem was that of the single input queue: a non-responsive application could block the processing of user-interface messages, thus freezing the graphical interface. This problem has been solved in Windows NT, where such an application would just become a dead rectangle on the screen; in later versio... |
Technocracy: a form of government in which experts (such as economists, engineers, and scientists) would be in control of all decision making. What's the closest example of a technocracy in the real world, and what are/were the outcomes of this form of government? | You're misunderstanding two crucial components of technocracy. The first is that "experts" is a misnomer. Technocracy eliminates election and instead uses promotion as a mechanism into power. Sociologically, the Peter Principle applies where people will be promoted to their level of ineffectiveness. And, as we know, people who are promoted to positions of power in business often are just as corrupt as a political structure they would seek to replace, such as in the housing bubble.
The second is the concept of currency in technocracy. Technocracy attempts to eliminate scarcity and base currency entirely off energy as a means of production. I don't think you'll find very many economists who would sign on to a planned economy.
It isn't technically possible in the modern world. A technocracy would require cheap access to raw materials, an incredible level of automation, and a continuous supply of renewable energy.
I'm not an expert in the field. Just a science fiction author (two of the factions in my novel are functioning technocracies). | [
"Technocracy is a proposed system of governance in which decision-makers are selected on the basis of their expertise in a given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge. This system explicitly contrasts with the notion that elected representatives should be the primary ... |
auditing the federal reserve | > Don't we already get transcripts 5 years later?
More than that. The fed is audited: internally, by the GAO, and by an outside firm, usually ~annually.
On top of that, the head of the Fed reports directly to Congress bi-annually.
You can access those here:
_URL_0_
The transcripts are just things like FOMC meetings. The audits include all of their financial assets etc.
> Is it just for conspiracy theorists?
There's 3 people who want to "audit the Fed": conspiracy theorists, regular people who don't understand how the Fed works (unfortunately, the way it's set up makes it look shady to the average person), and people in Congress who want more direct control.
> Would the Federal Reserve be politicized by congress?
Yes, almost definitely, which is why it was created (mostly) independent in the first place, to avoid those pressures. The current audit the fed movement is by people who want more politicization (currently, it tends to be people who disliked/distrusted the Fed's "easymoney" response to the 2008 crisis) | [
"The Federal Banking Agency Audit Act, enacted in 1978 as Public Law 95-320 and 31 U.S.C. section 714 establish that the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Reserve banks may be audited by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).\n",
"The Federal Reserve Banks conduct ongoing inter... |
How did colonial institutions reinforce social injustice in Latin America? | I've written a bit on miscegenation in colonial Peru [here](_URL_0_). I'd welcome any further questions on that.
This is a huge topic though, so are there any particular regions or topics you were interested in? | [
"The Dominican colonial elite, on the other hand, had suffered substantially from the effects of the Haitian Revolution and did not recover. The ruling elite of the time lamented that they had been abandoned by Spain—little economic aid was invested in the island, the only money the royal government sent to the isl... |
why is there much talk about building human colonies in space (i.e. moon, mars), but no talk about building in earth's oceans, which is seemingly easier? | Building colonies in space or on other bodies in space would actually be easier in a lot of ways than building in the ocean. Pressure is the big one here; past a certain point and we just don't have the materials or science to manage it.
Fewer people have visited the bottom of the Challenger Deep than have walked on the moon. | [
"Permanent human habitation on a planetary body other than the Earth is one of science fiction's most prevalent themes. As technology has advanced, and concerns about the future of humanity on Earth have increased, the vision of space colonization as an achievable and worthwhile goal has gained momentum. Because of... |
"a little water just came out of my nose" Why does it hurt? Its just water! | I'm not at all sure of what the responses might be, but I know that a similar pain occurs in users of Neti Pots if they use pure water instead of saline.
So speculatively, I'd theorize that it might be tied to cellular damage caused by hypotonic swelling and cytolysis. The interior (cytoplasm) of cells is saltier than pure water and remains so by preventing the transition of ions across the cell membrane. This causes tonic pressure which draws water into the cell (water *is* able to cross the cell membrane) to equalize the salinity on either side. Of course, cells can only grow so large before stressing the membrane or even causing tears, killing the cell.
This occurs whenever an animal cell is exposed to hypotonic solutions (solutions less salty than the cell cytoplasm). Furthermore, cells that split open like this (lyse) release all their contents including signaling chemicals which normally are never released into extra-cellular spaces. Pain-signaling neurons can be sensitive to chemical signals such as these.
---
This explanation depends upon the tissues in your nasal cavity being directly exposed to the water (which seems likely since it's rare that pure water would get up there) and that there are cytokine-sensitive nociceptor (pain) neurons up there.
---
In any case, even if I'm wrong, it's useful to know that "just water" can actually be pretty damaging to your body! This is, for instance, part of why IVs are carefully controlled. If you dumped a large amount of tonically unbalanced fluid into someone's body it would wreak havoc on their cells. | [
"The water should not be tap water, which may contain small amounts of bacteria that are safe to drink but may be dangerous in the nose. The water should be sterile or filtered for micro-organisms; if tap water is used it should be boiled. Saline solution is also sometimes used.\n",
"Crahan explained that the sme... |
what does it take for a war to become a world war, and why isn't the current war against isis and other groups in syria a world war? there are so many countries involved. | I would have to say it has to do with the fact that
A) Isis isn't a country
B) no one is aligned with isis | [
"On 1 February 2015, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari declared that the War on ISIL was effectively \"World War III\", due to ISIL's declaration of a Worldwide Caliphate, its aims to conquer the world, and its success in spreading the conflict to multiple countries outside of the Levant region. \n",
"On ... |
currency invention | Why is gold valuable?
It’s not because it’s shiny. Fool’s gold is shiny too. What makes gold valuable (aside from being pretty and a good conductor) is that it’s a good currency. So what makes it a good currency?
A good currency ought to represent the value it is a token of. So:
- a good currency is physically stable. Gold doesn’t decay like food.
- a good currency is hard to counterfeit. Gold is rare and fakes can easily be detected.
- perhaps less obviously, a good currency requires a fixed amount of work to produce. If I’m a young man in colonial Spain and you offer me 1 piece of gold a week to work your fields is that a good deal? Well, if I can go to the mountains or the colonies and dig up three pieces of gold a week, I’m not going to work your fields. Mining gives gold a fundamental value in terms of hours of human labor. Spending that time working allows us to imbue the gold with value because that’s what it took to get it.
- good currency is easy to trade. Gold is heavy and kind of hard to break into small parts. This is why gold got replaced by hard to forge notes (paper money).
Bitcoin is digital gold.
- bitcoin is physically stable. Your account is just your knowledge of the password. As long as there is internet, it won’t rot.
- bitcoin is hard to counterfeit. It relies on consensus of everyone participating. Really clever cryptography makes it basically impossible to forge bitcoin.
- bitcoin requires a fixed amount of *computer* work to produce. It costs computational power and electricity to “mine” a new bitcoin. Your computer has to solve hard math problems to do it and each hard math problem solved makes bitcoin more secure. That means there is fundamental computational value stored in it the same way gold represents human labor put into mining rather than farming. If bitcoin becomes less valuable, those computers can be put toward rendering for Pixar movies or computing chemical models for drug development. But mining pays more so they mine.
- bitcoin is (supposed to be) easier to trade online than gold because gold is not electronic and has to be physically moved around at some point. In a digital world, bitcoin is a digital version of gold.
Ultimately, what makes something valuable is that people value it. Bitcoin has the properties of gold but with many of them better for today’s world. The question is, how much will people recognize and utilize that value? How much do people understand or trust that value is there and will be long term? And how many people can actually use bitcoin? | [
"Currency was introduced as a standardised money to facilitate a wider exchange of goods and services. This first stage of currency, where metals were used to represent stored value, and symbols to represent commodities, formed the basis of trade in the Fertile Crescent for over 1500 years.\n",
"The ruble is the ... |
is it possible to have a heavy element to have the same amount of neutrons as protons and would it be stable? | > I've noticed the further up in the periodic table the more neutrons an element has.
Yes. [This plot](_URL_0_) shows the stability regions for stable isotopes. As the elements get heavier, there are more neutrons required.
Hunting and pecking I found an isotope of Xenon which had the same number of protons and neutrons (54 each). It had a half-life of a few microseconds. I couldn't find anything heavier than that. | [
"Also because of the short range of the strong binding force, large stable nuclei must contain proportionally more neutrons than do the lightest elements, which are most stable with a 1 to 1 ratio of protons and neutrons. Nuclei which have more than 20 protons cannot be stable unless they have more than an equal nu... |
Do we know the names of any ordinary people from Ancient Egypt? | We do actually.
_URL_1_
"The People
Since the reigns of Ramesses II and his successors there comes a wealth of evidence in the form of ostraca, papyri, stelae and tomb inscriptions, which tell the names of the workmen and their wives and children, even the houses of individual families. At the beginning of the 19th Dynasty, one of the foremen was named Kaha, son of a chief carpenter and possibly son-in-law of the preceding foreman. Kaha and his family held on to the post with minor interruptions until the end of the 20th Dynasty.
The other gangs foreman was Neferhotep, when the available records began, and he held the post under Horemheb, Seti I, and Ramesses II. He was succeeded by his son Nebnufer, who in turn was succeeded by his son, Neferhotep the younger, who held office for the last half of the reign of Ramesses II, through the reign of Merneptah, and into the reign of Seti II. The tomb of Neferhotep is by far the largest and most splendid in the workmens necropolis. It was Neferhotep who adopted Paneb, mentioned earlier who was even accused of trying to kill Neferhotep.
Neferhotep was not killed by his protg; his brother Amennakhte reported that the enemy killed Neferhotep. It is felt certain that this phrase refers to a civil war which broke out in Egypt between Pharaoh Seti II and the usurper Amenmesse, who controlled Thebes for several years. Neferhotep seems to have been killed just before Thebes fell to the forces of Seti II. Paneb bribed the vizier of Seti II to win the succeeding appointment as foreman, but he eventually met justice, at which point foreman of the right was filled by the family of Nekhemmut, and it remained there for most of the 20th Dynasty.
Read more: _URL_0_
"
Looks like they had names similar to royalty. | [
"This is a list of ancient Egyptian people who have articles on Wikipedia. The list covers key ancient Egyptian individuals from the start of the first dynasty until the end of the ancient Egyptian nation when the Ptolemaic Dynasty ended and Egypt became a province of Rome in 30 BC.\n",
"The beings in ancient Egy... |
did the japanese ever portray nazis in manga? | In what sense do you mean? If you mean has it ever been done at all? Then yes I can pick one off my shelf that does. Black Lagoon in this case has a story arc involving Nazi artifacts and flashes back to WW2 for it. I can remember several others off the top of my head and they all treat Nazis similar to Western depictions, that is when not farcical as being generally evil.
Osamu Tezuka(the "father" of modern manga) also did a series called Adolf that is set in Nazi Germany. This was made in the 80s. There was also an anime adaption of Anne Frank's diary released in the late 70s.
So to your question as phrased the answer is yes, quite a bit as it happens. But perhaps you were asking about a more specific time period or about Japanese attitudes towards Nazis, in which case I suggest resubmitting with less.broad phrasing so that someone with expertise on Japanese culture might be tempted into answering. | [
"American media portrayed the Japanese negatively as well. While attacks on Germans were generally focused on high-level Nazi officials such as Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, and Göring, the Japanese were targeted more broadly. Portrayals of the Japanese ranged from showing them being vicious and feral, as on the cover... |
how to rubix cube world records work? | They are scrambled randomly. There is a minimum number of turns (turning one way, and then back doesn't count. Turning one way once, and the same way again once more only counts for 1) that I don't remember. Once you get that many (I think it's 7 or some other surprisingly small number) it's considered sufficiently random. Also, clearly you wouldn't be randomizing it for your own world record attempt, since it would be too easy to simply reverse your turns. | [
"Ron van Bruchem has held official world records for solving the Rubik's Cube (9.55 seconds) set at the Dutch Nationals 2007 (lost 2008), the 5x5x5 cube in 2006 (1:47.22 min) set at Belgian Open 2006 (lost 2006), and 2x2x2 cube (2.65 seconds) set at UK Open 2007 (lost 2008).\n",
"Yu held the former world record f... |
how can one drop of poison kill so many people | The potency of the poison depends on how strongly it binds to its target, how large the molecule is and what the target is.
For instance, ricin prevents cells producing proteins. This process is essential for cellular function. Botulinum prevents a neurotransmitter, which is responsible for muscle movement, being released. Muscle movement is important for breathing and preventing this is dangerous. Paracetamol is significantly less toxic and causes death by liver failure, this happens because it's metabolites cause depletion of a particular protein. Toxic levels only come with a relatively high dose.
Some drugs bind really strongly to their targets, for example LSD is extremely potent when compared to a similar drug, mescaline. Both drugs bind to similar targets but have different potencies.
The size of the molecule alters how many molecules make up a drop, a minor difference but important when comparing doses.
I hope that this helps. | [
"OPs are one of the most common causes of poisoning worldwide. There are nearly 3 million poisonings per year resulting in two hundred thousand deaths. Around 15% of people who are poisoned die as a result. Organophosphate poisoning has been reported at least since 1962.\n",
"It is probable that less than five mi... |
why is google (online search) such a great spell checker whereas my inbuilt spell checkers in ios, or even android is so rubbish in suggesting the right spelling? why can't they integrate both? | I would assume Google is a much better spell checker because it draws on the almost limitless amount of words on the Internet and recognizes phrases and sentence structure better then petty android or ios spell checkers.
They most likely won't integrate because they don't want to release their amazing technology.
(If your company made a car that runs on air you wouldn't go around telling every other company to use your new design, you would patent it and bathe in money) | [
"Another example is Google's use of spell checking on searches performed through their search engine. The spell checking minimises the problems caused by incorrect spelling by not only highlighting the error to the user, but by also providing a link to search using the correct spelling instead. Searches like this a... |
why are the clips on all car seat belts different to clips on all airlines? | While the red button is easier to push, there is less room for mechanical error with the lift the flap method, which means less maintenance. | [
"In the United States, the Legacy was introduced with automatic seat belts due to United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regulations stating that all cars produced from April 1, 1989 were to be equipped with a passive front passenger restraint system that would protect front occupants ... |
what is bank fraud? | Intentionally doing something to defraud a bank and get money you dont own.
Simplest easy to execute example:
If you have 3 bank accounts and you are broke.
Today is the 12th. You know you get paid on the 15th and will have money but you need $100 to get by till payday. You go to bank one and cash a check *(written from bank two) for $100. Boom now you have $100 but theres an inbound check going to bank 2 in 2 days and u have no money in that account.
On the 13th - you go to bank three and cash a check for $100. Then you take that $100 and put it in bank 2.
Now on the 14th - the original check is processed thru bank 2 and it doesnt bounce because you had money in the account. But you gotta look out because the $100 check from bank 3 will got thru tonight or tomorrow. So now you go to bank two and cash a check from bank 1 and put that money in bank 3 to cover the inbound check
Boom. You just borrowed $100 for 3 or 4 days without paying any bounced check fees.
And you just committed bank fraud.
Thats a very simple example. I knew a guy 15 yrs ago - he constantly had between $1500 to 2000 in bad checks floating from 4 different banks constantly. He made more trips to the bank than Any person i ever met. Im talking at least 2-3 trips to different banks every day. And always to different banks. Finally i asked him and he explained it all to me. Pretty crazy.
And there are plenty of individuals and companies who do this type of thing on a much larger scale. I'm talking hundreds of thousands of bucks floating with money they dont have.
And theres other examples that just one thats easy to explain. | [
"Bank fraud is the use of potentially illegal means to obtain money, assets, or other property owned or held by a financial institution, or to obtain money from depositors by fraudulently posing as a bank or other financial institution. In many instances, bank fraud is a criminal offence. While the specific element... |
Why is it that alloying one metal (copper) with another metal that is softer (tin) creates a product (bronze) that is harder than copper, not softer? Is there something about the process of alloying itself that creates hardness? | Metals like gold and copper are soft when pure because the regular arrangement of their crystal lattice allows them to slide easily over each other.
The alloying distorts the regular arrangements of atoms. This makes it more difficult for the layers to slide over each other, so alloys are harder than the pure metal. This is also what makes Gold significantly stronger when you add a small amount of another metal. | [
"Tin and copper are relatively soft metals that will deform on striking (though tin to a lesser extent than copper), but alloying creates a metal which is harder and less ductile and also one with more elasticity than one of the metals alone. This metal combination produces a tough, long-wearing material that is re... |
how are different marijuana strains made? | Marijuana is a flowering plant. To make seeds you need to take pollen from a male plant and put it in a female plant which you allow to grow to seed. Those seeds have a mixture of the DNA from both parents.
Like other flowering plants, you can mix and match how you move the pollen to get a wide variety of hybrids. | [
"Research has shown that \"Humulus lupulus\" (the plant that makes hops) and \"Cannabis sativa\" (also called hemp and marijuana) are closely related and it may be possible to create novel strains of hops that express valuable chemicals similar to commercial hemp. Both hops and cannabis contain terpenes and terpeno... |
Terms like the Dark Ages are now considered outdated. What’s the general ‘catch all’ term for that period now? Or have the periods been thoroughly broken up? | Your question gets at an important problem that the field has been struggling with, well since always. If these are the "Middle Ages" or the "Dark Ages" they clearly have to be contrasted with something. Middle Ages implies a beginning and continuation, usually "Classical" (or Ancient) and then "Modern". "Dark Ages" implies that the light has gone out, therefore the light had to come from somewhere, and presumably be recreated. But these divisions are a legacy of what essentially amounts to angsty poets complaining that they were born in the wrong century, looking at you Petrarch. The long and short is that Petrarch decided his own time period, the 14th century, was a degraded and regressive time in history from the lofty heights of Classical Rome. He got the ball rolling on this and much of western civilization in the following centuries has decided to more or less agree with him.
So what would be a better term/way to phrase this time period? First there's the issue of even determining when the Middle Ages/Dark Ages were. I personally am rather traditionally inclined and am content to roll with 467-1453, or 500-1500 if you want nice even numbers, but other historians I've talked with also use the Rise of Islam in the 600's as a starting point or the acceptance of Christianity as the official religion in the Roman Empire and go until the Council of Trent in the mid 1500's, or the Reformation, or the Columbian Exchange. Each of these can have a case made for it. You can then subdivide ad-nauseum. You've got the Early Middle Ages, the High Middle Ages, the Crusading Period, the Viking Age, and so on. These periods often can even overlap with each other. However few of these would really reach a broader audience and that's fine, sadly not everyone can be an expert in Medieval history.
Really, this depends a great deal on context and audience. A lay, non-expert, audience probably would use Dark Ages, Middle Ages, and Medieval interchangeably and I wouldn't get flustered about it, we all start somewhere. I personally usually opt for Medieval Period/History over the Dark Ages or Middle Ages as I think it sounds slightly less pejorative (even though it means, well the Middle Ages). Historians in other fields might also continue to use this terminology. However for people within the field itself, it can get fairly nitpicky. | [
"The \"Dark Ages\" is a historical periodization traditionally referring to the Middle Ages, that asserts that a demographic, cultural, and economic deterioration occurred in Western Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire.\n",
"Most modern historians do not use the term \"dark ages\", preferring terms s... |
please can someone translate this in layman's terms? (an excerpt from an academic journal) | Basically:
They collected headlines from articles using some sort of software. This collection took place all of 2013. They did this to A) develop a model of what types of headlines are being created, B) analyze the words in the headlines, and C) find out the words that were used most frequently. They hope to be able to use this data to be able to better analyze a larger set of data and make an even bigger, even better model. | [
"BULLET::::- The author generally follows up the narration with a short, scholarly discussion about the chain of narrators (sanad) and the Text (matn). He pays meticulous attention to the wording of the Text, to the degree that he makes sure to distinguish the short vowels of a word (in an undiacriticized Text) tha... |
why do some greenscreens look painfully obvious and lower quality than others? | A myriad of reasons ranging from a poor camera setup and staging/lighting of the green screen plates to limitations of the vfx software/compositor skills in pulling a decent key of the foreground object. There are relighting/edge blending issues that also have to be addressed when combining the foreground fill/matte and background plates to achieve a high-quality result. | [
"Another challenge for bluescreen or greenscreen is proper camera exposure. Underexposing or overexposing a colored backdrop can lead to poor saturation levels. In the case of video cameras, underexposed images can contain high amounts of noise, as well. The background must be bright enough to allow the camera to c... |
does rogaine work, and if so, how? | Interesting story. Science isn't perfectly clear on the why/how.
Minoxidil (Rogain) is a [edit: *anti*hypertensive] ~~hypetensive~~ (high blood pressure) drug, and they discovered the hair growth as a side effect of prescribing it for high blood pressure. They think that maybe the drug widens blood vessels and opening potassium channels which allows more oxygen, blood, and nutrients to the hair follicles. And, yes it often does work, for Male Pattern Baldness, especially in younger men who have only begun to show the balding pattern. If you've been bald for a long time it doesn't work as well (or maybe not at all).
also, as an interesting side fact, in even small quantities, it's FATAL to cats. | [
"Ascorbyl stearate (CHO) is an ester formed from ascorbic acid and stearic acid. In addition to its use as a source of vitamin C, it is used as an antioxidant food additive in margarine (E number E305). The USDA limits its use to 0.02% individually or in conjunction with other antioxidants.\n",
"The Steane code i... |
can you explain me why or why not we should refrain from killing spiders in one's house? | More spiders, less other bugs? At least, that’s what I tell myself when I’m too wimpy to squish the 8 legged demon spawns. | [
"These spiders' wandering nature is another reason they are considered so dangerous. In densely populated areas, \"Phoneutria\" species usually search for cover and dark places to hide during daytime, leading it to hide in houses, clothes, cars, boots, boxes and log piles, where they may bite if accidentally distur... |
how this scientists draw the conclusion that the universe will one day 'collapse on itself', why can't it grow forever? | That's no longer scientific consensus. Originally, we thought the big bang flung everything apart, but eventually the energy would be dissipated and gravity would slowly pull everything back together.
We've since discovered that the universe is expanding even faster than it was before. We don't know why, but we call the effect responsible dark energy.
Some scientists think rather than collapsing, this dark energy will tear the universe apart. | [
"In a closed universe, gravity eventually stops the expansion of the universe, after which it starts to contract until all matter in the universe collapses to a point, a final singularity termed the \"Big Crunch\", the opposite of the Big Bang. Some new modern theories assume the universe may have a significant amo... |
how did people not question all of the words shakespeare came up with? | It is unlikely that Shakespeare made up words out of nowhere. He recorded words known at the time, invented basic words by combining others in ways that would be easily understood. What he did invent was *phrases*, and those could be understood in context because they were metaphors or were parts of the play | [
"As noted in the authors' preface, \"[Shakespeare's] words are used whenever it seemed possible to bring them in; and in whatever has been added to give them the regular form of a connected story, diligent care has been taken to select such words as might least interrupt the effect of the beautiful English tongue i... |
what do antidepressants do for people who are not depressed? | Not much. An anti-depressant is more of a brain chemical regulator, putting things in proper order. Taking one doesn't make you happy, it just makes you capable of experiencing a normal range of emotions. Most studies on this indicate that mainly you'd get the various side effects of the medication, and some medicines may influence social anxiety either positively or negatively. | [
"For depression, if an antidepressant is prescribed, \"extra attentiveness must be given\" by the prescribing clinician due its risk for long-term mood cycle acceleration (that is, inducing more frequent episodes of depression per unit of time) and medication-induced psychosis or mania. For individuals who show eme... |
Other than the Iliad, are there any other sources regarding Troy? | Well, there are remains of a city called Ilion and/or Troy in northwest Anatolia; however, that doesn't necessarily make that place "the" Troy of legend or the one in the Iliad. [This older post](_URL_0_) goes into detail about it. | [
"Besides the \"Iliad\", there are references to Troy in the other major work attributed to Homer, the \"Odyssey\", as well as in other ancient Greek literature (such as Aeschylus's Oresteia). The Homeric legend of Troy was elaborated by the Roman poet Virgil in his \"Aeneid\". The Greeks and Romans took for a fact ... |
how does an international debit/credit transaction work? | There are 5 parties in any card transaction: the purchaser, the issuing bank (the bank who issues the purchasers card), the payment network (Visa, MasterCard, etc.), the merchant's bank, and the merchant.
The merchant and the purchaser approve the transaction.
The point-of-sale system, using the payment network, sends a request for money to the issuing bank.
The issuing bank then sends money to the acquiring bank. The banks take care of any currency conversion and the issuing bank decides on the exchange rate/fees | [
"To set up payments by Direct Debit, the payer must complete a Direct Debit Instruction to the merchant. This instruction contains bank-approved wording that makes it clear the payer is setting up an ongoing authority for the merchant to debit their account. The interface for completing the Direct Debit Instruction... |
Does the body absorb water through the skin while swimming for example. | Yes, however it's important to realize that the skin is a more complicated barrier than say, rubber. The skin is made up of multiple layers, so while the skin can become more hydrated than normal (this doesn't mean wrinkly -- that's a nervous system response that is likely caused by electrolyte changes in the skin due to the increased skin hydration) upon coming out of the water, the water will begin to evaporate. This is not full absorption as the substance hasn't actually passed through the skin, it's still in the skin.
Chemicals that are more likely to be absorbed have no electrostatic charge, low molecular weights, and are fat soluble. Water doesn't fit this profile. That said, there may be a trace amount of water that makes it through the skin (especially through the sweat pores), but not enough to notice. Otherwise you'd swell in the bathwater and desiccate in the Dead Sea. You'd also be at a significantly higher risk of infection from bacteria/fungi/viruses (although these all can be absorbed in certain circumstances.) | [
"The ability of the skin to hold water is primarily due to the stratum corneum and is critical for maintaining healthy skin. Lipids arranged through a gradient and in an organized manner between the cells of the stratum corneum form a barrier to transepidermal water loss.\n",
"BULLET::::7. Water resistance: The s... |
what is a military security clearance in the us, why is it beneficial to potential employees, and how do you get it? | Ok. Security clearance have various levels. It’s basically you being investigated for all aspects to determine who you are, how trustworthy you are and whether there is something you did that’s a warning sign. For instance if you have bad credit and a lot of debt, someone might bribe you with money to get you to steal some information that might seem harmless to you, while those people gather whole bunch of data to gather important intelligence. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a security clearance if you are in debt. If you show them what you are doing to take care of it and your plan to work on it, then you are fine. If you try to lie about it, then they know you aren’t trustworthy to begin with. Say you have mental illness. They want to see based on your records if you are taking care of it.
So they check your family members, your health records, your financial background, who lives with you and so on. Depending on the level of clearance you are trying to attain it changes how in-depth the investigation is.
Once you obtain a clearance you become more marketable to the government contractors, because that means they don’t have to spend the money and the time to investigate you. In order to start the process you have to be an employee of theirs. If the job is clearance required, you can’t access the classified location or the information. That means they have to pay you while you can’t do work. If you can’t do work they can’t bill the government, which means you are hitting their overhead. When it comes to investigation you never know how long it will take. It all depends on the individual and what’s in their background. I was lucky to attain mine within 2 weeks. There are people who go months and months and even lose their job over it.
Government works on need to know basis. They will classified everything for different levels of access. So they ask their contractors to bring in say top secret staff. Sometimes in order to bid they have to already have the staff or they have so many days to fill the positions. Finding a qualified candidate for the job that’s also cleared is a difficult task. They still prefer to hire people who is already cleared though instead of finding someone and paying for the investigation.
I highly recommend getting a job that’s looking for clearable people. All that means is you don’t have complicated situations and it won’t take too long to investigate you. In reality nobody really knows though. Once you attain your secret level you are automatically worth more money. Then, you could go for Top Secret. Then, Top Secret with polygraph or with SCI. These aren’t the only ones and there many little types within I think but you could guarantee these are the ones you will see most.
Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions. | [
"Security clearance levels often appear in employment postings for Defense related jobs, and other jobs involving substantial amounts of responsibility, such as air traffic control or nuclear energy positions. Employers generally prefer to hire people who are already cleared to access classified information at the ... |
what does it mean if your sample size is smaller than your margin of error? | It doesn't mean anything. They're two different numbers that aren't really related; the sample size is the size of your sample, while the margin of error shows you the range of possible results for the entire population. | [
"As an example of the above, a random sample of size 400 will give a margin of error, at a 95% confidence level, of 0.98/20 or 0.049 - just under 5%. A random sample of size 1600 will give a margin of error of 0.98/40, or 0.0245 - just under 2.5%. A random sample of size 10,000 will give a margin of error at the 95... |
What would it take for an aircraft carrier to fly? | Wired actually calculated this for you:
_URL_0_ | [
"These carriers had hangars for storing and maintaining the aircraft, but no flight deck as in a true aircraft carrier. Instead, they used cranes to lower the aircraft into the sea for takeoff and to recover them after landing. The ships were normally converted merchant vessels rather than specially constructed for... |
How did the USSR obtain nuclear weapons in the first place? | You seem to have two different questions in here. One is the title one. The answer is: despite their ravaging by the war, after Hiroshima, Stalin made creating an atomic bomb a top priority. The project (headed by Beria, who also ran the secret police and the Gulag system) was able to take as much as it needed to succeed. It was an incredibly difficult effort, had about the same number of people as the Manhattan Project (500-600,000 or so), and may (by some metrics) have cost more in terms of money. It had the advantage of knowing that an atomic bomb _could_ be made (something the Manhattan Project did not know for sure when it began) and, through both espionage and published information, had some idea of the ways that the Americans had pulled it off (though, as I [discussed in a recent thread](_URL_0_), they didn't apply that espionage data very efficiently, because they didn't entirely trust it).
In the end it took them about 4 years to get a bomb from committing to building one (the Manhattan Project was about 2.5 years), which is pretty good time. The main bottleneck for the timing was acquiring the raw materials, specifically the thousands of tons of uranium ore necessary.
Your second question is that of the surprise. In 1945, the most common estimates as to when the USSR would be able to produce a bomb put the lowest date at 5 years. This was not particularly informed — it was something of a blind guess based on assumptions about Soviet scientific and industrial capabilities, with the knowledge that known uranium resources in the USSR were pretty scant. The US had enough foresight to set up an airborne monitoring program in 1949 that "sniffed" the air at the borders of the USSR, looking for tell-tale signs (radioactive isotopes) of an atomic bomb. In September 1949, they found them.
Was it a surprise? For some, sure. President Truman thought the Soviets would never get a bomb (and he never really believed they had set one off, either! As late as 1953 he thought it was a reactor that blew up, never mind that the experts can tell the difference from the radioactive signatures). Some had thought it would take 15-20 years for them to get a bomb. Even those who thought it was 5 years — who were pretty close to being right, but off a year — generally did not update their "count." So in 1945, they said the USSR will have a bomb in 5 years; in 1946, in 5 years; in 1947, in 5 years; in 1948, in 5 years; in 1949... the Soviets were five years early! Well, no. They had been working on it the whole time, obviously.
The most common response to the initial reaction from experts was to say, well, we told you they'd get it eventually — this is within the range of their expectations. They did not attribute it to espionage (or "stealing" or getting the bomb "early") until after Klaus Fuchs was arrested, in February 1950. Then the narrative changed to one about the Soviets "stealing" the bomb and "saving" years on its development (though historians have found this is not quite as simple as that, as noted).
My favorite discussion of this very topic is in Michael Gordin's _Red Cloud at Dawn_, a lot of which is about the question of the US reaction to the detection of the first Soviet bomb test. | [
"The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon (\"RDS-1\") in 1949. This crash project was developed partially with information obtained via espionage during and after World War II. The Soviet Union was the second nation to have developed and tested a nuclear weapon. The direct motivation for Soviet weapons deve... |
how is it possible for ocean currents to shift or stop entirely? | See _URL_1_'s article on [*High-latitude volcanic eruptions affect ocean circulation for decades*](_URL_0_)
> But the volcanic event also brings long-term changes to two ocean circulation fronts: The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), and the El Niño–Southern oscillation (ENSO). In fact, the model demonstrated strong perturbations in these circulations for nearly a half-century following eruption. After a six-month weakening of AMOC, a progressive strengthening occurs, reaching its maximum around five to 10 years after the eruption, declining to a minimum at about 35 to 40 years after the eruption.
If I remember correctly, the devastating Mt. Tambora eruption of 1815 that caused the winter without a summer in 1816 due to the amount of dust in the atmosphere was also very near the Thermohaline Circulation as it flows between the islands of Indonesia. | [
"Surface currents flow at a 45° angle to the wind due to a balance between the Coriolis force and the drags generated by the wind and the water. If the ocean is divided vertically into thin layers, the magnitude of the velocity (the speed) decreases from a maximum at the surface until it dissipates. The direction a... |
why was new orleans spared during the civil war? | Spared how? The US Navy ran the forts and seized the city. The South never mounted a serious effort to retake it. However, maybe you should look up Benjamin “Beast” Butler. | [
"Early in the American Civil War New Orleans was captured by the Union without a battle in the city itself, and hence was spared the destruction suffered by many other cities of the American South. It retains a historical flavor with a wealth of 19th century structures far beyond the early colonial city boundaries ... |
Are there any accurate representations (Computer simulations, re-enactments etc.) of what specific battles/wars looked like from a participants or an overview perspective? | I'd wager your best bet is films. There is a section for historical accuracy in films in the FAQ, so it could be an idea to consult with that. Not all films there will be directly war-related, but I havent read trough the list myself, so you might find something of value.
The 1970 movie "Waterloo" offers a decent insight into Napoleonic Warfare, and whilst it does leave out or downplay some details, mainly the Prussian involvement in the battle, it does feature the main events of the battle in the correct order as they happened. | [
"\"War Picture Library\" was among the first war comic to use real dates, places, settings, battles and (occasionally) battalions to more accurately place the stories in the historical action, even if the stories themselves were fictional. This came about largely because so many of the (early) writers and artists h... |
doesn't it make more sense to spend than save, considering inflation is degrading the value of my savings year by year? | This is precisely why the Federal Reserve has targeted inflation in the first place. It punishes people who keep their assets in cash. They want money to keep moving because that's better for the national economy.
However, if rather than saving in a bank you invest the money in something like mutual funds it insulates you from inflation concerns. Because your assets aren't in "dollars" anymore if the value of the dollar falls your assets aren't affected. | [
"The book contains a mathematical study of savings rate and its impact on a person's ability to retire. With conventional personal finance advice, it is typically recommended to save 10–15% of income for retirement. With this savings rate, neglecting investment returns and compound interest, it takes between five a... |
when i touch a radio (specifically the antenna), signal comes in clearer | Amateur radio operator here... Its actually because you are helping further ground the antenna and thus, allowing it to work more efficiently.
Effectively grounding an antenna and radio system is a way to help eliminate noise ie. Static etc.
Your body doesn't act as an antenna, as your body isn't an efficient conductive mass. That's why antennas are made of metals and not body parts.
Edit for typo | [
"Although radio waves generally travel in a straight line, fog and even humidity can cause some of the signal in certain frequencies to scatter or bend before reaching the receiver. This means that objects that are clear of the line of sight path will still potentially block parts of the signal. To maximize signal ... |
why are dogs in general more friendly than cats? | they're more social animals. cats are solitary in nature. | [
"Being with other dogs makes them happier because they are bred to work well in a pack. However, its strong prey drive might make it dangerous for owners to have smaller pets with it, but if they meet each other in their early ages, it should be safe.\n",
"The cultural assumption that cats are distant from people... |
Can someone explain how heat works in regards molecules? | Pardon is the language is too simple - you never know who might read.
Often it's by direct collision, like two pool balls bouncing off each other, or bouncing off the rail of a pool table. This is what happens when gasses and liquids are involved - heat is just motion after all. But it can get complicated with solids.
The nucleus of atoms have electrons orbiting around them, but it's much more complex than the pictures we see of electrons orbiting in perfect little circles. In fact they travel in "clouds" which generally have strange shapes the stick out at odd angles with one or two electrons in each cloud. Not only that, but the clouds are kind of squishy, and other nearby atoms can distort their shape. This is because electrons are negatively charged and the nuclei of the atoms are positively charged. Since opposites attract, the negative electrons of nearby atoms can repel each other, but the positive nuclei at their cores attract them. Sometimes a chemical bond will form if the conditions are just right, and the atoms will share electrons. Some atoms like to take extra electrons from others while some like to give them away - much depends on what sort of molecule they are in - these oppositely charged atoms will attract each other. Some times the distortions of the electron clouds will cause nearby atoms or molecules to have a negative charge on one side and a positive charge on the opposite side.
All these interactions cause things like reactions, friction, adhesion (sticking), and many other cool things, and all of them help the atoms and molecules transfer their energy back and forth. Because of all this, the exact process depends on the material in question, but it always involves clouds of electrons pushing each other around by repulsion and attraction, and the nuclei just get dragged along in the process. | [
"On the other hand, a polyatomic gas molecule (consisting of two or more atoms bound together) can store heat energy in other forms besides its kinetic energy. These forms include rotation of the molecule, and vibration of the atoms relative to its center of mass.\n",
"The kinetic energy stored internally in mole... |
why does water increase grip for fingers on pages etc? | Okay, imagine you just spilled some coffee on a book. You know how it sort of spreads out from where it originally hit the page and winds up being like twice the size of the original stain? This is because of how water interacts with paper--it's called "hydrogen bonding", but all you need to know about that is that it's way stronger than almost any other kind of surface-surface interaction. Some things hydrogen bond, others don't. Paper does, human skin does a little, and rubber doesn't at all. So, when you lick your finger and then touch the page, the water is bonded to your finger, the page, and itself, which winds up effectively bonding all three together much better than just the finger and page alone. This leads to easier turning of pages.
Tires don't hydrogen bond at all; in fact, they actively repel it (think of how "waterproofed" things are often covered in rubber). This means that this bond does not exist, and the water actually gets in the way of the bond that normally exists between the tire and the road, leading to decreased grip. Hope that helps! | [
"However, near the bottom and outer edges the liquid is slowed by the friction against the cup. There the fictitious (inertial) centrifugal force is weaker and cannot overcome the pressure gradient, so these pressure differences become more important for the water flow within this boundary layer.\n",
"The arms en... |
Can anyone provide a rundown or good resource for a rundown of all of the duties and jobs aboard ships during the golden age of piracy? | Oh boy, let's see. Just a warning, I'm in class and on Mobile so I'll edit this when I have actual resources. Just going off memory right now.
There was obviously a Captain. He ran the ship in the way the governemnt runs a country. It was somewhat a democracy until they went into battle. Once they entered combat, the Captain had total control and his word was law.
Next would be the First Mate. He was pretty much the Vice President or, in military terms, the COmmand Sergeant Major. When the Captain was away or otherwise occupied, he ran the day-to-day operations of the ship.
From what I understand, the next highest position would be the Quarter master. This man was your logistics officer. He split the loot, the pay, the food, the drinks, etc. The Captain, the First mate and the Quarter Master were usually buddy-buddy.
There was also the usual chain of command by seniority or what not. Second Mate and so on. Military Ships used the Naval CoC.
Usually ships had specialists on board for every situation and they are pretty self explanatory.
- Surgeon to treat wounds and advise on remaining healthy ie. eat citrus to prevent scurvy.
-Carpenter/Cooper to repair the ship after storms and after fights.
- Navigator so you don't get lost and pretty much and orienteering job you can think of.
- Gunner who would supervise the crew members below deck who were manning the cannons during fights. It was also his job to clean, maintain and organize the weapkns and their ammo/ powder.
That's it for the most part, I think. A good sized Galleon might have a crew of 50-60 men. A british Man-o-War might run 60-80 depending on of they were carrying a troop of soldiers or were under manned, etc.
Pirate sloops probably, on average, were crewed by no more than 25-30 men. Their ships were meant to be light and fast, not big and bulky. There are always exceptions but for the most part, they had small ships and a small crew. | [
"To check the power of the captain even further, the crew would elect a quartermaster to make sure the men received the necessary rations and equal distribution of the booty. He would also \"adjudicate crew member conflicts,\" and \"administer punishment.\" This was usually an experienced seaman who the crew truste... |
why do companies like hbo rescrict their content to usa? as a non usa resident this only motivates me to pirate game of thrones instead of paying for it so why? | Because they made a deal with distributors outside the US to give them the rights to distribute that content in their area of operation. If they didn't restrict the content, people in that region could easily go to the source and this would understandably piss off the people they've made deals with. | [
"Observers, including series director David Petrarca and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, said that illegal downloads did not hurt the series' prospects; it benefited from \"buzz\" and social commentary, and the high piracy rate did not significantly translate to lost subscriptions. According to \"Polygon\", HBO's rela... |
how did tony abbott win? | In Australia, you don't vote for a person, you vote for a party. They party vote for their head, who if the party is elected, will be Prime Minister. The title itself is self-explanatory - all Australian politicians are "ministers" and the Prime Minster is the, well, "prime" one. The number one. The one who is a member of the other party is the opposition leader.
The Labor party (Kevin Rudd's mob) have been fighting internally for a few years now and the Australian populace cracked the shits and got rid of them. Many don't WANT Tony Abbott as PM, but are jack of Labor fighting within themselves (Rudd V Gillard) rather than running the country.
Tony Abbott got in on the basis of, "Liberals don't fight, I've been here since 2009, I'll stop the boats, axe the (Carbon) tax, and save money. And over half of Australia went, "alright, you try."
Abbott didn't win because he was the better option. He won because Australians are jack of Labor's bullshit, so they picked the other option, which is the Liberals.
Not much will change. But at least we can sleep soundly knowing that we're not going to wake up to another fucking leadership challenge.
BTW, I voted Labor. I hate Tony Abbott. If Malcolm Turnbull had been in, I probably would have done with them. I like Malcolm: fiscally conservative, socially Liberal. Rock on. | [
"Abbott said he was \"humbled and daunted\" by his unexpected election, while Hockey expressed surprise at his defeat. Upon his election, Abbott acknowledged his propensity for making controversial public statements—which with his Catholicism and background as a trainee priest earnt him the moniker of \"the Mad Mon... |
the affordable care act enables us to buy insurance "across state lines." why is this valuable and what was stopping us from doing it before? | Insurance is regulated, historically, at the state level based on state level mandates and state level departments of insurance, so what is a compliant plan in one state may or may not be a compliant plan in another state, and the same goes for business practices or other operations of an insurer.
More importantly, insurance rates and certifications are filed with the state department of insurance, and so although a national insurer may offer the same plans (perhaps even at the same rates) in various states, the plans are regulated and rates are filed at the state level and may only be offered in the state that reviewed the filing.
However, I'm not really sure that the ACA totally revamps this procedure for all policies. Plans will still be compliant by state. EHBs will be mandated across state lines by the law, but states may add to those EHBs based on what the state feels is appropriate. Therefore, what is compliant in one state may or may not still be compliant in another. Furthermore, health plans will still file rates with the state, and if they have an HHS certified rate review program rates will never be filed at the federal level.
The one thing that is different is that the federal government will "sponsor" two plans that are at the nationwide level. The issue that has arisen is that those plans will have to be compliant with the most stringent requirements in any state in order to be offered in ever state. So, for example, California was considering mandating acupuncture as an "essential health benefit" and therefore, the government sponsored plan would have to cover that. The issue, of course, becomes that in order to price that policy, it may make those plans unaffordable (relative to other plans) in states that have less stringent requirements as the benefits would be much richer than those offered in that state. | [
"It has been predicted that allowing purchase of insurance across state lines without national requirements for coverage would create a \"race to the bottom.\" The insurance companies would try to reduce how much they would need to charge for their plans by limiting coverage. If individuals choose to purchase prima... |
why is it that one persons brain will be really good at understanding knowledge in one subject that someone else really struggles with but is able to understand other subjects really well? | If you are doing a CS degree you might have heard of Neural Networks in Computational Intelligence. Our brain works kind of like a neural network (or rather: neural networks try to mimic how a brain learns). Depending on the design of the neural network, it will be better at learning some functions than other functions. Our brains are similar: depending on how your neurons are wired some patterns might be easier for you to train/learn than other patterns.
That said, a lot of the times people say they can't learn a certain subject it is actually just that they aren't interested in it... and when you are not interested it is just so much harder to pay attention. | [
"Psychologist Steven Pinker, however, argues that people have control over what they do, and that research and reasoning never came naturally to people. He says that \"experience does not revamp the basic information-processing capacities of the brain\" and asserts that the Internet is actually making people smarte... |
What exactly does Gibbs Free Energy measure as it relates to the potential spontaneity and thermodynamic properties of a chemical system? | For a process to be spontaneous, the total entropy change of the universe, ΔS^(tot), has to be positive. We can define ΔS^(tot) as:
> ΔS^(tot) = ΔS^(sur) \+ ΔS^(sys)
ΔS^(sys) is the entropy change of the system and ΔS^(sur) is the entropy change of the surroundings. If the notion of a 'system' and 'surroundings' isn't intuitive, then you can think of the system simply as the container where, for example, we're undertaking a reaction and the surroundings as the surrounding ambient atmosphere. So how do we solve this to determine if a process is spontaneous? Well system variables like ΔS^(sys) are comparatively trivial to define as we know what our system (or reaction) is. However, variables of the surrounding are harder to nail down and so in our final function defining the spontaneity of the process we'd like to replace them with system variables. It turns out that we can replace ΔS^(sur) because under constant pressure and temperature conditions, i.e. those found in a typical lab, ΔS^(sys) is simply equal to -ΔH^(sys)/T or, in other words, the entropy change of the surroundings is equal to the negative of the amount of excess heat given off by the process divided by the temperature.
With this in mind, and after some simple rearrangements, we arrive at the following function that is purely based on the ***system*** and not the surroundings:
> \-TΔS^(tot) = ΔH^(sys) \- TΔS^(sys)
This is the Gibbs free energy and is ultimately about the balance between the entropy changes of the system and the surroundings. So...
* The ΔH^(sys) term directly relates to the entropy gained or lost by the surroundings.
* The TΔS^(sys) term to the entropy gained or lost by the system.
In summary, it all boils down to the total entropy (ΔS^(tot) = ΔS^(sur) \+ ΔS^(sys)) being the sole defining property for the spontaneity of a process; the second law of thermodynamics.
**Edit:** just to directly address your comment "...I'm still a bit confused on what standard state Gibbs Free Energy actually represents...". ΔG is the energy that can be used to do work. This more specific definition follows directly from the given discussion on entropy and the second law above. For example, if you have an reaction that is exothermic (negative ΔH^(sys)) and produces lots of gases (positive ΔS^(sys)) then it will always be able to do useful work (always negative ΔG). Example being combustion. However, if you have a process that is endothermic (positive ΔH^(sys)) and turns, for example, a gas into a solid (negative ΔS^(sys)) then it will never produce useful work. | [
"In thermodynamic equilibrium, when the system concerned is at constant temperature and pressure but can exchange particles with its external environment, the Gibbs free energy is at its minimum for the system, that is formula_13. It follows that\n",
"Each quantity in the equations above can be divided by the amo... |
can someone explain the difference between roman and greek mythology li5? | Ancient Greeks liked to [compare foreign beliefs with their own](_URL_0_) (sorry, the link isn't LI5). Romans did too. So when they heard about each others' ideas, they just mixed them together, probably keeping the names they had already known but throwing in personality traits of the other set. So some myths are different, but other stories got mixed up between the Greeks and Romans. | [
"Classical Greco-Roman mythology, Greek and Roman mythology or Greco-Roman mythology is both the body of and the study of myths from the ancient Greeks and Romans as they are used or transformed by cultural reception. Along with philosophy and political thought, mythology represents one of the major survivals of cl... |
why are americans so ant-tax and anti- government | Because among the very first subjects cut (30 years ago) from public school curricula were civics and critical thinking skills, leaving students inundated with cultural norms derived from profit-driven, entertainment-centered media -- and this all happened during a series of economic bubbles that inflated personal expectations of material reward far beyond reality. During that same period, unions were under direct attack from the corporate-funded political right. Many Americans under 40 seem to have almost no concept of common good, let alone how their own government is supposed to work. And all Americans, old and young, have been bombarded with corporate-sponsored anti-tax, anti-federal scapegoating that only seems to be spontaneous grassroots sentiment -- it's all Astroturf, but few have been able to see that until now.
The internet, esp. conversational media, are making some headway in fixing this, but changing the paradigm will be a long, hard slog.
This isn't exactly LI5, but it's a huge question. | [
"Some tax protesters argue that they should be immune from federal income taxation because they are sovereign individuals or \"natural individuals,\" or on the ground that they have not requested a privilege or benefit from the government. These kinds of arguments have been ruled without merit. For example, in the ... |
why hasn't there been a concerted effort to create cities or large communities underwater? | It's very expensive, and not very safe. | [
"Proximity and access to water have been key factors in human settlement through history. Water, along with the spaces around it, create a potential for transport, trade, and power generation. They also provide the human population with resources like recreation and tourism in addition to drinking water and food. M... |
why do commercial radio stations only go from 80.x to 107.x fm and 530 to 1600 am? | Those are the frequencies the government has designated open for public radio transmission and issue the radio station licenses.
They reserve other frequencies for air traffic control. CB radio. Ham radio. And other purposes (including banning the one elemental hydrogen transmits on because it is a frequency they think aliens would use as a hello universe beacon.) | [
"Copies of the World Radio TV Handbook (including the 1991 edition) have identified 1602 kHz as a local frequency, akin to the Class C (former Class IV) radio stations in North America which are limited to 1kW.\n",
"Copies of the World Radio TV Handbook (including the 1991 edition) have identified 1485 kHz as a l... |
Parachuting pilots (mainly ww2 or ww1) | It varied depending on the individual and particularly the theatre, but on the Western Front at least there are several examples of cordial relations between aircrew of opposing sides; Adolf Galland and JG 26 hosting Douglas Bader and Robert Stanford-Tuck in their mess, for instance, after the British pilots were shot down over France. Pete Brothers talks about an incident during the Battle of Britain in an interview with James Holland:
"We shot a 109 chap down near Biggin. He bailed out and was picked up by the Police (...) and we got him out and took him over to our dispersal (...) We took him inside and gave him a drink. We had some booze illegally in the dispersal hut (...) then we took him over to the mess and got him some more drink at the bar and he then said 'May I have paper and pencil?' We said 'Why?' He said 'Tomorrow, when the Luftwaffe blackens the sky and you lose the war, I want to write all your names down to make sure you are well looked after' and we laughed and laughed. He couldn’t understand it."
It was far more unusual for opposing aircrew to encounter each other prior to capture. Holland does relay a story in *The Battle of Britain* of German pilot Hans-Ekkehard Bob shooting down a French Curtiss Hawk during the Battle of France, then landing beside it, administering first aid to the French pilot and promising to write to his parents (the Hawk had crashed over German-occupied territory) before taking off and returning to base. There's a (probably apocryphal) story of a similar situation on the Eastern Front: a Bf 109 shoots down an Il-2 and lands near the crashed Soviet aircraft, the German pilot goes to either assist the crew or hunt for souvenirs, at which point the Soviet pilot emerges from hiding, hops in the 109 and flies back to his base (I fear it's too good to be true, I haven't seen a convincing source).
There was at least one encounter between opposing aircrew 'in the wild', though. In April 1940 Blackburn Skuas of 800 Naval Air Squadron were providing fighter cover during the Battle of Norway and encountered a Heinkel He 111. They forced the Heinkel down, but during the combat the engine of Royal Marine Captain 'Birdy' Partridge's Skua failed and he was forced to land on a frozen lake. Partridge and his Observer, Bostock, hiked through the snow to a small hut nearby where they bumped into three Germans, the crew of the Heinkel. The five men formed an uneasy truce; after breakfast the following morning they were found by a Norwegian patrol and the Gemans were taken into captivity (though one was shot when it looked like he was reaching for his weapon). A film was made in 2012 based on the incident, *Into the White*. I don't believe there was a similar factual underpinning to the opening of *Kong: Skull Island*, though. | [
"Powered paragliding, also known as paramotoring or PPG, is a form of ultralight aviation where the pilot wears a motor on their back (a paramotor) which provides enough thrust to take off using a paraglider. It can be launched in still air, and on level ground, by the pilot alone — no assistance is required.\n",
... |
How do more complicated molecules (such as anthocyanin) get their color? | It's not bond lengths, but rather the electron energy levels.
You get atomic emission and absorption - the electrons have certain energy levels, and if a photon matches a difference between two levels, it can be absorbed by the electron. It is the same with molecules, with one major difference: instead of looking at the energies of the _atomic_ orbitals, we now have to look at the energies of the _molecular_ orbital.
Conjugated bonds do have something to do with this - in fact, they're what gives organic dyes their colours. The general rule is that the larger the conjugated system, the lower frequency of light the system will absorb. Benzene normally absorbs near the UV region. If you extend it across multiple rings (like in anthocyanins), it can push the absorption down into the visible spectrum, thus giving it a colour.
Why do larger conjugated systems absorbs lower frequency light? It has to do with what happens when you make more and more molecular orbitals. [Molecular orbitals](_URL_0_) are formed when atomic orbitals are combined, and they pair up to form bonding and anti-bonding orbitals, with [lower and higher energies than the atomic orbitals](_URL_0__diagram#Basics), respectively. Focus on the difference in energy between these two molecular orbitals: when you add more and more atomic orbitals to this, thus splitting these orbitals, you'll find that the energy gap between the highest energy bonding orbital and the lowest energy anti-bonding orbital gets smaller and smaller. In bulk material terms, the [band gap](_URL_1_) gets smaller the larger the conjugated system. Smaller gap means smaller energy jump, which means it absorbs lower energy photons. | [
"The colour of uranyl compounds is due to ligand-to-metal charge transfer transitions at ca. 420 nm, on the blue edge of the visible spectrum. The exact location of the absorption band and NEXAFS bands depends on the nature of the equatorial ligands. Compounds containing the uranyl ion are usually yellow, though so... |
How does the Pertussis (Whooping Cough) vaccine work if Pertussis is caused by a bacterium and not a virus? | Vaccines can be made from killed or attenuated viruses or bacteria. They can also be made from purified proteins from a pathogenic bacteria or virus. In the most basic sense, vaccines against bacteria and viruses are not different from one another.
Antibiotics, on the other hand, work only against bacteria. There are only a few antiviral drugs, and they don't actually work very well.
I sounds like you are mixing the two up. Antibiotics treat a current infection. Vaccines give protection against a future infection. | [
"BULLET::::- Vaccination works by priming the immune system with an 'immunogen'. Stimulating immune response, via use of an infectious agent, is known as immunization. The development of immunity to polio efficiently blocks person-to-person transmission of wild poliovirus, thereby protecting both individual vaccine... |
why is it not faster for airplanes to fly lower to the ground if the distance traveled would be shorter | Because the air is much thinner at altitude. Closer to the ground the air is as thick as pea soup for an airplane. It would be like you trying to crawl through a kiddie pool of honey.
High in the sky costs MUCH less fuel and is MUCH faster because there is very little drag 35,000 feet up. Drag is the #1 enemy of a jetliner. Plus you get the added bonus of avoiding storms and any other weather along the trip. And mountains. Mountains are the #2 enemy of a jetliner. :) | [
"Because only one aircraft can land or depart from a runway at a given time, and because aircraft must be separated by a certain distance or time to avoid collisions, every airport has a finite capacity; it can safely handle only so many aircraft per hour. This capacity depends on many factors, such as the number o... |
why are cells living? i know they’re the building blocks of life but what defines living? are plants a different type of “alive” because they have a different cell structure? | The current definition of life simply states that for an organism to be considered living, it has to maintain **homeostasis**, which is the technical way to say "it has to maintain itself through its metabolism".
A cell maintains itself by breaking down resources to extract the energy and elements it contains, making up complex structures to achieve survival and reproduction. From bacteria, to protozoa, to algae, to plants, to fungi, to animals, we observe this behaviour, regardless of the cell type.
In a sense, all lives are the same, they're just living - and have been living - under different circumstances that greatly affect how they "express life". | [
"In 1982, American biochemist Albert Lehninger argued that the \"order\" produced within cells as they grow and divide is more than compensated for by the \"disorder\" they create in their surroundings in the course of growth and division. \"Living organisms preserve their internal order by taking from their surrou... |
What was it like to be an emissary or messenger throughout the Middle Ages? | In Western Europe, the messengers were the heralds, tasked with communicating important information, and required to be adept in the ways of diplomacy. On top of this, heralds primarily needed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the coats of arms of every knight; domestic and foreign.
Heraldry became a highly established institution, and the top jobs were the '[Kings of Arms](_URL_0_)'. Granted, these men were no longer messengers, rather offices with the powers to grant armourial bearings. However, there was a very real possibility for heralds to advance up the ranks from messengers to a title which even possessed its own crown.
(edit: very basic grammatical mistakes) | [
"The \"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle\" make mention of messengers being sent by King Edward the Elder (899-924) to recall members of the Kent fyrd, but it is generally regarded that the origins of the postal services stem from the King's Messengers (\"Nuncii et Cursores\") of medieval times, in particular, the Royal Post e... |
how does a court stenography machine work? | A [stenotype machine](_URL_0_) works with a special keyboard layout. You press keys simultaneously, but the output keeps the letters in a specific order. You basically type the sounds in shorthand. There are some standards, but stenographers often have their own abbreviations. This lets you type up to 300 WPM. | [
"In neuroscience, tractography is a 3D modeling technique used to visually represent nerve tracts using data collected by diffusion MRI. It uses special techniques of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computer-based diffusion MRI. The results are presented in two- and three-dimensional images called tractograms.... |
Why did the Russian Empire expand so far east? | [This](_URL_0_) post by u/poob1x goes into some detail about Russia’s motivations for colonizing. I feel like this question gets asked a lot, if there’s a mod reading, y’all should add it to the FAQ. | [
"The Russian Empire expanded its influence and possessions in Central Asia, especially in the later 19th century, conquering much of Russian Turkestan in 1865 and continuing to add territory as late as 1885.\n",
"The Russians also expanded south, first with the transformation of the Ukrainian steppe into an agric... |
why can't synthetic diamonds be as hard as mined diamonds? | They are just as hard.
Synthetic diamonds are identical to natural diamond is virtually every chemical and physical way. It is anti-synthetic propaganda put out by De Beers and the few other diamond companies that exist that make the public think they are inferior, but that is not based on truth. | [
"Synthetic diamonds are diamonds manufactured in a laboratory, as opposed to diamonds mined from the Earth. The gemological and industrial uses of diamond have created a large demand for rough stones. This demand has been satisfied in large part by synthetic diamonds, which have been manufactured by various process... |
Were there historical sites in ancient times? | So, I’ve got two things I think I can talk about with some authority. The first is about the original post you mentioned and Egyptian citation of place through time. The second point I can make is about ancient and pre-Colombian Mesoamerica. Though I imagine there are experts here on both points better informed than I. Both of these points are not directly in my line of expertise, but I have worked with them in an ancillary fashion before.
First, our Egyptian example. The scale of Egyptian history is enormous; “civilization” has flourished in the Nile river valley for literally millennia. Early monumental architecture (think early steps towards what become famous later as the pyramids) appeared after the unification of upper and lower Egypt in the Early Dynastic period. These are of course only the more obvious and lasting signs of a shift to cereal cultivation and a switch to (at least partially) sedentary lifestyles. For simplicity sake, let’s just think of this period as “3000 BCE”. The Ptolemaic dynasty, which really is of the Classical time period rather than the Ancient, can be simplistically remembered as “300 BCE”. That means that for the residents of Egypt in the Ptolemaic dynasty, the Early Dynastic monuments were as ancient as are the crumbling Classical temples to the modern-day residents of Greece.
In a relatively geographically circumscribed area like the Nile valley, space is at a premium. This, in part, led to the [reuse of tombs](_URL_0_) in later periods. At some locations, vibrant communities of the living (in this case a walled workers village) could be abandoned by the living, but used for multiple hundreds of years afterwards as mass cemeteries and religious locations – with new temples built atop old temples hundreds of years later (see work on Deir el-Medina, [here](_URL_2_) and [here](_URL_1_). )I imagine this sort of reuse should be familiar to any modern person – we need only look to our re-use of sites in Jerusalem over the past few thousand years to understand this sort of re-use. These markers of use (cemeteries, temples, etc) are just that – markers of the presence of humans moving through space. The physical vestiges of history they themselves moved through –as they created their own – would have been experienced in much the same way that you or I would tour the crumbling Acropolis.
The second example I feel able to discuss is the Mesoamerican case I mentioned above. The [urban center of Teotihuacan](_URL_3_) was founded in the period you mentioned (a timeframe like 500 BCE to 1 BCE.) and abandoned by the middle of the first millennium of the CE. The city sits roughly 25 miles north east of what would become Mexico City. When the Aztec empire rose to prominence, the leaders of that polity would make annual trips to Teotihuacan to “pay their respects” culturally and religiously, for lack of a better phrase. The current theory goes that as foreigners to the area, when the Aztecs needed to justify their rule, they made allusions to the Teotihuacanos of more than a millennium ago, incorporating their motifs and stylistic elements into their monumental architecture in Mexico City, and placing an Aztec monument (I believe it was a stelae, but I don’t have my papers in front of me…) in the ruins of Teotihuacan.
Actually I just found an electronic version of my old (5+ years) undergraduate honors thesis with a relevant section. Forgive the copy-pasta (“it” is Teotihuacan):
“It was already in ruins when the Aztecs began to use it to legitimize their rule at Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs, using the legacy of the (already ancient) city to claim cultural descent even though they were really nomadic peoples from far to the north, referenced Teotihuacan architecture (See Figure 1) and art. They placed their origin story at Teotihuacan, and during some periods, the Aztec ruler travelled from Tenochtitlan to Teotihuacan as often as every twenty days to perform rituals (Hamann 2002: 351).”
I continue later:
“But reuse of sites is another way in which politics can be inscribed into the landscape in the form of monuments. When the Aztecs used Teotihuacan and its material markers to legitimize their rule in the Basin of Mexico, they constructed their own monuments at the site, at least one of which may have been located in the plaza in front of the Pyramid of the Sun (Umberger 1987: 83). The commission of this monument was specifically designed to leave an indelible marker of Aztec presence in the landscape. The same sort of cooption of cultural identity takes place at Tenochtitlan, only in reverse. The Aztecs built Teothiuacano style temples near the site of, or on top of, the Templo Mayor. This referential architecture is still visible today in the form of the Red temple (See Figure 5)”
So, back to my answering your question. I know you asked about something that didn’t have “contemporary religious significance” and I know that it could be argued that both examples I gave you fall into that. But I hope you’ll see that there was also (in the second) massive politico- and historico-cultural overtones to the religious allusions, and heavy historical and cultural reasons for re-use at Deir el-Medina as well. Anthropologists (a group in which I self-identify) have the problem of often using the idea of religion or spirituality as a crutch as well – using it as a catch-all for unanswered questions or motives. Some of that may be creeping in here, though I hope not un-critically.
I think you’ll find if you delve into the site-history of any long standing monumental area, you will find historical examples of re-use that would qualify as touristy behavior. It is absolutely nothing new to modernity. | [
"Of four locations chosen, three proved to be sites of city settlements. As each layer was removed, beginning with the outer city walls, artifacts as well as skeletal remains revealed the presence of the Ottoman Empire, the Byzantine Greeks, the Roman Empire, and the Greeks. With each subsequent layer, it is hoped ... |
why does a ticketing app/website not work at all when there is too much traffic? how much traffic does it take? what measures are available to prevent the app/site from crashing? | They try to estimate how much traffic there will be and allocate servers and other necessary infrastructure accordingly. If they underestimated the traffic, you get slow connection or even no connection. | [
"Most people use Traffic Exchange programs to increase their site visit rate. Traffic Exchange programs offer both the Auto and Manual Surf options with a timing of 3 to 60 seconds. An 'autosurf' program requires no human intervention to rotate the sites in the database, and is used primarily to inflate the total n... |
why are 12v, 5v and 3.3v so special in electronics? | There's nothing special about those voltages. They were simply what worked best at the time.
12 volts is a good voltage to run a DC motor at for fans and spinning hard drives.
5 volts was the original voltage that almost every integrated circuit used. As the fabrication process shrunk they started using 3.3V because a smaller wire needs less voltage. But, they quickly realized that the process of chasing the improvements of chips wasn't going to work and computer components started including voltage regulators that would take an input voltage and convert it to whatever the chip needed instead of relying on the power supply to provide the correct voltage. | [
"Less common are lower-power versions such as the LM78Mxx series (500 mA) and LM78Lxx series (100 mA) from National Semiconductor. Some devices provide slightly different voltages than usual, such as the LM78L62 (6.2 volts) and LM78L82 (8.2 volts) as well as the STMicroelectronics L78L33ACZ (3.3 volts).\n",
"More... |
can you drink warm tap water or only cold? (without boiling) | I would seriously advise against it as it isn’t made to be drank I’ve heard that the tanks for hot water aren’t as clean so don’t do it x. | [
"It is recommended for the temperature of tap water not to exceed 38 — 45 °C to avoid discomfort and scalding. The technical implementation is complicated by the necessity to keep warm water at a temperature of 55 – 60 °C to inhibit the growth of legionella bacteria. \n",
"Some versions also have a second dispens... |
Do the contents of our blood have any affect on mosquitos after they drink it? Do drunk people make drunk mosquitos? | I think the answer is, "[we don't know](_URL_0_)," but it seems that mosquitoes are more attracted to drunk people, than sober people, and according to the article I linked fruit flies do get drunk, but have a high tolerance.
Same article also says, "Any liquid other than blood is diverted first to a separate digestive pouch where enzymes break it down. So it is likely the alcohol is neutralised before it hits the insect’s nervous system." | [
"Mosquitoes of the genus \"Toxorhynchites\" never drink blood. This genus includes the largest extant mosquitoes, the larvae of which prey on the larvae of other mosquitoes. These mosquito eaters have been used in the past as mosquito control agents, with varying success.\n",
"Female mosquitoes hunt their blood h... |
the difference between over the counter and prescription ibuprofen. | The difference isn't the pills, it's who is advising you. The doctor presumably knows what justifies this high dose (usually prescribed in the immediate aftermath of trauma, for short-term use). Nobody should regularly take that much ibuprofen. But if you need it to reduce inflammation or injury pain, you can take 4 of the OTC as if it were one of the 800 mg.
A few people may be sensitive to the binders in these tablets, but most people in enough pain to need that much IB are not going to quibble about such minor adverse effects.
| [
"There are 11 variants of Nurofen, all of which contain ibuprofen as an active ingredient. The ibuprofen is variously formulated as the free acid, or the lysine salt. For oral formulations, i.e., taken by mouth, it is available in the conventional solid round tablet, a torpedo-shaped solid caplet, or may alternativ... |
In the world before the invention of radio and mass media, how widely-known were famous composers of the Classical era during their own time? | Was Mozart's music known to the average person? Probably not, if you mean the average working man or woman. Serious "classical" music then as now was more a middle- and upper-class sort of thing. [Here's](_URL_0_) /u/caffarelli - who knows far more than me- addressing a similar point relating to opera.
However, among those who did take an interest composers such as Mozart would be well known throughout Europe. Even in the age of stagecoaches composers and performers would tour- Mozart went round most of the European capitals as a child prodigy, Haydn came to London twice in the 1790's, Chopin, Weber, Paganini..(a little later those three of course).. lots of them.
Even those who didn't travel so much -like Beethoven who barely left Vienna- were known abroad. The Philharmonic Society of London commissioned Beethoven's 9th symphony and works by other composers and I'm sure other cities had institutions that did the same.
| [
"This is a list of composers of the Classical music era, roughly from 1730 to 1820. Prominent composers of the Classical era include Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Stamitz, Joseph Haydn, Johann Christian Bach, Antonio Salieri, Muzio Clementi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Luigi Boccherini, Ludwig van Beethoven, and F... |
Do I understand this correctly? | > Am I correct to assume that because they are so many billions of lightyears away they appear early because that light is just reaching us now.
Yes. That is correct.
> Would it also be safe to assume that those galaxies actually exist completely different in the actual time they exist in now?
Yes. Very different, too, since it's been quite a while. | [
"Evaluative-cognitive consistency theory refers to a condition in which one holds opposing attitudes towards an object that are not of equal magnitude; the focus is the overall difference in evaluations, with no regard to magnitude.\n",
"Four conclusions result from these premisses: (1) Mind or spirit is the effi... |
How do large Aquarium's accommodate Sharks, Sting Rays, Sea turtles and other small fishes in the same enclosure? Do large fish prey on the smaller ones in such conditions? Why not? | *Experience in working in aquariums*
different fish eat different types of food and have various preferences.
aquariums feed fish every day (or every second day if needed) so they are very well fed and tend not to eat each other. *Though i was giving a tour in an aquarium where i worked, their White skate is a major attraction and she has a massive tank (10m deep at least) she shares with other fish. she went through a massive period of growth and ended up eating 3 starry smoothhounds (small 1.5m longish sharks) within a month. she ate one in front of a tour group i had!* | [
"The aquarium houses a variety of animals such as sharks, rays, turtles, parrots, marsh turtles, otter, snakes, alligator, crocodile and sloth. The displays are located on 2 levels, one with large fish in large displays and the other level with filled with smaller displays designed for child-centered experiences.\n... |
Authors every historian should know? | I would say it really depends on the field; the book list on this reddit has quite a few of the highlights. Here are some of what I believe to be key authors from my fields.
Pacific History; only putting a few, cutting myself off before I make this super long.
* Greg Denning [also key figure for the writing of ethnographic history and all around an awesome author/historian].
* Matt Matsuda; his recent work has been pretty hot, especially with Americanists looking out into the Pacific.
* Epeli Hau'ofa; especially his essay "Our Sea of Islands" any book discussing the ocean or indigenous peoples has an obligatory reference to it.
* J.W. Davidson; his essay "Problems of Pacific History" is usually pinpointed as the kickoff to modern Pacific History and the foundation of Pacific Island Studies as a field.
* Marshall Sahlins; his anthropology work is referenced often, especially his vitriolic debate with Obeyesekere.
* Nicholas Thomas; extremely prolific historian, "Entangled Objects" is I believe his most cited work and deals with how the meaning of objects changes when they are exchanged.
* Alan Moorehead; his popular history book "The Fatal Impact" is probably one of the most cited but never read books on the Pacific. Strangely, this popular writer's overview of Captain Cook's voyages, has became code for a certain approach to Pacific history, which is rather at odds with the actual text of the book (which is why I say I usually get the feeling most authors have no actually read it).
Environmental History
* William Cronon; especially "Changes in the Land" and his essay "The Trouble with Wilderness"
* J.R. McNeill; "Something New under the Sun" is well regarded, but I like "Mosquito Empires" more.
* Alfred Crosby; can't avoid "The Columbian Exchange" or "Ecological Imperialism"
* David Blackbourn, Richard Grove, and James McCann are all popular
* Jared Diamond; and "Guns Germs and Steel" though a popular-history work, is still often cited- especially in regards to the opennness of the reading public to environmentally aware/ driven history books.
In World History, it's great if you know the following with a few brief (perhaps too brief) notes about why they are good to know
* Leopold von Ranke- focus on history as science, universal histories
* Arnold Toynbee- first modern attempt at a 'civilizational' approach to world history
* William McNeill- gradual breaking with civilization approach, focus on connections
* Stavrianos- another early attempt at writing a world encompassing history
* Jerry Bentely- helped found World History Association & its journal; focus on exchanges/contacts as a way to study world history
* Immanuel Wallerstein; marxist inspired world systems theory
* Janet Abu-Lughod; argued world systems predate rise of Europe by some time
* Patrick Manning; maritime narratives
* David Christian; big history
* Andre Gunder Frank; decentering europe vis a vis china
* Kenneth Pomeranz; similar to Gunder Frank
* Fernand Braudel; Mediterranean- long duree- annales school history
* Bruce Mazlish; global history is better than world history
* Benedict Anderson; imagined communities, birth of nation states/community
* Eric Hobsbawm; Invented Traditions- how nation/states make themselves appear timeless | [
"One of the most important historical writers of the 20th century was Johan Huizinga, who is known abroad and translated in different languages and included in several great books lists. His written works were influenced by the literary figures of the early 20th century.\n",
"Authors who have contributed to this ... |
what the numbers mean on county roads and interstates (i.e. route 70, i-95, etc.) | For federal highways and interstates, they're numbered according to which direction they run in and where they're located. East-west highways are even-numbered and north-south highways are odd numbered.
For interstates, the lower numbers are in the west and south, and increase as you move north or east (such as I-5 in California and I-95 on the east coast, or I-10 in Florida and I-94 in Minnesota). This system is reversed for federal highways: lower numbers are found in the north and east and increase as you move south or west (US-1 on the east coast and US-97 in Washington).
Three-digit highway numbers indicate a spur (first digit is odd) or loop (first digit is even) off of a highway. In Washington DC, which Interstate 95 passes through, you'll also find the loop I-495 (the Capitol beltway, which loops around I-95) and the spur I-395 (which branches off of I-95 and ends elsewhere). This same principle holds true for federal highways: a spur off of US-1 might be numbered US-301, while a loop around it might be numbered US-401. Finally, numbers for spurs and loops may be re-used in other states: there is another spur numbered I-395 in Maryland, which is not in any related to the highway in Washington DC.
I don't know how state and county routes are numbered; in my state, they seem to be pretty random. | [
"These route numbers are used on signs and maps and distinct from the four digit numbers for major roads and eight digit numbers for streets used internally by the Highways Department and later Departments of Transport to identify each road.\n",
"In the U.S. Interstate Highway System, the numbers usually measure ... |
Are emotions innate or learned ? | Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen demonstrated that there are universally understood facial expressions which transcend cultural knowledge. In one experiment they went to Papua New Guinea and showed Fore tribesmen photographs of people making faces of happiness, fear, anger, disgust, sadness and surprise. Despite 1000+ years of separation from any other civilization, these tribesmen were able to recognize the correct emotion to go with a picture far above the rate of chance. This was but one of many trips they made to many different cultures to try this experiment but one with the tightest controls on cross-cultural influences because of the separation this culture had with all others.
[Here](_URL_0_) is one of their widely cited 1987 journal articles on the subject. [Here](_URL_2_) is some early work on the subject, a paper by Ekman on universal emotions from 1970. Finally, [here](_URL_1_) is Ekman writing a chapter in a textbook on the subject in 1999. | [
"The kinesthetic learners who have memories associated with emotions learning can be facilitated through dance, debate, drama, role-play, and charades. This kind of learning leads to a long-term memory since it is associated with emotions such as excitement, curiosity, anger, disappointment and success.\n",
"Know... |
breath out under water | You can breathe out as much air as you like. But each time you've breathed out a small amount, the pressure of the water will close round it and make a bubble. If you were to breathe out, say, mercury instead of air, the "bubble" would be bigger. | [
"BULLET::::- Wet breathing: Wet breathing is caused by water getting into the regulator and compromising breathing comfort and safety. Water can leak into the second stage body through damaged soft parts like torn mouthpieces, damaged exhaust valves and perforated diaphragms, through cracked housings, or through po... |
Need some advice/tips for studying history! | I've had friends ask for help studying for history classes, and it always leads to the same problem: history is not a science. There is no set body of information or list of facts that you can learn that certifies you as someone who "knows history." Every instructor has their own particular focus and emphasis. What one instructor considers important may not matter to another. If I were to give you my advice for how to approach the study of history, it would be entirely useless to you for the purpose of passing someone else's test.
The best thing you can do is to try to understand the nature of the test you will be taking to the best degree possible. Can you access previous versions of the test to see what sort of questions will be asked? Can you talk to people who have taken or administered the test in previous years to learn what sort of knowledge is expected of you? Is the test associated with a particular textbook or study guide that you could acquire? That would be the place to start. | [
"This series provides vital references for students, architects, town planners, historians and philosophers as well as for readers interested in gardens, garden-makers and collectors. By publishing fundamental works of the past – forgotten, unknown or un-translated – along with French and foreign, historic and cont... |
when you numb your arm by sleeping on it what happens and why does it not hurt it permanently? | The numbness comes from pressure restricting blood supply to the nerves which convey sensation. While restricted enough to mess up their usual operation it typically isn't enough to cause permanent damage, although in more extreme cases it actually can cause permanent nerve damage. | [
"A nerve biopsy can potentially find the cause of the numbness and/or pain experienced in the limbs. It can reveal if these symptoms are caused by damage to the myelin sheath, damage to the small nerves, destruction of the axon in the nerve cells or neuropathies.\n",
"It is not known what causes the condition, bu... |
how does the fbi impact the everyday life of american citizens? | Hopefully, not much. The FBI is designed to investigate federal crimes on a nationwide level, and so it should generally only be impacting the lives of those who commit those crimes.
However, they can expand their understanding of what that investigation requires, to include surveillance or interrogation of a broader section of society. The Patriot Act of 2001 allows the FBI to search phone, email, and financial records without a court order, to access stored voicemails through a warrant (rather than requiring a harder to get wiretap order), and on and on. Basically, now the FBI can do a fairly high level of surveillance on the broad population of American citizens without much oversight or any need to prove that they're suspected of a crime.
In addition, the FBI has a "bully pulpit" -- when the FBI issues a statement, it generally gets taken seriously as news. That's what happened last fall when FBI Director Comey said that they were continuing to investigate Hillary Clinton's emails -- several credible statisticians believe that might have been the deciding factor in the US Presidential election, casting renewed doubt on Clinton's credibility, even though the investigation eventually revealed nothing. | [
"Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a vast domestic intelligence apparatus has been built to collect information using FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators. The intelligence apparatus collects, analyzes and stores information about millions of (if not a... |
How does the large hadron collider begin to accelerate particles? | As /u/iorgfeflkd mentioned, the protons come from a bottle of hydrogen at linac2. The hydrogen gas is ionised in a device called a [duoplasmatron](_URL_2_), which is effectively a gas-filled discharge tube with a perforated anode.
For the lead ions, an isotopically pure sample of ^(208)Pb is heated up until it's vaporised, then ionised into a plasma using an [ECR ion source](_URL_4_) and accelerated in linac3.
Further reading:
_URL_1_
_URL_0_
_URL_3_
| [
"The first beam was circulated through the collider on the morning of 10 September 2008. CERN successfully fired the protons around the tunnel in stages, three kilometres at a time. The particles were fired in a clockwise direction into the accelerator and successfully steered around it at 10:28 local time. The LHC... |
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