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If a "very" long rope is attached on earth perpendicularly and goes into space. Is it possible that it does not fall if the size of the rope is really very long? | This is the basic idea behind a [space elevator](_URL_0_): attach a cable to the equator, put a counterweight on the other end, e.g. a space station, and let the cenrifugal force pull the cable taut. Then in theory you can easily climb up the cable to get to and from space cheaply.
The main reason we can't do it yet, is because we have not yet found any material with strong enough tensile strength for the cable. There are more open questions and technological challenges, but as far as your question goes, the answer is "yes, provided we have a really strong rope". | [
"When climbing or in steep terrain where there is a high risk of falling, the rope is also secured to fixed points in the rock or ice. At the same time a \"sliding rope\" (\"gleitendes Seil\") may be used or the rope may be fixed to a top anchor (\"Standplatz\"). A distinction is made between groups of two, three a... |
Why isn't there a standard definition on what genocide is? | Hi!
There *is* a definition of genocide that has been adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It was adopted back in 1949, actually, and is called the [Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide](_URL_0_) (otherwise known as the 1949 Genocide Convention). Unlike other phrases like "terrorism" which have yet to be perfectly defined with broad consensus, genocide as a phrase is fairly standardly defined. For example, the 1949 Convention defines genocide in Article 2, saying:
> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
> (a) Killing members of the group;
> (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
> (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
> (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
> (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
This definition is held fairly standard throughout time as well. For example, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) uses that definition, as does the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). It is the standard, internationally used definition, and like any statute is subject to variations in interpretation based on acts committed. But it is fairly clear and straightforward.
Hope that helps! | [
"According to R. J. Rummel, genocide has 3 different meanings. The ordinary meaning is murder by government of people due to their national, ethnic, racial, or religious group membership. The legal meaning of genocide refers to the international treaty, the \"Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime... |
How come solutions are homogeneous mixtures? What is the process to reach this state? | They become homogeneous due to [diffusion](_URL_0_). Diffusion coefficients generally increase with temperature, so heating it up will speed up the diffusion. | [
"A heterogeneous mixture (e. g. liquid and solid) can be separated by mechanical separation processes like filtration or centrifugation. Homogeneous mixtures can be separated by molecular separation processes; these are either equilibrium-based or rate-controlled. Equilibrium-based processes are operating by the fo... |
why aren't video games that have a glitch considered defective? | Today you learn:
Literally every single bit of software not made by NASA has hundreds, thousands of bugs! Most of them aren't found, occur in obscure cases or really aren't that bad.
It's simply not economical to fix them all. | [
"Non-cosmetic modifications to a game, console, or controller are not allowed. Glitches that are triggered by interfering with the normal operation of the hardware or game media while the game is running, such as the crooked cartridge trick are not permitted. In-game glitches or exploits may be permissible, conting... |
When would you say World War I became obvious that it would happen? | World War One, as opposed to a more general european war, was the product of a unique technological moment that existed between the development of the Haber process in 1909, which allowed industrial production of explosives, and the development internal combustion engines that were cheap, powerful, and reliable enough to motorize infantry, which was the early to mid 20s. Had the war not happened in that 10-15 year window, it would have been a very different affair. | [
"In 1914, the First World War broke out. For the next four years fighting raged across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. On 8 January 1918, United States President Woodrow Wilson issued a statement that became known as the Fourteen Points. In part, this speech called for Germany to withdraw from the territ... |
In pre-modern warfare (1700s-1800s) why did ship-based cannons usually have a longer range than land-based artillery? | Your two examples are somewhat unusual. The forts in Port Royal were armed with relatively small-calibre guns because the Confederates were scrambling to put together what they could, and short on heavy guns all over the place. Ship-killing artillery at the time was north of 9 inches; Fort Walker had only a single 10-inch gun, and some smaller pieces. Moreover, to cram in additional small guns to try to make up the difference in throw weight, the siting of the battery was changed from the original plan, and the Union ships were able to sit in positions that fortress guns didn't reach and bombard it. So, we've got ships with heavy artillery bombarding a fort with pieces too small for a naval battle, and badly sited so that in some cases it couldn't shoot back. Observe that field artillery of the time was not a ship-killing weapon; guns that could be moved by horses or at a pinch by manpower were just not heavy enough to do much damage to a heavily timbered warship.
Nelson claimed that "A ship's a fool to fight a fort". I think, though, that Nelson was considering forts fully manned, equipped with the best guns, and generally speaking really ready for the fight. It could be the case that such forts are rare in history, because it takes time to build them and effort to maintain them at a high state of readiness; in peace there's better uses for the money and when the war comes you have to scramble! Then, battles against such forts might be even rarer, because naval officers don't like to go up against them. So it could be the case that battles between ships and forts will disproportionately find improvised, badly-supplied, or obsolete forts, going up against modern ships. Another example is the battle of Kinburn, during the Crimean War, where ironclad French "floating batteries" were able to pound Russian coastal forts to pieces because, basically, they were immune to round shot. So we see that the forts are obsolete because of a technical advance they haven't been prepared for. Similarly during the German invasion of Norway, the coastal forts mostly did try to fight, in spite of a total lack of orders from the government; and sure, they famously sank the Blucher, but you'll note that the invasion went ahead just the same and the forts fell to landing parties pretty quickly. So that's what happens when you have forts built to resist a Swedish invasion in 1905, and not fully mobilised for war at that, going up against warships from the thirties with their ancient torpedoes. Except for that one lucky torpedo hit on Blucher it was a bit of a disaster. At Bergen, Kvarven Fort got off only a few shots with its guns - the torpedo tubes weren't fired, apparently because the fort was not fully mobilised and the torpedoes were missing their fuses!
An example of land fortifications winning against a purely naval force is the Gallipoli campaign, where the British originally tried to force the Dardanelles with just some expendable battleships. Which turned out not to be so expendable after all when they ran into mines. The Turks didn't have the very latest and greatest, but they had enough to stop ten battleships from forcing the Straits; the British eventually gave up on the purely-naval operation and landed troops instead to silence the batteries that were covering the minefields. | [
"Conventional wisdom held that a naval force would need a three-to-one advantage over coastal artillery, as the land-based artillery had the advantage of firing from a fixed platform, with resultant advantages in accuracy, especially as range increased. By the start of the 20th century, the increasing size of the c... |
Did the Big Bang come from nothing, or can we simply not know what came before? | _URL_0_
Great explanation of cosmology as a whole, and how quantum mechanics allows for something to come from nothing. | [
"In the early 1970s, there was still a strong belief among physicists that no one could speak about what came before the Big Bang and stay within the boundaries of science. It was almost universally accepted that no scientist could explain why there is something and not nothing. This was the scientific climate Tryo... |
how did recently conquered lands transfer to a currency based system, when previously they relied on a barter system? | Who? What conquered lands? | [
"Economic historian Karl Polanyi has argued that where barter is widespread, and cash supplies limited, barter is aided by the use of credit, brokerage, and money as a unit of account (i.e. used to price items). All of these strategies are found in ancient economies including Ptolemaic Egypt. They are also the basi... |
Are there any natural phenomena that create lasers? | "Masers" are lasers at microwave frequencies, and their are various astrophysical ones:
_URL_0_ | [
"The use of random lasers for the study of laser action in substances that could not be produced in the form of homogeneous large crystals have also been pointed out as a potential application. Furthermore, in frequency ranges where high-reflectivity mirrors are not available (e.g., gamma-rays, x-rays), the feedbac... |
How does the modern Catholic Church view historical Antipopes? | I am slightly confused by the question. They see them as people who claimed to be pope and were not.
If you could clarify what you mean, I could probably give a better answer. | [
"An antipope is a historical papal claimant not recognized as legitimate by the Catholic Church. Unlike papal tombs, the tombs of antipopes have generally not been preserved, with a few notable exceptions.\n",
"Traditionally, this term was reserved for claimants with a significant following of cardinals or other ... |
Is the sense of 'proprioception' lost in individuals who have lost a sense of touch? | Hi. Thanks for your question.
In the clinical setting, it is not uncommon to see patients who have lost some component of their sense of touch but maintained proprioception or vice versa, but these sensory modalities often appear to track together, because proprioception is a pretty high order sensation that receives a lot of inputs.
Proprioception, is that general sense of knowing how your body is positioned. The cerebellum is ultimately responsible for giving that sense to people. Strictly speaking, there are specific nerves designed to convey proprioceptive information (muscle / tendon stretch and tension, joint position), and those are responsible for 'proprioception.'
However, the cerebellum is constantly integrating inputs, sending out information for making adjustment, and then integrating a new set of inputs. For example, detecting signals from visual inputs from the eyes or balance inputs from the inner ear can help provide a sense of proprioception for the head and neck. A clinical correlation might be a patient who has some mild proprioceptive impairment--he can stand upright with his eyes open, but when told to close his eyes, he begins to sway dramatically.
A sense of touch and pressure also helps the cerebellum process proprioceptive sensation, such that balance and coordination is often impaired by loss of mechanoreception in a limb. A super basic clinical example of this is seen when neurologists move a toe up and down by grabbing the sides instead of the top and bottom to test lower extremity proprioception.
The question of losing proprioception and touch together depends on where the damage occurs. Take the foot for example--information from proprioceptive nerves (muscle spindle afferents and golgi tendon organs) travels into the dorsal root ganglion, and then is conveyed upward along with fine touch information in the posterior column. Crude touch, pain, and heat sensation enters the dorsal root ganglion, and then is conveyed upward along the spinothalamic tract. Therefore, certain lesions of the spinal cord can cause a dissociative loss of sensation, but other lesions could cause coordinated loss of sensation. In the brain, mechanoreception and pain is handled in the primary somatosensory cortex in the postcentral gyrus, whereas postural stuff is handled by the cerebellum. Therefore, isolated injury to these brain structures could also cause a dissociative loss.
I'll also quickly say something about diabetics, since touch and proprioception loss is a very important clinical issue in these patients. Diabetic neuropathy impacts long tracts with small and unmyelinated somatosensory fibers early in the disease. This first causes a loss of pinprick and fine discriminatory sensation, then pain, temperature, vibration and proprioception after that. In patients with advanced neuropathy, there is a stocking/glove pattern of sensation loss, most often with a coordinated touch and proprioception deficit. As you can imagine, this leads to bad problems for feet, where a patient is not only walking irregularly due to loss of coordination, but also unaware of pain from abrasions and pressure.
[Here](_URL_0_) is a very detailed review of proprioceptive anatomy if you'd like to learn more. | [
"Proprioception, the kinesthetic sense, provides the parietal cortex of the brain with information on the movement and relative positions of the parts of the body. Neurologists test this sense by telling patients to close their eyes and touch their own nose with the tip of a finger. Assuming proper proprioceptive f... |
the political philosophy of ayn rand? what exactly is objectivism? | Less political, more centered on human nature... objective morality of "rational self-interest." Political implications, though. Posits notion that humans shouldn't sacrifice happiness of selves for each other; should actively seek out what makes them happy, bettering themselves and furthering society in process. Similar to free-market capitalism or libertarians: want freedom to pursue own interests and accumulate self-described success... disdain for forced shared wealth, limits on freedom, governmental interference.
Rand emigrated from Russia, disgusted with failed Communism. Idealized American notions of freedom and individual pursuits. Criticized by fellow contemporaries in era where moral subjectivity and social collectivism reigned. Ideology sensible in a world where humans can be trusted not to harm one another when left unattended... when implemented in reality, implications disturbing. | [
"Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism has been and continues to be a major influence on the right-libertarian movement, particularly libertarianism in the United States. Many right-libertarians justify their political views using aspects of Objectivism. However, the views of Rand and her philosophy among prominent ... |
How common was sexual violence against women (or men) during the Holocaust? | That question is not really answerable in detail. We don't know very much about sexual violence in concentration camps. Though from what little evidence we have, the conclusion would be that it was fairly common.
The problem is basically two-fold:
First, there is little about sexual violence in survivor testimony. This in general is due to the stigma attached to it. This stems from hesitation surrounding the fact that sleeping with the enemy in order to gain advantage or even survive is something that ran counter the post-war narrative. Another problem we have is the stigma attached to homosexuality even post-war. We know very little about the homosexual prisoners in the camps but can gather from hints that they were subjected to sexual violence from guards as well as fellow prisoners.
Secondly, most historians of the Holocaust in the immediate post-war time and probably up until today were men. Thus sexual violence was often relegated to the foot-notes of history. This is in part because of patriarchal view points on women, partly influenced by post-war narratives of heroism etc. Those things for example prevented it for a long time that historical research about the camp brothels was done.
On to the question:
A solid lead on how common sexual violence in the camps was is provided by the number of camp brothels. From 1942 on onward more and more concentration camp administrations established camp brothels, starting in Mauthausen. The women forced to work in these brothels came from the Ravensbrück camp with the exception of Auschwitz, where the camp administration used their own prisoners.
These camp brothels were mainly for Kapos and other prisoners with high level functions though they have been known to have been frequented by the SS too. Basically, a visit to the brothel was a reward for prisoners and at least according to one author, a sort of attempt at sexual therapy for homosexual camp inmates.
Another lead on how common sexual violence was in the camp system is the frequent use of female prisoners as house workers for the SS officers. These women were generally better fed than the rest of the inmates and worked in close proximity to their tormentors. It is a reasonable assumption that they were often subjected to sexual violence. Hints to this are given in the corruption trials the SS held against officers in Auschwitz, where the sexual exploitation of camp inmates is hinted at heavily.
As for sexual violence against men, this is mentioned sometimes in survivor accounts though practically exclusively by heterosexual survivors. These testimonies have to be taken with a grain of salt since they too are not free of the stereotypes of their time. Eugen Kogon for example claims that in many respects the men with the pink triangles were as bad as the SS because they raped other prisoners. There is no evidence to substantiate such a claim beyond what Kogon writes and he most likely is not very fond of homosexual men. Hermann Langbein reports on criminal Kapos having had young men serve them sexually in exchange for favors. If this happened and how widespread it was, we can't say but it is a fair assumption that homosexual and other prisoners were indeed subjected to sexual violence by guards and inmates alike.
You have to keep in mind that this to this day is still a controversial topic and especially the question of how widespread it was is concern of that controversy. Really, the only numbers we have currently (work is done here mostly with the ITS archive right now by a colleague of mine) are from the Spielberg Foundation's testimony videos. Of 52.000 testimonies they collected, 1.700 make mention of sexual violence. This, however, is most likely to be not of very much representative value due to factors surrounding the making of the videos.
Sources:
* Heinz Heger, Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel, 2001.
* Christa Paul: Zwangsprostitution. Staatlich errichtete Bordelle im Nationalsozialismus. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1994.
* Baris Alakus, Katharina Kniefacz, Robert Vorberg: Sex-Zwangsarbeit in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern. Mandelbaum, Wien 2006.
* Robert Sommer: Das KZ-Bordell. Sexuelle Zwangsarbeit in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern. Schöningh, Paderborn 2009.
* Sonja Maria Hedgepeth, Rochelle G. Saidel: Sexual Violence Against Jewish Women During the Holocaust, UPNE 2010.
* CNN's Jessica Ravitz: [Silence lifted: The untold stories of rape during the Holocaust](_URL_0_) | [
"Women suffered mass sexual violence and sexual servitude during the Bosnian War, and the Bosnian genocide, when violence assumed a gender-targeted form through the use of rape. Estimates of the total number of women raped during the war range from 12,000 to 50,000.\n",
"With the publication of \"Sexual Violence ... |
why do curiosity and other 'space cameras' take photos in individual rgb layers? | Cameras you're used to using are designed to be able to capture a full image quickly. This means that things don't have to stand still all that long (or may even be moving if you have a fast enough shutter speed).
Cameras in space are optimized to have the smallest possible camera while providing the most capability, and their subjects are seldom moving. This means that instead of having 1 set of red pixels, 1 set of green, and 1 set of blue, you can have just one set of pixels that is three times as dense for the same size and power requirement. Then you can put a wheel with, say, 8 different filters and suddenly you can capture true color images as well as images that are in other areas of the spectrum. You get the capability of 8 cameras that are each 3 times the resolution, all in one. | [
"NASA says, \"The main purpose of Curiosity's MAHLI camera is to acquire close-up, high-resolution views of rocks and soil at the rover's Gale Crater field site. The camera is capable of focusing on any target at distances of about 0.8 inch (2.1 centimeters) to infinity. This means it can, as shown here, also obtai... |
Online text source for old US treaties | Do you have access to Hein? You can find it in *Compilation of Treaties in Force* from 1904. p. 386
_URL_0_
If you have access to Proquest Congressional (formerly Lexis Congressional) search for S. Doc. 318 from the 58th Congress. It's also in Serial Set volume 4622. You can also find it at 32 Stat. 1961. | [
"The Treaties and Other International Acts Series (TIAS) are a series of pamphlets or \"slip\" treaties published by the United States Department of State under the authority of the United States Secretary of State. , codified at , mentions them as alternatives to the edition of the laws and treaties of the United ... |
What happened to paratroopers who didn't jump? | Edit-On mobile so please forgive the formatting/lack of anecdotal examples.
The training to not freeze up either in the door or combat started early on in the paratroopers training. Flight was still a relatively new concept and the militarization of parachuting had begun in the last decade. The selection process to become a paratrooper involved many events that would help self-select those who “froze” in stressful/dangerous situations. For the stress inducing events, soldiers were taught to place their hands on the outside of the plane door as to prevent them from resisting a “gentle” nudge from the soldier behind them as the goal of the parachutist was to land as close to one another as possible; for every second spent waiting in the aircraft was another hundred feet plus of distance between jumpers. Add that over a stick of 13 and the first and last soldier become a quarter mile apart which is a large distance on the battlefield.
For the stress inducing events, these events included jumping from a 34 foot and 250 foot tower before even completing the first parachute jump from a plane at 1,200 feet. After 5 jumps, the soldier would become parachutist qualified. There wasn’t too much more jump training with most soldiers jumping less than a dozen times (for training and combat) for the entire war.
By D-Day, only one regiment of the 6 US paratrooper regiments was combat tested (505th PIR)-the rest were untested and had spent the last few months training in England for the invasion. The other 5, (501, 502 & 506 {101st} and the 507th & 508th {82nd}) had some combat veterans but not to the extent that the regiments could be considered combat tested. With that in mind, the experience and culture of these units would see most many jump. In fact there are stories of pilots being threatened to turn around after missing the drop zone on the first attempt. Before the jump, some regimental and Battalion commanders issued orders that anyone who boarded an aircraft was to jump or they would be charged with desertion under fire-a charge punishable by death.
For those that were scared to jump especially under fire, the stick (load of paratroopers) was organized in a way that soldiers went as a group as opposed to an individual. Stacked closely together, the stick jumped from the airplane with as little distance and time between the individual members as possible. Thus, there was minimal time to actually think/stop as the soldier behind was pushing the one in front of him. If a jumper did manage to freeze, the last man in the stick was responsible for helping to push him/the mass of bodies. These individuals were normally selected for their size & strength specifically for that purpose.
Finally, it was much safer to be on the ground than in the plane. For the 506th specifically, the regiment suffered more casualties on the jump than in the first three days of combat.
That being said, there are multiple reports of cowardice within the jump/upon landing as these soldiers are not immune to the realities of human nature. While most accounts do not identify them by name, stories of taking a nap are found in more than one source in different units.
Sources: Koskimaki, George. D-Day with the Screaming Eagles
Bando, Mark. The 101st Airborne in Normandy
Webster, Daniel. Parachute Infantry | [
"On 26 March 2003, 954 soldiers of the 173d Airborne Brigade conducted a combat jump from C-17 aircraft onto Bashur Airfield in Northern Iraq under the command of Colonel Mayville. The jump took a total of 58 seconds, though 32 paratroopers were unable to jump because they would have landed too far from the rest of... |
Does vitamin C really improve connective tissue health? | Collagen is synthesized in your body as an inactive precursor called procollagen, and to make the final product the body needs the compound called vitamin C as a cofactor. Cofactor means it is a molecule necessary for certain chemical reactions to take place, but we can't make this molecule ourselves and need it from the diet. This chemistry is fairly well understood.
Collagen is the principal component of connective tissue, and even makes up 25-35% of all proteins in your body by weight. Your body is constantly breaking tissue down and re-assembling it, remodelling after minor injuries and performing structural maintenance. Insufficient dietary vitamin C will result in poor connective tissue health as new collagen can't be made, and most famously a condition called [scurvy](_URL_0_).
**TL;DR: It not only improves health, but is completely necessary for the correct synthesis of most of our connective tissue. This being said, I'm not sure if extra amounts will help if you have already have a sufficient intake.** | [
"Vitamin C distributes readily in high concentrations into immune cells, has antimicrobial and natural killer cell activities, promotes lymphocyte proliferation, and is consumed quickly during infections, effects indicating a prominent role in immune system regulation. The European Food Safety Authority found a cau... |
why can radio/satellite tv broadcasts reach over several miles but my wifi drops off before even reaching the front door? | If I whisper "come here" to my wife when she's on the other side of the house, she won't hear me. If I shout it, she will.
Why? Because the latter has far more power than the former. Both are speech, but the shout is delivered with orders of magnitude more energy, and therefore has orders of magnitude more range.
Radio transmissions are no different. | [
"VHF Radio waves usually do not travel far beyond the visual horizon, so reception distances for FM stations are typically limited to 30–40 miles (50–65 km). They can also be blocked by hills and to a lesser extent by buildings.\n",
"Radio transmitters are mounted on tall towers because they generally rely on lin... |
In aeronautics, why does sound have a barrier and why is it so difficult to break? | just found it :
Source: _URL_0_
For decades, the sound barrier had been a problem for pilots and aeronautical engineers. Air builds up in front of and around an aircraft as it approaches the speed of sound; it can’t move out of the way fast enough. The air in front of the aircraft increases drag and reducing lift. At the same time, the air traveling over the top of the wing reaches the speed of sound and forms shockwaves that move back and forth. This disrupts the airflow and causes the aircraft to buffet and shake. | [
"The sound barrier or sonic barrier is the sudden increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. When aircraft first began to be able to reach close to the speed of sound, these effects were seen as constituting a barrier ... |
If all the carbonation from a bottle of soda was removed, would the bottle have a smaller volume of soda? How much less would it weigh? How are bubbles "hidden"in the soda? | A quick calculation for a 2 litre bottle at 3 atmospheres pressure says that the weight of carbon dioxide is about 12 grams (6/22.4 * 44 molecular weight). The volume may not change in proportion though as the CO2 exists as compounds with water so doesn't take up much extra space. | [
"In a new bottle of soda the concentration of carbon dioxide in the liquid phase has a particular value. If half of the liquid is poured out and the bottle is sealed, carbon dioxide will leave the liquid phase at an ever-decreasing rate and the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the gas phase will increase until... |
how come there are things common to almost every culture? | That birthday thing is a learned norm. Most cultures had gifts as a rite of passage i.e marriage, childhood-teenhood, farming seasons etc not every year since calendars weren't as pervasive.
And for the exact parental names such as ma and pa are mainly because babies find it easier to pronounce the sequence. For other language cues, they pretty much stick within similar linguistical backgrounds.
But otherwise humans as a whole have a similar social hierachical structure that pretty much puts the mother and father at the core of any simple social structure. That means a child's importance peaks on those two then grows out later to the rest of the society.
| [
"Culture is a human made concept that helps to define the beliefs, values, attitudes, and customs of a group of people that have similarities to one another in relation to language and location that have helped the people to survive more throughout time. There are two subcultures, which include high-culture and low... |
how is the galaxy s7 ip68 waterproof rated? even when it has open ports like the usb and headphone jack | The ports aren't open to the rest of the internals. Liquid and gunk can still get in the ports, but that's as far as it goes. | [
"The standard aims to provide users more detailed information than vague marketing terms such as \"waterproof\". For example, a cellular phone rated at IP68 is \"dust resistant\" and can be \"immersed in 1.5 meters of freshwater for up to 30 minutes\". Similarly, an electrical socket rated IP22 is protected against... |
why can't i stop eating and just hook up an iv periodically to get my nutrients? | An IV creates another opening in your body, which is a vector of infection. It would be a bad idea to wander around with something like that without it being a medical necessity. Generally speaking, people with feeding tubes and the like aren't wandering around, climbing rocks, caving and so on. If they aren't in a hospital their activities are often limited.
Now, if you want to forget the whole Food thing, [this guy is apparently doing that](_URL_0_). Drink this thing, you're set for the day. | [
"Medications may be mixed into the fluids mentioned above. Compared with other routes of administration, such as oral medications, the intravenous route is the fastest way to deliver fluids and medications throughout the body. The bioavailability of the IV medication is 100%, unlike oral medications where much of t... |
What characteristics separate Hominins and early Humans? | I think you'll find that historians are not your only hope; try /r/askanthropology. | [
"Early hominins—particularly the australopithecines, whose brains and anatomy are in many ways more similar to ancestral non-human apes—are less often referred to as \"human\" than hominins of the genus \"Homo\". Several of these hominins used fire, occupied much of Eurasia, and gave rise to anatomically modern \"H... |
How big of a role did religion play in the Sri Lankan Civil War? | Short answer: significant, sometimes outright, usually as a marker of difference that was expressed in other ways.
To answer your question, we have to recognize first that 'religion' is not a very stable category, particularly outside western Christianity. As a result of the wars of religion in Europe and historical conflicts over the status of the supranational church, the European Enlightenment produced a conception of the separate spheres of "religion" and "ordinary life" that seem familiar to most people in the west today (and ultimately led to the concept of separation of church and state). Because most of the rest of the world does not have that same particular history (especially since Christian thought of that period embraced a number of concepts that lend themselves to separating a "spiritual self" and "secular self"), trying to separate out "religion" from any number of other cultural practices often is difficult, and it is particularly so in Sri Lanka/Tamil Eelam.
By far, the largest religious group on the island for many centuries has been Buddhists. Indeed, Sri Lankan Buddhism possesses a particular conception of their group's importance through traditions that the Buddha both visited Sri Lanka during his lifetime (scattering Buddha relics throughout the island) and intended Sri Lanka to be a sanctuary for Buddhism should it die out in the mainland. This is recorded in one of the oldest texts in the region, the Mahavamsa, which bills itself as a chronology of the kings of the island, but begins with the death of the Buddha and the sanctification of Sri Lanka. The text charts the rise of several prototypical kings (Asoka in India and later Devanampiyatissa, the first Buddhist king of Anuradhapura) whose stories forward a theory of particularly Buddhist kingship. This is tied to the particular heritage of the island: even as the Dhamma languished in India, Sri Lanka was said to remain a haven for Dhamma. Even the name of the island indicates this heritage: Sri is an honorific that is usually translated into English as "Lord," and lots of important Buddhist entities are given the term. So the very name ascribed the island is one of veneration and sacredness (in the literal sense of "set apart-ness"). How could 'religion' not be a part of the conflict (if one grants that Buddhism is a religion)?
The issue is that Buddhism is expressed as more than meditating for Sri Lankan Buddhists. It entails a whole suite of cultural practices, the most important of which is probably language. Sinhala/sinhalese is the language spoken by the majority Buddhist population and is usually the way in which that group is referred to, rather than Buddhist. In contrast, the second-largest group is Tamil-speaking. Sinhala is a modern language descended from Pali, the Indo-European language in which much of the ancient Buddhist texts were written (rough analog to the West: Latin, with which Pali even shares some interesting structural characteristics), whereas Tamil is a Dravidian language (different grouping of origin languages) spoken mostly by the Indian Tamil ethnic group in far southern India (very near to Sri Lanka). Much of this linguistic grouping is geographical: Tamil speakers mostly live in the north of the Island, while Sinhala speakers live in the central and south of the Island, including the capital Colombo. With such real social segregation, other assorted cultural practices signifying difference inevitably took root and gave both groups a sense of difference.
Despite this ancient heritage, we should be careful to buy into the "ancient hatreds" thesis that motivates a lot of Western understandings of conflicts outside the West (Israel/Palestine, Sunni/Shi'a, Sinhala/Tamil). For much of its history, these groups were not even two; they were divided into multiple competing kingdoms, occasionally allying and occasionally warring, but with religion or language playing little motivating factor overall. Colonization by European powers eliminated those states, and the British played up ethnic tensions both deliberately (in order to divide and conquer) and out of convenience (the British preferred to deal with neat ethnic groups rather than a multicultural, and thus incomprehensible, polity). The British also imported around a million Tamil laborers from their colony in India, which both connected Tamils symbolically to British rule and emphasized their perceived difference from the Sinhala population.
With decolonization, a number of insidious trends converged. First, the parliamentary democracy that followed was pretty much entirely majoritarian, meaning that a united Sinhala polity could control the affairs of the island. Secondly, Buddhist monks of the island popularized a more militant sense of nationalism based on the ancient heritage of the island in contradistinction to the Europeanized native class that tended to be more 'secular' and sometimes Christian. This left Sinhala politicians with an irresistible incentive to foment a sense of cultural militancy on the basis of exclusion of the Tamil underclass, now identified by many of the aforementioned monks as descended with various villains in the Mahavamsa (a side note: the Mahavamsa was sort of rediscovered by Euro anthropologists who likely ascribed more importance to it as a text than it possessed, but their elevation of it was definitely important in reintroducing it to Sri Lankan society). In the mid 1900s the government denied Sri Lankan citizenship to recent Tamil immigrants. In the late 60s/1970s, there was a big push for Sinhala to be the only language of state, especially teaching it exclusively in state schools and banning Tamil. Naturally, Tamil citizens in the north were outraged about being essentially excluded from the state. Protests followed in which violence on both sides led to a cycle of reprisal that was difficult to break. In response, several young militants in the north started arming themselves and demanding sovereignty for the Tamil population. After they clashed with Sinhala soldiers, they became known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE, or the Tamil Tigers.
During the civil war, nationalist Buddhist monks played an essential role in motivating a policy of extermination towards the Tamil population. The monks remain the most important political institution in the country largely because of their prominence during the war. However, it's importance to emphasize that that was only a motivating factor for some Sinhala people or politicians. Many were motivated by a sense of being threatened (which they were) by "terrorists," others thought that defeating the "radical" LTTE would be the only way to help the "moderate" Tamils. Others were just motivated by hatred for Tamils expressed along a number of different markers (language, skin color, cultural practices, perceived historical slights).
What is important to note, however, is that while Buddhism, and really a particularly nationalist and particularist form of Buddhism, was a huge motivating factor for the Sinhala side, the Tamil groups were not united around any particular religion. The LTTE was officially atheistic, actually, and the Tamil-speaking people of the north of the island were a mix of a particular branch of "Hinduism" (yet another problematic category), Islam, Christianity, and atheistic. Because of the fault lines in the Tamil side over religion, the LTTE actively discouraged identification based on religion, and tended instead to focus on recent wrongs committed by the Sri Lankan government.
So the answer is probably that it was a very significant factor for the Sinhala/Sri Lankan side, although generally expressed as an undercurrent justifying multiple strands of thought, and it was fairly insignificant as motivator for the Tamil side. It's also a good example of how difficult it is to identify a distinct category called "Religion" since the roots of the conflict have much more to do with things we in the West might identify as "secular" or material, such as access to state services, linguistic or cultural patterns, etc.
Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Disciplines and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam.
The Mahavamsa: The Great Chronicle of Ceylon, trans. Wilhelm Geiger.
Dan Kent, Shelter For You, Nirvana For Our Sons: Buddhist Belief and Practice in the Sri Lankan Army (highly recommended, Professor Kent was my undergrad advisor and taught a class on this very subject)
Tessa J. Bartholomeusz, In Defense of Dharma: Just-war Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka
[might think of more sources in a bit] | [
"During the Sri Lankan Civil War, conflict between Tamil separatists and the government of Sri Lanka at times resulted in violence against temples and other religious targets. However, the primary causes of the conflict were not religious.\n",
"The Sri Lankan Civil War was in a conflict on the island-nation of Sr... |
Can an electron be seen? | Not directly. But we can see the effects of a single one. | [
"The electron microscope directs a focused beam of electrons at a specimen. Some electrons change their properties, such as movement direction, angle, and relative phase and energy as the beam interacts with the material. Microscopists can record these changes in the electron beam to produce atomically resolved ima... |
Is there a correlation between thermal conductivity and whether a material burns or melts? | Diamond has the highest thermal conductivity that we know of yet burns instead of melting.
Neoprene foam has a thermal conductivity nearly as low as air yet melts upon heating.
I'm not seeing a reliable correlation, just a tendency for strongly crosslinked or crystalline organic materials (including cellulose) to break down under heat rather than to melt. Compare the difference between [thermoplastics](_URL_0_) and [thermosets](_URL_1_). | [
"The effect of temperature on thermal conductivity is different for metals and nonmetals. In metals, heat conductivity is primarily due to free electrons. Following the Wiedemann–Franz law, thermal conductivity of metals is approximately proportional to the absolute temperature (in kelvins) times electrical conduct... |
If atoms are mostly made up of space around them how are they collectively solid? | They *aren't* collectively solid. When one atom gets close to another atom, the electron shells of those atoms have strong electromagnetic repulsion, and this repulsion will prevent two macroscopic objects from passing through each other. So on large enough scales that we don't care about the details of said interactions, we can just pretend that things are solid blocks. | [
"Fig. 4 is a \"space-filling\" representation of formic acid, where atoms are drawn as solid spheres to suggest the space they occupy. This and all space-filling models are necessarily icons or abstractions: atoms are nuclei with electron \"clouds\" of varying density surrounding them, and as such have no actual su... |
How does spontaneous symmetry breaking explain the Higgs field? | I don't really know what you mean by "explain" the Higgs field. IF there is a scalar field that has an energy dependence such that it is in some symmetry broken state THEN it can have a non-zero vacuum expectation value. IF a field with a non-zero vacuum expectation value couples to something like the electron field THEN the combined effect of the electron field plus its coupling to the scalar field will result in a new emergent field, which mixes the two, that has mass. It was believed that this was the mechanism through which things like electrons had mass, since naively without this coupling they shouldn't. The name reserved for any scalar field that has a non-zero vacuum expectation and couples with other fields was that such a field would be called a Higgs field. We found the excitation of such a field, a Higgs BOSON in 2012.
so spontaneous symmetry breaking doesn't "explain" the Higgs field, it's definitional for what it means to be a Higgs field (one with non-zero vacuum expectation value). | [
"In the years since the Higgs field and boson were proposed as a way to explain the origins of symmetry breaking, several alternatives have been proposed that suggest how a symmetry breaking mechanism could occur without requiring a Higgs field to exist. Models which do not include a Higgs field or a Higgs boson ar... |
Why do scientists have such high Hope's of a vaccine/cure for COVID-19 yet viruses like HIV are unable to have one developed despite being discovered for a few decades? | The reason for not having a vaccine for HIV is because the virus mutates faster than the development of the vaccine itself. A scientist need to work with a "copy" in order to develop a vaccine and potentially a cure but HIV mutation happens so "fast" that by the end of the day the "copy" is not the same anymore.
The coronavirus COVID19 does not have this feature allowing the scientists to develop a vaccine | [
"Although advances have been achieved both in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, the greatest hope is in discovery of a safe and effective vaccine. The development of an HIV vaccine faces numerous scientific challenges. Knowledge of protective immunity and antigens needs to expand as well as ways to confront... |
why does banging a jar's lid on your counter loosen the jar? | Banging is noise. Noise is sound. Sound is repeated vibrations. Vibrations loosen things. People driving their vehicles down the road with the bass booming are loosening their cars so there will be rattles and it will fall apart but not soon enough. | [
"When a jar has cooled and is properly sealed, pressing the dimple on the lid will not make any sound. An improperly sealed jar will allow the dimple to move up and down, sometimes making a popping noise. Lack of this noise does not necessarily indicate that the food in the jar is properly preserved. Typically, dur... |
when someone feels satisfied with their life and are comfortable with dying, why do we deny them the means to do so with dignity? | The concept that makes it illegal is that no one in their right mind would want to die, as our most basic instinct is survival. By this logic, for someone to choose death they would not be in a healthy state of mind. | [
"BULLET::::- I think we set up an impossible task, because our hedonistic version of happiness is impossible to sustain. But it is quite possible to feel fulfilled and content and that the world is meaningful by aligning yourself with some ideals, something that is bigger and better than you, and trying to live up ... |
Popular sporting events are currently in a large part team sports, yet in antiquity sports were mostly individual events. How did sports as popular spectacles go from centering on individuals to teams? | Any sources to back this position?
I think team sports played as large a role in history as it does today, but perhaps it is only the individuals that are remembered. Chariot racing for example is an individual sport on the face of it, but I have little doubt they had a team of personnel as large as any Formula 1 team to build, repair and design the equipment. | [
"Athletic contests in running, walking, jumping and throwing are among the oldest of all sports and their roots are prehistoric. Athletics events were depicted in the Ancient Egyptian tombs in Saqqara, with illustrations of running at the Heb Sed festival and high jumping appearing in tombs from as early as of 2250... |
Where did the use of valets originate from? | In the middle ages the word valet came to be used to describe a personal male servant to gentlemen. The valet would take care of their master's clothing, equipment, and horse along with anything else that was needed.
When the gentlemen would arrive somewhere on horseback or by carriage the valet would take the horses to the stable and take care of them. The use of the word valet today is generally used for someone who only performs this task. | [
"A valet (or varlet) is a male servant who serves as personal attendant to his employer. In the Middle Ages and Ancien Régime, valet de chambre was a role for junior courtiers and specialists such as artists in a royal court, but the term \"valet\" by itself most often refers to a normal servant responsible for the... |
how exactly does a planned demolition of a building work? how do they pick where to put the bombs? | They've studied structural engineering and demolition for many many years in order to know where the load bearing beams are and how a building is constructed (based on the blueprints), so they know where to place the explosives and in which order to detonate them so that the building collapses in on itself. | [
"Demolition, or razing, is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other man-made structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for reuse purposes.\n",
"Large buildings of variou... |
What is the difference between modern day wine and its ancient (BC and first couple hundred years of AD) counterpart? | Here's a very interesting AMA from last month :
_URL_0_
Answers from /u/Queniden :
> * Reports of wine made in amphoras is that they are **much more oxidized** (sherry-like) than what we are used to now.
> * **Both wine and beer has changed tremendously in style over time.** Even over the last few decades. In many cases I don't think you would want to drink what was made in ancient times (**oxidized wine cut with seawater and flavored with burnt tree resin**) or we simply do not know what was in them
> * The ratio of wine to water depended on context. If you were quite poor the ratio would be higher. During wine drinking parties there was attendant who was in charge of taking measure of the room's mood and if the event was getting rowdy they would increase the proportion of water or if conversation was lagging they would increase it.
> * *Is there a good way to get a taste of historical alcohols today?*
> Look for a book named "Uncorking the Past" by Patrick E. McGovern. It is a great read and in the book he and his team did analysis of residues in ancient containers to discover what the ingredients were. He then teamed up with some local breweries to try and recreate these beverages.** You could probably find some of these still being produced but note that they change the recipes somewhat to account for modern tastes and have access to quality control measures that didn't exist then.**
> * **It seems though in all cases it was diluted. It was simply considered uncivilized to not dilute it.** It would be like going to a fine restaurant of picking up a steak and eating it with your hands.
> What might be the most similar wine today to something Greeks (let's say ~500BC) or Romans (perhaps 200BC-200AD) might have consumed?
> Greek or Roman wine varied a bit by time and place but if you wanted a typical wine experience one thing you could do is find some madeira, cut it with seawater, add a bit of wine grape concentrate and then boil it with some burnt pine resin.
| [
"Greece is one of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world. The earliest evidence of Greek wine has been dated to 6,500 years ago where wine was produced on a household or communal basis. In ancient times, as trade in wine became extensive, it was transported from end to end of the Mediterranean; Greek wine h... |
why is it that when you're inside in a bright room, you can see screen brightness- but if you're outside, with the same amount of light, you can barely see the screen brightness at all? | What *seems* like the same amount of light is actually nowhere close.
The sun puts out more than 1300 watts per square meter. It's just that your eyes quickly adjust and there's not much we can detect with our eyes beyond "it's bright in here".
I'm not positive on the numbers, but roughly... You'd need a 70,000 watt bulb to provide the same level of illumination if you were a meter away from it (a desk lamp for example), or 7 megawatts if you were 10 meters away (an overhead light in a very large room). | [
"When the lights are bright in the main room and dark in the blue room, the reflected image cannot be seen. When the lighting in the blue room is increased, often with the main room lights dimming to make the effect more pronounced, the reflection becomes visible and the objects within the blue room seem to appear ... |
is there a difference between things that "glow" and things that only show up under uv light? what is the mechanism for each? | Glow in the dark = Phosphorescence
Show up under UV = Fluorescence
From Wiki "The most striking example of fluorescence occurs when the absorbed radiation is in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum, and thus invisible to the human eye, while the emitted light is in the visible region, which gives the fluorescent substance a distinct color that can only be seen when exposed to UV light."
So whats the mechanism? When the molecule absorbs the photon (light) it takes that light energy and gives it to an electron. The molecule then releases the energy by emitting a new photon. There is some energy loss through vibration relaxation so the 'new light' is longer in wavelength.
Fluorescence happens faster than you can blink, like in real time. Phosphorescence can take hours to for the molecule to emit the new photon. This is because in Phosphorescence the electron goes into what is called a 'forbidden state'. See this [wiki] page(_URL_0_)
| [
"Some examples of glow-in-the-dark materials do not glow by phosphorescence. For example, glow sticks glow due to a chemiluminescent process which is commonly mistaken for phosphorescence. In chemiluminescence, an excited state is created via a chemical reaction. The light emission tracks the kinetic progress of th... |
Why didn't any of the non-contiguous American territories become states besides Alaska and Hawaii? | I commented on this [before](_URL_0_) and can answer your question regarding the former Spanish colonies after 1898:
In *The Imperial Republic: A Comparison of the Insular Territories under U.S. Dominion after 1898* (Pacific Historical Review Vol. 71, No. 4 (Nov., 2002), pp. 535-574) Lanny Thompson argues that the reasons for the incorporation of Hawaii, but not of the former Spanish colonies, were racial and cultural differences.
Hawaii was seen as a distant frontier of European American settlement. For many government and legal officials, the incorporation of Hawaii was just the continuation of traditional continental expansion. As Hawaii was settled since the 1820ies by European Americans and since then English has been established as a language, the dollar as currency and an American-style legal system introduced, it was argued that Hawaii was already successfully Americanized. This was the crucial difference to the former Spanish colonies, which were, in the eyes of American officials, not intended as well as inhospitable for European American settlers and the population not only differed too much from the Americans in race and civilization that assimilation seems impossible, but also varied too much among themselves in race, development and culture. These differences made them also supposedly unprepared and incapable of self-government. Legal scholars saw the difference in the fact that possessions acquired by conquest don’t become part of the United States.
Bonus fun fact: U.S. citizenship was granted to all male European American and native Hawaiian residents, but not the Japanese and Chinese residents of Hawaii.
| [
"Prior to 1959, Hawaii was an organized incorporated territory of the United States. In 1946, the United Nations listed Hawaii as a non-self-governing territory under the administration of the United States (Resolution 55(I) of 1946-12-14). Also listed as non-self-governing territories under the jurisdiction of the... |
what is the role of aedes mosquitos in the ecosystem? | The Aedes species of mosquitoes are known to spread certain viruses such as dengue and chikungunya that are known to cause disease in humans.
Dengue, in particular, can be fatal if it causes a dengue haemorrhagic fever
Releasing these genetically modified male mosquitoes will eventually lead to a reduction in the Aedes population and hopefully a reduction in the above disease. It is unlikely that the Aedes species has a particular function in the ecosystem and as such, other mosquito species will simply take their place in the ecosystem eventually. It is unfortunate that the numbers of the species will decrease, but the detriments of that do not outweigh the issues caused by the diseases this mosquito species spreads | [
"Colonies of \"Anopheles\" mosquitoes are maintained for several areas of research, such as malaria vector ability, transmission of pathogens, the effectiveness of insecticides, resistance to insecticides, and vaccine research. By studying these topics, more insight may be gained to increase the understanding of ma... |
why does the max volume on my device vary so much based on what it is playing? | It is entirely dependent on the volume level used when mastering the video/song/etc. Some use a standard 'volume'. This is why all songs on iTunes are almost identical volume when they play at the same level on your phone. However, YouTube doesn't require this and as such some videos published retain the low 'master' volume used originally in the editing software.
A good example of someone abusing this principle is the obnoxious vines that master the volume of a vine initially low so you turn your device up - then increase the master volume to make it seem extremely loud all the sudden on the device. | [
"There are multiple volume adjustments for different inputs and outputs on the system. The master volume affects all of these settings. The default and recommended value is 50% for all sources, which actually equates to a 0 dB amplification (none), while a 100% value causes a 16 dB amplification.\n",
"An automati... |
How did royalty during, say the Tudor dynasty, clean their beautiful, elaborate, and expensive clothes? | Protecting from the soiling of the body is easier since undergarments made from linen or wool along with other layers protected the "fancier" outer garments. Plain pieces that could be bleached, scrubbed, boiled, and washed as much as need be would absorb the sweat and dirt. Basic washing of the body daily along with changing of these undergarments kept people fairly clean, though "bathing" was not as common (most of us don't bathe, but shower today).
For the finer pieces dealing with outside dirt and stains there were many ways to clean. A good example would be a grease stain, possibly from a wheel or even food. Water won't get it out alone and using lye soap can be very harsh. Using fullers earth, a powdered dry clay, to soak up the grease is commonly recommended. Sprinkle it on the area, cover in paper, and use a dry hot iron to draw the grease out. Then gin could be used as a solvent for the area and water to pull the gin out. Instructions on cleaning methods, both dry and wet, can often be found in the back of cook books. Surprisingly enough though, most dirt and mud brushes off easily once dry.
Keep in mind that a great deal of extra pieces and detachable items in the clothing can make cleaning easier as well. The jewels around the neckline would be loosely sewn on and detached from the kirtle easily for cleaning. Facings in the hems of gowns with trains would be meant for replacement, protecting the finer fabrics from the ground.
It doesn't quite go back as far as the Tudor period, but check out the book [Hubbub by Emily Cockane](_URL_0_) or delve into some of the [Tudor Tailors](_URL_2_) research and books on that specific era of dress. [The Dirt on Clean](_URL_1_) is on my reading list for the topic as well. | [
"Documentary evidence has shown that luxurious textiles were abundant in Anglo-Saxon England. These materials included imported silks, and textiles and clothing embroidered with gold. Most of these extravagant items were primarily used as religious garments, but it is also highly likely that royals and the wealthie... |
kw vs kwh | Kilowatt is a measure of power, or how much energy the generator can produce every second; where as kWh or joules is the total amount of energy that the generator produced if you ran it for a certain amount of time.
So if a 1 kW generator runs for 1 second, it has produced 1kilo joule of energy; this can also be written as 1 kilo watt-second.
A watt is joule per second, so watt-second is equivalent to joule.
Similarly, when a 1 kW generator runs for an hour, it has cumulatively produced 1kWh ([which is equal to 3600 kilo joules](_URL_0_)) | [
"The kilowatt (kW) is equal to one thousand (10) watts. This unit is typically used to express the output power of engines and the power of electric motors, tools, machines, and heaters. It is also a common unit used to express the electromagnetic power output of broadcast radio and television transmitters.\n",
"... |
how can soap be moisturizing if it’s removing oil from you skin? | You are correct on how soaps is to generally clean and remove oils but moisturizing soaps cleanse the oils and includes replenishing elements like aloe or shea and includes formulas to help absorb the simplest form of moisture, water. | [
"BULLET::::- Using bar soap on the face can remove natural oils from the skin that form a barrier against water loss. This causes the sebaceous glands to subsequently overproduce oil, a condition known as reactive seborrhoea, which will lead to clogged pores. In order to prevent drying out the skin, many cleansers ... |
Have any Presidents of the United States of America nearly left office because the job was too hard? | Probably the best known case of a president who simply got tired of the job was Calvin Coolidge. After serving part of Warren G. Harding's term after his death, and one term elected on his own, Coolidge announced that he would not seek a second full term as President in 1928. Coolidge elaborated. "If I take another term, I will be in the White House till 1933 … Ten years in Washington is longer than any other man has had it—too long!" in his autobiography he stated "The Presidential office takes a heavy toll of those who occupy it and those who are dear to them. While we should not refuse to spend and be spent in the service of our country, it is hazardous to attempt what we feel is beyond our strength to accomplish" | [
"Some presidents have had significant careers after leaving office. Prominent examples include William Howard Taft's tenure as Chief Justice of the United States and Herbert Hoover's work on government reorganization after World War II. Grover Cleveland, whose bid for reelection failed in 1888, was elected presiden... |
why is xbox in competition with pcs? if most gaming pcs run on microsoft windows what do they gain by releasing a "console only" game? | Delving into this is going to take awhile.
Historically, (i.e the past two console generations) game consoles used pretty different API's to PC's - the current batch is standardised so that it's incredibly easy to port games from one console to the PC. The attraction of game consoles was with ease of running and made use of the often expensive setup for television and audio already present, whereas PC's were their own thing in offices - not usually set up with standard televisions. The switch with televisions to a digital audio setup has made using a TV for a computer monitor or a computer monitor for a TV pretty easy if not necessarily built for purpose.
Nowadays, where PC gaming has shifted largely to steam as a DRM format over copy protected discs, steam can work with developers to ensure the games work for a wide erray of systems - necessary when you have on-demand purchases that are delivered immediately to the consumer. As a result, games a much less hassle to get running on PC these days and so PC gaming as a whole, is only a matter of initial purchase in terms of ease of use. This is compounded by the fact that consoles often have hard drives, take time to install, and in some cases take time to download as well. The advantage of a PC is you can do other things with it as well while installs happen, while things download. I suspect this is why consoles have begun trying to switch to media entertainment platforms rather than just straight gaming machines - see Xbox one's capacity to stream TV etc. Sony's playstation network which is more of a social network than XBlive is. In recent years the shift from dedicated gaming platforms to machines that can multitask, as evidenced by the large amount of indie games for mobile operating systems, has begun taking over and I suspect the consoles themselves are driving this shift in an effort to maintain relevancy.
What does this have to do with competition with PC's? Essentially, the xbox line started out with a different market as PC, now the market is very similar - almost identical, as the cost of PC hardware has dropped and so has the cost of PC games. The reason for console exclusives now, is to try and encourage console adopters to use their console over the competitors, but they're both becoming more and more like a PC is. The only real difference at this point is standardised hardware, developers can guarantee that the hardware in a console is able to run the game marketed for the platform, and the fact that the PC is still far and away the best all-in-one platform.
I'd make the argument that current batch of consoles are slipping further and further into irrelevancy, that's not to say they can't recover and define a market niche for themselves, but this generation doesn't do itself any favours. I don't know many PC gamers who buy a single console, if they can afford a PC and a games console, as well as games for both, they can usually afford a third or fourth console too. Historically PC games used to have their own niche market over console games, but not so much anymore and exclusives are really only used to try and grab sales from the competitor, though I'd wager with the explosion in popularity gaming has seen, even that is un-necessary. | [
"Prior to its Japanese launch in February 2002, many analysts estimated that the Xbox would have trouble competing with the PS2 and the GameCube, its local counterparts in the region, noting its comparatively high price tag, lack of exclusives, and larger size which wouldn't fit as well in living spaces. Microsoft ... |
When a pregnant woman goes into labor, what is the proximate physiological change that caused the labor to begin? What mechanism if any functions as a sort of genetic clock for how long the baby will gestate and when this process will end? | The long and short is that not one single entity is usually responsible and we as clinicians are still very terrible at predicting when it will happen. Below is a simplistic view but it contains much of what we know.
This being said... for a normal pregnancy:
1) Estrogen is steadily increasing through pregnancy and continues to do so during the third trimester. Estrogen is considered a uterotropin (causes or facilitates contractions). This estrogen increase results in an increase in particular protein expression in the uterus which leads to an increase in gap junction formation in cells of uterine muscle. This makes the depolarization of one muscle cell cause a cascade to nearby cells which means you have a coordinated contraction.
2) Prostaglandins increase which leads to cervical softening and opening. We dont have a great model in humans due to the ethics of experimentation, however in sheep it has been shown that fetal sheep have rise in cortisol which acts on the placenta leading to increased estrogen and decreased progesterone. The change in the ratio between these hormones results in placental release of prostaglandins which in addition to preparing the cervix for labor also help the uterus become more sensitive to oxytocin which is the hormone that is directly responsible for contractions.
Colloquially many of heard of intercourse leading to the onset of labor. From a chemical standpoint this would make sense as semen contains prostaglandins. This is obviously hard to study however however [a randomized trial](_URL_0_) of clinicians recommending intercourse vs just saying it was safe did not show a difference in labor onset.
| [
"After about ten weeks of gestational age, the embryo becomes known as a fetus. At the beginning of the fetal stage, the risk of miscarriage decreases sharply. At this stage, a fetus is about 30 mm (1.2 inches) in length, the heartbeat is seen via ultrasound, and the fetus makes involuntary motions. During continue... |
[meta] loaded questions | I think people should ask themselves "do I really need a simple explanation, or do I just want a venue to argue my point?" before they ask a question here. | [
"In \"Dotchi-Questa\" (\"Which one?\"), team members take turns going up to a table. They will be asked a Which One? question. The person must ask a question (other than \"What is it?\") and try to figure out which one it is with only one question. For example, a person may be asked \"Pizza, Pasta, Which One?\". Th... |
We know lack of sleep has negative health effects, but is there any research showing too much is also bad? | This is actually one of the big unsolved problems in sleep research right now! We know from studies of people going about their everyday lives (i.e., epidemiological studies) that both short sleep *and* long sleep are associated with bad health outcomes. This trend has appeared in many large-scale studies. Problems are usually detected for those sleeping less than about 6 h per night or longer than about 9 h per night.
[This recent meta-analysis confirmed that risk of death is generally about 12% higher for short sleepers and about 30% higher for long sleepers](_URL_1_).
A puzzle then arises. Despite thousands of carefully controlled laboratory experiments, we have never found an adverse physiological response to sleeping *longer* in the laboratory. We have a very good understanding of why short sleep might be bad: it very quickly leads to impaired immune function, impaired glucose metabolism, increased appetite, weight gain, altered cardiovascular function, and impaired cognitive function. Name just about any physiological system and short sleep has been observed in the lab to cause adverse effects.
However, when people are allowed the luxury to sleep long in the lab, they simply seem to pay back any existing sleep debt. The most famous example would be [this 1993 study](_URL_0_), where young adults were kept in the lab for 28 days. Every night, they had to remain lying in bed in total darkness for 14 h. For the first few nights they slept a tremendous amount -- almost the full 14 h! However, within 2-3 weeks they had settled down to somewhere around 8.5 h per night -- this so happens to also be the amount of sleep required to maintain optimal cognitive performance, which is where this recommendation for sleep need comes from (in truth, we don't yet have any good method of assessing an individual's sleep need).
Something different is therefore happening with individuals who habitually sleep long in the real world. The problem is, what? People have tried to control for all sorts of confounding variables, yet the correlation between long sleep and poor health outcomes remains. One possibility is that people with underlying undetected health problems sleep longer. The long sleep then wouldn't be causing the increase in mortality per se; both would be due to the confounding variable of health status. Another possible confounding variable is mental health, since depression can be associated with lengthened sleep. For now, we don't know the reason, and we lack any laboratory evidence to explain a causal link between long sleep and poor health outcomes. | [
"More than 70 million Americans suffer from sleep problems, according to research from the National Institutes of Health. Sleep disorders, like sleep apnea, can be serious enough to interfere with an employee's well-being. Approximately 13% of work injuries could be attributed to sleep problems.\n",
"Few studies ... |
Is there a best edition/translation of The Histories by Herodotus? | I recommend the "Landmark" Herodotus ([link](_URL_0_)). It is not too expensive these days, has a TON of maps, notes, explanatory material in like 30 different appendices, and a solid translation of the text. It's really great, especially if you happen to be someone who isn't already well-versed in Greek history. | [
"His chief publications are his translation of the \"History\" of Herodotus (in collaboration with Sir Henry Rawlinson and Sir John Gardiner Wilkinson), 1858–60; \"The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World\", 1862–67; \"The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy\" (Parthian), 1873; \"The Seventh Great Oriental ... |
How on earth did they start using laser eye surgery? | > that they were willing to attempt something so dangerous on a real person for the first time
The alternative was equally if not more dangerous, they used to literally use a scalpel held by a doctors hand to cut a small flap open and scrape away material.
They were also able to practice on both eyes of dead people as well as animals with very similar eyes to us.
This procedure is duplicated by almost all medical technology, it is deeply vetted before attempting human trials.
| [
"Laser surgery is commonly used on the eye. Techniques used include LASIK, which is used to correct near and far-sightedness in vision, and photorefractive keratectomy, a procedure which permanently reshapes the cornea using an excimer laser to remove a small amount of the human tissue.\n",
"In 1991, shortly afte... |
what is the mathematical explanation for honeycombs being the shape they are? | Maximum internal volume with minimum length of wall.
EDIT:
For example: If honeycombe was made up of lots of little square wells, the bee's would require more wax walls to hold the same volume as hexagonal honeycombe. The same is true for all other interlocking geometric shapes.
Hexagonal honeycombes achieve optimum honey-well volume to wax wall length ratio.. | [
"Two possible explanations exist as to why honeycomb is composed of hexagons, rather than any other shape. First, the hexagonal tiling creates a partition with equal-sized cells, while minimizing the total perimeter of the cells. Known in geometry as the honeycomb conjecture, this was given by Jan Brożek and proved... |
how does a credit card machine work during flight? | It doesn't, it connects when the plane has landed and all the payments are processed then. This also means you can use a card with no balance and it will be approved. A lot of budget airlines only accept credit cards now for this reason. | [
"At the parking lots of some major airports in the United States, a driver can choose to swipe a credit card at the entry ticket dispenser instead of taking a ticket. When the driver swipes the same credit card at the exit terminal upon leaving the lot, the applicable parking fee is automatically calculated and cha... |
how does the show “planet earth” get their shots without scaring the animals | The telescoping lenses they use are INSANE
basically, a large part of it is zooming in really really really close from really really really far away. other parts of it is remote infrared sensing cameras that record when something near it moves (after they are left on a tree or something). finally they can use drones to get some shots, possibly combined with the crazy zooms. | [
"\"Animal Planet Live\" was a live stage show inspired by the TV channel Animal Planet, and featured multiple animals performing stunts and tricks. It replaced \"Animal Actors Stage\" when it opened at the park in 2001, and was closed in 2006 and replaced with \"Animal Actors on Location\".\n",
"Animal Planet is ... |
every year the asphalt roads get torn up, then patched/re-paved. hasn't road tech/asphalt tech improved to the point where this doesn't need to happen year after year? | They can build roads to a standard right now that will last much longer, but it would cost a lot more per mile and the job goes to the lowest bidder. They build roads to much higher standards in most of Europe and they last a lot longer. | [
"Asphalt including asphalt shingle can be melted down and in part recycled. Tarmac can also recycled and there is now an active market for recycling tarmac in the developed world. This includes tarmac scalpings produced when roads are scarified before a new surface is laid.\n",
"In terms of archaeology, it appear... |
why are some forms of damage to oneself (ie binge drinking, etc) more acceptable than something like cutting? | Because something like binge-drinking is an offshoot or extreme of a socially acceptable, common activity.
While binge drinking is harmful, that is not readily apparent (unless it develops into a dependency).
Self-harm, however, is an immediate, and often permanent (scarring) activity. | [
"Increased vulnerability to sexual violence also stems from the use of alcohol and other drugs. Consuming alcohol or drugs makes it more difficult for people to protect themselves by interpreting and effectively acting on warning signs. Drinking alcohol may also place a person in settings where his or her chances o... |
How did the Korean peninsula become, or come to be seen as mono-ethnic? | > I suppose Korea congealed in a time before nationalism
Yup.
Before the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, there was 35 years of Japanese colonialism. Before that there was 518 years of Joseon. That's longer 209 years longer than the United Kingdom has been around, and it was founded 315 years before the UK.
Before Joseon, there was Goryeo from 918-1392, 474 years, and before that, there was the Unified Silla from 668-935, and before that was the Three Kingdoms (Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo) period from 57 BCE to 668.
If we say that the three kingdoms were different ethnic groups, then it would be easiest to say that 668 is the beginning of a mono-culture, when a unified Silla controlled all of present day South Korea and North Korea up to the Pyongyang-Wonsan area. However, Unified Silla experienced rebellion and infighting from the Baekje and Goguryeo, and they finally came under the control of the Goryeo, who were the descendants of the Goguryeo people, in 935. If that's the marker, then it's been 975 years of a mono-culture.
> What happened to any groups that might object to the idea of One Korea?
As a state, there was no "Korea." It was "Silla" or "Baekje" or "Goguryeo." As for what would happen, it depends. Many of the defeated Baekje (people from the southwest of Korea) moved to Japan where they may have become the warrior/ruling class. This is disputed, especially given the history between Korea and Japan, but there is solid evidence that shows this is both possible and probable. Some of the groups decided to go to China and get support from the Chinese, namely Silla and Tang. This is particularly ironic when you read about some South Koreans complaining about Chinese intervention during the Korean War - anyone historically from the North would have been descended from Goryeo/Goguryeo, while many folks in the South would have been from Silla - the group that originally invited the Chinese in to help THEM.
Long story short though, "Korea" as we know it is a modern idea. The Three Kingdoms fought with each other for supremacy, finally unifying under Silla, who were them absorbed by Goryeo who became Joseon. Over that 1,278 years, the 3-4 groups became 1.
All that said, even today, there is still some division in Korea. Jeolla-do, the former Baekje region, is politically liberal, while Gyeongsang-do, the former Silla capital region, is politically conservative with many of the ROK leaders coming from Gyeongsang. Those leaders neglected the Jeolla region which has lagged behind socially and economically for all of the ROK history. So while Korea is a homogeneous society, it still has its cracks. | [
"The Korean Peninsula was inhabited as early as the Lower Paleolithic period. Its first kingdom was noted in Chinese records in the early 7th century BC. Following the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea into Silla and Balhae in the late 7th century, Korea was ruled by the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) and the J... |
Why do non-flashing LED lights give the effect of flashing when a camera is recording them? | because they likely are flashing, much faster than you can see (thousands of times a second usually). [Pulse-width modulation](_URL_1_) is a very common way to control the brightness of LEDs, since it's very simple (only thing to control is the on/off time ratio, and it corresponds directly to perceived brightness) and also effecient. The reason it shows up in some videos is due to a fast shutter speed which captures some frames when the LEDs are off (specifically it depends on how the PWM frequency compares to the shutter speed), so you can see the flashing (this is a form of [aliasing](_URL_0_)) | [
"BULLET::::- Dimming: LEDs can very easily be dimmed either by pulse-width modulation or lowering the forward current. This pulse-width modulation is why LED lights, particularly headlights on cars, when viewed on camera or by some people, seem to flash or flicker. This is a type of stroboscopic effect.\n",
"Flas... |
Is there a difference in electricity used if I use my computer to charge my phone versus using a separate wall outlet? | USB (specifically USB2) ports only provide about 500mA of current, whereas the wall wart would be able to provide as much as the device requires, up to 2A usually. USB3 specification allows to supply up to 5A for charging, but to my best knowledge computers don't commonly provide this current for USB3 ports.
As a practical implication, you may notice that your devices charge slower (or don't charge at all, in some cases) when plugged into the PC as opposed to the AC adapter. This especially affects tablets with large screens and batteries.
Also, if the AC adapter is of too low quality, the output voltage can be poorly regulated. As a result, the adapter and/or the device may be damaged, potentially starting a fire. Computers have much better power supplies, so this would be much less likely. | [
"In the latter case, a mobile electricity meter is integrated either into the vehicle itself or into the respective charging cable. This, together with the necessary communication technology (SIM card), makes it possible to transmit charging data (down to the kWh) to a matching backend. Lean, switchable system sock... |
do people with 'crazy' or 'lazy' eyes see more, less or differently to other people? or exactly the same? [serious] | my SO has(d) a lazy eye as a kid. The straightness issue was corrected, but she told me her brain just can't process the signal correctly so it only will "see" out of one eye or the other at one time, even though her eyes are straight. She has a dominant eye she sees out of most of the time. | [
"Amblyopia, also called lazy eye, is a disorder of sight due to the eye and brain not working well together. It results in decreased vision in an eye that otherwise typically appears normal. It is the most common cause of decreased vision in a single eye among children and younger adults.\n",
"Strabismus, sometim... |
why is it easier to balance on those small scooters (with those small wheels) when moving compared to when you're not moving? | Scooters (or bikes or motorcycles or anything with 2 wheels for that matter) are designed in a way that makes them want to stay upright while moving forward. I'll use a bike for this example because all the parts are bigger and easier to visualize but all the same physics applies. Imagine you are standing holding a bike by the seat and not touching the handlebars. Now learn the bike to the right like you are leaning into a right handed turn. The handlebars of the bike and the front wheel "fall" a little and point to the right. This is known as "caster" and is something cars have as well (but they don't fall over on their own) The bike is stationary right now and would gal over if you let go. If we imagine this same scenario while the bike is moving forward what will happen is the bike will steer in the direction it is leaning. Since it begins to turn to the right as it leans right the momentum of the rest of the bike wants to carry on forward. This stands the bike back up straight. As long as the bike has enough forward momentum it will naturally want to correct its own balance. (In cars this "caster" effect is why the car returns to moving in a straight line when you let go of the steering wheel). This is why yo can ride a bike without touched the handle bars, and why if you push a bike down a hill and let go it will stay upright.
Small wheels on a scooter or big wheel on a bike have no effect on their desire to self-right at speed as long as they have this type of caster design. What they do influence is how tightly they thing wants to turn and how stable they will be at high speed. The scooter will no doubt be able to turn in tighter circles than a bicycles while the bike will be stable at high speed and the scooter would eventually become uncontrollable. Imagine bombing down a hill on your scooter. If you've ever done this you probably noticed a speed wobble start to occur. This is happening because the scooter wants to self right, but it self rights with so much force that it pushes itself over the top and leans to the other side. It oscillates back and forth until you slow down or crash... | [
"Adults may find upright tricycles difficult to ride because of familiarity with the counter-steering required to balance a bicycle. The variation in the camber of the road is the principal difficulty to be overcome once basic tricycle handling is mastered. Recumbent trikes are less affected by camber and, dependin... |
suppose I'm a typical (18 year old male) Egyptian farmer in the 1390s. Am I likely to make a pilgrimage to Mecca Before I die? if "yes" how Will I get there? | Related question: if I'm a typical Egyptian farmer in the 1390s, would I even be Muslim or identify as Arab? | [
"By the age of 53 he embarked on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, where in 1496 (901 Hijri), after circumambulating the Kaaba, he declared that he was the Promised Mahdi and whoever believes in him is a Momin.\n",
"Gulbadan Begum described in her memoir a pilgrimage she along with Hamida Banu Begum undertook to Mecc... |
why do different people have different "resting faces"? | People have different faces, therefore their "resting face" is different. Some people just have a resting face that looks like they are angry, for example (low thick eyebrows would dool this). | [
"This is thought to be due to specific psychological cognitive modules involved in face perception which are tuned especially to upright faces. Faces seem unique despite the fact that they are very similar. It has been hypothesised that we develop specific processes to differentiate between faces that rely as much ... |
bitcoins. what are they, why are they sketchy, how do you get them, and why are they better then runescape-currency? | So let's pretend that the bitcoins are acorns and there is a high society of intelligent squirrels that do what we do. Imagine, if you will, that there is a specific type of tree that produces special blue acorns at an impossibly slow rate and getting acorns from them is inconsistent. Because of this, there's a capacity of value that these blue acorns have because the pool of currency is expanding at an unknown rate - the only thing that the squirrels know is that it's expanding.
So we've set the stage for how this stuff works. Our super-squirrels are very contented at the fact that they have their acorns, but Bob-squirrel across the street has a slice of cake that looks mighty tempting. Because all the squirrels find an inherent value in their acorns and know that everyone else does, there is a consensus that they are equally valuable to another squirrel.
Bob-squirrel, knowing that his cake is valuable, can ask for a certain amount of blue acorns that are equal in value to his cake. Bob-squirrel also knows that there's no possible way that he can be scammed because blue acorns don't bounce like normal acorns do, guaranteeing an equal value trade. Other squirrels can trade with each other just as easily, but they can also barter - fluctuating the value of our blue-acorns across the board.
But, as we know, squirrels are devious and conniving, super-squirrels even more-so. The super-squirrels down the street want to do some bad things to the Johnsons' yard because they took down the bird feeder. The super-squirrels down the street start doing some shifty business with some city-squirrels, buying bad things with their blue-acorn currency - effectively making them dirty.
As for the Runescape currency business: I can guess that because there is an infinite amount of money being injected into the system by quests and NPCs, a single denomination of currency is so worthless that the prices of items are outrageous. Bitcoins can be spent on tangible items and are worth a certain value, a bitcoin surely having a larger inherent value than a single denomination of Runescape currency. | [
"Bitcoin is a digital asset designed to work in peer-to-peer transactions as a currency. Bitcoins have three qualities useful in a currency, according to \"The Economist\" in January 2015: they are \"hard to earn, limited in supply and easy to verify.\" Per some researchers, , bitcoin functions more as a payment sy... |
if i eat (and drink) the exact same thing at the same time every day, will my bowel movements be identical in color, size, and consistency (and come at the same times), or are there other factors involved? | Amount if physical activity also plays a role. So if you do literally the exact same amount of physical activity then yes | [
"The most important factor in food rheology is consumer perception of the product. This perception is affected by how the food looks on the plate as well as how it feels in the mouth, or \"mouthfeel\". Mouthfeel is influenced by how food moves or flows once it is in a person's mouth and determines how desirable the... |
how does the u.s. senate get away with passing a vote for something that basically no reasonable and knowledgeable citizen would want passed? for example, the most recent vote allowing isps to sell your personal data. | The counter measure is to vote them out of office in favor of someone who will repeal the bad laws.
Unfortunately, voters have been far too apathetic for far too long, and the system is corrupt beyond hope of repair. Vote out one crook, another takes his place. And a lot of the crooks can't be got rid of anyway. | [
"In practice, a \"low information voter\" may not be aware of legislation that their representative has sponsored in Congress. A low-information voter may base their ballot box decision on a media sound-bite, or a flier received in the mail. It is possible for a media sound-bite or campaign flier to present a polit... |
how did black boxes for descrambling cable channels in the 90s work? | Back then the way scrambling worked was they just didn't send the sync pulse (the mark for the start of the frame). The cable box then had a circuit that when authorized made a sync pulse and inserted it back in. The descramblers were boxes that just added in sync pulse to make it watchable. | [
"Later cable boxes became addressable, allowing the carrier to independently identify one cable box from another. In early systems, this permitted the carrier to send instructions to the boxes by addressing them over the wire. This allowed customers to subscribe to premium television and pay-per-view. More recent c... |
Due to the fact that the Earth is spinning, are we not feeling the full effect of the Earth's gravity due to the centrifugal force? | You are correct. Effective [gravity](_URL_1_) is weaker at the equator than at the poles. This also affects the actual [figure of the earth](_URL_0_), which introduces an actual difference the equator/pole gravity, on top of the centrifugal term. | [
"In popular (non-technical) usage of the term \"Coriolis effect\", the rotating reference frame implied is almost always the Earth. Because the Earth spins, Earth-bound observers need to account for the Coriolis force to correctly analyze the motion of objects. The Earth completes one rotation per day, so for motio... |
when movies are shown on most tv channels, the end credits are shrunk, squeezed, and/or sped up until they're unreadable. why are they shown at all? | Yes, they must show the credits, it is a part of the agreement to air the film in its' entirety including credits.
But the language didn't preclude shrinking of the credits. Major loophole. | [
"Some movies come to a formal ending, followed by the rolling of the credits, which is almost universally used to indicate that the film has ended, only to have the actors reappear in one or more mid-credits scenes. In comedy films, these sequences may be bloopers or outtakes. In other types of films, the mid-credi... |
When scientists refer to the new white laser by combining red, green and blue laser diodes, is it just perceived as white light by the human eye? | Colors are defined by how people perceive them. For example 587 nm light and a mix of 701 nm and 535 nm light both excite the red and green receptors in a human eye, and are both called "yellow". By this definition, it is white. Meaning that it is perceived in a certain manner by the human eye.
White can also mean that there's the same amount of energy at every frequency, as with white noise. Under that definition, it's not white.
> If this is true, *technology* wouldn't interpret the newly discovered white laser as white since it is not broadbanded.
That depends on the technology. A video camera would show it as white. A spectrograph would show it as a mix of red, green, and blue. If you want to make a projector with it, it will work well. If you want to use it to transmit information, you can transmit three times as much as with one laser, and there's no reason you can't just add on more colors. Although I'm not sure if there's any reason you can't just use three separate lasers. | [
"The violet 405 nm laser (whether constructed from GaN or frequency-doubled GaAs laser diodes) is not in fact blue, but appears to the eye as violet, a color for which a human eye has a very limited sensitivity. When pointed at many white objects (such as white paper or white clothes which have been washed in certa... |
How historically accurate is George Orwells book Homage to Catalonia ? | I think he descrives the events pretty accurately, of course the interpretations he make of them is from the anarcho-syndicalist point of view.
For example, one of his main conclusions was that the first and most willing to fight the Nationals were the syndicalist, however this were more unterested in the revolution than in defending the republic, as a consequence middle-class republicans feared them and didn't arm them properly. This gave Francoist troops the time they needed to consolidate their positions in the peninsula (remeber that Franco and his troops were in Morroco!).
The comunist view on this, which was the dominating one among the opposition during the Francoist regim because the comusnit were the most organized, was that, by prioritising the revolution over the war, the anarchist divided the republican side which was the ultimate cause of their defeat.
So, same facts, diferent interpretations.
oh, and as a final note, Orwell may have overstated the revolutionary feelings of the majority of the population... | [
"After years of neglect \"Homage to Catalonia\" re-emerged in the 1950s, following on from the success of Orwell's later books. The publication in 1952 of the first US edition (by Harcourt, Brace, of New York) with an influential introduction by Lionel Trilling, \"elevated Orwell to the rank of a secular saint.\" A... |
Why didn't the killer bees ever move any further north in the US? | Beekeeper here. Killer bees do, in fact, move further north, but the difference of climate and environment actually change the bees' behavior and they end up behaving just like a normal honeybee. I've moved bees from Texas to Colorado and have seen many hives get to Colorado and behave like killer bees, except after several weeks they start to act like regular bees. It's strange, I know, but it's what happens. | [
"\"Bombus occidentalis\" was once one of the most common bee species in the North West America. They have been found from the Mediterranean California all the way up to the Tundra regions of Alaska, making them one of the bees with the widest range geographic range. However, recently there has been a noticeable dec... |
Can deaf people hear the sound of crunchy food through their head while they eat? | My wife is an Audiologist, so I'll do my best to pass on what I've learned from her:
Deafness can be attributed to many factors. There can be problems with your outer ear (your visible ear, ear canal, and eardrum) which affect air conduction (ability to hear sound waves passing through air- it's what you think of when you think of "hearing"). Outer ear problems are typically a missing or otherwise damaged/malformed eardrum. You could also be born without an ear canal. The next level of hearing problems is in the middle ear, which contains the ossicles (the little bones which transmit the vibrations of your eardrum to the cochlea). You can have fluid in your middle ear which dampens air conduction (but not bone conduction- more on that later)
There are two modes of hearing: air conduction and bone conduction. Air conduction is what most people are thinking of when they talk about hearing- it's sound waves passing through the air which cause the eardrum to vibrate which (indirectly) passes the vibrations to the cochlea. Bone conduction (which the OP is asking about) is when vibrations are imparted to the bone structure of your head (either through your skull, jaw, etc) and the vibrations are transmitted to the cochlea that way, bypassing the eardrum.
For the OP's question, a "deaf" person could hear the crunching noises associated with eating if they were sufficiently loud, depending on what is the cause of their hearing loss.
Hearing loss can be cause by problems with the outer ear (ear canal, eardrum), middle ear (ossicles - hammer, anvil, stirrup), inner ear (cochlea), auditory nerve (which carries the signal from the cochlea to the brain), or some other auditory processing disorder (inability of the brain to process signals sent from the cochlea, tumor affecting that region of the brain, etc).
Outer ear problems such as malformed or non-existent/ruptured eardrums, outer ear infection (such as swimmer's ear), or congenital lack of and ear canal can cause hearing loss in that they impair air conduction. These do not actually affect the ability of the cochlea, the hearing organ.
Middle ear problems (mostly) affect the ossicles. The ossicles are the Hammer, Anvil, and Stirrup, the little bones which act together to transmit the vibrations of the eardrum to the cochlea. Ossification of the ossicles is when they essentially fuse together, preventing them from moving properly to conduct the sound from the eardrum to the cochlea. Middle ear problems also extend to ear infections and/or fluid in the middle ear. A side note, the eustachian tube connects your middle ear to your sinus cavity- this is what "pops" to let air into or out of your middle ear to correct any pressure difference between the atmosphere and your middle ear (like when you are driving up a mountain, taking off/landing in a an airplane, etc). Unless the eardrum has a hole in it either from having permanent tubes or being malformed, even deaf people experience the discomfort of this pressure difference. Whether they can "hear" the pop, though, depends on:
Inner ear problems. Your cochlea is the inner ear is the hearing organ. It is shaped like a snail shell (cochlea comes from the Greek word kokhlias, or "snail"). For air conduction, the ossicles vibrate against the "cochlear window" at the wide end of shell shape, which vibrates fluid in the cochlea past inner hair cells which, when disturbed, send a signal to the brain through the auditory nerve. Bone conduction directly transmits the sound to the cochlea through the skull, though sounds are usually less clear sounding by this mode of conduction. Your hair cells are tuned to various frequencies (sound pitches), with the high frequency hair cells located at the beginning of the cochlear chamber and the low frequency hair cells located at the end of the chamber (the center of the snail shell). Hearing loss associated with aging is typically due to inner hair cells dying, decreasing the strength of the sound signal sent to the brain. Also, since higher frequency hair cells are located at the beginning of the cochlear chamber and are "assaulted" by both high and low frequency tones, they are typically the ones to die first. There are many many reasons the cochlea may not work properly, far beyond my knowledge or even the scope of this topic. Back to the OP's question, as long as the cochlea is not too badly damaged, a "deaf" person may still be able to hear food crunching in their mouth. On a side note, the cochlea is also where your sense of balance is controlled.
Finally, problems with the auditory nerve or with the brain's ability to process auditory signals can cause hearing loss. These types of hearing loss are usually the most severe and there is not much that can be done to help those with this kind of hearing loss. In this scenario, the deaf person is deaf in the stereotypical sense where they either can't hear at all or even if their ears work properly, their brain has no way to understand the information it is receiving.
There are, of course, varying degrees of severity to all of these hearing problems. If the cochlea is at least working to a small degree, the patient may be a candidate for a cochlear implant which is (very) basically a hearing aid whose speaker component is inside the cochlea. Normal hearing aids can overcome smaller hearing losses associated with decreased cochlear function by amplifying sounds via air conduction. You can also receive a bone conduction hearing aid which allows patients with middle ear problems who don't want surgery (or surgery won't help them) to still benefit from a hearing aid.
I know this post went far beyond the question posed, but I hope it proved interesting. I know my wife would also want me to tell you all at least these two things:
1) If you ever wake up one day and your hearing is suddenly gone or severely diminished, PLEASE go see an ENT immediately. Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSHL) is very treatable if it is treated immediately with steroids. Most people regain all or most of their hearing if treatment is started immediately. If you don't get it taken care of immediately, though, your hearing may never come back.
2) If you have hearing loss or have a parent of child with hearing loss (especially a child), please see an Audiologist! For children, hearing is a critical component of childhood development and learning. For adults, it's a major quality of life concern. If your vision isn't good, you get glasses and don't think twice about it, right? Do the same for your hearing. See and audiologist and, if needed, get fitted for hearing aids. And stay away from hearing aid dealers. They are salesmen trying to sell you something. Audiologists go through a 4-year doctoral program and are licensed by the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA) to test, diagnose, and consult with patients to decide the best course of treatment for each individual patient. You also tend to get better repair benefits/warranties through an Audiologist than you would from a hearing aid dealer. | [
"The deaf brain develops at the same rate as the hearing brain when learning language. Deaf babies babble on their hands the same way hearing babies babble with their mouths, and they acquire language in the same timeframe. This is true neurologically and behaviorally. In both areas they hit the same milestones aro... |
Will the number of people alive on earth ever match the number of people that does prior to that point in time? | huh, apparently not. _URL_0_ | [
"Estimates of the total number of humans who have ever lived range in the order of 100 billion. It is difficult for estimates to be better than rough approximations, as even modern population estimates are fraught with uncertainties on the order of 3% to 5%. Kapitza (1996) cites estimates ranging between 80 and 150... |
why doesn't everyone use the same language? | > Wouldn't things (like worldwide trade) be a lot easier if everyone on Earth spoke the same language?
For worldwide trade most the individuals involved speak English. The majority of the world that doesn't speak English isn't involved in international trade, so it's not a big deal for them.
Switching to one language would be a huge mess in the efforts to properly train people on that language, translate all the various documents within a country to that new language, etc.
Plus, the way we are going, software like Google translate will soon be able to do most of the work for us. | [
"However, languages, now understood as the particular set of speech norms of a particular community, are also a part of the larger culture of the community that speak them. Humans use language as a way of signalling identity with one cultural group and difference from others. Even among speakers of one language sev... |
how does a stainless steel soap remove the fish or garlic scent from your hands? | What the hell is a stainless steel soap? | [
"Companies that produce stainless steel soaps claim that the odors these foods cause result from sulfur, which turns into sulfuric acid upon washing the hands. The aim of the stainless steel soap is to then bind to the sulfur molecules, thus removing them and the associated smell from the hands. However, scientific... |
if white is the presence of all colors and black is the absence of them, why does our hair turn white when we age? | Your hair color, like most other colors, is based on pigmentation.
With pigmentation, as light hits it, the pigmentation will absorb most of the light, and reflect specific wavelengths. Depending on what wavelengths are reflected, you get different colors. So with black hair, the base pigment is absorbing everything, so it just looks black.
With white hair, there is actually no pigmentation - the light just gets reflected back, revealing a grey or white looking hair based on how much light is being reflected. | [
"Gray or white hair—sometimes colloquially called \"salt and pepper\" when it is 'peppered' throughout dark hair—is not caused by a true gray or white pigment, but is due to a lack of pigmentation and melanin. The clear hairs appear as gray or white because of the way light is reflected from the hairs. Gray hair co... |
i've been really sore so my wife bought me some epsom salt. i think it actually helped somewhat, but i don't get how sitting in a pool of magnesium sulfate makes my muscles feel better? so how does it work? | Probably 99.9% of the effect is the warm water itself increasing blood flow to the sore muscles. | [
"Magnesium sulfate is used in bath salts, particularly in flotation therapy, where high concentrations raise the bath water's specific gravity, effectively making the body more buoyant. Traditionally, it is also used to prepare foot baths, intended to soothe sore feet. The reason for the inclusion of the salt is pa... |
Why are some items (i.e latex) more prone to eliciting an allergic response than others (i.e. concrete)? | Allergies are caused by the immune system reacting to proteins. Latex is from a plant, the rubber tree, so contains proteins.
Concrete is just rock and stuff so no proteins, however it could irritate skin in other ways. | [
"Some allergic reactions are not to the latex itself, but from residues of chemicals used to accelerate the cross-linking process. Although this may be confused with an allergy to latex, it is distinct from it, typically taking the form of Type IV hypersensitivity in the presence of traces of specific processing ch... |
What would an 11th century king in Brittany eat for breakfast? | Probably nothing.
Nobility in medieval Europe (sorry I can't be more specific to Brittany) normally didn't eat breakfast, for social (breakfast was for common laborers and children) and religious (gluttony / breaking the nightly fast too early) reasons.
Generally only two meals were eaten - dinner (or lunch) and supper (dinner).
Looking into William the Conqueror's diet is pretty interesting though. My history professor described it as "hares and pears".
Source: Eszter Kisbán, "Food Habits in Change: The Example of Europe in Food in Change" & Bridget Ann Henisch, "Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society" | [
"It might be expected that when King George III spent his summer holidays in Weymouth, as he did often between 1789 and 1805, the height of cuisine would accompany him. However, by this time suffering from illness, the King ate plainly. Among his favourite foods from the area were Radipole biscuits, pudding at the ... |
Has a violent rebellion by a poor and oppressed minority EVER been successful? | What do you mean by successful?
Arguably, the Stonewall Riots were successful. The riots happened following intense police brutality towards LGBT, encroaching on the clubs where they could be themselves. The rioters (who were mostly drag queens and street kids) managed to overwhelm the police and the riots were very widely publicized. The aftermath of the riot saw many LGBT activists group forming as well as the birth of the pride parade a year later. 4 years later, homosexuality was removed from the American Psychiatric Association as a mental illness.
Something to keep in mind off is that prior to Stonewall, LGBT activists groups were focused on presenting LGBT people as a "normal" member of society. When Frank Kameney (an activist) marched in front of the white house in 1964, his aim was to try to convince the public that LGBT people were the same as those working in the white house. Demonstrations were not violent - e.g. the sip in at Julius bar in which the activists identified themselves as homosexuals before ordering a drink. After Stonewall, Kameney (and other activists such as Randy Wicker) cited the violent nature of the riot as the catalyst for gay liberation. The act of standing up against their oppressors (and succeeding) lead people to realize that gay liberation was possible, that they weren't helpless. At Stonewall, the lack of police reinforcements meant that the rioters managed to locked the police in the club - reversing the role of oppressors and oppressed.
One last thing - I think it is reductive to say that Stonewall was the birth of gay pride or that it marked the beginning of LGBT acceptance/tolerance. Violent riots at Cooper Donuts and the Black Cat Tavern took place before Stonewall but because of the lack of publicity, they were not as effective as Stonewall. It's also important to note that prior to Stonewall, there were many homophile groups such as the Mattachine Society which promoted gay rights and provided a sense of acceptance for gay men. The Mattachine Society has been widely criticized as being too conservative both pre and post Stonewall.
Stonewall wasn't the first riot - it is merely one event (albeit one very successful event) in a very long chain that paved the way for gay acceptance today.
| [
"Not all rebellions are insurgencies. There have been many cases of non-violent rebellions, using civil resistance, as in the People Power Revolution in the Philippines in the 1980s that ousted President Marcos and the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. Where a revolt takes the form of armed rebellion, it may not be view... |
What is the reason behind the different stability of whipped yolk by itself, with egg white, and with sugar? | Ok, so you're mostly asking about egg foams and you're mostly in the right ball park but I'll start from the start as it'll be easier to answer all your ancillary questions. Sorry this is a bit of a long one:
So egg white is about 90% water. The remaining 10% is almost all protein although there are some trace amounts of vitamins, minerals and sugars. Within the protein portion the protein breakdown is
Protein | %
-------|-
Ovalbumin | 54
Ovotransferrin | 12
Ovomucoid | 11
Globulins | 8
Lysozyme | 3.5
Ovomucin | 1.5
Avidin | 0.06
All others | 10
The ovomucin is what gives egg white it's thick/slimy texture when raw. The ovotransferrin, globulins, lyzosyme and ovomucin are responsible for the ability for the white to be whipped in to a foam.
Which brings us to the foam. Although it doesn't appear this way an egg white foam is principally a foam of air bubbles suspended in water, which is extensively stabilised by several proteins. As you whip the white bubbles are incorporated and the shearing stress begins to denature (unfold) the proteins and incorporate bubbles of air in to the white. To begin with the surface tension of the water rapidly excludes and air bubbles and no substantial foam forms. As the proteins denature (mainly the ovotransferrin and globulins) the foam becomes increasingly stable. This is driven by 2 effects; firstly the unfolded proteins can interact fairly freely and they begin to form a complex tangled web; secondly the unfolded protein exposes hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions and this causes the denatured proteins to move to the bubble walls where the hydrophilic portions remain dissolved in the liquid phase and the hydrophobic regions extend in to the bubble air/void space. These 2 actions bring a strongly stabilising web of protein specifically to the bubble walls.
Now if you keep beating you can destroy the web and cause the proteins to aggregate only with other proteins, you'll notice over beaten egg white starts to go grainy and will eventually split driving the protein and water to separate completely. Among other things these later stage interactions are strongly mediated by sulphur-sulphur interactions between the protein chains. These can be prevented in one of two ways firstly a small number of copper or silver ions in the solution interrupts these interactions and egg whites beaten in copper bowls come together faster and are less likely (take very, very long) to split. Alternatively a small amount of acid (like lemon juice) performs the same function. Both these effects were discovered by the mid 18th century.
I'm not aware the salt helps. Large salt concentrations will drive proteins in solution to denature but you'd only notice this effect once the whites were unpalatably salty. Small amounts of salt destabilise the denatures proteins causing the foam to take longer to form and greatly increasing the chance of it splitting. You'll note that salt is almost always added to portion of the dish you fold the already beaten whites in to (i.e. soufflé)
Next; yolks. Yolks are about 40% water but densely saturated with various proteins and LDL (low density lipoproteins) suspended in it. LDLs are tiny spherical bodies composed of protein, cholesterol and lipoprotein. Also present is Lecithin, a biological emulsifier that ensures the fatty LDL remains suspended in the water.
If you get too much egg yolk in your egg white you can not form a foam, this is because the beating process breaks apart the LDL and allows the fats to disperse in to the foam. As fats are amphiphilic they move immediately to the hydrophilic-hydrophobic interface at the air bubble's surfaces and displace any of the egg white protein already there. As these fats do not readily bond to one another nor form any kind of web the bubbles rapidly collapse and no stable foam can be established. I vaguely recall that as long as the mixture is less than 3% yolk then you can still beat whites to a foam.
Next, yolk foams. If you just beat yolks they will not foam even though there is plenty of proteins and 2 emulsifying agents (lecithin and liopprotein) which should aid the process. This is principally because there is no free water. If you add a tablespoon or so to a yolk you'll find it rapidly foams but what foam forms rapidly dissipates. This is down to 2 things; the lipid effect which ruins egg white foams as above and the fact that proteins in yolks are not denatured by the shearing stress of beating. Yolk foams are usually stabilised by adding water to allow the foam to form and then gently heating to denature the proteins so the protein web can form. Yolk foams are stable to the lipid content as there is so much more protein present than in egg white. When making zabaglione the marssala provides the additional water content and the heat sets/fixes the foam.
Lastly, creaming yolks with sugar. I'm reasonably sure this is driven by the fact that sugar is highly hygroscopic. Sugar readily attracts and then holds free water molecules in a solution, this is key in how sugar plays a roles in thickening jams and allowing honey to become super saturated. With egg yolk there is not a great deal of free water available (which is associated with some LDL already). Adding sugar will cause that free water to move away from the LDL and proteins and then these will begin to aggregate and the mixture will thicken. | [
"Eggs contain multiple proteins that gel at different temperatures within the yolk and the white, and the temperature determines the gelling time. Egg yolk becomes a gel, or solidifies, between . Egg white gels at different temperatures: . The white contains exterior albumen which sets at the highest temperature. I... |
tennis scoring | Each game is won by being the first to score 4 points, although you must win by two clear points.
The first point is called 15. The second is 30. The third is 40. And the fourth is Game.
40-40 is called "Deuce". From here, a player has to score two points in a row to win the game, in order to win by two clear points. The first point is called "Advantage", and the second point is Game. After Advantage, if the player with Advantage loses the next point, it goes back to Deuce again.
A set is the first to 6 games. But you must normally win by two clear games. If it reaches 5-5, then a player can win two more games to win the set 7-5. If it reaches 6-6 then a tie-break takes place. This is won by being the first to 7 points (the points just go 1, 2, 3, etc), but you must win by two clear points.
The exception is the final set, where there is no tiebreaker - the set continues until a player has a lead of two clear games.
A match is the best of either 3 or 5 sets, depending which competition it is, and whether it's men or women: 5 Sets is a Men's Grand Slam (Singles or Doubles), 3 Sets in everything else
Edit: incorporated ultrachronic's clarifications, and some clarification about Advantage and Deuce. | [
"Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) is a reliable, accurate index that rates players' skill in tennis. UTR rates all players—men, women, and children—on a single 16-point scale (with two decimal places, e.g., 11.29) that works for players globally regardless of their skill level, from beginners to top professional compe... |
Today is /r/redditdayof "Influential Women in History". Historians, could you share your knowledge and submit something about those who are less known but not less important? | **Elizabeth Peratrovich** is a name well-known in Alaska, but she isn't as known Outside.
Born in 1911, Peratrovich was a Tlingit from Petersburg in Southeast Alaska. Adopted by a Presbyterian Tlingit family, she was raised in Petersburg and Ketchikan and later attended Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka. In 1931, she married Roy Peratrovich and the two lived in Klawock, where Roy worked at a cannery and was active in politics, serving as mayor for four terms and volunteering in the Alaska Native Brotherhood, a popular political and social organization.
Peratrovich raised three children and became active in politics as well. She was a member (and later, president) of the Alaska Native Sisterhood. After the outbreak of WWII, the Peratroviches moved to Juneau, seeking work.
Instead, they found widespread discrimination against Natives. "No Natives" signs were common at some businesses, and with an influx of people into the Territory of Alaska, renters were free to discriminate against Natives for housing.
The Peratroviches, using their position in the Alaska Native Brotherhood, organized a massive petition drive to ban discrimination. Gov. Ernst Gruening introduced the Anti-Discrimination Act in late 1942 to the Alaska Legislature. In early 1943, however, the Anti-Discrimination Act was defeated by the Alaska Legislature.
The next year, a new fight began. **Alberta Schenck Adams** was a Native high school student in Nome who worked at the town's movie theater. Part of her job was to keep non-white patrons in the segregated theater's balcony. When she protested to her manager, she was fired.
She retaliated with a letter to the *Nome Nugget* newspaper in March 1944, and then returned to the theater with her boyfriend, an Army sergeant. When the pair refused to move from the "whites only" section, the manager had her arrested.
Adams wrote Gov. Gruening, who reintroduced the Anti-Discrimination Act at the start of the 1944-45 legislative session. It appeared bound for the same outcome as the 42-43 session. The bill was ["assailed as a "lawyer's dream" which would create hard feelings between Natives and whites. Many senators stood in turn to speak against equal rights."](_URL_0_)
On the final day of the Legislative session, the Legislature opened the floor to public comments. Peratrovich was the final speaker. "I would not have expected," she began, "that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights."
Thus began one of the great speeches in Alaska history. She talked about herself, her friends, her children, and the cruel treatment they experienced in Juneau. She described how she was unable to buy a house in a decent neighborhood because of discrimination. She described how her children felt when they were refused admittance to movie theaters or saw signs that said "No dogs or Natives allowed."
Unfortunately, [we do not have the full text of her speech.](_URL_2_)
The results of it are undeniable, however. After Peratrovich's speech ended in a burst of applause, the Alaska Senate voted 11-5 to approve the Alaska Civil Rights Act. This was the first law in the United States prohibiting discrimination.
Today, Alaska observes Feb. 16, the day the act passed, as Elizabeth Peratrovich Day.
To see a film about this story, [click here](_URL_1_). | [
"BULLET::::- \"Notable Women in History - the Lives of Women Who in All Ages, All Lands and in All Womanly Occupations Have Won Fame and Put Their Imprint on the World's History\" - The John C. Winston Company, Philadelphia, 1912 - Illustrated\n",
"The book profiles 25 historical women in a writer's voice, with i... |
Why is the skin on our lips different from the skin on the rest of our body? | From what I remember from my development lectures, the reason your lips are different is because when embryos are developing the endothelium of the gut extends when the embryo folds in development, the endothelial tube then presses through the epiderm so that the tube opens at one end and leaves at the other, the endoderm at the end then fuses with the epiderm and is slightly exposed on the end. Eventually these develop into your lips and ass.
I'm probably remembering wrong so I would check my facts if I were you, I'm too hungover right now to do this myself.
Hope this helps | [
"The lip skin is not hairy and does not have sweat glands. Therefore, it does not have the usual protection layer of sweat and body oils which keep the skin smooth, inhibit pathogens, and regulate warmth. For these reasons, the lips dry out faster and become chapped more easily.\n",
"The lips are composed wholly ... |
what would happen to me if i decided to conquer a small piece of land and create my own country? | Well that land belongs to someone, and when they request the government's assistance (police) in getting you out of their yard, they will arrive. If you're unwilling to move they'll forcefully remove you and possibly arrest you for trespassing. | [
"[...] The possibility of conquering the land is liable to slip out of our grasp. Our central problem is immigration ... and not adapting our lives to this or that doctrine. [...] We are conquerors of the land facing an iron wall, and we have to break through it. [...] How can we run our Zionist movement in such a ... |
why are my muscles feeling sore after a poor night's sleep? | I can think of a few things that cause this.
Most importantly, your body makes a large chunk of repairs to your muscles during sleep. If your muscles are damaged (which just happens when you use them), then not sleeping well will mean your body isn't able to repair as much as it otherwise would have. Especially if you're done an intensive workout, this means you're likely going to be feeling the soreness of your muscles longer as they can't be fixed as easily.
When you sleep, your body releases chemicals to do things like relax your muscles and stop you from being able to move your muscles in your sleep (sleep paralysis). If you're woken up before these chemicals have a chance to clear out, you're likely going to not be as coordinated and can potentially feel sore from it until you "wake up".
A "bad nights sleep" may be the result of something that also causes you to be sore -- so it may not be the lack of sleep itself. Not sleeping in a good position can tense and strain your muscles. This can make you repeatedly wake up in the middle of the night, possibly making you toss and turn into worse positions. Things like dehydration can also keep you from having a good nights sleep, and dehydration itself will make you feel very sore. While you normally will get water if you're awake, you might not do that quickly enough while sleeping. | [
"In addition, as a result of continuous muscular activity without proper rest time, effects such as cramping are much more frequent in sleep-deprived individuals. Extreme cases of sleep deprivation have been reported to be associated with hernias, muscle fascia tears, and other such problems commonly associated wit... |
why are most songs in the music industry between 3:00 and 4:00, and who set that standard? | That depends on the time frame and genre. If you look at music from before the radio, a lot of it is longer. Back then the only way to listen to music was live. Shorter songs means more break time in between, you're not getting your money's worth! But since the radio, the majority of listening has been through the radio. Radio stations wouldn't play long songs because they wanted the most variety in between commercial breaks. That caused a shift in songwriting from long form classical music to short form pop music, along with the great depression destroying large ensembles. Our tastes evolved with those changes, songwriters learned their craft from old songwriters and music evolved to where it is today.
A more objective argument is that the human attention span is around a minute so your song sections need to be there, max. On top of composition declining towards catchy, simple melody and harmony (makes sense, you only have 4 minutes on the radio to say what you want so make it count!), you get a perfect storm where songs get shorter, the sections have to be simpler so they in turn have to be shorter to keep the listener from being bored.... so you get a positive feedback loop of songs getting much shorter. | [
"The factor-of-ten in a decade can be in either direction: so one decade up from 100 Hz is 1000 Hz, and one decade down is 10 Hz. The factor-of-ten is what is important, not the unit used, so 3.14 rad/s is one decade down from 31.4 rad/s.\n",
"In spring 2007, the program changed from a recorded broadcast to a liv... |
why do common people not get any money from class action suits? | Members of the class do get money from a class action law suit -- just not a lot of money, because there are generally a lot of members of the class.
> Can the people stop the lawyers looking to pocket some extra cash by opposing the suit?
What people? The only people who can make a motion to dismiss the lawsuit are the parties involved in the lawsuit. | [
"For example, in the United States, class lawsuits sometimes bind all class members with a low settlement. These \"coupon settlements\" (which usually allow the plaintiffs to receive a small benefit such as a small check or a coupon for future services or products with the defendant company) are a way for a defenda... |
Why do the Jews believe in the myth of exodus from egypt? Why do most historians discredit the idea? | The easy answer is that people believe their founding myths. We just do. Now for some other answers.
There are some textual clues that suggest the number of participants in the exodus may have been lower - for example there are 2 midwives for some six hundred thousand people, or is it six hundred families? - significantly decreasing the amount of people would make the story far more plausible, and in particular would make it easy to believe that they left no archaeological record.
A story like this, one that is powerful, gives a lot of meaning, has the potential to be picked up by people who were not directly involved, or adopted through marriage and so on. There is no debate over whether or not Jews existed at this time, or at least the people who went on to become the Jewish nations, and the shared history of being under Egyptian rule (the region was ruled by Egypt several times) made this sort of a story relevant even to those who thought that their families weren't a part of this origin story. And in a very few generations following ANY such story, people in the region would all be related enough to claim it as their own anyways.
Early archaeological evidence of the precursors to the Hebrews suggests they were nomadic people who settled in the highlands, yet another reason why people would feel that "this is my story" and buy in to it.
In summary - this myth was likely the story of a smaller community than described, and probably reflected some events that did happen to them (on whatever scale - at some scale it's impossible to argue for or against the historicity of a lot of events). Large portions of it were absolutely true for those who adopted it - tension with Egypt, tensions with giving up a nomadic life for a largely settled one, tensions over land, and so on, and the narrative was a really well-built way of giving shape to a lot of the questions people faced, and the conflicts that existed in their lives. People had no reason to question it. | [
"The lack of historical evidence for the Egyptian slavery and exodus leads most scholars to omit them from comprehensive histories of Israel and consider them as a myth. Scholars disagree as to when the myth took its present form. The archaeological record does not accord with what is expected from the Book of Exod... |
why 0db is the loudest sound that can go in a system without distortion? why zero and why quieter sounds are negative db? | Decibels are *relative* measurements, not *absolute* ones. To be more precise, a decibel is a way to measure the ratio of two values. One value is a reference value, the other is the one you're comparing it to. And these can be values of anything you like.
When talking about sound pressure level, the reference value is the quietest sound that can be detected by an average human -- about 20 micropascals of pressure, which is called 0 dB. A sound one trillion times louder than that can cause permanent damage; because decibels are on a logarithmic scale, it's convenient to take the base 10 logarithm of one trillion, which is 12, to represent that sound -- that's 12 bels, and a decibel is one-tenth of a bel, so that makes 120 dB.
But decibels can be used in whatever way you want. It's not, remember, a unit of measurement exactly, but a way of saying how much more or less something is from whatever you say is "the norm". And that's the clue: 0 dB means "the norm, however you define it", and then negative values mean "less than whatever you said the norm was" and positive values mean "more than whatever you said the norm was".
In professional audio, 0 dB is the root mean square voltage which delivers 1 milliwatt of power across a 600-ohm resistor (because in early telephone systems, the impedance of a standard telephone circuit was 600 ohms) -- this is more accurately referred to as "dBu". But 0 dB can be anything you want it to be. | [
"Though the noise level of 16-bit audio systems (such as CD players) is commonly quoted (on the basis of calculations that take no account of subjective effect) as −96 dB relative to FS (full scale), the best 468-weighted results are in the region of −68 dB relative to Alignment Level (commonly defined as 18 dB bel... |
who owns the federal reserve bank? | TL;DR: The Federal Reserve system is a group of entities that are a mix of publicly controlled and privately owned. It is controlled by the government from the top down, and owned privately at the very bottom, and they meet somewhere in the middle. Ultimately, since the Board of Governors has the most power, and the Board of Governors is ultimately accountable to the United States Federal Government, and the Federal Government is established for and accountable to the people of the United States of America, the people of the United States of America ultimately "own" the Federal Reserve.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You're going to get a LOT of misinformation in this thread. Remember, my little five year old who asks way too advanced questions for the age you're at, that adults don't know what they're talking about some times, and other times their heads are filled with guano. You'll hear a not-so-nice version of that expression when you're older.
Anyway, we have to first alter your question, as your question assumes that there is just one "bank" that can be owned like any other. The actual structure is much more complicated than any one bank. We need to talk about the set up of the system before we can talk about owner ship.
At the tippy top is the Federal Reserve Board of Directors. They oversee the entire system. The next step down consists of 12 Federal Reserve Regional Banks. Below that are member banks. All national banks *must* be members. Non-national banks (state banks) can join if they meet certain requirements. Now that we've explained the structure, let's talk about ownership. It's the easiest to explain from the bottom up.
The ownership of the member banks should be obvious. They are the banks that you and most other people do business with. They are privately owned (here "private" means "not government"), usually by a small group, or they'll be owned by a large group of shareholders (this applies to large, national banks like Bank of America). So, these banks are privately held businesses, but they're part of the Federal Reserve system.
Moving on, let's talk about the 12 Federal Reserve regional banks. Each regional bank is technically partially owned by its member banks because they are required to own stock in it, but it is not like owning stock in a normal company. The amount of stock they must buy is established by law, and they are not allowed to sell it or buy more of it. Also, unlike regular stock, each member bank only gets ***ONE*** vote, regardless of how much stock they own in the regional bank. I'll explain why this is important later. I'm sure it is beginning to become apparent that the Fed isn't like a normal bank.
Finally, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Who owns them? Well...no one. They're people. The Board of Governors is not a bank, but rather a group of 12 people who have authority vested in them. Here's where you'll get kooky people saying that they're not part of the government, there's no oversight, yadda yadda yadda. They don't know what they're talking about. The Board of Directors is more or less a government agency, though they're not a part of any particular branch. Each branch of the government has a modicum of control over them, but not much, otherwise they can't do their job.
Here's where we need to come from the direction of top down, where we talk about who controls what. The members of the Board of Governors are nominated by the president, and confirmed by the Senate. The president has the power to dismiss them with cause (i.e. the president can't do it without a reason). Congress could potentially pass laws which influence what they can and can't do, and the Courts can ensure that they stay within those boundaries. The Board of Governors has only a small number of powers, but they powerfully influence the entire system, and have more or less direct control of the Federal Reserve Regional Banks. The regional banks have influence with the member banks, but in a very different way than the Board of Directors have with the Regional Banks. They more so are the middlemen who make the system go round. The member banks are essentially allowed to operate independently in accordance with the wishes of their share holders and the law.
Let's talk about the Board of Directors for the 12 Regional Banks, as this is where the voting comes in. There are 9 directors, and there are 3 classes of them: A, B, and C. Each class has 3 directors in it. Class A consists of 3 directors who represent the private interests of the member banks. The first director is selected by "Large" classification banks, the second by "medium" classification banks, and the third is selected by the "small" classification banks. Class B directors are also selected by member banks, and are meant to represent the public. They cannot be an employee of any bank. Class C directors are meant to represent the public, and are selected by the higher ups: the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
So, you see, it's hard to say who "owns" the Federal Reserve Bank, because there isn't just one bank. It's an entire system, with different statuses of ownership for each part.
As for profits, the member banks get paid for owning stock in the regional banks. The rest of the profits the regional banks make gets sent to the Treasury of the United States, after deducting operating expenses. They transferred a cool $88.9 billion to the treasury in 2012.
| [
"The Federal Reserve Banks have an intermediate legal status, with some features of private corporations and some features of public federal agencies. The United States has an interest in the Federal Reserve Banks as tax-exempt federally created instrumentalities whose profits belong to the federal government, but ... |
why do humans have different taste buds from each other and why do animals have different taste buds? | Your sense of taste is just like your other senses. I.e: "Older" people can't hear higher pitched sounds, where younger people can (especially those annoying high pitched ringtones people annoyed me in school with > . < ) It will depend on a few things such as age, diet, your environment, and of course genetics.
In short, your taste (just like any other sense) can be degraded, stronger, or weaker--which varies from person to person.
It's weird that you bring up smell. I swear my mom is like Daredevil because she can't see better than me, so it's like her other senses heightened lol... But seriously, she can smell better than me and it's actually scary. I.e: I won't smell anything at all, and she just picks up on everything.
We're all animals, so the principals more or less still apply :] | [
"Among humans, taste perception begins to fade around 50 years of age because of loss of tongue papillae and a general decrease in saliva production. Humans can also have distortion of tastes through dysgeusia. Not all mammals share the same taste senses: some rodents can taste starch (which humans cannot), cats ca... |
why do streamed videos sometimes lose their audio to video synchronization? | ELI 5 answer: because audio and video are two different streams and like two dancers working together. Sometimes they're a championship cheerleading team, a symphony of synchronicity, and sometimes they're two drunk guys at a bar trying too hard to impress, all flailing and stumbling.
Longer answer: For editing purposes audio and video are disconnected. When someone edits together a video they may be overlaying sounds and video from a variety of sources (overdub, narrator, sound and visual effects etc.), sometimes they can screw up.
Additionally, depending on how the video was encoded and how it was uploaded (which very often requires a re-encode) errors can be induced. Sometimes a video will play slightly faster or slower causing the sound to 'drift' out of sync. Most modern CODECS have some error correction built into it so that at certain points (like every 300 frames) it checks what the sound and audio should be, and if they're out of sync, corrects them. That's when you get some stutter or popping sound.
This article gives you a sense of the difficulties an encoder can face:
_URL_0_
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"Digital or analog audio video streams or video files usually contain some sort of synchronization mechanism, either in the form of interleaved video and audio data or by explicit relative timestamping of data. The processing of data must respect the relative data timing by e.g. stretching between or interpolation ... |
How much water is absorbed on the way down? | Water is absorbed, filtered and reabsorbed through several organs and membranes controlled by neural and hormonal influence. Water is absorbed throughout your lower GI tract as well as in your kidneys.
The amount of water that is retained is regulated by a set point osmolarity. An increase in osmolarity will initiate a response to make sure that adequate water is absorbed by the intestines and kidneys and vice versa expelled when osmolarity decreases.
The food is propelled down into the duodenum through a tight pyloric sphincter that allows proper sectioning of the GI. Assuming that your stomach is empty when you start drinking the glass of water, it would pass rather quickly through your digestive tract due to its liquid form.
The answer you are looking for is a bit too complex with a lot of factors to take into consideration, since the metabolic state of the person would contribute largely to the amount of water you retain and excrete. | [
"Absorption coefficients for 200 nm and 900 nm are almost equal at 6.9 m (attenuation length of 14.5 cm). Very weak light absorption, in the visible region, by liquid water has been measured using an integrating cavity absorption meter (ICAM). The absorption was attributed to a sequence of overtone and combination ... |
why are there more dangerous animals (and insects and fish) in hot countries? | There's more resources to compete for in sunny places, and so there's effectively an evolution arms race to become strong enough to compete for them. Less resources in colder places means less competition, so natural selection leans in different directions based on the local environment | [
"Other biologists and ecologists have pointed to the dramatic effect on the animals which feed on the moths, which are an important source of protein for wildlife, including the mountain pygmy possum as well as other insectivorous mammals and birds. \"The vulnerability of the Australian Alps to climate change is th... |
From an evolutionary stand point why do men grow moustaches? Do they have a specific use? | Hi everyone, this question could be addressed in multiple ways, but the OP has requested information about the adaptive benefits of mustaches. Therefore, please focus your answers on the known, measured, and peer reviewed sources of information rather than hypothetical, potential or anecdotal lines of evidence. | [
"The moustache forms its own stage in the development of facial hair in adolescent males. Facial hair in males does not always appear in a specific order during puberty and varies among some individuals but may follow this process:\n",
"According to a study performed by Nigel Barber, results have shown a strong c... |
how effective are political endorsements? | According to the guys at 538, [very important](_URL_0_), at least when those endorsements come from major political officials. Here is a quote from the above linked article
> In the book “The Party Decides” (2008), the most comprehensive study of the invisible primary, the political scientists Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel and John Zaller evaluated data on endorsements made in presidential nomination contests between 1980 and 2004 and found that “early endorsements in the invisible primary are the most important cause of candidate success in the state primaries and caucuses.”
> These endorsements can serve several purposes. In some cases, they directly influence voters who trust the judgment of governors and members of Congress from their party. In other cases, endorsements serve as a signal to other party elites. “It tells others who is acceptable and who is unacceptable,” Cohen, an associate professor of political science at James Madison University, said in an e-mail to FiveThirtyEight. “This is the coordination process that we believe goes on during the invisible primary and by way of public endorsements that was formerly and more formally undertaken at the convention.” | [
"The value of political endorsements varies, depending on whom they are from, when they are given, and other factors. Endorsements from politicians who live in states with early primaries are highly sought after. So are endorsements from governors, federal senators, and federal representatives. Endorsements from pe... |
Why are refrigerators not mounted with the radiators outside, like air conditioners? | Unlike an air conditioner which has a very large load (cooling a much, much larger volume) and dumps out a lot of heat, a refrigerator only has to cool its sealed compartment, so there isn't a huge load on it. As well, since your refrigerator is inside your air-conditioned home, any warm air that infiltrates those compartments has already been cooled down by your air conditioner, so here the load is also much smaller in comparison.
So, even during the summer, the gain you'd achieve by mounting your home refrigerator's coils outside would be minimal, if anything, because it would require a pretty large hole to be cut into your house that would likely cost you more money than you'd save via sealing/maintenance costs. You'd have to deal with making sure the seal is always good, maintaining the sealant, added design to make the exterior surface outdoor-durable, and any pest-related issues. If you used a remote-coil system, then you'd have to deal with most of the same issues in one way or another but also the issue of all the transport equipment in between your refrigerator and its outside vent.
Then we get to the winter, where your refrigerator would actually be helping you heat your home, and heat it more efficiently than a space heater (not including that it's also performing another job). If you're dreaming the dream of having this outdoor unit also increase efficiency by importing cold air from the outside, then you'd get into issues of filtration, temperature control, and safety mechanisms to make it all work, again increasing cost (pretty needlessly for a home unit, too).
Overall, there would just be insufficient gain to be had. In fact, you could likely achieve similar or superior savings in terms of temperature control by spending that money (or a lot less) on better insulation or other methods of temperature control (depending on if you spend more money trying to keep warm or keep cool).
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"Refrigerators and air conditioners operating from the waste heat of a diesel engine exhaust, heater flue or solar collector are entering use. These use the same principles as a gas refrigerator. Normally, the heat from a flue powers an \"absorptive chiller\". The cold water or brine from the chiller is used to coo... |
why do gyms change the direction of their running track every day? | If you run a circular track regulary only in one direction you will over develop one side of your body's muscles. Kind of like those memes about missing leg day....only for the left or right side of your body. At least thats what my friends mom told me ages ago when I asked about her hardcore running. | [
"Running – means of rapidly traveling on foot, in which at regular points during the running cycle both feet are off the ground. Running is a key component to a number of sporting events typically in the realm of road racing, track and field or triathlon.\n",
"BULLET::::- The Runners - A track team runs very fast... |
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