question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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How Much Coal did Pre-Dreadnoughts Burn? | An Indiana Class vessel carried 1600 tons of coal and had a range of 5500 miles.
If you want to look up similar data for other battleships the term to google is the ship name + Bunkerage. | [
"Coal was the almost exclusive fuel for the pre-dreadnought period, though navies made the first experiments with oil propulsion in the late 1890s. An extra knot or two of speed could be gained by applying a 'forced draught' to the furnaces, where air was pumped into the furnaces, but this risked damage to the boil... |
why do we like shiny stuff? | I can only speculate, but I'll bet it has something to do with water. A wandering tribe of cavemen would have welcomed the sight of the sun glistening on the surface of a lake. | [
"Glitter is used in cosmetics to make the face and nails shiny or sparkly. Additionally, it is commonly used in arts and crafts to color, accessorise and texture items. The small, brightly colored particles often stick to clothing, skin, and furniture, and can be difficult to remove.\n",
"The term \"Shiny\" was i... |
why is it so easy to fall asleep on crouch unintentionally than to fall asleep in bed intentionally. | Great minds think alike. Ahoy, fellow redditor. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:
1. [ELI5: Why do you fall asleep much easier on the couch watching TV (or anywhere other than your normal sleeping place) than in your normally used bed? ](_URL_1_) ^(_57 comments_)
1. [ELI5: Why is easy to fall... | [
"Sleeping in the supine position is believed to make the sleeper more vulnerable to episodes of sleep paralysis because in this sleeping position it is possible for the soft palate to collapse and obstruct the airway. This is a possibility regardless of whether the individual has been diagnosed with sleep apnea or ... |
French invasion of Russia 1812 | Aside from the Walter diary, one of the most harrowing accounts of 1812 is *Sergeant Bourgogne - with Napoleon's Imperial Guard in the Russian campaign and on the retreat from Moscow 1812 - 13* by Adrien Bourgogne who typified the Imperial Guard's hard fighting grumblers. *A Soldier for Napoleon The Campaigns of Lieute... | [
"The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 () and in France as the Russian Campaign (), began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army. Napoleon hoped to compel the Emperor of All Russia, Alexander I, to cease tradi... |
why is there such a strong stigma against romantic/sexual relationships with a large age gap (15 years+ difference)? | I think it’s because it can imply an imbalance of power within the relationship. And because the power may be unequal this might lead to one side being taken advantage of.
The other reason is because with significant age differences there is also the possibility of parent-child dynamic type relationship. | [
"Most psychologists and relationship counselors predict a decline of intimacy and passion over time, replaced by a greater emphasis on companionate love (differing from adolescent companionate love in the caring, committed, and partner-focused qualities). However, couple studies have found no decline in intimacy no... |
Which colonies were net profitable to the colonial power? | It's helpful to disaggregate the parties involved a bit--not by nation or colony, but by *sector*. When the statement "colonialism was a net drain on European powers" is made, it sometimes has an implicit agenda, but it also tends to focus on state revenues. If you look entirely at metropolitan state revenues, few co... | [
"Some colonies, such as Virginia, were founded principally as business ventures. England's success at colonizing what would become the United States was due in large part to its use of charter companies. Charter companies were groups of stockholders (usually merchants and wealthy landowners) who sought personal eco... |
dada or dadaism | It is basically a cultural movement that started in Switzerland, Zurich to be precise, during World War One. The people of this movement, the dadaists, used well known art forms like visual art, theatre and literature to express their disregard for the war, they created anti-art (using those known art forms, but questi... | [
"Dada is a named influence and reference of various anti-art and political and cultural movements, including the Situationist International and culture jamming groups like the Cacophony Society. Upon breaking up in July 2012, anarchist pop band Chumbawamba issued a statement which compared their own legacy with tha... |
why are some gymnastic/flexibility moves so easy as a kid but really hard as an adult? | Ossification, that is the conversion of the more flexible cartilage with bone, does not end until adulthood (and even then, much of it takes place well into mid adulthood, such as in the skull).
At the same time, ligaments and muscles that keep joint movement in check grow stronger and less permissible of extreme mov... | [
"Top rhythmic gymnasts must have many qualities; balance, flexibility, coordination, and strength are some of the most important. They also must possess psychological attributes such as the ability to compete under intense pressure, in which one mistake can cost them the title, and the discipline and work ethic to ... |
difference between terrorists and revolutionary | It's just about how you frame the story. Someone fighting for beliefs that I hold is a good guy. Someone fighting against my beliefs is a bad guy.
The terrorists think they are good guys. They would use positive words to describe themselves.
If you tried to disturb the operations of a lawfully company, I might thi... | [
"Revolutionary terror (also referred to as revolutionary terrorism, or a reign of terror) refers to the institutionalized application of force to counterrevolutionaries, particularly during the French Revolution from the years 1793 to 1795 (see the Reign of Terror). The term \"Communist terrorism\" has also been us... |
Why didn’t the Nazis or Italian Fascists plunder Vatican City? | Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be diffi... | [
"With the German occupation of Rome in 1943, after the fall of Mussolini, came rumors of a plot to kidnap the Pope; modern scholars are still at odds over the authenticity of such allegations. The Vatican City itself was never occupied; in fact, the chief concern within the Vatican was the potential for lawlessness... |
how does duty free in the airport work? | Generally it is cheaper as since it's for export only there isn't any state/local taxes on it.
Also if flying now and you want booze, you need to get it after the security check point which means about the only place you can get some to go home with is at the Duty Free. | [
"Air Passenger Duty (APD) is an excise duty which is charged on the carriage of passengers flying from a United Kingdom or Isle of Man airport on an aircraft that has an authorised take-off weight of more than 5.7 tonnes or more than twenty seats for passengers. The duty is not payable by inbound international pass... |
Who was Artemisia and why did she side with Xerces? | Well, the most basic answer is that Artemisia was the Tyrant-regent of Halicarnassus, and she sided with Xerxes because she was a Persian subject and his subordinate. She gets a lot of attention because she was semi-unique as a prominent female naval commander (though interestingly enough, another Artemisia from the fa... | [
"Artemisia is known for commanding a fleet and played a role in the military-political affairs of the Aegean after the decline in the Athenian naval superiority. The island republic of Rhodes objected to the fact that a woman was ruling Caria. Rhodes sent a fleet against Artemisia without knowing that her deceased ... |
why does wood have knots? | Wood like 2x4s come from the trunk of a tree. The knots in wood are where branches were when it was a tree
Edit: as to why its harder, i dont know 100% but id bet its got something to do with the grain in the wood changing and possible friction from the expansion of the diameter of the branch itself
| [
"When a tree is very young it is covered with limbs almost, if not entirely, to the ground, but as it grows older some or all of them will eventually die and are either broken off or fall off. Subsequent growth of wood may completely conceal the stubs which will however remain as knots. No matter how smooth and cle... |
Why was the USSR allowed to annex so much of Poland after WW2 into the Belorussian SSR? During independence, did the Poles and Belarussians have any territorial disputes? | To expand a bit on an answer I wrote elsewhere today:
Essentially the reason that the USSR was able to retain the eastern parts of Interwar Poland after 1945 was because the Allies at the Potsdam Conference agreed to recognize the Communist-dominated Provisional Government of National Unity as Poland's legitimate gove... | [
"In September 1939, the Soviet Union, following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, occupied eastern Poland after the 1939 invasion of Poland. The former Polish territories referred to as West Belarus were incorporated into the Belarusian SSR, with an exception of the city of Vilnius and its surroundings... |
if we redistributed the world's wealth equally amongst its whole population, how much would everyone have in their bank account? | Well, the total world wealth is about 240 trillion. There are multiple sources that give different values, but this is the newest and they're all roughly 220-240. _URL_0_
There's about 7 billion people in the world
So if we sell everything off and redistribute it, we come to the glorious total of $34,285.
Keep in mi... | [
"A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000. The \"three\" richest people in the world possess more financial assets than the lowest 48 nations combined. The combined wealth of... |
Can bacteria survive low temperatures like when frozen into ice-cubes? | Bacteria can survive freezing. We routinely do so in the lab to preserve them over the long term. In those cases, we add some cryo-protectant substances like glycerol, because ice crystals will damage many bacteria, but freezing and thawing is not a reliable way to kill bacterial cells. | [
"Three species of bacteria, \"Carnobacterium pleistocenium\", \"Chryseobacterium greenlandensis\", and \"Herminiimonas glaciei\", have reportedly been revived after surviving for thousands of years frozen in ice.\n",
"Three species of bacteria, \"Carnobacterium pleistocenium\", as well as \"Chryseobacterium green... |
If someone were to take a cattle prod or taser underwater and used it, would it give an electric shock to everything in the area? | Yes, unless the water was pure with no charge transferring electrolytes in it and then it's about as conductive as concrete. Now let's try putting this idea to [good use.](_URL_0_) | [
"The use of electric cattle prods has been debated by many people. Organizations such as PETA contend that the use of cattle prods is as much mentally harmful as it is physically. Most farmers contend that the short shock is minutely felt, and soon forgotten.\n",
"Unlike hotshots, which produce high voltage and c... |
Grandfathers WW2 Royal Naval History, where can I research? | Could you go through exactly what you have? Any information you know about him would also be helpful - any ranks or similar.
Also, the FAQ has a section on finding service records for family members - _URL_0_. That's got some stuff on RN records that should be helpful. | [
"Prior to 1912 responsibility for the management of historical materials was the responsibility of the Admiralty Library later called the Naval Historical Library , its collection transferred to the Naval Historical Branch when it was implemented by First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill during the period h... |
how do species without a brain process information and make decisions? | It doesn't necessarily make a decision.
Consider plants growing towards the light. They produce a hormone called auxin, throughout their bodies. Light falling upon the plant alters the distribution of this hormone, causing it to concentrate in cells that are less impacted by sunlight. The presence of this hormone prom... | [
"Wallis's group has also studied the dynamics of decision making in both humans and monkeys over the period of time over which they are making a particular decision. Using primate neurophysiology and human magnetoencephalography, they measured how brain activity changed as primates and humans were making different ... |
What is stress? | First, the experience of stress and the definition of stress will be different, and I believe that is where part of your question comes from.
> Language in articles/studies seems to suggest that stress is an objective, measurable, condition. Yet individuals discuss stress as a more intangible, metaphorical concept.
... | [
"Stress, either physiological or biological, is an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition. Stress is the body's method of reacting to a condition such as a threat, challenge or physical and psychological barrier. Stimuli that alter an organism's environment are responded to by multiple... |
Why does a can of Coke sink, but a can of Diet Coke floats when placed in water? | In a regular (not diet) 12 oz can of soda there is close to 10 tsp of sugar. A can of coke (Sugar water, plus aluminum can, plus sealed in gases) has a higher density than the surrounding water, and sinks. | [
"A number of cans had problems: the pop-up mechanism malfunctioned, jamming, or a faulty seal released some of the chlorinated water mixture into the can itself. A widely reported incident involved an 11-year-old boy in Massachusetts drinking the foul-tasting liquid used to replace actual cola. Despite initial fear... |
Why do you get goose bumps just after getting into a hot shower? | [Your body can't immediately distinguish extreme heat and extreme cold, especially with water](_URL_0_) | [
"Goose bumps can be experienced in the presence of flash-cold temperatures, for example being in a cold environment, and the skin being able to re-balance its surface temperature quickly. The stimulus of cold surroundings causes the tiny muscles attached to each hair follicle to contract. This contraction causes th... |
why does applying vinegar stop the pain from a burn? | Chemical, or heat burn? | [
"Acetic acid (vinegar) or a solution of ammonia and water is believed to deactivate the remaining nematocysts and usually provides some pain relief, though some isolated studies suggest that in some individuals vinegar dousing may increase toxin delivery and worsen symptoms. Vinegar has also been claimed to provoke... |
Does water ever really cease to exist? | For physical transformations (boiling, condensation, freezing, etc) water is more or less conserved. For biology, its a bit different: trees drink water and use it for photosynthesis which (if I remember correctly) uses the hydrogen from water to form sugars, and the oxygen is released as oxygen gas for breathing. Re... | [
"There is no life without water. It has been described as the \"universal solvent\" for its ability to dissolve many substances, and as the \"solvent of life\". Water is the only common substance to exist as a solid, liquid, and gas under conditions normal to life on Earth. The Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Györg... |
Is your pulse the same throughout your body? | Taking your pulse simply means to feel your artery expand as blood travels through it with each heart beat.
Like the rest of your body, your fingers have arteries that carry blood to them, too. Using the thumb to feel for someone else's pulse is discouraged because sometimes you will better feel the pulse of the arter... | [
"In medicine, a pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the heartbeat by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surface of the body, such as at the neck (carotid artery), wrist (radial artery), at the groin (femoral artery), behind the k... |
how does the loose white powder in a kraft easy mac container help the noodles cook faster? | It's food starch that thickens the water, thereby preventing the water from spilling over.
_URL_0_ | [
"BULLET::::- Kitsune – Kitsune udon (Blue and white package). This is a package of dehydrated udon noodles instead of ramen, with a reconstitutable square of tofu. This item has been discontinued in the United States in spite of great demand found online.\n",
"Special copper or aluminum cylinders, with several sm... |
According to the current state of research in dietetics/nutrition, what is healthy to eat? | I have no idea how healthy either of those diets are. Anthropologically, the paleo diet is suspect at best. There's no good evidence that that diet is what our early ancestors ate. Even if it were, we've physically changed since the advent of agriculture.
As for health, the [USDA has guidelines designed for healthy... | [
"When designing diets for the prevention of certain diseases, it is necessary to know the impacts of individual nutrients on the human body. The MIND diet could be improved by future research which investigates the impacts of individual nutrients or foods on neuronal physiology and anatomy. It is also beneficial to... |
Do photons have a mass? If so, if I shine a strong enough light/laser on a 1 Kg object, would that object move thanks to the force generated by the light source? | Photons do not have a mass, but they do carry momentum. Even though you may have learned that momentum p=mv and force F=ma, once you get further in physics you will learn the relativistic (and thus more accurate) expression E^2 =(mc^2 )^2 + (pc)^2, which tells you that when mass m=0, the momentum p=E/c. So light still ... | [
"The photon, the particle of light which mediates the electromagnetic force is believed to be massless. The so-called Proca action describes a theory of a massive photon. Classically, it is possible to have a photon which is extremely light but nonetheless has a tiny mass, like the neutrino. These photons would pro... |
what does each d4, d3, d2, and d1 do with my car, and when should i switch to them? to narrow down, regular 4 door car. | On your gear shift?
They're just different gears. I'm assuming your car is automatic and has a standard "Drive" gear.
The gears 1-4 just allow you to tell the car what gear you want it in.
This really doesn't offer too much of an advantage in normal everyday driving. The only time you'd need to manually select gea... | [
"The \"4-4-2\" name (pronounced \"Four-four-two\") derives from the original car's four-barrel carburetor, four-speed manual transmission, and dual exhausts (Some maintain that the '2' indicated positive traction rear differential). It was originally written \"4-4-2\" (with badging showing hyphens between the numer... |
Why do we traditionally use locks with keys for doors but combinations for safes etc? | Honestly, I think it may be better if you posted this to /r/locksmiths of the more active /r/lockpicking . I would expect that in the security-concious modern world mere 'tradition' would not be a reason that the practice has continued. | [
"The mechanism makes it easy to construct locks that can be opened with multiple different keys: \"blank\" discs with a circular hole are used, and only notches shared by the keys are employed in the lock mechanism. This is commonly used for locks of common areas such as garages in apartment houses.\n",
"Electron... |
When was the last time a notable american publicly advocated for the institution of slavery? Did southerners stop bothering to ethically argue for it during reconstruction? | I feel like you might get better results if you rephrased the questions. The 13th Amendment banned slavery, so people who were clamoring for its return were just being nostalgic.
As far as last notable American advocating for slavery, does that include a Lost Cause narrative? I'm sure you can find examples of Strom T... | [
"During the Reconstruction Era, slavery was abolished under the Thirteenth Amendment and African Americans received U.S. citizenship and suffrage rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, respectively. However, opposition to freedmen grew within the South as the Ku Klux Klan committed violent acts again... |
What would happen if you were struck by a tic tac traveling ~1% the speed of light? | We can make a pretty good guess, using some simple calculations.
A tic tac weighs ~1g? Something like that. One percent of the speed of light is 3 x 10^6 m/s. (The Lorentz factor here is ~1.00005, so we can ignore relativistic corrections from here on out.) Kinetic energy is E = .5 m v^2 , so for our tic tac,
E = ... | [
"\"Within five seconds the rate of speed was terrific; I was riding in a maelstrom of swirling dust, hot cinders, paper and other particles of matter. The whipsaw feeling through a veritable storm of fire became harder every second. I could feel myself getting weaker every second I saw ridicule, contempt, disgrace ... |
Why are insects attracted to the leaves of a tree? | This is a really tough question to answer without some more information. Pictures of the insects would be ideal for a really good answer, but not even knowing where you're located it could really be a whole lot of things.
[bugguide](_URL_0_) is the best insect guide I know of (which pretty much makes it the best the... | [
"Some plants mimic the presence of insect eggs on their leaves, dissuading insect species from laying their eggs there. Because female butterflies are less likely to lay their eggs on plants that already have butterfly eggs, some species of neotropical vines of the genus \"Passiflora\" (Passion flowers) contain phy... |
how does the immune system retain its memory after blood loss (blood donation, blood loss due to injury etc.) | Say I have a factory that makes chairs. I put 100 finished chairs in a warehouse. The warehouse burns down and all the finished chairs are destroyed. But I still have the factory that makes chairs. I still have the blueprints to make new chairs. It'll take me a little bit of time, but as long as I don't go bankrupt, ev... | [
"Immunological memory occurs after a primary immune response against the antigen. Immunological memory is thus created by each individual, after a previous initial exposure, to a potentially dangerous agent. The course of secondary immune response is similar to primary immune response. After the memory B cell recog... |
why the water in the shores of the french riviera, like nice, have a more light blueish color more then other coastlines in the mediterranean? | I am not familiar with the region, but I know of several regions that have blue-ish water due to coccolithophores.
_URL_0_ | [
"Lake Michigan has many beaches. The region is often referred to as the \"Third Coast\" of the United States, after those of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. The sand is often soft and off-white, known as \"singing sands\" because of the squeaking noise (caused by high quartz content) it emits when walked ... |
What are the calenders besides Christian Calender based on? | In the scientific community, especially the paleoanthropology/paleontology/geology/paleoclimate etc fields, they use a system of "years before present" or BP. They established the year 1950 as the "present" to which that refers, so technically 1950 AD would be their "year 0". | [
"CC3 outlines functions for Gregorian and Julian calendar conversions, as well as many other calendars, always calculating in terms of the ordinal day number, which they call the \"fixed date\" or \"rata die\" (RD), assigning the number 1 to the Gregorian calendar epoch. The arithmetic herein, by using the same ord... |
how do bad games get made? | It might be cheaper to finish making a bad game and selling a few copies of it, than to pull the plug on a project and ensure that all money already invested is lost.
Also people may have reasons to not speak up:
Game testers might want to be hired again, so moaning about the game being "bad" might not be a wise thin... | [
"Games have varying support from their publishers for modifications, but often require expensive professional software to make. One such example is \"Homeworld 2\", which requires the program Maya to build new in-game objects. However, there are free versions of Maya and other advanced modeling software available. ... |
What can be said about Russian youth propaganda during the years of Stalin and the rise of communism? | The main goal was to shape a "future communist man", so appropriate values were propagated: labour as intrinsic value for man, self-sacrifice for the community, honesty, work ethics, etc.
Propaganda, both directed at and done by youth offered a model of behaviour and a template of identity for youth. However, there w... | [
"Propaganda posters of the 1920s focused on the need to build a new world and way of life after the destruction of the Civil War. While the Bolsheviks were experienced in the use of print media to spread ideas, they recognized that print media could not work to imprint Soviet ideology on the USSR as a whole, since ... |
i have astigmatism and myopia. why are blue things more blurry than other things? | This happens to everyone to some degree, not just people with vision problems. Even cameras and telescopes have it: it's called [chromatic aberration](_URL_0_).
As you may know, the lens in your eye focuses light onto your retina. Lenses work by bending the light waves and an image is in focus when the light rays conv... | [
"A myopic individual can see clearly out to a certain distance, but everything further becomes blurry. If the extent of the myopia is great enough, even standard reading distances can be affected. Upon routine examination of the eyes, the vast majority of myopic eyes appear structurally identical to nonmyopic eyes.... |
why/how do our bodies "get used" too certain things such as temperatures of a pool and loud concerts | Everything you sense, be it temperature, smell (olfaction), touch, pain etc., is picked up by what's called a sensory receptor, which is often specialised to one type of stimuli.
Some sensory receptors are tonic of nature, while other are phasic.
Phasic is derived from greek *phasis* (phase), meaning that the respo... | [
"Setting up sound reinforcement for live music clubs and dance events often poses unique challenges, because there is such a large variety of venues which are used as clubs, ranging from former warehouses or music theaters to small restaurants or basement pubs with concrete walls. Dance events may be held in huge w... |
Could we synthesize all nutrients we need without living organisms? | The problem with this is that we honestly have no idea as to what requires a human to be completely healthy. We don't even know what each protein's function is in the human body let alone the lipids and sugars all necessary.
Since I do work on proteins, I know personally that it is possible to manually create (with... | [
"Organisms, and all other metabolic systems, require some input of nutrients. Typically the rate of uptake of nutrients is dictated by their availability (a nutrient that is not present cannot be absorbed), their concentration and diffusion constants (higher concentrations of quickly-diffusing metabolites are absor... |
How does the ISS maintain orientation when using the Canadarm2? | Canadarm2 engineer here. The ISS temporarily disables the attitude control system when the Canadarm2 is active. This is to prevent the two control systems (ISS attitude and Canadarm2 motion) from interfering with each other and creating unwanted oscillation. In addition, the attitude control system is designed to resp... | [
"The ISS employs a total of four CMGs, mounted on Z1 truss as primary actuating devices during normal flight mode operation. The objective of the CMG flight control system is to hold the space station at a fixed attitude relative to the surface of the Earth. In addition, it seeks a Torque Equilibrium Attitude (TEA)... |
taiwan | After WW2, there was a communist rebellion, which started a civil war. Eventually the communists gained control of the mainland, while the old government fell back to Taiwan. Neither side has lost yet.
That's pretty much it. | [
"In polls a slim majority of the people of Taiwan call themselves \"Taiwanese\" only with the rest identifying as \"Taiwanese and Chinese\" or \"Chinese\" only. 98% of the people of Taiwan are descendants of immigrants from China since the 1600s, but the inclusion of Taiwan in China, or in the China proper, is stil... |
Why were Nikita Khrushchev and Vyacheslav Molotov not elminiated by Stalin during the great purges or moscow trials? | The size and scale of the Great Purges sometimes obscures some of the subtleties of the Soviet system and the nature of political power under Stalin. While the Purges appeared to outsiders- both at the time and since- to be a case of the Revolution eating its own, the senior Bolsheviks purged tended to come from intern... | [
"It featured the same type of frame-up of the defendants and it is traditionally considered one of the key trials of the Great Purge. Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the senior military officers Iona Yakir, Ieronim Uborevich, Robert Eideman, August Kork, Vitovt Putna, Boris Feldman, and Vitaly Primakov were accused of ant... |
What do physicists mean when they say that the extra spatial dimensions are "curled up?" | Think of a telephone cord. From a distance, it looks like one straight line. If you get close enough, you can see that it's actually curled up in three dimensions, and not as you thought before a simple line. | [
"By comparison with , this is a current algebra in two spacetime dimensions, \"including a Schwinger term\", with the space dimension curled up into a circle. In the classical setting of quantum field theory, this is perhaps of little use, but with the advent of string theory where fields live on world sheets of st... |
Were the English soldiers in Braveheart (1995) an accurate depiction of High Middle Age soldiers? | No. Like most things in Braveheart, the armour worn by the English soldiers is complete nonsense.
It isn't 'plate mail'. There are two main sorts of armour which might get called 'plate mail' and it doesn't really look like either of them or any other historical armour.
Plate-over-mail or 'transitional armour' could ... | [
"Richard the Lionheart was often recorded in Victorian times wielding a large war axe, though references are sometimes wildly exaggerated as befitted a national hero: \"Long and long after he was quiet in his grave, his terrible battle-axe, with twenty English pounds of English steel in its mighty head...\" - \"A C... |
why can my brain recognise four objects without counting, whereas if there are five objects, i have to split them into a three and a two? | This is called "subitizing" and is actually really cool. Basically, they're two different processes. Counting is a very manual deliberate and conscious process. Subitizing is based on your brain's object tracking systems--how many moving objects you can keep track of at once. Even if the objects aren't moving, your bra... | [
"Finally, one has reason to disbelieve that one knows anything by looking at problems in understanding objects by themselves. Things, when taken individually, may appear to be very different from when they are in mass quantities: for instance, the shavings of a goat's horn are white when taken alone, yet the horn i... |
How does methanol damage the optic nerve and cause blindness? | Methanol is metabolized by alcohol dehydrogenase to formaldehyde and formate, the latter of which causes optic neuritis and, subsequently, blindness. Formate is toxic to mitochondria via its inhibition of cytochrome oxidase, as described [here](_URL_0_). This is the same mechanism as with cyanide and carbon monoxide. T... | [
"The most recognized cause of a toxic optic neuropathy is methanol intoxication. This can be a life-threatening event that normally accidentally occurs when the victim mistook, or substituted, methanol for ethyl alcohol. Blindness can occur with drinking as little as an ounce of methanol, but this can be counteract... |
why do our intestines occasionally decide w/o warning that it’s time to go and you’ve got less than 5 minutes to find a bathroom? | I am assuming you mean diahorrea? The reason why is because something has reached your intestine that shouldn't have, such as somewhat rancid meat or something, so your body wants to get it out as quickly as possible before it can do serious damage, now your body can't just flush out the bad stuff it has to be all or n... | [
"The time taken for food or other ingested objects to transit through the gastrointestinal tract varies depending on many factors, but roughly, it takes less than an hour after a meal for 50% of stomach contents to empty into the intestines while total emptying takes around 2 hours. Subsequently, 50% emptying of th... |
could being electrocuted by a taser damage or stop your heart? if so, how do we mitigate the risks? | Yes, [Reuters ](_URL_0_) did an entire investigation about it. Over 150 people killed by teasers during their investigation. | [
"A Chicago study suggests that use of the Taser can interfere with heart function. A team of scientists and doctors at the Cook County hospital trauma center stunned 6 pigs with two 40-second Taser discharges across the chest. Every animal was left with heart rhythm problems and two of the subjects died of cardiac ... |
What are the parts of the D-Wave quantum computer? | > What are the parts of the D-Wave quantum computer?
~Sigh~
What D-Wave is selling has not been proven to be a quantum computer.
> what general parts are there in a quantum computer?
I have [this saved from when /u/whittlemedownz explained it a while back](_URL_1_) but I'll give me own spin.
A quantum computer... | [
"On May 11, 2011, D-Wave Systems announced the D-Wave One, an integrated quantum computer system running on a 128-qubit processor. The processor used in the D-Wave One, code-named \"Rainier,\" performs a single mathematical operation, discrete optimization. Rainier uses quantum annealing to solve optimization probl... |
how does infection cause elevated blood glucose in diabetics? | Infection causes a stress response in the body by increasing the amount of certain hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones work against the action of insulin and, as a result, the body's production of glucose increases, which results in high blood sugar levels. | [
"Hypoglycemia, or low blood glucose, causes cardiovascular physiological effects as a result of the sympathoadrenal system. These physiological changes include an increased heart rate, increased heart contractility, and decreased peripheral arterial resistance. Together, the effects increase peripheral blood pressu... |
Considering that North Korean missile tests can reach altitudes well outside the atmosphere, why is their range not theoretically infinite? Once there is no drag, can't the missile go arbitrarily far with a minimal amount of thrust? | Earth's gravity is still present after you've left the atmosphere. It decreases with the square of the distance, but at 2800 km it is still significant: 4.7 m/s^2 (compared to 9.8 on the ground).
The only reason why satellites and the ISS can stay in orbit is because they're constantly moving sideways to "miss" the Ea... | [
"However it is unlikely that North Korea uses IRFNA propellants which will reduce its range by about half, after the experts acknowledged that the June 22 twin test range could be at 3,150 km if the missile was not launched in the lofted trajectory.\n",
"Based on the size of the missile, the fuel composition, and... |
Charles Dickens's father spent time in debtors' prison. How did they work? Inmates were charged room and board, already unable to pay their debts; how could one hope to ever get out? Was there a set 'sentence', or were prisoners simply dependent on others paying their way back into society? | I answered a similar question a few months ago; you can see the answer [here](_URL_0_) | [
"A few months after his imprisonment, John Dickens's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, died and bequeathed him £450. On the expectation of this legacy, Dickens was released from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act, Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors, and he and his family left Marshalsea, for the home of Mr... |
how to properly order at starbucks | Don't play their stupid game. I order a large coffee. If they ask me if that's a venti Peak, I give them a nod. I only hit Starbucks if there is nothing else around, their coffee tastes like it's made by filtering hot water through burnt, dried cat turds. | [
"Starbucks maintains control of production processes by communicating with farmers to secure beans, roasting its own beans, and managing distribution to all retail locations. Additionally, Starbucks' Coffee and Farmer Equity Practices require suppliers to inform Starbucks what portion of wholesale prices paid reach... |
bandwidth - how does a satellite send down hundreds of channels of high definition content to televisions all over the country, but my 1mbps in the connection gets bogged down by five smartphones? | Think of broadcasting television channels like a movie theater. Each individual theater can display a movie to to huge numbers of people, only limited by how many seats there are and how bright the screen is. If the screen was bright enough and there were enough seats, everyone on earth could watch a movie off that one... | [
"The StarBand satellite Internet system was a VSAT platform that used K band satellites for transmission of data from users' PCs to the StarBand network operations center. Two-way bandwidth for residential users was up to 1.5 Mbit/s download speed and 256 kbit/s upload speed, with unlimited usage and online hours. ... |
How did families that were separated by war find each other after the war was over? | After WW2, an organization was formed to reunite people. See [here](_URL_0_). Existing documentation was used to try and "connect the dots", and figure out how was alive.
I've also heard (though I can't find a source) of survivors posting notices that they were alive in newspapers and some sort of Red Cross Bulletin... | [
"Large numbers of people were displaced as a result of the war, and many families were divided by the reconstituted border. In 2007 it was estimated that around 750,000 people remained separated from immediate family members, and family reunions have long been a diplomatic priority for the South.\n",
"Displaced p... |
What is the problem with String theory not 'making any predictions'? | Science needs to be testable in some way, otherwise you can say whatever you want and there's no way to say whether it is correct or not.
String theory, at the moment, does not really make any predictions, so we can't test it against observations we've made of the Universe to see if it holds up. If it did make a predi... | [
"Peter Woit, a theoretical physicist, believes that this conflict exists in string theory, where very abstract models may be impossible to test in any foreseeable experiment. If this is the case, the \"string\" must be thought of either as real but untestable, or simply as an illusion or artifact of either mathemat... |
Is it possible to simultaneously get an extra chromosome from one parent and miss out on that chromosome from the other? If so, would the resulting child have any defects? | This is indeed possible, though quite rare. This phenomenon is called [uniparental disomy](_URL_0_), and you can read a bit about it at that link. I would imagine that in some cases there would be no noticeable effects, especially if you received two different versions of the chromosome from one parent (heterodisomy;... | [
"In a normal situation, all the cells in an individual will have 46 chromosomes with one being an X and one a Y or with two Xs. However, sometimes during this complicated early copying process (DNA replication and cell division), one chromosome can be lost. In 45,X/46,XY, most or all of the Y chromosome is lost in ... |
why don't we consider elements other than carbon and silicon as the building block for life. | Because that's not life. That's a nuclear reaction.
Life is where something is living, a fire is not living, a nuclear explosion is not alive.
The reason nothing larger than carbon or silicon are considered is because the arrangements for the elements larger than that, that keep the +/-4 charge are too unstable and h... | [
"The most important characteristics of carbon as a basis for the chemistry of life are, that it has four valence bonds, and that the energy required to make or break a bond is at an appropriate level for building molecules, which are stable and reactive. Carbon atoms bond readily to other carbon atoms; this allows ... |
Why Stalin's collectivisation caused famine and poverty in the USSR? | **I'll provide a breakdown of two events, hopefully these are sufficient and allow for a better understanding of Soviet collectivization across Stalin's regime:**
Collectivization was established during the first five year plan (1928-1932) and the principle is repeated across Soviet history. Beginning with Holodomor t... | [
"Stalin resorted to mass murder and wholesale deportation of farmers to Siberia in order to implement the plan. Millions who remained did not die of starvation, but the centuries-old system of farming was destroyed in a region so fertile it was once called \"the breadbasket of Europe\". The immediate effects of for... |
how does making a donation offset your carbon footprint? | Well, you would plant trees. The trees take in CO2 and exhale O2, and the carbon is used to build the structure of the tree. Any plant will do, but trees are the most common. | [
"The Carbonfund.org Foundation (known as Carbonfund.org) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization based in East Aurora, NY that provides carbon offsetting and greenhouse gas reduction options to individuals, businesses, and organizations. Carbonfund.org Foundation purchases and retires certified carbon offsets on... |
how will the proposed wall solve any of america's problems? | Mostly, it will make us feel better, because we've already forgotten about the large fence between our countries that at the least isn't very safe to put a ladder against.
It will make it marginally harder for the 5% of illegal immigrants that cross the border outside of a checkpoint to get into and out of the US. T... | [
"We could hardly dream of building a kind of Great Wall of France, which would in any case be far too costly. Instead we have foreseen powerful but flexible means of organizing defense, based on the dual principle of taking full advantage of the terrain and establishing a continuous line of fire everywhere.\n",
"... |
why don't/can't motor vehicles have spherical wheels like in "i, robot"? | A spherical wheel just isn't practical. A sphere is going to have a small contact patch for the size of the wheel compared to a normal wheel. They would be hard to manufacture as well.
A car COULD have spherical wheels, but it just doesn't make sense to have them. | [
"In a wider sense, however, the term \"spherical robot\" may also be referred to a stationary robot with two rotary joints and one prismatic joint which forms a spherical coordinate system (e.g., Stanford arm\n",
"They are often used in intelligent robot research for small autonomous robots. In projects such as V... |
why can you drive a car when the parking brake is still on? | It's strong enough to resist the pull of gravity on a moderate slope, but not strong enough to fully resist the stronger pull of the engine in first gear. | [
"In road vehicles, the parking brake, also known as a hand brake or emergency brake (e-brake), is a mechanism used to keep the vehicle securely motionless when parked. Historically, it was also used to help perform an emergency stop should the main hydraulic brakes fail. Parking brakes often consist of a cable conn... |
Can a modern scientist believe in religion? | > The question posted should be one that can be answered by applying scientific principles.
Sorry your question does not belong here. Also your question is a bit odd, of course there are SOME scientists who believe in a specific religion in which humans have had contact with a transcendent being. The obvious answer i... | [
"One of the first attempts to develop a science of religion was \"The Varieties of Religious Experience\" by the American philosopher William James. James saw the basic experience which unified all religions as a sometimes life-changing personal event in which one perceives the connectedness of all things as one un... |
how does the fact that qubits can be both 0 and 1 at the same time allows for faster computations? | Quantum computer can evaluate combination of inputs. Let's say you have two people that say either yes (1) or no (0), and you have to decide whether they agree with each other.
On classical computer, you ask the first one, then you ask the second one, then you compare the answers. You needed to ask **two times.**
On... | [
"There are two possible outcomes for the measurement of a qubit—usually taken to have the value \"0\" and \"1\", like a bit or binary digit. However, whereas the state of a bit can only be either 0 or 1, the general state of a qubit according to quantum mechanics can be a coherent superposition of both. Moreover, w... |
why are there super long words when some shorter words (ex: jeb) don't have any meaning? why not assign the shorter one a meaning? | Long words are often put together with different roots that point to their meaning. For example, take one of the longest words in the English language: antidisestablishmentarianism. Let's break it down:
* Anti- means against, so it's against disestablishmentarianism.
* -ism implies some philosophy, so we know that it'... | [
"In other words, syllables could be long because of the specific vowel (or a following \"*l/*m/*n/*r\"), or because a long consonant from the next syllable bled in. If both occurred, the syllable was overlong. See Mora (linguistics), which suggests that such overlong syllables are cross-linguistically rare.\n",
"... |
why do americans talk differently than brits, even though they emerged from them only a few hundred years ago. | Bear in mind that there are 150 British accents. | [
"This divergence between American English and British English has provided opportunities for humorous comment: e.g. in fiction George Bernard Shaw says that the United States and United Kingdom are \"two countries divided by a common language\"; and Oscar Wilde says that \"We have really everything in common with A... |
"It's not over 'til the fat lady sings" is a common idiom in English. Were many prima donnas overweight at one time, or is this a reference to a specific person -- or is it just a silly line with no basis in reality? | **TL;DR: It was popularized by the coach of the Washington Bullets basketball team during the 1978 NBA playoffs. He claimed to have borrowed it from a San Antonio sportswriter who uttered the phrase on a sportscast during the playoffs that year. However, it actually first appeared in print in Texas two years earlier. A... | [
"Also, during the Marjorie Dawes sketches, he expresses much contempt for overweight people, such as calling them \"vermin\", or expressing a desire to have them arrested, removed from the country, spat on or shot dead. However, in one such sketch he states that he would strangle the overweight people himself, but ... |
How did the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System work? | There's a readable overview of the capabilities of the AN/FPS-50 Detection Radar in the Lincoln
Laboratory 40 year overview article [*Radars for the Detection and Tracking of Ballistic Missiles, Satellites, and Planets*](_URL_3_) (PDF Stone & Banner 2000).
> System requirements included longrange detection of mi... | [
"The Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) was a radar system built by the United States (with the cooperation of Canada and Denmark on whose territory some of the radars were sited) during the Cold War to give early warning of a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) nuclear strike, to allow tim... |
Polynesian History | First, I feel I should point out that Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia are categories imposed on Oceania by (mostly) Western explorers, scholars, and governments and don't always have much explanatory value.
That said, there are an enormous number of good texts that deal with the islands usually classified as Poly... | [
"Polynesians first came to Rapa Nui (also called Easter Island) sometime between 300 CE and 800 CE. These are the common elements of oral history that have been extracted from island legends. Linguistic, DNA and pollen analysis all point to a Polynesian first settlement of the island at that time, but it is unlikel... |
what happens to people who are caught on film stealing/rioting? | No. If you break the law, you break the law. If they have the suspects on film it just makes it that much easier to catch them. | [
"In one of a series of ‘crimes’ caught on CCTV, footage captures two men being caught en flagrante in a public toilet by a police officer. To get out of trouble, one of the men hides the other behind his coat and makes him disappear. In another incident, a man breaks into a car by sticking his hand through a glass ... |
how do i make money by buying a country's debt? | In simplest terms, you make money by buying a thing at one price, and selling it at a higher price.
"Sovereign debt" is basically about what money people call "liquidity." Liquidity is access to money. If you have a lot of money — either actual currency, as in banknotes and coins, or money on account at a bank — then ... | [
"Governments create debt by issuing government bonds and bills. Less creditworthy countries sometimes borrow directly from a supranational organization (e.g. the World Bank) or international financial institutions.\n",
"This is a list of countries by external debt, which is the total public and private debt owed ... |
I keep seeing people accusing /r/AskHistorians of being Marxist in nature, can someone help me explain why this isn't true? | As it states on [our rules page](_URL_5_): /r/Askhistorians is a forum that aims to provide serious, academic-level answers to questions about history. In line with that the mod team understands the core mission of this sub as educational outreach in the historic profession. Our main mission, our sense and purpose, is... | [
"Marxism remains a powerful theory in some unexpected and relatively obscure places and is not always properly labeled as \"Marxism\". For example, many Mexican and some American archaeologists still employ a Marxist model to explain the Classic Maya collapse (c. 900 A.D.) – without mentioning Marxism by name.\n",
... |
Why are these mushrooms growing in a circle? | There is a long article in Wikipedia about these structures. _URL_0_
The short version is that the rings are formed by a mushroom colony. As the colony grows it depletes the nitrogen in the soil and so must grow outwards to find new nitrogen. Once the colony gets big enough it forms a circle with nitrogen poor soil in... | [
"The species has been found only on coastal sand dunes near Olbia, in Sardinia, where it was observed growing at the base of \"Juncus maritimus\" (the sea rush), between the winter months of October and January. However, there is speculation that it may also grow elsewhere in Europe. Mushrooms were seen growing fro... |
law of independent assortment and law of segregation | To sexually reproduce, (how most complex life has children), you need to mix half of your DNA (the instructions for how to make you) with half of your partners.
Your body does this by making cells that only have half of your DNA in them (unlike every other cell that has all of it). Your partner does this too, and whe... | [
"In U.S. law, particularly after \"Brown v. Board of Education\" (1954), the difference between de facto segregation (segregation that existed because of the voluntary associations and neighborhoods) and de jure segregation (segregation that existed because of local laws that mandated the segregation) became import... |
Is it possible that our universe is part of a much larger system? | **Is it possible that our universe is part of a much larger system?**
Yes. There are many theories concerning what's outside of our universe though the evidence for any one of them is extremely scarce.
One of the most popular theories is called [eternal inflation](_URL_2_) or sometimes bubble universe theory. It says... | [
"If the universe is finite but unbounded, it is also possible that the universe is \"smaller\" than the observable universe. In this case, what we take to be very distant galaxies may actually be duplicate images of nearby galaxies, formed by light that has circumnavigated the universe. It is difficult to test this... |
Does Zinc Rust? | Zinc is very active (reacts easily) so the surface of your pendent is already "rusted" to zinc oxide. Zinc (to my knowledge) doesn't form a very protective layer when it oxidizes, so repeated exposure to water will rust it in a way -- the corrosion will continue, but you're not gonna see red/orange spots on it or anyth... | [
"Zinc pest (from German \"Zinkpest\"), also known as zinc rot and mazak rot, is a destructive, intercrystalline corrosion process of zinc alloys containing lead impurities. While impurities of the alloy are the primary cause of the problem, environmental conditions such as high humidity (greater than 65%) may accel... |
what is good or bad about protectionism? who are its winners and losers? | To understand what is happening at the grand scale, consider what happens when you and I freely engage in trade. I give you things you value more than I, while you give things I value more than you. As a result, both of us end up with more value. So when you place impediments in the way of such trade, you decrease t... | [
"Protectionism is frequently criticized by economists as harming the people it is meant to help. Mainstream economists instead support free trade. The principle of comparative advantage shows that the gains from free trade outweigh any losses as free trade creates more jobs than it destroys because it allows countr... |
why is the drunk driving problem so big in u.s.a., when european countries have a much younger drinking age and not as high numbers? | We drive more. Euro cities have a walking/mass transit culture and we don't because we're huge. I'd wager drunk driving is much lower in a walking city such as new York. Nobody walks in a city like la. We are made up of suburbs and spread out cities and large expanses of rural areas. | [
"The US Economy loses hundreds of billions of dollars from lost productivity and earnings with alcohol-related illness being a primary factor. The most dangerous social problem involved in underage drinking is driving under the influence because of its contribution to fatalities and injury among adolescents. One-th... |
Were there inns along the Silk Road? | The term caravansary (with some alternate spellings) is generally used for the inn-like structures that would be used along trade routes through the Middle East, Persia, and India, at least. Since the Silk Road was a major long-distance trade route with large caravans moving through it, caravansaries were often built t... | [
"BULLET::::- The Silk Road is established after the diplomatic travels of the Han Dynasty Chinese envoy Zhang Ian to Central Asia, with Chinese goods making their way to India, Persia, and the Roman Empire, and vice versa.\n",
"As it became the main route between the two cities, local commerce began to serve the ... |
Are 2 Telescopes Better Than 1? | You get two advantages.
Firstly, you effectively have a bigger light bucket. More photons is always a good thing.
Secondly, because your telescopes are a distance apart, you can use interferometry to get really high resolution. This is used with optical telescopes such as [Keck](_URL_0_), but it's the radio astronome... | [
"Largest does not always equate to being the best telescopes, and overall light gathering power of the optical system can be a poor measure of a telescope's performance. Space-based telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, take advantage of being above the Earth's atmosphere to reach higher resolution and gr... |
how do small businesses survive against big ones. | Quality, Customer loyalty, Choice, Service, Flexibility, Culture
Quality: Serve a better burger and fries. Make the burgers on site use real bacon and cut the French fries yourself. Your combo costs 8 bucks but it's a full 1/2 lb burger with crisp bacon and melted swiss and the fries are hot and fresh and use coars... | [
"Small businesses in many countries include service or retail operations such as convenience stores, small grocery stores, bakeries or delicatessens, hairdressers or tradespeople (e.g., carpenters, electricians), restaurants, guest houses, photographers, very small-scale manufacturing, and Internet-related business... |
why is abortion so heavily regulated by the government? | Many people believe that abortion is morally equivalent to murder, or at least a form of murder.
As a result, they advocate policies that they believe will reduce the number of these acts or punish the people who conduct them.
The reason it seems like there is so much government involvement is because a large number... | [
"Due to the religious views on abortion, society stigmatizes women who receive abortions. Many women account that they are stuck deciding between whether to have an abortion or have a child outside of marriage, both of which cause them to be ostracized from society. Some reasons that lead women to pursue abortions ... |
; other than tax evasion, please explain exactly what crime cohen committed in relation to trump and what crime trump may have committed in relation to cohen | > [Cohen] told a judge in United States District Court in Manhattan that the payments to the women were made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” implicating the president in a federal crime.
This is a campaign finance violation, which is a type of felony. Basically the money... | [
"Trump employed Cohen until May 2018, a year after the Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections began. The investigation led him to plead guilty on August 21, 2018, to eight counts including campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. Cohen said he viol... |
Will the human evolve to lose the little toe? | For humans to evolve to not have a little toe, humans with smaller or no little toe would have to have some significant advantage in survival (especially before reproductive age) or be considered much more attractive that people with short or absent little toes have more children.
The research does seem to indicate th... | [
"Despite the distressing nature of the condition, outcomes are excellent. Loss of the toe is extremely rare, as is any residual disability. In rare cases the loss of a digit is possible. Rubber bands can have the same effect.\n",
"If the infection in the feet and toes entered the bones, it could cause them to sof... |
Is there anything that does not have mass? | Photons and gluons have no mass.
More generally, only things which have mass have mass. I know, I know, that sounds useless tautological. But it clarifies the point that mass is a property of *things,* and thus admits the possibility that there should be observable phenomena to which mass, as a concept, does not apply... | [
"In particle physics, a massless particle is an elementary particle whose invariant mass is zero. The two known massless particles are both gauge bosons: the photon (carrier of electromagnetism) and the gluon (carrier of the strong force). However, gluons are never observed as free particles, since they are confine... |
australia. did it really start as a place to exile criminals and lepers and how did it become full of seemingly normal people (and not a completely lawless society full of the offspring of criminals)? | The History of Australia is a pretty kick ass thing, and parts of our history even turn up in things like Sherlock Holmes stories.
So Australia as a nation consists of Aboriginal History, Cook and the subsequent first fleet, the gold rush, federation and then the past 114 years- we're a young nation, kind of like our... | [
"When that avenue closed in the 1780s after the American Revolution, Britain began using parts of what is now known as Australia as penal settlements. Australian penal colonies included Norfolk Island, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), Queensland and New South Wales. Advocates of Irish Home Rule or of Trade Unionism (t... |
If Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't nuked, could there have been a North Japan like North Korea? | This is a topic which is debated quite a bit by orthodox and revisionist historians. Around the same time when the bombs were dropped, the Soviet Union declared was on Japan.
The orthodox viewpoint states that it was the shock of the atomic bombs which brought Japan into surrender.
The revisionist viewpoint says that... | [
"There is also much concern in Japan regarding North Korea and its nuclear and long-range missile capabilities, as a result of missile tests in 1993, 1998 and 2006 and an underground nuclear test in 2006. There are also controversies regarding North Korean abductions of Japanese, where Japanese citizens were abduct... |
I was just reading about Lincoln on Wikipedia, did you really just have to pass test (as apposed to getting a law degree) to become a lawyer in the 1830s? | Historically "reading law" - doing an apprenticeship at a law firm or under a sole lawyer and then sitting and passing the bar - was the main way to become a lawyer in the US. Until 1773 there were no law schools in the US: Litchfield Law School - founded in 1773 - was the first, but even this were meant to supplement,... | [
"Using books borrowed from the law firm of Stuart and Judge [[Thomas Drummond (judge)|Thomas Drummond]], Lincoln began to study law in earnest during the first half of 1835. Lincoln did not attend law school, and stated: \"I studied with nobody.\" As part of his training, he read copies of [[William Blackstone|Blac... |
new to online gaming, what are ping and latency and how does it impact my gaming experience? | Ping is how long it takes information from the host to reach your computer. You always want the lowest ping possible. Anything over 100 can start to really disrupt gameplay. | [
"Some factors that might affect ping include: communication protocol used, Internet throughput (connection speed), the quality of a user's Internet service provider and the configuration of firewalls. Ping is also affected by geographical location. For instance, if someone is in India, playing on a server located i... |
Can a planet have more than 4 seasons? | Well, the seasons are kinda arbitrary, it's not like you wake up one day and suddenly everything is different. It's all gradual changes.
How we've come to regard it, is basically there's a warm part of the year (summer) and a cold part of the year (winter); and a bit where it's getting warmer (spring) and a bit when ... | [
"Of all the planets in the Solar System, the seasons of Mars are the most Earth-like, due to the similar tilts of the two planets' rotational axes. The lengths of the Martian seasons are about twice those of Earth's because Mars's greater distance from the Sun leads to the Martian year being about two Earth years l... |
How do we know it's 2018? What if, 1500 years ago, some years were skipped or miscounted? | Hi there -- not discouraging further answers, but this gets asked here pretty often. [This section of the FAQ](_URL_1_) may be of some interest to you, particularly [this top answer](_URL_0_) from u/sunagainstgold. | [
"The Year 2000 problem, also known as the Y2K problem, the Millennium bug, the Y2K bug, the Y2K glitch, or Y2K, is a class of computer bugs related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates beginning in the year 2000. Problems were anticipated, and arose, because many programs represented four-digit ... |
airport management | This varies from airport to airport, and from country to country.
In the UK, airports are all privately owned. It's down to the individual airport's management to work out a business plan, but as you suspected, this will include charging airlines to use the airport, and charging shops to operate in the airport.
At la... | [
"Airports Council International (ACI) is the only global trade representative of the world's airport authorities. Established in 1991, ACI represents airports' interests with governments and international organizations, develops standards, policies and recommended practices for airports, and it provides information... |
I am a middle-class woman in Britain circa 1860. What does my daily routine consist of? | Do you mean middle-class in the British sense (something like 'the professional class') or in the US sense which seems to include working people? | [
"Middle-class women's leisure activities included in large part traditional pastimes such as reading, embroidery, music, and traditional handicrafts. More modern pursuits were introduced to women's lives during the 19th century, however. Opportunities for leisure activities increased dramatically as real wages cont... |
Is it possible for a moderately massed object to trap things in an orbit? | Heh, spherical people in a vacuum.
So, there is no minimum mass. Sufficiently far from other masses, any two masses can enter into an orbit.
For example, if you have a 1kg bit of material, a 1g sized object could orbit it at a distance of 1m by moving 8.17 microns/second - about the diameter of a red blood cell ever... | [
"An object placed in orbit around (or ) will remain there indefinitely without having to expend fuel to keep its position, whereas an object placed at , or (all points of unstable equilibrium) may have to expend fuel if it drifts off the point.\n",
"Ballistic capture is a method of achieving orbit around a planet... |
why and how do we physically feel our hearts when we have strong emotions? like in the phrase "my heart skipped a beat" or "my heart dropped" for example. | your body doesn't take chances. So when ever any kind of stress comes along (Physical or emotional) it does the same thing: gets ready to act.
you feel it change suddenly because that's exactly what happens. It immediately changes how fast and strong its beating to supply your body with more energy to deal with whatev... | [
"Different types of devices can be used to produce the physiological changes. Of the bodily organs, the heart plays a particularly important role in our emotional experience. The heart imitator HaptiHeart produces special heartbeat patterns according to emotion to be conveyed or elicited (sadness is associated with... |
how do animals at the zoo get their exercise? | They don't get nearly enough exercise. Many wild animals in zoos are incredibly unhappy. It is legal because no one gives a fuck. | [
"Behind the Zoo Behind the Zoo is a chance to learn about taking care of animals. Visitors can touch the animals and bathe the animals. This activity has staff teaching about bathing and cleaning animals (elephants, gaurs, giraffes and white rhinos).\n",
"Some zookeepers train the animals to make caring for them ... |
why do different baby carrot brands taste so differently? | The flavor of food can vary depending on where and how it was grown. Soil quality can have a big impact on flavor. | [
"Both domestic and wild carrot are from the same species, \"Daucus carota\" L. There are several subspecies of \"Daucus carota\" that have evolved to different climates and atmospheres. Two examples of these subspecies are specifically from the Netherlands. \"D. carota\" subsp. \"sativus\" has roots that can be a w... |
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