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Why, when I wake up with the sun do I feel energized, but if I sleep another couple hours and wake up naturally I feel drowsy? | It may be a number of things:
When you wake up for the first time in the morning, you will have a [cortisol awakening response](_URL_1_) which pumps more cortisol through your body (40-75% more than normal) which increases blood sugar and aids in fat, protein and carb metabolism. That makes you feel good and full of energy. You won't get this response second time round in a day.
It could also be that you are waking up in the wrong part of your [sleep cycle](_URL_2_).
In general though, if you want to wake up feeling refreshed and full of energy, maintain a regular [cicadian rhythm](_URL_0_) by going to bed and getting up at the same time each day (even on weekends). | [
"Modern humans often find themselves desynchronized from their internal circadian clock, due to the requirements of work (especially night shifts), long-distance travel, and the influence of universal indoor lighting. Even if they have sleep debt, or feel sleepy, people can have difficulty staying asleep at the pea... |
how casinos opening in atlantic city destroyed atlantic city | Casinos are a very high profit industry. Some people like them, and other people avoid them. The people who like them spend their money in them, making them profitable, but not helping the other businesses. The people who avoid them don't spend money in AC, helping the other businesses.
The result is a town that once had a diversified beach vacation economy was converted into one with a single-industry, gambling. This single-industry approach made AC very susceptible to additional competitors like Native American casinos, horse track casinos, or legalized sports books in several states.
The result is a less profitable casino industry, plus nothing else to employ the people of AC. | [
"The Atlantic Club Casino Hotel, formerly known as Golden Nugget, Bally's Grand, The Grand, Atlantic City Hilton and ACH, is a closed casino and hotel located at the southern end of the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, owned and operated by Colony Capital. It was the city's first and only \"locals casino\". ... |
is there a way to induce hysterical strength (life-or-death adrenaline ) willfully? | Of you can convince yourself you're in grave danger you can activate the flight or fight system.
It's kinda hard to do but i think i can sometimes do it of i think about something that gets me worked up or scared. | [
"Hysterical strength is a display of extreme strength by humans, beyond what is believed to be normal, usually occurring when people are in life-and-death situations. Common anecdotal examples include parents lifting vehicles to rescue their children. The extra strength is commonly attributed to increased adrenalin... |
Most photos of Hitler today show him looking stern or angry. What photos of him were commonly used during the Third Reich? Did they portray him the same way? | I've seen videos of him looking happy and cracking jokes/laughing; heard he had a good sense of humour barring political or sexual jokes. He also put off marrying/announcing a relationship with Eva because he wished to appeal more to the German women by being a Bachelor rather than a taken man. I feel as though the German people got most of their perception of him based on his rally speeches which were extremely well spoken/motivating and would have established his status as a great leader.
source: amateur Nazi documentary watcher | [
"Hitler was represented by several uniformed figures; one was a walking figure of Hitler reviewing troops or perhaps a Nazi unit with his right arm up in his unique bent-arm salute. There was also a seated Hitler to ride in one of Elastolin's magnificent staff cars (German children knew the Führer always sat up fro... |
Is heat generation using AC in anyway more efficient or easy than with DC? | The other comments seem to be missing the obvious. You are describing welding. Your estimates are for power volts and amps are all low (compared to typical welding power supplies), the materials aren't ideal, but the general idea is obviously sound.
What you're doing involves electric power at levels which will trivially blind, burn, and kill you. Tread carefully. | [
"Power supply (PSU) is made quieter through the use of higher efficiency (which reduces waste heat and need for airflow), quieter fans, more intelligent fan controllers (ones for which the correlation between temperature and fan speed is more complex than linear), more effective heat sinks, and designs that allow a... |
why is binary a more efficient system than decimal? | It's not more efficient. It's simpler for computers.
At their most basic level, modern computers are a large number (an unimaginably large number) of switches. Just like your light switches at home, these can be thought of as being in two states, either "on" or "off".
So because the simplest way to create the electronics for computers is a simple on/off, that is then easily represented in binary as 1 or 0.
In the past there have been electronic computers built that work on non-binary systems but they turned out to be far more complicated to build and had no significant advantage in speed or processing power. | [
"A binary encoding is inherently less efficient for conversions to or from decimal-encoded data, such as strings (ASCII, Unicode, etc.) and BCD. A binary encoding is therefore best chosen only when the data are binary rather than decimal. IBM has published some unverified performance data.\n",
"The binary GCD alg... |
the us cellphone carrier market... | copy & paste from one of my other post with some minor changes.
mostly it's due to population density difference and the land mass it has to cover. tbh, not everything is a conspiracy.
> Total land area: (UK) 244,820 sq km. (US) 9,161,966 sq km, about 37 times bigger than UK.
> Population density: (UK) 257.23 people per sq. km in 2010. (US) 33.82 per sq. km in 2010, about 1/7 of UK.
So when you've to provide service to a country that's 37 times bigger with 1/7 the customers per sq. km, then it'll probably be more expensive without subsidies. | [
"T-Mobile US provides wireless voice, messaging, and data services in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands under the T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile brands. The company operates the third largest wireless network in the U.S. market with over 65.5 million customers and annual revenues of $32 billio... |
How hard would it be for a low-income citizen in 1700 to go an watch an orchestra? | Alright, I can answer this since I know a bit about it:
What you have to keep in mind about Western Music is that, for most of its history it has been heavily influenced and patronized by the elite and wealthy (Church, nobility, and the *noveau riche* )
& #x200B;
Generally speaking, having large orchestras took a lot of money, and at around 1700, patronage was still very much in the hands of the nobility. If you wanted to have an orchestra play your stuff, you probably wanted to be friends with [one](_URL_3_) [of](_URL_1_) [these](_URL_0_) [people](_URL_2_) . Many of Hadyn's symphonies were composed for the orchestra of his patrons, the Ezterhazy family. Many of Beethoven's pieces were commissioned by nobility as well (the 3rd was commissioned by Joseph Lobkowitz, a prince). Some of his quartets and piano sonatas even contain the names of his patrons (Razumovsky, Waldstein).
Essentially, "art music" was patronized and listened to by the elite. Now, this is not to say that people did not hear orchestras at all in their life. Bach's St.Matthew Passion would have been performed in a church, for the congregation. However, for most his life his orchestral works, yet again, were played privately for patrons.
Works with vocalists and orchestra, tend to be the one place were \*anyone\* could have heard the music, and this dates back to the medieval period. Musicologist Richard Taruksin (where I'm getting a decent amount of my information) talks how The Mass Ordinary (a genre popular in the renaissance, incorporating lots of multi-voice singing) was important as a a political genre, as it helped to represent ecclesiastical power because it helped provide a connection between humankind and the divine. (Taruskin, Vol.1, 460). The Mass Ordinary Genre would eventually grow to feature an orchestra \*with\* the choir at around Bach's time\*, which is close enough to the year of your question. It is important to note that the Church had an motivation to make this sort of music accessible and \*heard\*
So perhaps, it was pretty easy to eventually see an orchestra, but frankly, if you wanted to go watch an orchestra "just cause", you'd have best luck with your local opera house (if you were lucky enough to have one), but even then you'd have to pay for admission (I'm not quite sure on the price of admission, although all of my sources indicate that a "commoner" could attend). Notice how the genres with voice tend to be more accessible to the public. Instrumental "high art" music, as mentioned, was mostly a hobby of the elite.
Closer to the end of the 18th century, if you really truly desperately wanted to see an orchestra, you could go see a Singspiel! It's like an opera, but instead of recitative it has dialogue! Wow! Imagine that! Opera, but you can understand the words. Nobility thought of it as a "low genre", so ticket prices were probably pretty reasonable.
& #x200B;
Anyways, here's a tl;dr: Hope your church puts on a mass with orchestra, or oratorio. Go to the opera. It is quite unlikely you'd be exposed to the purely instrumental orchestral tradition unless you had some sort of musical training, or were connected to nobility. To be honest, most of your musical entertainment is probably going to come from folk traditions that the classical establishment seems to have erased from history.
Burkholder, J. Peter, et al. *A History of Western Music*. W.W. Norton & Company, 2014.
Taruskin, Richard. *The Oxford History of Western Music*. Vol. 1, Oxford University Press, 2005.
Taruskin, Richard. *The Oxford History of Western Music*. Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, 2005.
Wolff, Christoph. *Johann Sebastian Bach: the Learned Musician*. Oxford University Press, 2014.
\*If someone more familiar with the genre could fill me in on when this started to take place, that'd be great. I can't quite remember. | [
"In the 1780s the elector cut back on the orchestra's budget and reduced the number of musicians from 95 to 55. The musicians complained about cutbacks in payment and reduced income. It is alleged that Cannabich himself had to live on one-third of his former stipend during the last years of his life, which forced t... |
how do springs work? | Do you mean water springs or metal springs? | [
"To understand how an iso-elastic system works, we must first understand how springs work. The tension (elastic force) in a spring is proportional to its extension according to Hooke's law. This means that if a weight is hung on a spring it will oscillate with simple harmonic motion. This is because when the weight... |
What would tourism (say, in the Mediterranean) be like in the 1950s? | Peter Throckmorton has a good deal to say about tourists in *Shipwrecks and archaeology; the unharvested sea.* He was a Mediterranean specialist. One of the problems he noted was that in the 1950's SCUBA technology was making its first big appearances in the civilian market. This meant that in the Mediterranean region and along the shores of Spain it was becoming a very popular pass time.
His concern was that many of these amateur divers were also amateur collectors. They would dive on shallow wrecks and collect artifacts as trinkets and mementos. While the vast majority certainly did not mean any harm the vast number of them was causing heavy damage to shallow water wrecks. It was his opinion at the time that nearly all wrecks under 100ft had been plundered to some degree or another by tourists. At the time there were no laws, no UNESCO agreements. He was hoping with his book to help curtail some of these tourists be getting governments and museums to take notice of what the tourists were inadvertently destroying in their enthusiasm. | [
"To the peoples of Northern Europe the Mediterranean landscape represented an ideal that has to be admired, sketched, painted and visited. From the beginning of the nineteenth century on the Mediterranean landscape functioned as a promotional objective of the nascent tourist industry. The presence of celebrities an... |
Why do viruses have such complex antigen structures which follow distinct geometrical patterns? | There are many ways to answer your question. Here are a few of them:
1. Viruses that don't evade the immune system do not produce more of themselves, so their genetic line dies off.
2. Some viruses do indeed have very complex antigen structures. This is especially true of enveloped viruses, like HIV, where the key proteins are covered in sugars (glycoproteins). These sugars don't adopt one specific structure, so there isn't one antigen for the immune system to recognize.
3. Some viruses have antigenic sites that don't vary much, which is why we have vaccines. Sometimes these sites can't change because their structure is required for a specific function (receptor recognition, pore formation, etc)
4. Not all viruses have capsids that adopt distinct geometrical patterns. HIV, for instance, can assemble in many different ways, although it does follow some rules of assembly. Capsids enclose and protect the genome of the virus until conditions are met for genome delivery and replication.
But there's a problem. The virus has to encode the information for a shell that will enclose it. This becomes a surface area/volume issue. The genome requires 3 bases to encode 1 amino acid, so you can easily guess that it would be excessive for a virus to encode one giant protein to encase the whole virus, since it would inflate the amount of genetic material. The solution (a handful of proteins that snap together, usually by self-assembly, into a defined shape) allows the virus to encode a small number of proteins, let the cell produce them in large number so that there is a sufficient amount to enclose the genetic information and form another infectious virus.
So, to summarize:
- geometrical shapes because you need to enclose the genome that encodes the things making the shapes.
- complex antigens propagate because the simple ones are, as a rule, more easily recognized and terminated by the immune system. | [
"The virions of certain viruses sometimes exhibit pleomorphism, in the sense that their appearances can vary. However, this is not true pleomorphism, as individual virions are not changing shape, but being succeeded by virions with different shapes. One example is the bacterial viruses of the \"Plasmaviridae\" fami... |
Melatonin production is decreased by light. Is this frequency dependent? | Short answer: Yes, blue light in the hours prior to sleep onset seems to suppress melatonin production, delay sleep onset, and subsequently alters patterns of sleep during the night. [Supported by a recent study](_URL_0_) (the most comprehensive study on the topic to date). | [
"In 1978 Cohen et al. proposed that reduced production of the hormone melatonin might increase the risk of breast cancer and citing \"environmental lighting\" as a possible causal factor. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences conducted a study in ... |
why i eye squint | When you squint, you are limiting the amount of light entering your eye which allows you to focus on specific objects. | [
"Squinting is most often practiced by people who suffer from refractive errors of the eye who either do not have or are not using their glasses. Squinting helps momentarily improve their eyesight by slightly changing the shape of the eye to make it more round, which helps light properly reach the fovea. Squinting a... |
Why is von Manstein generally considered to be the best WW2 general? | Allow me to post a brief overview of Manstein's campaigns, they don't do them justice but detailing his entire campaigns really deserve their own post.
"Sickle Stroke"- arguably his most famous work, and possibly his greatest contribution to the German war effort. His revised plan for the invasion of France called for the armored thrust into the Ardennes that was responsible for defeating the French so quickly.
Next Manstein was transferred to a panzer crops at the start of Barbarossa, Manstein's corps fought very well and Manstein earned distinction, but he had a habit of outrunning his supply lines and almost got his panzer corps destroyed when he got encircled by the Soviet 11th army.
After this Manstein was transferred to the German 11th army under army group south in the Ukraine. His goal was to capture the Crimea and take Sevastopol. Manstein slowly worked his way into the peninsula but due to lack of manpower his assaults on the fortified city failed. He was able to stop a Soviet counterattack from taking the eastern part of the peninsula though. Manstein eventually got the air superiority and support he needed. He took both Sevastopol and another city on the peninsula called Kerch. Hitler promoted Manstein to Generalfeldmarschall because of his victory.
He was than transferred to the city of Leningrad, where he made the decision to starve the city by cutting of the supply route across lake Ladoga. However, the Soviets launched the Sinyavin Offensive, and while Manstein was able to repel the assault, the Germans were too weakened to launch a final assault on the city and they had to commit to a siege.
Manstein was now given the task of reliving German troops in Stalingrad (operation Winter Storm). Manstein's "Army Group" consisted of the trapped 6th Army, a smashed Romanian Army, and the 4th Panzer Army (which had also suffered losses), in spite of this Manstein almost managed to free the 6th Army but Paulus was unable to attack the Soviets in the rear and Manstein had to call of the assault
The defeat at Stalingrad opened the floodgates and the Soviets pushed back hard. Manstein launched a counter offensive that was extremely successful destroying three Soviet armies and preventing the collapse of the entire front. He even recaptured the city of Kharkov.
Manstein's first real defeat would come at Kursk. Manstein;s offensive was successful at the start but the Soviets began to turn the tide. The offensive was finally called of by Hitler who had to focus his attention elsewhere (the allies had landed in Sicily). This infuriated Manstein who thought that one more push would break the Soviets at Kursk. In reality Kursk had failed and there was no hope of victory.
Now the front began to collapse and the Germans began to lose territory rapidly. The Germans just didn't have enough men to cover the front and Manstein's counter attacks could do very little to hold the Red Army juggernaut back. This continued until Manstein was dismissed in March of 1944.
I do think Manstein had his reputation inflated by the Western allies who admired and respected Manstein but he was certainly a brilliant general in his own right. Its hard to quantify him as the greatest general, if only because everyone has a different opinion on what makes a great general. Manstein's sickle stroke was probably his greatest contribution to the German war effort and arguably his greatest feat; its probably also one of the most daring and brilliant moves in war history. His campaign in the Crimea was nothing short of brilliant. Finally, his ability to keep the Red Army in check after the German collapses at Stalingrad and Kursk all speak to his abilities. Was he the greatest? Probably not. But he was certainly a great solider and a great general worthy of distinction.
A good book on this matter is:
Manstein: Hitler's Greatest General by Mungo Melvin. | [
"Manstein disparaged other German generals, portraying them as incompetent. Manstein took the credit for German victories and blamed Hitler and his fellow generals for every defeat. His arch-enemy was General Franz Halder; according to Manstein, although Halder understood that Hitler's leadership was defective, he ... |
How involved were women in European Communist Parties in the 1920s? | In my answer I will be concentrating on the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in the 1920s; hope that is OK and what you were looking for.
CPGB was the largest Communist Party in Britain, and existed from 1920 to 1990. Women’s involvement in CPGB appeared to be understudied for some time, and I believe that the best account of women’s involvement in the party comes from S. Bruley’s book *Leninism, Stalinism, and the Women's Movement in Britain, 1920-1939*, which you might find interesting. It is the main source for my answer, too.
Historians have called the CPGB a ‘young man’s party’; throughout its existence, men under 30 made up the largest proportion of members. Women, at their membership peak in 1926, made up 21% of the party (Hunt and Worley), but their regular membership was at about 14-16% (Bruley; Thorpe). For context, at this time, the Labour party was made up of about 40% women – suggesting that CPGB’s **women’s membership was quite low even in the context of recent enfranchisement**. Another thing to keep in mind is that most members had ‘manly’ jobs; the party was largely made up of engineers and miners.
I would argue that argue CPGB was **reluctant to give a significant amount of energy to recruiting female members in the 20s**.
It appears that the young CPGB **never grasped the specific concerns of women**. One reason proposed for this is that it was the type of a party which had inherent ‘Masculinism’ (Damousi). To the CPGB – women were workers, and thus worker problems applied to them the same way as they did to men, which, we can now appreciate, was not necessarily the case. CPGB’s ideology was that of crude economic determinism – it was largely centered on the need to overthrow the capitalist mode of production with little consideration for any related social factors. The emphasis was thus on things like Trade Union struggle, rather than the struggle within the family or community. Therefore gaining some women’s interest may have proved difficult – these are the concepts on which their propaganda relied on.
The 1922 Party Congress saw the statement that it is the men’s job to bring in women into the party (i.e., bringing their wives). The same year, an admission was made that the party has done little to bring women into their ranks in the 18 months of their existence. After this followed some minor progress, for example, in 1924, along the Party Congress, there ran a Conference of Party Women. However, in 1929, there were still complaints of women not being mentioned in the 10th Party Congress. A member of the party, Katy Duncan, figured this was because members were scared of talking about women’s issues in case they’re perceived to be separate from that of the broader class struggle. Overall, the goal of the party was that of overcoming fragmentation, as with every party. This hope for homogeneity meant that the biggest group, young men in male industries, were the ones best represented.
Those women not put off by the rejection of the existence of women’s issues, may have been put off by party structure. As suggested earlier, women in the party were largely **‘party wives’**. They had most of the secretarial jobs, like organising events or fundraising. The promised equality within the party was not really there – the jobs women did were often just extensions of their domestic duties at home. Additionally, the incredibly centralised party structure meant that future prospects were unclear; there is little evidence of a well-functioning inner party democracy.
As the CPGB stated in 1922, they considered their members to be ‘disciplined soldiers’. The party was a vanguard for the working class. Thus the membership was **a lifestyle most suited to young unmarried men**, a group with few domestic commitments. There is of course some evidence that women nonetheless found this exciting and did not shy away, but we need to recognise that women were the least likely to be able to throw away their domestic commitments and take part in such a full-on membership as CPGB expected.
As I believe you alluded in your question, societal factors were largely against women, especially the poorer women which were the targets for CPGB. The women’s domestic duties were even more time consuming than they are now – no washing machine, no hoover, etc. Thus a working woman would only rarely be able to commit to both the party and the household. Women’s domestic work was rarely relived by the men of the family; as Bruley put it, they often found it ‘unmasculine’. Some of these social divisions were entrenched further by the labour movement itself, e.g., campaigning for a ‘family wage’ which would mean that women could (should?) stay home. And on even simpler terms, party meetings often took place in places like pubs or similar establishments which arguably prevented some women’s attendance. And once this was overcome – it is true that some women just did not see politics as their sphere of interest.
So, I would say, that the young CPGB was indeed a young man’s party, and thus largely ineffective at attracting women at the time. There was a lack of interest in women-related problems, and the Bolshevisation of the party meant that the party structure was nightmarish for all members. But it is also important to remember that it was not always necessarily the fault of the party – wider societal factors were not particularly on the side of working women.
& #x200B;
& #x200B;
Andrew Thorpe, ‘The membership of the Communist party of Great Britain, 1920-1945’, *The Historical Journal*, 43 (2000).
Joy Damousi, *Women come rally: socialism, communism and gender in Australia 1890-1955* (1994).
Karen Hunt and Matthew Worley, ‘Rethinking British Communist Party Women in the 1920s’, *Twentieth Century British History*, 15 (2004).
Sue Bruley, *Leninism, Stalinism, and the Women's Movement in Britain, 1920-1939* (2012). | [
"Communists began to recognize the importance of women during the Second Republic, and started to actively seek female members to broader their female based in 1932. To this further this goal, the first Communist women's organization, Committee of Women against War and Fascism in Spain, was created as a way of tryi... |
How was a Officer's rank determined in the Confederate Army at the start of the Civil War? | There was no formal, universal process for determining rank in the Confederate army. It could be assigned in several ways, and most of these were also common to the Union army.
1) Election. Volunteer regiments (which the vast majority of civil war regiments were) often elected their officers from the Colonel on down. This wasn't always as democratic as it might sound, since often a prominent local leader (regiments were organized from the same community) could generally influence the vote.
2) Raising a Regiment. If you could find 800 people willing to join /u/Furious_Georgee's regiment, then you were an instant Colonel. This is sort of like the election, but even less democratic. A wealthy man could offer bounties, nice uniforms, horses and artillery, etc as inducements to enlist in his regiment.
3) Appointment by the political system. Particularly for General Officers (brigadier generals and up) State governors and the Confederate President could appoint officers. Jefferson Davis was a West Point graduate and commanded a regiment in the Mexican war (via method #2). He knew many of the southerners with military experience and felt himself competent to judge military talent. Governors could also pick prominent men of military experience to head state forces (generally brigades and divisions).
4) Promotion (and dismissal) by the Military chain of command. Once regiments selected their officers, a higher ranking general could pick brigadiers and major generals from the pool of colonels of regiments under his command as part of the process of creating larger formations. Occasionally, the vacancy would be filled with an officer from outside the regiment, but more commonly an officer from within would be promoted. If a regiment proved incompetently managed, it's colonel could be dismissed by the chain of command and replaced with another officer. Lastly, a General could appoint officers to his own staff with appropriate ranks, who would later be eligible for other commands or assignments. These local appointments were often subject to meddling by state or Confederate politicians.
Edit: I should clarify that U.S. Army rank had zero formal meaning in the CSA. However, In practice an officers that had served in the U.S. Army would have the inside track in all four of the methods described above and generally managed to find a rank two or three levels above their peacetime rank. The vast expansion of the Union and Confederate forces meant that ANY military experience was valued. | [
"As of September 18, 1862, when lieutenant generals were authorized, the Confederate Army had four grades of general officers; they were (in order of increasing rank) brigadier general, major general, lieutenant general, and general. As officers were appointed to the various grades of general by Jefferson Davis (an... |
[Physics] Can you fuse elementary particles and their antiparticles together, and what happens if you do? | Particles and their antiparticles can sometimes form bound states, such as [positronium](_URL_1_) and [quarkonium](_URL_0_).
They can also annihilate to photons, or potentially other particles. For example, an important process in QED is
e^(+) + e^(-) - > μ^(+) + μ^(-).
In the process, an electron and positron annihilate, producing a muon and antimuon. | [
"If a particle and antiparticle are in the appropriate quantum states, then they can annihilate each other and produce other particles. Reactions such as + → + (the two-photon annihilation of an electron-positron pair) are an example. The single-photon annihilation of an electron-positron pair, + → , cannot ... |
why are subreddits like r/shoplifting and r/stealing allowed? | Freedom of speech, coupled to both the fact that "thought crime" (i.e thinking about stealing) aren't easily punishable and the fact that every thing you say on the internet is satyre and shouldn't be taken literally. | [
"Shoplifting tools are illegal in many jurisdictions, and can, in any case, serve as evidence against the perpetrators. Hence, informed shoplifters, although they decrease their risk of being caught by the EAS, expose themselves to much greater judicial risks if they get caught with tools, booster bags, or while tr... |
Does HIV cancel out any allergies a person may have? | HIV does not really cause the immune system to fail completely. The immune system is extremely complex and has several different arms that are all necessary but not sufficient to protect us. HIV actually affects a relatively specific part of the immune system.
Allergy is a relatively nonspecific term. Allergies that cause anaphylaxis (aka type I hypersensitivity), like penicillin, peanut, shellfish allergies, etc. are caused by the rapid activation of pre-formed antibodies in the blood which are products of the "humoral" immune system, i.e. B lymphocytes and their derivatives. Although T cells (the CD4+ subset of which is the lineage affected in HIV) are involved in activating B cells and inducing the production of antibodies, once this has happened there is a long-term memory response preserved in the B-cell line, so wiping out the T cells is unlikely to affect an existing anaphylactic allergic response.
On the other hand, there is another kind of allergy known as a type IV hypersensitivity reaction that is mediated entirely by T cells. Examples of this reaction include contact dermatitis from nickel or poison ivy and the tuberculin skin test (aka PPD test). This kind of reaction is markedly blunted by HIV. In fact, the threshold for a positive PPD test (measured in millimeters of skin reaction) is lowered in patients with HIV because they are not able to produce as large of a reaction to the PPD and would otherwise end up with a high rate of false negatives. | [
"Although the idea that exposure to certain infections may decrease the risk of allergy is not new, Strachan was one of the first to formally propose it, in an article published in the \"British Medical Journal\" in 1989. This article proposed to explain the observation that hay fever and eczema, both allergic dise... |
why is the european union often accused of being undemocratic? | Because many of the decisions are made by EU commissioners who are appointed, with many never having stood for any kind of elected office before. Other decisions are made by votes of MEPs who are elected. However on some votes a country may veto a decision, such as France vetoing the decision of MEPs not to move the parliament every month for 4 days to France. | [
"A similar attempt at governmental collusion to limit the use of jurisdictional arbitrage for tax avoidance is the policy of tax harmonization. The membership of European governments in the European Union resulted in a collection of nations with a limited set of common legal structures (Four Freedoms) which has res... |
why do dogs roll around in things that smell weird? | Your dog is trying to mask his scent. This makes it easier to sneak up on prey and surprise it so he wouldn't have to chase it down. | [
"Dogs, as with all mammals, have natural odors. Natural dog odor can be unpleasant to dog owners especially when dogs are kept inside the home, as some people are not used to being exposed to the natural odor of a non-human species living in proximity to them. Dogs may also develop unnatural odors as a result of sk... |
the idea of space as a vacuum. | It is called that because space has nearly no atmosphere and extremely low pressure. Liquids and gasses always will flow from an area of high pressure to areas with lower pressure while no other forces hold them in place, this is how a vacuum works, by creating a low pressure system that pulls air from higher pressure systems around it until equilibrium is achieved. Space is so large and such low pressure that equilibrium can't be achieved and thus is a constant vacuum. | [
"In modern terms, the concept of \"vacuum\" is not the same as \"empty space\": Space is filled with the quantized fields that make up the universe. Vacuum is simply the lowest \"possible\" energy state of these fields.\n",
"The word “Vacuum” is originated from the Latin word “vacua”, which is translated to the w... |
Tuesday Trivia | History’s Greatest Nobodies II: Military Edition | Sgt. 'Stubby' was a highly decorated soldier of the American 102nd Infantry Division who fought during World War I. As part of the 26th Division, his unit was one of the first committed to the front, fighting in over a dozen battles with distinction, and wounded twice, once from shrapnel, and once from a gas attack. During his time in the trenches, he became known for his superhuman senses, allowing him to warn the other soldiers of incoming gas attacks and artillery barrages. His brave forays into No Man's Land resulted in the locating and rescue of numerous injured soldiers, and on one notable occasion, the capture of a German observer attempting to map out the American trench line, which resulted in his promotion to Sergeant.
With the end of the war, he returned to the US a hero, enjoying a meeting with President Wilson himself, and was personally presented with an award for his heroics by Gen. Pershing. Upon his retirement from the army, he attend Georgetown University, becoming an integral, and still fondly remembered, member of the football team.
[Tragically, he died quite young in 1926.](_URL_0_)
[Source](_URL_1_) | [
"BULLET::::- Nelson, James Carl. \"The Remains of Company D: A story of the great war\". New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009. plus Webcast Author Interview at the Pritzker Military Library on 29 October 2009\n",
"The General (1964–1998) was a bi-monthly periodical devoted to supporting Avalon Hill's line of wargam... |
Why can't we remember everything we see? | The brain stores information into several types of memory.
Short term, long term, and sensory.
Sensory information stays for about half a second at most.
Short term memories don't last long, and the brain can only juggle so many at a time.
Only a small number of sensory memories become short term, and a small number of short term memories become long term.
This improves the efficiency of accessing more-important long term memories.
EDIT: There are some people who *can* remember everything, but this is very rare. | [
"Human beings are blessed with having an intelligent and complex mind, which allows us to remember our past, be able to optimize the present, and plan for the future. Remembering involves a complex interaction between the current environment, what one expects to remember, and what is retained from the past. The mec... |
How does HIV resistance work? Is it similar to antibiotic resistance? | It works exactly the same way antibiotic resistance works. The only difference is that HIV is a virus. The overaching idea is that there are lots of these copies of viruses floating around. The lifespan of any single virus is pretty short but the turnover is pretty quick allowing many generations and chances for small changes to stack up.
So we currently have 5 medications to treat HIV and the general appraoch is to bundle 3 up and give them all at once to bring the viral load as low as possible. The problem comes when people either stop taking their medication or don't take it regularly enough. What will happen is the few viruses that survive will reproduce since there is less medication to kill it. Over the many and many lifecycles that happen during this period it is possible for a random change to occur making that specific virus less vulnerable to a medication. These changes can be to how it anchors on to a cell, what makes the protective coating, how it injects its genetic information into a cell it is infecting, but regardless that new virus will now reproduce even faster since the medicine has less effective on it.
As the concentration of the virus goes up, the person can then infect another person, and that person will be infected with a resistant strand as well.
Now I that person takes 1 of the same and 2 different HIV medications, but also does it haphazardly, the strain can develop resistance to the other remaining medications. This new resistance will not wipe out the old resistance.
We know this because at one point 1 HIV medication was sufficient, but we have to use 3 at any given time due to the rampant resistance out there these days. | [
"Antibiotic resistance is acquired through conjugation, a method of bacterial reproduction. Conjugation permits a sharing of DNA allowing the bacterium to learn about various antibiotics through exposure and this information is passed down through replication between bacteria. \n",
"Antibiotic resistance is a sub... |
how is it that something conceptual can make you feel something physical? ie: butterflies at something romantic, or feeling sick at the realisation of a mistake. | The short answer is, the same way thinking to move your arm causes something physical to happen: your arm moving.
Your brain is connected to your body by nerves and also produces hormones. When you're in love or very excited, the brain triggers the production of hormones that, as a side effect, make you feel butterflies in your stomach. | [
"Apart from what we think a feeling \"is\", Hochschild asserts in , we have ideas about what it \"should be\". We say, \"You should be thrilled at winning the prize\" or \"you must be furious at what he did.\" We evaluate the fit between feeling and context in light of what she calls \"feeling rules,\" which are th... |
how does this sculpture work? | It works by being a lightweight net that is physically attached to different tethering spots by line that is difficult to see.
It is made of bits of mylar (the silver balloon stuff) attached to a big net.
_URL_1_
_URL_0_ | [
"Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard or plastic material, sound, or text and or light, commonly stone (either rock or marble), clay, metal, glass, or wood. Some sculptures are created directly by finding or ; others are assembled, built together and fired, welded, molded, or ... |
linear (in)dependence in linear algebra | Linear independence of a set of vectors essentially means that you cannot create one by adding the others.
As a simple example, the "unit vectors," or the vectors that correspond to the 3 coordinate directions, are [1,0,0], [0,1,0], and [0,0,1]. These three vectors themselves are linearly independent since I cannot add vectors along the x axis with vectors along the y axis and expect to end up with a vector along the z axis.
the vector [2,-1,3], however, is not linearly independent from the cartesian "basis" vectors (so called because they are the "basis" of the cartesian coordinate system). We can say:
2\*[1,0,0]+(-1)\*[0,1,0]+3\*[0,0,1] = [2,-1,3] so clearly these four vectors are not linearly independent. In fact, **no** cartesian vector is linearly independent from the basis vectors! The very existence of the coordinate system is based on the fact that we can "point" to anywhere in space with nothing more than the basis vectors. | [
"For the purposes of linear cryptanalysis, a linear equation expresses the equality of two expressions which consist of binary variables combined with the exclusive-or (XOR) operation. For example, the following equation, from a hypothetical cipher, states the XOR sum of the first and third plaintext bits (as in a ... |
Roman fleet problems with storms? | The common explanation given for the destruction of the Roman navy is inextricably linked to the reason for its success, the use of the Corvus.
Prior to the Punic wars, Rome had a relatively small navy, focusing primarily on land based forces as Rome had only recently subdued Magna Graecia in the south of the Italic peninsula. The conquest of this territory placed the two largest powers of the region (Carthage and Rome) together, separated only by the Strait of Messina. Carthage was primarily a naval based force though with significant land based capacity while Rome remained a dominant land based force with a much smaller navy and a lack of naval design and tactics understanding (the design used by the Romans was a copy of an abandoned quinquereme.)
The Roman navy was faced with a significant disadvantage in maritime warfare when faced with the highly experienced Carthaginian navy, however, the Roman navy devised the Corvus as a means to utilize their superiority in ground forces. The Corvus (Corvus mean crow) itself was a thin bridge fitted to a pivot on the bow of the ship which, when lowered, drove a spike (for which it was named) into the timbers of the enemy ship, preventing its escape and allowing Roman troops to board the vessel extremely easily. As the main means of naval combat was to ram the opposing vessels, the Corvus took advantage of the close proximity and allowed the use of marines to capture enemy vessels. In effect the Roman navy served as a transport system to turn naval battles into land battles.
The primary issue with the Corvus was the added weight and its location on the ship. Because Roman war vessels were designed as copies from a beached vessel, the added weight of the Corvus made the ship unbalanced and top heavy, making the ship roll far more easily. If a fleet were to be caught at sea by a storm, the ships would be extremely susceptible to rolling and sinking causing massive casualties from the ships susceptibilities. Add in somewhat inexperienced naval manpower and storms become a major source of Roman losses during the First Punic War.
Typed on mobile, please excuse any formatting or word errors | [
"Despite the Roman victories at sea, the Roman Republic lost countless ships and crews during the war, due to both storms and battles. On at least two occasions (255 and 253 BC), whole fleets were destroyed in bad weather; the disaster off Camarina in 255 BC counted 270 ships and 119,280 men lost, the greatest sing... |
How did life in the Soviet Union change after Joseph Stalins Death? | (OK, here's primary and secondary sources)
**Brief answer:**
Life didn't change noticeably for average citizen for ~5 years.
**Detailed:**
Death of Stalin was felt by many millions as personal tragedy. People cried - literally for hours. When the burial ceremony was held, so many were trying to attend (~2 millions), that many were crushed to death in the crowd - just too many people went to Kremlin.
One small group of people who experienced almost immediate change were "doctors-poisoners" (*Дело врачей = Doctor Affair* - see [4]) - by April 3rd all who were still under investigation, not sentenced yet, were set free and charges dismissed.
**Most important event of 1953 after Stalin death: "Beria's amnesty".** By March of 1953, there were ~2.5 millions in GULAG (precisely, 2 526 402). Of those, Beria proposed to free immediately with up to 5 years sentences ( in his Politburo memo (March 23rd, 1953). And longer sentences were to be commuted in half. "Especially dangerous convicts", "convicted for banditry and terrorism" with 10-25 year sentences were excluded. Many high-level *trotskists*, *right-leaners*, *foreign spies*, *bourgeois nationalists* were in these categories and thus ineligible (221 435). Total number of affected by amnesty is difficult to calculate, as decision to commute sentence was at local authorities discretion, ~1.2 millions (e.g. total number of released+commuted sentences - see [3]).
Politburo agreed and, by summer of 1953, almost all with "light sentences" were freed. Crime rate jumped up - as amnesty didn't distinguish between political prisoners and criminals.
Life certainly changed for the top leadership - it was immediately engaged in intense struggle for power. Beria lost to Malenkov and was really "last repressed for political reasons and shot by firing squad". Then gradually Khruschev risen to power by 1955, pushing away Malenkov and Bulganin.
I cannot possibly try to cover everything in USSR even for 53-55 period without writing a book, so if you want to know anything specific about that time, please ask.
**Sources**
1. [Photo - Moscow - Street crowd at burial ceremony](_URL_2_). Note that many are crying.
[RIA Novosti - Moscow - Street crowd](_URL_4_). Gorky street, Moscow downtown, ~10 min walk to the Red Square.
[Images from RIA Novosti archives, search *"похороны+сталина" = "stalin burial"*](_URL_3_)
[Photo - Penza - Street ceremony at the same time as burial in Moscow](_URL_7_)
2. [russian - Amnesty of 1953](_URL_6_). "Russian Amnesty" website.
3. [Orlando Figes - Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia](_URL_1_). Secondary source and with very narrow focus - as it dwells on just several families with repressed members, without looking at everyday life in USSR at large, outside of GULAG. Still, it describes amnesty.
4. [russian Wiki - Doctors Affair](_URL_0_).
5. [russian - Executive Order of Supreme Soviet about amnesty](_URL_5_) | [
"Stalin died in 1953, and the Soviet Union went through \"De-Stalinisation\" under the new leader Nikita Khrushchev, though his attempts to improve the lives of ordinary citizens were often ineffective. Khrushchev ruled through the years of the Cold War. Leonid Brezhnev was appointed leader in 1964. Brezhnev govern... |
If you let a chess-computer play itself repeatedly, will it play the same game over and over? | Most chess engines early game is decided by either an opening book (which is like a play book of strong opening moves) or by the time allocated for each move. Even if you have the same two chess engines play against each other you will rarely see an identical game. This can be from customizing the parameters of the search to have it play in a different style, or because many engines have a hash table which is like a memory bank of already searched moves.
I have played around with engine vs engine games and I don't think I have ever seen an identical game, but maybe with the older engines or with the simpler script kinds I'm sure that will happen. Though you don't see many identical games you will get lots of draws because neither engine will ever make too big of a mistake. | [
"Given that the endgame contains fewer possible moves than the opening (\"fuseki\") or middle game, one might suppose that it is easier to play, and thus that a computer should be able to easily tackle it. In chess, computer programs perform worse in chess endgames because the ideas are long-term, unless the number... |
how do apps such as hq trivia earn profit from giving away money everyday? where are they getting this money from? | They don't make ANY money... yet. HQ is run by the same people that founded Vine. They're burning through venture capital money right now in an attempt to get as many users as possible. This is similar to the business model used by Venmo, by the way.
Once they have a ton of users, they'll figure out a way to make money off of them. But they're not spending money that quickly, and they're getting tons of users. Eventually, they'll start running ads, like other internet companies. | [
"The net worth of the company is estimated to be $100 million. As a privately owned and funded company, iBario receives majority of its funding from advertisements. The company runs their own advertising network, RevenueHits, which serves advertisements to the users on the iBario sites. Aside from RevenueHits, iBar... |
What is the rate of formation for Uranium 235 in relation to Uranium 238 and how do we know? | The ratio of production of U-235 to U-238 in supernovae is roughly 1.65:1, however, this isn't relevant to radiometric dating.
Radiometric dating works through processes that cause elemental separation which then makes it possible to measure the amount of time since that separation occurred. In the case of Uranium dating the basic mineralogical mechanism is, usually, the formation of zircon (Zirconium silicate). Due to the chemical properties of zircon crystals they have a tendency to allow the incorporation of Uranium and Thorium while rejecting the incorporation of Lead. However, Uranium and Thorium will decay *into* Lead over time. If you then crack open a zircon crystal and measure it's contents of certain Uranium/Thorium/Lead isotopes very accurately then by measuring their ratios we can estimate the amount of time since the zircon was formed (since it excluded Lead, essentially). | [
"Uranium-235 has a half-life of 703.8 million years. It was discovered in 1935 by Arthur Jeffrey Dempster. Its (fission) nuclear cross section for slow thermal neutron is about 504.81 barns. For fast neutrons it is on the order of 1 barn. At thermal energy levels, about 5 of 6 neutron absorptions result in fission ... |
what exactly is happening to our bodies when we’re laying in the sun and feel it’s heat? | The nerves in our skin that detect warmth are called thermoreceptors (we have separate ones for hot and cold). The infrared radiation from the sun is heat. It makes our skin warm. The thermoreceptors in our skin send signals to our brain that say "it's warm" so our brain interprets that sensation as warmth. | [
"The burning heat is usually limited to the soles of the feet, but may extend up to the ankles or lower legs of some patients. The burning can sometimes be accompanied by feelings of 'pins and needles' or tingling in these regions. Nighttime is when almost all sufferers of this syndrome report the heat symptoms bei... |
Would sound waves propagate through any arbitrary amount of gas in the vacuum of space? | I don’t think this would be possible, because the pressure difference outside compared to inside your lungs would be so massive that you would never have enough time to scream before you lose your breath. If it were possible, I think the gas would disperse almost instantly, so they would not be able to hear you. | [
"Inspired by Copernican cosmology and the idea of vast, endless, empty space where light could propagate, bodies could move about unhindered, and sound cannot be detected, von Guericke set about replicating this phenomena on Earth. Von Guericke first started investigating the concept of a vacuum through the use of ... |
; what is the mbti personality test, and does it hold any significant scientific validity? | It holds absolutely 0 scientific validity, yet everyone still refers to it for some reason. It was not developed using any kind of scientific study, it was just how one woman viewed people. | [
"Self-assessed personality tests or observer ratings are always exploited as the ground truth for testing and validating the performance of artificial intelligence algorithms for the automatic prediction of personality types. There is a wide variety of personality tests, such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBT... |
Is a toroidal star possible? | No. Gravity pulls the mass of the star together in all directions equally coalescing into a spheroid. Fusion causes it to expand to equilibrium.
To conjure up a universe where torodial bodies were the norm or even possible would require weaker gravity and cotradictions that are boggling my mind. Hypothetically I can imagine an oblate star before a toroidal one. | [
"Toroidal machines can be axially symmetric, like the tokamak and the reversed field pinch (RFP), or asymmetric, like the stellarator. The additional degree of freedom gained by giving up toroidal symmetry might ultimately be usable to produce better confinement, but the cost is complexity in the engineering, the t... |
What was the night sky like 4 billion years ago? | Good question. I don't have a full answer to your question, but I have some facts that will help work towards one.
Bear in mind the [early atmosphere](_URL_3_) was very different to the current one:
> "The early atmosphere was probably mostly carbon dioxide, with little or no oxygen. There were smaller proportions of water vapour, ammonia and methane. As the Earth cooled down, most of the water vapour condensed and formed the oceans.
It is thought that the atmospheres of Mars and Venus today, which contain mostly carbon dioxide, are similar to the early atmosphere of the Earth."
4 billion years ago the earth was still not completely fully formed - volcanoes were much more common. Here is some information from Scientific American:
> "PROTO-EARTH: 4.5 billion years ago The sky above a still-forming proto-Earth is filled with the dust, rocks and gas that are shaping our solar system. A rising proto-sun illuminates the dust and rocks that gravity brings hurtling toward this new planet. The first comets, scattered by the gravity of the giant outer planets, appear in our sky"
There is a [stunning image of the night sky 4.5bn years ago by Scientific American here](_URL_4_)
And [another image of the early earth again from Scientific American here, this is from 4bn years ago](_URL_2_)
> "Our recently formed moon rises in the night sky. Not in its final orbit yet, the moon is seen much larger in the sky than than today's moon. Magma flow from mare volcanism can be seen on its surface. Three comets, or water-rich asteroids, begin their descent into Earth, delivering with them a supply of frozen water."
Both images are artists impressions.
Sources: [BBC](_URL_3_); [Scientific American](_URL_1_)
Edit: Tangentially related documentary about the [early earth called Miracle Planet](_URL_0_) | [
"In a series of lectures in the United States, the philosopher George Santayana used the appearance of the night sky as an example of what is attractive to the human mind: an intricacy delicately poised between unfathomable complexity and uninteresting simplicity. Because of the absence of light pollution in antiqu... |
What makes incest so instinctively repellent to humans? | Out of curiosity, do you have any reason to believe that it is instinctively repulsive vs. being something that is now a cultural norm? I don't mean this as in support of incest, just as a question since I know that incest was sometimes seen historically (typically with royalty, from what I remember).
Otherwise, as a line of research you might be able to pursue, incest can lead to children with deformities. This can come from recessive genes being paired that are more common within the family than in typical society. | [
"Another school argues that the incest prohibition is a cultural construct which arises as a side effect of a general human preference for group exogamy, which arises because intermarriage between groups construct valuable alliances that improve the ability for both groups to thrive. According to this view, the inc... |
why are violent crimes more present in states or cities with tough gun control laws? | You may have cause and effect backward. It makes sense to me that states with more gun crime would have more public support for gun control laws. | [
"In 1993, Kleck and Patterson analyzed the impact of 18 major types of gun control laws on every major type of gun-involved crime or violence (including suicide) in 170 U.S. cities, and found that gun laws generally had no significant effect on violent crime rates or suicide rates. Similarly, a 1997 study found tha... |
Why are the planets logarithmically spaced? | This is called the [Titius-Bode law](_URL_0_) and was basically an empirical fluke for the first few planets that didn't hold when they discovered more. [e.g. your curve with a line through the inner planets](_URL_1_).
However, now we know of many more planetary systems, so there's been analyses of whether these types of laws hold for other systems. [These guys](_URL_2_) found that a Titius-Bode type relation holds better in many exoplanet systems than in our own. | [
"The calculation of ephemerides also requires a consideration of the effects of general relativity. In particular, time intervals measured on Earth's surface (terrestrial time, TT) are not constant when compared to the motions of the planets: the terrestrial second (TT) appears to be longer during the Northern Hemi... |
When do historians get a clear separation/distinction between Jews and Christians? | The distinction emerged in the later half of the first century and was more or less complete by the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 136. Internally, Paul's emphasis on Gentile converts not being required to adopt Jewish customs held significant weight and eventually became the dominant view within the movement. /u/TruePrep1818 mentions some of this in his response.
Externally, the Roman Jewish Wars were very important. By the time of the First Roman-Jewish War in 66-73, the difference was likely just beginning to emerge. But the early Christians largely took the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem as evidence that the end times predicted by Jesus were beginning (this view is articulated in the Gospel of John, written around 85-95), which they took as proof of his teachings. And like nearly all people in this time period, the early Christians interpreted the Jewish military defeat to the Romans as evidence that God had abandoned them - in their minds for failing to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Post-war bans on circumcision and the imposition of the "temple tax" on the Jews to Rome also contributed to the widening difference. Christians likely began to emphasize their non-Jewish character in an attempt to exempt themselves from the tax, but I'm not sure we have a written source for this claim.
During the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132-136, the Jewish rebels slaughtered Christians alongside gentiles when the Christians declined to participate in the revolt. After the rebellion was crushed by the Romans, Emperor Hadrian attempted to annihilate the Jewish religion entirely, as he was convinced Jews could never coexist peacefully within the empire. He banned the teaching of Jewish religious practices, banned Jews from entering Jerusalem, and scattered (or killed) the majority of the Jewish population in Judea. He even removed the province of Judea from the map, combining it with Syria to form Syria Palaestina. By this point, its fairly safe to say the Christians viewed themselves as entirely distinct from the Jews, after having suffered at their hands during the revolt and eager to emphasize their new Christian identity to convince the Romans they were nothing like the Jews.
edit: spelling | [
"Rabbi Michael J. Cook believes that both contemporary Jews and contemporary Christians need to reexamine the history of early Christianity, and the transformation of Christianity from a Jewish sect consisting of followers of a Jewish Jesus, to a separate religion often dependent on the tolerance of Rome while pros... |
with most countries so far in debt, how does china have all this money to loan other countries like the u.s. and u.k. | That's not how sovereign debt works.
Sovereign debt exists as bonds. A country offers bonds on the market, and other countries buy them as investments. A bond is basically a contract between the bond issuer (usually a government) and the bond holder (whoever buys it) that says "The issuer agrees to pay the holder the value of this bond plus X% interest on [DATE]." US Treasury Bonds are seen as a **very** safe investment because the US **always** pays when and what it says it will pay. This means that the US can offer incredibly low interest rates on its bonds.
A US T-bond is safer than a bank account, safer than gold, hell it's safer than burying your money in the yard. If you have a whole bunch of money and you want to keep it safe for a decade or so, you can't do better than buying US bonds. | [
"The foreign debt of China, by June 2015, stood at around 1.68 trillion, according to data from the country's State Administration of Foreign Exchange as quoted by the State Council. The figure excludes the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Chinese foreign debt denominated in the U.S. dollar wa... |
What was the financial situation for the US government in the 1880s? | Here's a link to the paper and excel spreadsheet with my debt research
_URL_0_
According to the CBO, with some work by me, the federal government was $21.6 million in debt which was just over 10% of GDP at the time. | [
"In 1857 federal revenues suffered from the lowered rates of the Tariff of 1857 and decreased economic activity due to the Panic of 1857. At the same time outlays increased with the expensive Utah War. The government resorted to several issues of Treasury Notes from 1857 to 1860.\n",
"The post-war economy had exp... |
Why do only gas giants seem to have rings? | The Roche limit of a body is the radius at which any orbiting bodies will break apart rather than clump together (due to the gravitational influence of the parent body being greater than the gravity of the smaller body). The Roche limit exists for all bodies, so theoretically any body could support rings. However, the Roche limit is closer to the surface fro a smaller body such as a rocky planet. In addition, I suspect that moons or captured asteroids are less likely to form or be captured into lower orbits, which would explain the lack of rings for small bodies.
Source: _URL_0_ | [
"A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Gas giants are sometimes known as failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term \"gas giant\" was originally synonymous with \"giant planet\", but in the ... |
why do unused tabs drain cpu power | They may be unused, but they’re probably running a bunch of JavaScript crap on the page. Things like banner ads rotations or animations. All those burn cpu cycles whether the page is the focus or not. | [
"In Windows 2000 and later the threads in the System Idle Process are also used to implement CPU power saving. The exact power saving scheme depends on the operating system version and on the hardware and firmware capabilities of the system in question. For instance, on x86 processors under Windows 2000, the idle t... |
How is it possible to isolate a single atom of an element and hold it stationary? How is it done? | The thing that was the most remarkable about the picture you're citing is not that it was an image of a single atom but that it was an image of a single atom captured with a store bought camera. [It took an exposure of 30 seconds to capture the faint signal but it was a single image and not a composition](_URL_2_).
Imaging of single atoms has existed for a long time, [nearly 50 years](_URL_1_). Nowadays it is very possible to detect single atoms using Scanning Tunneling Electron Microscopy (STM or STEM).
To get to your question on how to get single atoms, there are a few things that are necessary. First an Ultra High Vacuum system is necessary. This is a system that has a pressure of around 10^-9 Torr. At a pressure this low molecules have a much lower mean free path hence molecules can't move around much. It is then necessary to use an ion trap. The ions that will be trapped are atoms that have gained or lost electrons make them charged. These ions are generated by heating some of the metal so that a bit vaporizes and then the ions are formed by firing electrons at this vaporized metal. To trap them, a combination of electric (E) and magnetic (B) fields are used to 'trap' the particle due to it's charge. Essentially a potential field is made where there is somewhere an ion would get stuck. Imagine marbles rolling around on a tight cloth. Through these E and B essentially a bit of the cloth is pulled down so as to keep a marble that would roll by in that area. That's at least the beginning and basics of it.
Read a bit more [here](_URL_0_) or read about the [1989 Nobel Prize in Physics which was half awarded for ion traps](_URL_3_). | [
"To handle a molecule containing one or more cycles, one must first expand it into a tree (called a hierarchical digraph) by traversing bonds in all possible paths starting at the stereocenter. When the traversal encounters an atom through which the current path has already passed, a ghost atom is generated in orde... |
currently, what are the two sides of the net neutrality debates? | This is a bit complex and hard to put in ELI5 terms.
(a) many people who consume content online believe that all the content they consume should be treated the same by the ISP, whose role is limited to just *transporting* things that the consumer are asking for from the source to the consumer.
(b) a lot of ISPs use 'shared bandwidth' which means that, for example, everyone in a given apartment building is sharing a single pipeline ... so there's a limit on the amount of content which can be provided in total. this can create situations where nobody is able to get everything they want from the ISP, because too many people are trying to get too many things at the same time.
(c) building bigger pipes is extremely expensive.
(d) some content consumes more 'space' than other content. movies consume a lot; email consumes very little.
(e) many ISPs believe that if they are able to charge content providers for transporting large content, this will (1) somewhat reduce demand for the large content, (2) generate money that can be used to build bigger pipes, and (3) allow them to prioritize content so that the things customers really want get through faster and more reliably, while things that are less important to customers are subject to delays.
(f) some content providers are really in favor of this as they think it will enhance the experience of their customers. other content providers are really opposed to this as they think it will raise their costs and put them out of business.
(g) many customers are concerned about this because they think that ISPs will prioritize content that makes business sense for the ISP. For example, a lot of people get their internet through cable companies, and it's plausible that those companies will choose not to route, or to route only at high cost, netflix and other streaming sites (because they compete with cable). Similarly, it's not hard to imagine a branding deal between time warner cable where suddenly coca-cola's website is inaccessible because time warner has agreed to an exclusive deal with pepsi.
(h) many activists and economists are concerned that if this happens, *new internet content companies* will have a hard time forming and competing because they won't be able to pay the ISPs what is necessary to get their data routed.
| [
"In comparison to the United States, the debate concerning Net Neutrality is one that has not received much attention in the United Kingdom. The officials merely refer to such a concept as an open internet, as net neutrality is a term used originally in American politics. While it does seem to be a non-issue in the... |
the volatility of gas prices | The reason the price of gas is so volatile is that there is no ONE reason that the price fluctuates; oil is a globally traded commodity that is used for pretty much ever facet of life. I'll try and list them, but I'll probably leave something out.
First, and probably the most important, is the global nature of the oil trade. Every country in the world needs oil, and only a few countries have the capacity to produce a significant amount of "sweet" crude, or the oil that is most easily converted into usable materials. Many of these countries are in unstable parts of the world or are controlled by unstable governments. This means two important things. First is that instability in a country can affect a large percentage of the oil market. A riot in Saudi Arabia or Russia can affect both the capacity and the willingness of nations to export. Secondly, because many nations own their oil reserves, there is less market control over the spread of oil. If a nation decides that it is unhappy about its revenue, or is facing popular pressure, it can change its prices on a whim. (This is also the reason that domestic drilling has such a small effect on the price at the pump. It doesn't increase the global supply enough to have a price change; it just changes where that oil comes from).
Secondly is speculation. The price you pay at the pump isn't the price that the oil company paid to produce the gas (plus profits) but rather what they expect to have to pay in the future. A crisis around the world can make a price in the real cost of crude oil higher, and that uncertainty translates to a need to cover future costs by charging more for the final product.
Third, manufacturing and refining can be affected by natural disasters. Hurricanes have been known to take out offshore oil drills, but can also take out refining capacity. Regardless of how much oil is produced, the relatively low refining capacity means that can be supplied to the market at any given time.
TL;DR Supply and demand affect prices, and speculation means that effect is felt very quickly | [
"The price of natural gas varies greatly depending on location and type of consumer. In 2007, a price of $7 per 1000 cubic feet () was typical in the United States. The typical caloric value of natural gas is roughly 1,000 BTU per cubic foot, depending on gas composition. This corresponds to around $7 per million B... |
Why aren't Technetium and Promethium naturally occurring? | Note that both isotopes do occur in nature. For example, we can see [technetium in stars](_URL_1_).
You are essentially correct about radioactive decay. All isotopes of both elements have half-lives which are too short for them to last long in nature. As for your last part of the question, it is an excellent, one. I'm not sure there's a simple answer. Nuclear structure for stability purposes is very complicated.
[Edit: This discussion on Physics Stack Exchange seems relevant but the consensus there seems to be that the stability behavior really is difficult to understand in this case.](_URL_0_). | [
"Technetium (Tc) is the first of the two elements lighter than bismuth that have no stable isotopes; the other such element is promethium. It is primarily artificial, with only trace quantities existing in nature produced by spontaneous fission (there are an estimated grams of Tc per gram of pitchblende) or neutron... |
Cats & Dogs have many nipples. What creatures have the most nipples. Why? | From _URL_0_:
"The number of nipples varies from 2 (in most primates) to 18 (in pigs)."
"The nipples and glands can occur anywhere along the two milk lines, two nearly parallel lines along the ventral aspect of the body. In general most mammals develop mammary glands in pairs along these lines, with a number approximating the number of young typically birthed at a time." | [
"Male mammals typically have rudimentary mammary glands and nipples, with a few exceptions: male mice do not have nipples, and male horses lack nipples and mammary glands. The male Dayak fruit bat has lactating mammary glands. Male lactation occurs infrequently in some species.\n",
"In mammals, a nipple (also cal... |
how do we not get sick from using manure as fertilizer? | There's two filters on manure before it typically gets into mass-produced food.
One is the fact that they use "rotted" manure which is essentially a rest that causes a further breakdown of the plants and animals that the manure's source ate. Often this rotting process takes place at very high temperatures because the same types of micro-organisms that create compost will feast on it and break it down, releasing lots of heat, and cooking the e. coli. This breaking-down process frees up nutrients for the plants it's spread around.
The second, though, is more important: the plant. Plants are exceptional filters, taking water from their roots and gasses from the air to build themselves up. So any surviving e.coli in the manured soil don't get *into* the plant at all, and it's e.coli free.
So why the e.coli spinach outbreaks? It's on the surface of the leaves, not in the plant, and improperly washed spinach will still have it on the leaves. Have a free-range chicken or pig farm next to your spinach patch and there's a good chance some e.coli will find its way onto the leaves. | [
"Using manure as a fertilizer risks contaminating food with animal gut bacteria, including pathogenic strains of E. coli that have caused fatal poisoning from eating organic food. To combat this risk, USDA organic standards require that manure must be sterilized through high temperature thermophilic composting. If ... |
How much caffeine will it take too be lethal? | The lethality of chemicals is often reported as the LD50.
> An acute LD50 is a statistically derived amount of a substance that can be expected to cause death in 50% of the animals when given by a specified route as a single dose and the animals observed for a specified time period.
[[1]](_URL_1_)
This is often tested experimental in rats, rather than humans, to estimate a dose. This dose is reported in units of mass consumed per body mass (i.e. micrograms/kilogram or milligrams/kilogram). You can almost think of it as what fraction of your body weight must you consume of that chemical for it to give you an approximately 50% chance of death.
From that same paper above,
> the most accurate estimate of the acute LD50 of caffeine administered orally in male albino rats is hereby reported to be 367/mg/kg.
However, that number is for rats. Quoting Wikipedia:
> The LD50 of caffeine in humans is dependent on individual sensitivity, but is estimated to be **150–200 milligrams per kilogram of body mass (75–100 cups of coffee for a 70 kilogram adult).**
Emphasis added. [[2]](_URL_0_)
Obviously, you should notice that this is reported as an *acute* dose. A normal human can easily consume 70-100 cups of coffee over a year. The equivalent dose of caffeine in a day will likely result in a medical emergency. | [
"Caffeine is classified by the US Food and Drug Administration as generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Toxic doses, over 10 grams per day for an adult, are much higher than the typical dose of under 500 milligrams per day. A cup of coffee contains 80–175 mg of caffeine, depending on what \"bean\" (seed) is used and... |
Can viral vectors used in gene therapy replicate, or do they just deliver their payloads and die? | Viral replication in cells typically isn't very good for those cells, so it is not desirable for viruses to be replication-competent for in vivo use. As such, usually the 'transfer' plasmid that has the genetic information you want to deliver is [separate from](_URL_0_) the 'packaging' and 'envelope' plasmids. Since viruses aren't typically considered alive in the first place, it is weird to think of them 'dying', but yes, they don't continue to replicate in cells. | [
"While viral vectors can be used to insert DNA into almost any organism it is especially relevant for its potential in treating human disease. Although primarily still at trial stages, there has been some successes using gene therapy to replace defective genes. This is most evident in curing patients with severe co... |
what determines nationality? why and when did the idea that our nationality is determined by where we are born start and is it internationally recognized? | That depends on each country's Constitution. There are, basically, two kinds of nationality criteria: *jus sanguinis* and *jus solium*. The *jus sanguinis* (right of the blood) criterion is often adopted by countries which experienced exodus in the past (from the "old world" to the "new world"), basically, european coutries, which means the child inherits the nationality of his father and mother. The *jus solium* (right of the land) criterion is adopted by countries who wanted to make their population grows (like the newfound countries in America) and it means that someone who is born in the territory of the country is a national. Since each country has its own rule, it may conduce to a situation where someone can be stateless (from the german, *heimatlos*) or has two nationalities. Because of that, some international conventions, such as the American Convention for Human Rights, begins to uniformize the rules in order to avoid the stateless situation. It doesn't mean that each country only adopts one criterion: usually, there's most of a criterion, but some influence of the other. That's the original nationality.
Besides that, each country has its own rule for the derivated nationality. For instance, if you live in Brazil continually for fifteen years you may require Brazilian nationality. There's no universal rule for that. | [
"Generally, international practice is that nationality is established at birth by a child's place of birth (jus soli) or bloodline (jus sanguinis). When new states are established, typically citizenship is extended to all those who were born in the territory of the new state or who were lawfully resident in that te... |
what's wrong with the big pharmaceutical industry? | I was a clinical scientist in big pharma for years. I ran phase III human trials. It takes on average, testing of 100,000 new compounds to bring one to market. Of those 100,000, only 13 will make it to toxicology testing. 12 will fail. The expense is mind-boggling for all of this. On top of the drug development, the FDA has far more stringent standards than almost any other country.
On top of this is the desperate need to make money. Big pharma had to compete with Apple, Ford, GE for your investment dollar. Mostly it's not individual buyers, but mutual funds. Big pharma is owned by the retirement plans of the USA.
Because of the expense of research and the need to compete on the stock market, drugs are overpriced. (Some high tech drugs really DO cost a small fortune to produce) It's not because the companies are any more greedy than any other big business, they are owned by the American populace, but people like to create phantom "evil owners" and "evil employees" that work there. | [
"The lack of research into diseases that affect most of the world’s poor population is known as the 10-90 gap and it occurs because pharmaceutical companies rarely make a profit when developing drugs for these diseases. Although some countries have created legislation to encourage development of essential but comme... |
Why don't wireless chargers interfere with sensitive electronics like processors, sensors, and radios? | Wireless chargers work by passing alternating current through a coil to create an oscillating magnetic field. This is similar to how a radio transmission antenna works, but the charging coil is specifically designed to be an *inefficient* antenna. In particular, an efficient antenna usually needs to be on the order of 1/2 a wavelength of the emitted radiation. Qi wireless chargers are only a few inches wide, but they operate at a frequency of a few hundred kHz, with a corresponding wavelength measured in kilometers.
The coil itself, when combined with the right charging circuitry, forms a resonant system in which energy oscillates back and forth between the electric and magnetic fields surrounding the coil. But because of the frequency and dimensions, very little of that energy is lost as radiation. When an appropriate receiver is close enough, it couples strongly to the magnetic field and absorbs some of the energy. Only a small fraction becomes "far-field" radio waves, and electronic devices are already designed to deal with reasonable amounts of interference in that portion of the radio spectrum. | [
"Wireless systems, on the other hand, often use battery-powered transmitters which are easier to install and have less expensive start-up costs, but may reduce the reliability of the system if the batteries are not maintained. Depending on distance and construction materials, one or more wireless repeaters may be r... |
What do people really think of General Sherman? | My reading has all indicated that Sherman's campaign did indeed inflict a great deal of damage to the South's economic infrastructure, but nevertheless dealt relatively gently with the civilian population. There are supposed to have been very few rapes and very few murders. Can't recall which books dealt specifically with the matter, but here's a relevant article:
_URL_0_ | [
"Sherman's greatest contribution to the war, the strategy of total warfare—endorsed by General Grant and President Lincoln—has been the subject of controversy. Sherman himself downplayed his role in conducting total war, often saying that he was simply carrying out orders as best he could in order to fulfill his pa... |
did slaves get days off? | Frederick Douglass records in his account that on some plantations slaves were not forced to work around Christmas. He felt that this was a sort of safety valve used by the slave owners to release built up tension. Nothing altruistic about it. I highly doubt it was a practice employed by all owners, but some slaves appear to in fact have had some time to themselves. Here are the relevant passages.
> My term of actual service to Mr. Edward Covey ended on Christmas day, 1833. The days between Christmas and New Year's day are allowed as holidays; and, accordingly, we were not required to perform any labor, more than to feed and take care of the stock. This time we regarded as our own, by the grace of our masters; and we therefore used or abused it nearly as we pleased. Those of us who had families at a distance, were generally allowed to spend the whole six days in their society. This time, however, was spent in various ways. The staid, sober, thinking and industrious ones of our number would employ themselves in making corn-brooms, mats, horse-collars, and baskets; and another class of us would spend the time in hunting opossums, hares, and coons. But by far the larger part engaged in such sports and merriments as playing ball, wrestling, running foot-races, fiddling, dancing, and drinking whisky; and this latter mode of spending the time was by far the most agreeable to the feelings of our masters. A slave who would work during the holidays was considered by our masters as scarcely deserving them. He was regarded as one who rejected the favor of his master. It was deemed a disgrace not to get drunk at Christmas; and he was regarded as lazy indeed, who had not provided himself with the necessary means, during the year, to get whisky enough to last him through Christmas.
> From what I know of the effect of these holidays upon the slave, I believe them to be among the most effective means in the hands of the slaveholder in keeping down the spirit of insurrection. Were the slaveholders at once to abandon this practice, I have not the slightest doubt it would lead to an immediate insurrection among the slaves. These holidays serve as conductors, or safety-valves, to carry off the rebellious spirit of enslaved humanity. But for these, the slave would be forced up to the wildest desperation; and woe betide the slaveholder, the day he ventures to remove or hinder the operation of those conductors! I warn him that, in such an event, a spirit will go forth in their midst, more to be dreaded than the most appalling earthquake.
> The holidays are part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrong, and inhumanity of slavery. They are professedly a custom established by the benevolence of the slaveholders; but I undertake to say, it is the result of selfishness, and one of the grossest frauds committed upon the down-trodden slave. They do not give the slaves this time because they would not like to have their work during its continuance, but because they know it would be unsafe to deprive them of it. This will be seen by the fact, that the slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those days just in such a manner as to make them as glad of their ending as of their beginning. Their object seems to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the lowest depths of dissipation. For instance, the slaveholders not only like to see the slave drink of his own accord, but will adopt various plans to make him drunk. One plan is, to make bets on their slaves, as to who can drink the most whisky without getting drunk; and in this way they succeed in getting whole multitudes to drink to excess. Thus, when the slave asks for virtuous freedom, the cunning slaveholder, knowing his ignorance, cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation, artfully labelled with the name of liberty. The most of us used to drink it down, and the result was just what might be supposed; many of us were led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum. So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the field,—feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery.
Full Text: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) | [
"Article II of the Code Noir of 1724 required owners to provide their slaves with religious education in the state religion, Roman Catholicism. Sunday was to be a day of rest for slaves. On days off, slaves were expected to feed and take care of themselves. During the 1740s economic crisis in the colony, owners had... |
electrical current and grounding | Birds have higher resistance than the cable they are sitting on, so electrons take the easier path.
If the bird had one leg between the cable and the ground, it becomes the easiest path for electrons to move and thus the bird becomes cooked. | [
"Ground or earth in a mains (AC power) electrical wiring system is a conductor that provides a low-impedance path to the earth to prevent hazardous voltages from appearing on equipment (high voltage spikes). The terms and are used synonymously in this section; is more common in North American English, and is more c... |
Is inter-species bonding limited to almost exclusively mammals? | The species in question are all social species. That's what makes the big difference. If a species isn't social it won't have deep instincts to interact with its own species, let alone having that transfer over to other species.
Also, regarding the bird example, it is more common than you think. In the wild [many bird species form multispecies flocks](_URL_0_), and some of these are highly stable. | [
"Additionally, EPC has been shown in monogamous mammals, such as the white-handed gibbon. A study of one group found 88% in-pair copulation and 12% extra-pair copulation. However, there is much variability in rates of EPP in mammals. One study found that this disparity in EPP is better predicted by the differing so... |
if rockets use controlled explosions to propel forward, why can’t we use a nuclear reaction to launch/fly our rockets? | _URL_0_
I think this is the wikipedia article you're looking for.
There have been plenty of tests for a variety of nuclear propulsion drives. There are essentially three types.
Nuclear Electric - You have a small reactor or nuclear battery and use the electricity generated from it to power some form of propulsion that relies on electricity, like ion thrusters. Unfortunately, nuclear reactors are quite heavy compared to solar panels, and ion thrusters are so slow they're not very practical for manned spaceflight. Nuclear Electric propulsion may have a future someday on a deep space probe that's too far out to rely on solar, but as far as I know nothing uses it today.
Nuclear Thermal - Basically, you take a nuclear reactor and pump hydrogen into it. The hydrogen heats up, you let it shoot out the back, propelling your rocket forwards. It's kind of like you just spring a leak in the reactor's cooling system. Nuclear Thermal Rockets have real promise for providing very efficient thrust, and there have been several projects in the past to experiment or develop them, including a couple that are currently ongoing. But they have problems.
Due to weight concerns, shielding for the reactor would have to be kept to a minimum. Most designs provide only for a shield dividing the crew from the reactor, meaning everything around the spacecraft would be bombarded with a lot of radiation. The exhaust is also radioactive. That's less of a problem if you only use it on an upper stage and rely on a normal chemical rocket to get you to space, but that's kind of putting the cart before the horse. They're also a pain to test, since you have to collect the exhaust or give cancer to your neighbors.
You also have the shared problem with all of these designs- even proven rocket systems fail on a fairly regular basis. If you have enough material for a reactor go up in a high altitude explosion, you're going to be raining material down on a very large area. Even if it's over the ocean, you'll contaminate the food chain. It'd potentially be worse than Chernobyl.
As an aside, I'd also recommend reading about project pluto. It was a nuclear jet engine on an aircraft, not a nuclear rocket on a spacecraft, but it used a pretty similar principle- it just heated intake air rather than hydrogen fuel. It would have been a nuclear bomber that could fly practically forever, and after dropping its bombs could have spent weeks flying at low altitude to kill more people with sonic booms and radioactive exhaust.
Nuclear Pulse - This is the fun one. Basically, nuclear pulse engines are just shooting a nuclear bomb out the back, immediately setting it off, and riding the force of the explosion. They're utterly bonkers. They should be very efficient space propulsion, but they have added political problems. For some reason, launching a huge gun loaded with a magazine of dozens of nuclear bombs into space and having it orbit over everybody's heads doesn't make other countries happy. | [
"At any point during these phases, the rocket is extremely vulnerable to explosions. If the rocket is successfully attacked by an enemy team it will explode, burning all the fuel and all the Multiwinians inside, and resetting the rocket to its starting point.\n",
"On launch the rocket engine's first chamber devel... |
why do americans drink alcohol through a brown paper bag? | In most of the US, it is illegal to drink alcohol in public.
It is, however, common, especially among the poor and homeless with drinking problems. The police have better things to do than arrest them, and hassling them doesn't to much to solve the problem.
So there is under of an unwritten agreement between law enforcement and public drinkers. Keep the bottle in a bag and don't make trouble, and the police will have enough plausible deniability to look the other way. | [
"From 1900 until about 1950, \"paper bag parties\" are said to have taken place in neighborhoods of major American cities with a high concentration of African Americans. Many churches, fraternities, and nightclubs used the \"brown paper bag\" principle as a test for entrance. People at these organizations would tak... |
If electromagnetic fields propagate in "a wavelike manner" - what are they moving through? | This way of thinking was the basis for the [Luminiferous aether](_URL_0_) hypothesis, which is no longer fashionable. The article does a better job of explaining it than I ever will. | [
"In addition, and are perpendicular to each other and to the direction of wave propagation, and are in phase with each other. A sinusoidal plane wave is one special solution of these equations. Maxwell's equations explain how these waves can physically propagate through space. The changing magnetic field creates a ... |
How did Romans or Greeks view the erotic--eg, the mosaics in Pompeii, Priapus statuary or Catullus? Was it discussed in everyday conversation or was it seen as illicit? | This is a rather broad question which will, unfortunately, have a very broad answer.
In 'short', the Roman and Greek social systems of thought conceived of the erotic very differently than we do. The mosaics in Pompeii weren't pornographic to the Roman mind, neither was statuary of Priapus, Catullus on the other hand... well, he certainly did use some choice language in some of his poetry (I'm looking at you, Carmen 16).
Eroticism was simply a fact of life back then. Mosaics, while they may have been somewhat prurient in nature were anything but pornographic for the most part. Arguably the most erotic pieces of surviving art from the Roman era comes from the Lupernar, a massive brothel in Pompeii. These paintings depict a number of explicit sexual acts and a working theory for scholars in the field of Ancient prostitution, such as McGinn, believes they served as a kind of menu for patrons. Furthermore, many of the similarly "pornographic" works of art from the period are often relegated to more private chambers rather than public spaces.
That said, there are many things that were displayed in public places which, again, would be censored by modern standards. Indeed they still are, there is a room at the Museum of Naples which you have to be 18 or older to enter because of the artifacts and artwork at Pompeii, and some of the restoration work done at Pompeii revolves around removing the whitewash that archaeologists used to cover up artwork that clashed with Victorian sensibilities.
Of the physical goods (statuary etc.) it is important to understand why they made this kind of artwork. For the most part it was for some kind of protection. Depictions of the genitals was often done as part of an apotropaic (Greek roots, lit. Turn away) tradition which would turn away evil spirits. You can find similar occurrences of this type of magic in many cultures around the world, such as Bhutan where it is a common practice to paint phalli on doors and walls to drive away evil spirits. In Rome phalli had similar ritualistic functionality, as well as the humorously practical application of driving away would be thieves as we are told in the *Priapeia*. They certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a Priapus scorned. One last note on nudity in statuary (and often mosaics and paintings) there is something called heroic nudity. Nudity which invokes heroic images, such as Hercules who is often nude save for his club and lion-skin cloak.
Finally, Catullus. It is important to recognize that he is not even attempting to write in a high poetic register as say Ennius before him or how Virgil would write after. He captures some aspects of the vulgar language spoken at the time. In that regard he is very similar to Martial in his epigrams (my personal favorite example of erotic literature). While we obviously don't have recordings of every day life, it is widely agreed, on account of features such as its lexical concurrence with personal letters and graffiti, that some of this language was used in common speech. e.g. *futuo*, *irrumo*, etc.
We can say that all of these were common features of every day life. An average Roman would have been quite familiar with many of these things whether it be from a private garden, or bed chamber, or the walls of a brothel, or carved into the streets. It was just a part of every day life up to actual sex (about which Romans tended to be very private about. Sorry folks, wild Roman orgies weren't really a thing!) Everything short of that, including talking about sex, was totally fair game.
I hope this answered some of your questions. If you have more specific questions I would be happy to attempt to answer any follow-ups.
**Here are some basic sources / further reading:**
Adams, J. N. *The Latin Sexual Vocabulary* 1982 - requires a bit of Latin/Greek know-how
Hallett, J. P. & Skinner, M. B. *Roman Sexualities* 1997
Larson, J. *Greek and Roman Sexualities: A Sourcebook* 2012 - lots of literary discussion with passages
McGinn, T. *Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome* 2003
Skinner, M. B. *Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture* 2012
| [
"When large-scale excavations of Pompeii were undertaken in the 1860s, much of the erotic art of the Romans came to light, shocking the Victorians who saw themselves as the intellectual heirs of the Roman Empire. They did not know what to do with the frank depictions of sexuality and endeavored to hide them away fr... |
are photos of nude underaged girls in mainstream movies considered child pornography? | The short answer appears to be "Not if it has artistic value".
The Supreme Court has not ruled on this issue in relation to *child* pornography, but for normal (heh) pornography this is the general rule. So yes you can show the breasts of a 15 year old in your Romeo and Juliet movie IF the scene is necessary and artistically relevant to the production.
That being said, we may be a few years away from having that changed and banned. | [
"In 2014, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts found that certain photos of nude children, culled from ethnographic and nudist publications, were not lascivious exhibitions and hence were not pornographic; the court ordered dropping of charges against a prisoner who had been found in possession of the photos... |
how can i stay anonymous on the internet? | Do not use services such as Google, Facebook, Tinder, Snapchat, Twitter etc.
Make use of a VPN and use the TOR network for browsing the internet. Making sure that you have adjusted the settings so you aren't leaving breadcrumbs after you've finished.
| [
"The following examples are systems that allow a user to remain anonymous when accessing the web, and by extension the use of which better ensures the protection of their personally identifiable information.\n",
"Though Internet anonymity can provide a harmful environment through which people can hurt others, ano... |
why is a baby not nine months old when its born? | Because there is not a concrete date of conception that can be confirmed. Some infants are born later than 9 months of development, and some are born earlier. So we calculate age from a concrete date and time which is the birth. | [
"It has been observed that the first born is often raised with more attention than the following child or children, which causes the first born child to develop certain characteristics. This is because a couple, which decides to have their first child, is inexperienced and new to raising a child which causes them t... |
why is it that you never notice a person (mostly kids) aging when you see them regularly, but when you look back at old photos/videos, you only then realize how much they've grown? | Day to day things are stored in short term memory. The mundane gets replace a lot. Long term memory is stored elsewhere in the brain. Looking at an old photograph will bring those memories to the short term part of the brain where then the shock process occurs.
Other forms of this happen when you get older, move a lot, or just are away for a long while.
Example, say you live on the east coast of the US and you move to the west coast. You lived on the east for 20 years. While you go about your daily life on the west coast you will see people that look just like people you know from the east coast. If you could put them side by side you would see they usually don't look alike. It is just your brain trying to comprehend the radical changes that took place with the move, and loss of familiarity.
When old people get senile the brain will do the same thing. Trying to place old memories to what it can't comprehend in the short term. Grandma might start calling you by a late relative's name for example. | [
"It has been found that even though memory usually declines with age, elderly people tend to remember more positive memories than negative or even neutral ones. As we grow older, we focus more on positive things and start to develop the skill of emotion regulation which is \"monitoring, evaluating, altering and gat... |
why when i drop something in the car does it not fly back? | Inertia. The object (and the air in the car) is already going as fast as the car, so when you drop it, it just goes straight down (from your perspective, since you are moving with the car too) - When you drop it outside the car, the air outside is sitting still and the air resistance slows the object down so it appears to be falling behind you. | [
"Crashes may be caused by loss of control, particularly on curves and inaccurate landings after a jump (even when no stunts are attempted, cars tend to twist out of control while aloft.) Crashes may also result from different objects found on the tracks, including other cars; in two sequences, hazards are encounter... |
When did the practice of collecting childrens teeth begin in North America? | This is a very old tradition and North America inherited it, with modifications, based on a European prototype. This [this article](_URL_0_) for example. There are also some excellent articles dealing with this topic in Peter Narváez, ed., The Good People: New Fairylore Essays (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1997). I'm on the run and don't have time to summarize for you, but the link should give you a good start. | [
"By the end of the 19th century, American children worked in large numbers in mines, glass factories, textiles, agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers, bootblacks and peddlers.\n",
"Louise Marie Zibold Reiss (February 23, 1920 – January 1, 2011) was an American physician who coordina... |
if theirs a burglar in you're home and you're forced to hide in closet, why can't you text 911 for help? | [Because that system isn't fully rolled out yet](_URL_0_)
New stuff cost money, particularily when it needs to be implemented with existing systems without having issues. Emergency services usually have pretty tight budgets, too. | [
"Distraction burglary is a form of burglary where the offender(s) trick or dupe the occupant or distract them, allowing co-offender(s) to gain access and commit burglary. The elderly are particularly vulnerable to distraction burglary.\n",
"Robbery occurs if an aggressor forcibly snatched a mobile phone or if the... |
why don’t humans have a thick fur like most other mammals? | Our hunter gatherer ancestors hunted by chasing animals down in marathon runs until the animals died of heat exhaustion / regular exhaustion. In our base survival skills, endurance running is our animal specialty. Virtually no other land predator on earth comes close. In natural selection terms, fur does not optimize this advantage. | [
"Beavers, muskrats, otters, and capybara have fur, one of the defining mammalian features, that is long, oily, and waterproof in order to trap air to provide insulation. In contrast, other aquatic mammals, such as dolphins, manatees, seals, and hippopotamuses, have lost their fur in favor of a thick and dense epide... |
why does australia use australian dollars and not australian pounds? | Australia originally used Australian pounds (divided into 20 shillings, and 1 shilling into 12 pence).
When Australia decided to switch to a decimal currency, it was decided to adopt a new name. Suggested names included: the austral, the oz, the boomer, the roo, the kanga, the emu, the digger, the Quid, the dinkum and the ming [[1]](_URL_0_).
Menzies had suggested the name "royal", and some sample designs of banknotes were produced. However the "royal" proved unpopular, so instead the name "dollar" was chosen.
Australia could have stuck with the name "pound" even after decimalisation if it wanted to, however I think it was probably decided to adopt a new name to avoid confusion, as the method used to decimalise was to make £1 in the old system the equivalent of $2 in the new system.
This is in contrast to the UK; when they switched to decimal currency in 1971, they made it so £1 in the old system equalled £1 in the new system. The only thing that changed was that £1 was now divided into 100 "new pence", which meant it was not really a problem to keep using the name "pound". | [
"Before independence, Australian coins were used in Kiribati (then called the Gilbert Islands) from 1966 until 1979. Previous to Australia's introduction of the dollar, the Australian pound was chiefly used throughout the islands, though Gilbert and Ellice Islands banknotes issued in the 1940s were also in use and ... |
what is the difference between an atom and a chemical element? | Atoms and elements are one and the same.
Atoms and molecular elements are not the same.
Some elements come in pairs, they don't normally exist as a single atom, examples hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen. Some other elements come in a single atom presentation when in gaseous form.
Main difference is if you had a cloud of monoatomic hydrogen at room temperature it will recombine to diatomic form so quick that it'll cause an explosion. You'll be vaporized.
If you stand in a cloud of diatomic hydrogen... You will be asphyxiated but you won't explode.
_URL_0_ | [
"A chemical element is a species of atom having the same number of protons in their atomic nuclei (that is, the same atomic number, or \"Z\"). For example, the atomic number of oxygen is 8, so the element oxygen consists of all atoms which have 8 protons.\n",
"A chemical element is a pure substance which is compo... |
store brands | I met a farmer once. He grew and processed tomatoes. He'd get an order from Del Monte for say, canned diced tomatoes, and fill it. His remaining crop was processed and sold as store brands. He said it was the exact same stuff inside the cans. | [
"A Food Marketing Institute study found that store brands account for an average of 14.5 percent of in store sales with some stores projecting they will soon reach as high as 20 percent of all sales. Store branding is a mature industry; consequently, some store brands have been able to position themselves as premiu... |
Why aren't vertical axis wind turbines being used on a large scale? | A good home for this question would be /r/AskScienceDiscussion. | [
"Most horizontal axis turbines have their rotors upwind of the supporting tower. Downwind machines have been built, because they don't need an additional mechanism for keeping them in line with the wind. In high winds, the blades can also be allowed to bend, which reduces their swept area and thus their wind resist... |
Was the Russian railway system pre-WW1 really expanding at such a rapid pace as to threaten a potential German victory in war? | The german war plan (Schlieffenplan) was dependent on Germany defeating France fast and then turning towards Russia. Therefore, the speed at which the russian Army could mobilise and be brought to bear did matter in the pre-war planning. France did grant extensive credits to Russia before the war with the stipulation that the rail network be upgraded to allow a faster mobilisation.
So, the russian rail network was seen as having importance to the Schlieffenplan by both Germany and France. Was it seen as a decisive factor? Probably not. There was a general sense of urgency in Germany in August 1914 (better war now than later), but this was linked to the strength of Russia in general and not to the state of the rail network in particular. | [
"The Russian reforms cut mobilisation time by half compared with 1906 and French loans were spent on railway building; German military intelligence thought that a programme due to begin in 1912 would lead to of new track by 1922. Modern, mobile artillery, a purge of older, inefficient officers and a revision of the... |
why do food regulations require pork and chicken to be fully cooked to kill bacteria in the meat? whereas beef can be consumed half-cooked. how do we know the same harmful bacteria in pork and chicken isn't also in beef? | All meats can have e coli on them, but e coli can only live on the surfaces, it can't penetrate into the meat. Cooking on the outside kills e coli. You can also cut away surfaces to get a clean part, hence why people can eat raw beef like steak tartar.
Chicken can have salmonella, which can exists anywhere in the chicken. Similarly, pork can have trichinosis, which can be anywhere in the pork, that's why they have to be cooked all the way through. Neither trichinosis nor salmonella can live in beef.
Ground beef however, must be cooked all the way through because the external parts all get mixed around. That's why you can get a rare steak but not a rare hamburger. | [
"Food safety of ground meat issues occur because of the possibility of bacterial contamination. Undercooked hamburgers contaminated with were responsible for four deaths and the illness of hundreds of people in the U.S. in 1993. Ground beef must be cooked to 72 °C (160 °F) to ensure all bacterial contamination—whet... |
why do some people pay to get their taxes done, while others do it themselves for free? | There are so many ins and outs of the tax code that it is often difficult to know if you qualify for certain savings or which forms you need. For me, when I file in have to use multiple additional forms and it all gets confusing.
If you have a basic return it is pretty simple to do yourself with pencil and paper, but if not it gets complicated. If you make used a certain level of income there are free tools you can use online. Otherwise you have to pay to use your own tools anyway so for a little more you can go through it with someone who has experience and may ask questions to save you money that you didn't think of yourself.
It also provides some level of confidence that you filed correctly and the IRS won't be coming after you for money owed and penalties. | [
"For example, the state requires payment for its services in the form of taxes whether or not people desire such services. Since an individual’s money is his property, the confiscation of money in the form of taxes is an attack on property. Military conscription is likewise an attack on a person’s primordial proper... |
how do the opsin proteins we have in our eyes convert light into an electrochemical signal? | I'll attempt to translate this to layman's terms bit by bit, since I think that's what you're asking for.
**Opsin proteins:** As you may know, "proteins" are the various tiny machines that, working together, are the fundamental mechanism that makes us alive. The different tasks that are required for life are reflected in the tremendous variety of proteins. "Opsin" is the name of a class of proteins that sense light.
**covalently bind to a vitamin A-based retinaldehyde:** Proteins are tiny machines, but for some tasks (such as sensing light) it's difficult to design a protein that can accomplish the task by itself. Biology can get around this by pairing proteins with "co-factors". A co-factor is a small molecule that has a certain useful quality that facilitates the task at hand. Often our bodies can't build these co-factors, so we obtain them in our diet. If the co-factor is a metal then it is referred to as a "mineral", if it is a molecule then it is referred to as a "vitamin" (this is why not eating enough vitamins and minerals can make us sick).
In this case the co-factor is called retinal/retinaldehyde. Vitamin A is the group of chemicals that can be converted by the body into retinal. Retinal is useful for sensing light because [it can change shape when exposed to light](_URL_2_). That image is a schematic of the molecule, don't worry about the details, just observe that it changes from a crooked shape to a straight shape when exposed to light.
So our bodies glue ("covalently bind") one retinal molecule to each opsin protein. Opsin is designed in such a way that the shape change of retinal triggers opsin to also change shape. In effect, this amplifies a small change in a tiny molecule into a larger change that can trigger other mechanisms that further amplify the change.
**chromophore**: The complete assembly of retinal and opsin is called rhodopsin. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it has a colour. "Chromophore" means something that gives colour; "rhod" comes from the Greek word for pink.
**through a Schiff base linkage:** Just ignore this, it's basically just specifying the particular type of "glue" that is joining retinal to opsin.
**to a lysine residue in the seventh transmembrane alpha helix:** Again, don't worry too much about this, it's describing the particular location on opsin where retinal is attached.
[Here's a diagram of rhodopsin](_URL_0_) the opsin is the rainbow squiggle and retinal is the small red object in the centre. Importantly, rhodopsin is located in the membrane (the external border) of the light sensing cells. When it changes shape it triggers [a rapid sequence of events](_URL_1_) (steps 2 - 5) that amplifies the signal and ultimately changes the amount of ions flowing into the light sensing cell, this change in the flow of ions changes the electrical charge across the membrane which is the "electrochemical signal" that your question mentions. | [
"Opsin proteins covalently bind to a vitamin A-based retinaldehyde chromophore through a Schiff base linkage to a lysine residue in the seventh transmembrane alpha helix. In vertebrates, the chromophore is either 11-\"cis\"-retinal (A1) or 11-\"cis\"-3,4-didehydroretinal (A2) and is found in the retinal binding poc... |
Two hypothetical questions about "replacement" Voyager probes.. | I can answer the latter question. More or less the same distance. They're coasting through space now. They'll only stop when they collide with something. Total distance isn't really a function of fuel. | [
"Of the major spacecraft, \"Voyager 1\", \"Voyager 2\", and \"New Horizons\" are still functioning and are regularly contacted by radio communication, while \"Pioneer 10\" and \"Pioneer 11\" are now derelict. In addition to these spacecraft, some third stages and de-spin weights are leaving the Solar System, assumi... |
could nitrogen in scuba tanks be replaced with an inert gas like argon to prevent nitrogen narcosis? | It can be, and is, replaced with helium for deep dives. People use either trimix (replace some of the N2 with He) or heliox (replace all of the N2 with He) to reduce the effects of nitrogen narcosis. Trimix is cheaper, so people use it when they can. [You can't go arbitrarily deep, though, because helium gives you tremors.](_URL_0_)
e: diatomic gas screwup | [
"Nitrogen (N) is a diatomic gas and the main component of air, the cheapest and most common breathing gas used for diving. It causes nitrogen narcosis in the diver, so its use is limited to shallower dives. Nitrogen can cause decompression sickness.\n",
"In an effort to reduce the decompression problems resulting... |
British morale during WWI | /u/NMW writes about British propaganda [here](_URL_0_). See also the comments of /u/RenoXD [here](_URL_1_) (soldiers' motivation, mutinies) and [here](_URL_2_) (effect of gas masks on morale). | [
"The Morale Operations Branch gained a great deal of its early sources of information through its liaison relationship with the British Political Warfare Executive. This relationship was to continue for the duration of the war, and would vary in intensity given the particular inclinations of various officers involv... |
how do employers in the us employ illegal aliens without any legal ramifications? | They haven't been caught yet but if or when they do there will be ramifications. | [
"BULLET::::- Does the Arizona law, which \"imposes sanctions on employers who hire unauthorized aliens is invalid under a federal statute\", the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which has a provision to \"preempt any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions... upon those who employ, or recruit or ... |
In American Football bringing an extra defenceman to go after the Quarterback is referred to as the Blitz. Does this terminology relate to the German Blitzkrieg (Lightning War) in WW2 or does it pre-date WW2? | **It comes from World War II,** but it didn't have the connotation it has today. Instead, it was used in the more general sense of a rapid attack against which defense is futile or of little effect.
In this context, it shows up as much in basketball and other sports as much as football. The Dec. 6, 1940 issue of the *Chicago Tribune* described a University of Georgia victory over the University of Chicago: "The Bulldogs' final blitz attack climaxed a nip and tuck battle after Chicago had taken a 12 to 10 lead at the half."
During the wartime years, I've been unable to find a reference to a defensive blitz. It was always used in regard to *offense* rather than defense. If you think about it, that makes sense. The blitzkrieg as seen from American eyes was an offensive movement: against Poland, against the Low Countries, against France, against Yugoslavia, against Greece, and in the initial stages against the Soviet Union.
The Aug. 23, 1942 *Tribune* contains an article about Stanford halfback Pete Kmetovic, claiming in its headline "Kmetovic Proves Theory That Personnel Is Key to Blitz of T". To modern eyes, that's talking about a way to disrupt the T-formation offense. Instead, the article explains how Kmetovic (an all-star that year) was key to Stanford's 1940 running attack (one of the nation's best).
The Oct. 11, 1942 *New York Times*, in its description of a Columbia-Brown football game describes how Brown's two touchdowns in 11 plays "turned out to be an air raid shelter against a Columbia 'Blitz' in the final stanza." The Oct. 3, 1943 issue of the *Times* describes how Colgate was mystified by the speed of the Army offense in a 42-0 loss: "Colgate, a power in football for many years, was utterly at the mercy of the blitz, baffled by its fakery and rooted to the ground by its speed."
Note how the Times both capitalized and put into quotes the term in 1942, an indication of its unfamiliarity, but those had disappeared a year later. In the Dec. 4, 1942 issue of the *Times,* an Associated Press story described how the war had opened up football to a fast-paced style of play with more scoring and bigger plays. **Michigan State coach Charley Backman was quoted: "World War II has had a definite influence on football, with many teams patterning play after blitz techniques of military leaders."**
This, I think, is the most definitive answer as to where the term comes from.
Note that it was also used in this context with regard to professional football as well as collegiate. The Nov. 12, 1945 issue of the *Times* contains an Associated Press report about a Green Bay Packers-Cleveland Rams game that ended in a 20-7 Rams victory and a bleacher collapse that injured dozens: "Cleveland's Rams unleashed a furious first-quarter blitz, then settled down to play brilliant defensive ball and topple the Green Bay Packers, 20 to 7, in a National Football League game today."
But what about its modern context, a *defensive* blitz?
The invention of the defensive blitz is credited to a coach named **Heartly William "Hunk" Anderson**. ([Here's a quick recollection of his career](_URL_0_) by his son, published in the *Times* 10 years ago.)
Anderson was born in 1898 and got his head coaching start in 1928 with the Saint Louis Billikens (this being my connection to the story, as the Billiken was an early 20th century fad object thought to come from Alaska ─ not true). Anderson was a line coach at heart, and he was fond of experimentation. In 1931, he was named the head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, America's most famous football team at the time, after famed coach Knute Rockne died in a plane crash.
Anderson had played for Rockne between 1918 and 1921, and he brought his experimental ways with him to Notre Dame. He formulated an approach he called "red dog," red meaning to be alert and dog meaning to hound the quarterback. In Notre Dame's Nov. 21, 1931 game against Southern California, he employed this technique for the first time, sending Steve Banas to "red dog" every time USC's Ernie Pinckert played at tailback. The approach didn't contribute to a win: Notre Dame lost, 16-14.
After a moderate level of success at Notre Dame, Anderson was let go from that team and moved to North Carolina, where he coached North Carolina State. The "red dog" approach remained uncommon. It was not a regular aspect of his defensive scheme. After three mediocre years at NC State (where he compiled an overall 11-17-1 record), he left the team.
In 1939, Anderson was hired as a line coach for the Detroit Lions by head coach Gus Henderson. Henderson later called Anderson "the Master of Defense" for the strategies he conducted. When the Lions faced the Chicago Bears that year, Anderson brought the "red dog" to professional football. Fred Vanzo became the first to use the technique, and the Lions routed the Bears 10-0, holding the Bears' offense to just 56 yards.
The Bears would ultimately finish ahead of the Lions in the NFL's Western Division, but Bears head coach George Halas was so impressed by the Lions' defense that he hired Anderson to coach the Bears' offensive and defensive lines. The Bears would go 8-3 in 1940, but they advanced to the NFL championship game where they crushed Washington 73-0.
Jim Dent's *Monster of the Midway* about the WWII-era Chicago Bears and Emil Klosinski's biography of Anderson are good sources if you're interested in reading about Anderson's career.
The red dog defense's aggressiveness eventually combined with the offensive aggressiveness of the blitz (in the 1950s, you'll sometimes see references to "defensive blitz"), and by the time the Baltimore Colts used it effectively in their 1960s championship runs, the defensive sense of the term had clearly come out on top.
| [
"The \"quarterback throwback\" screen, where the quarterback will pitch to a running back or throw a short pass to a wide receiver, and run the opposite direction, with releasing linemen in front of him. The running back or wideout will then lateral, or \"throw it back\" to the quarterback, with offensive linemen l... |
Did vikings have "shipyards" or centralized locations dedicated to building multiple ships? | Unfortunately, we really don't know much about the tradition of Norse and northern European shipbuilding during this time period (and this is where I'm going to be pedantic and say that "Viking" was an activity, not a noun, though language is fast changing this). The Gokstad and Oseberg ships have been the basis for much of what we know about the shipbuilding tradition and there hasn't been a very good survey written [since at least 1950](_URL_0_), although I'm holding out hope for something newer.
It would make sense, given the similarities between those two ships and the time period in which they were built, that they could have been the products of a shared base of knowledge for building ships, but we don't know enough to say definitively that they were built in what we'd consider a shipyard (i.e., a specialized location where many ships were built.) Sorry to not be of much more help. | [
"The Viking Ship Museum has a long tradition of Viking ship reconstructions and boat building and also collects boats of interest from all over Scandinavia. The boat collection at the museum now comprise more than 40 vessels and the associated ship building yard is constantly building new ships by original methods ... |
I want to know more about the Pinkerton detectives. Were there many private security agencies like them when they were prominent? What could and couldn’t they do legally, and what’s changed since then? What caused them to fall out of the spotlight, considering they company still exists? | I [answered](_URL_1_) a similar question a while back, and I hope my answer will help. Let me summarize: While pursuing wanted criminals was certainly profitable in the first few decades after the start of the Pinkertons in the 1860s, the gradual building up of federal and local law enforcement in the West reduced the demand for Pinkertons in this kind of work, along with a general changing of attitudes towards the Pinkertons. This was due in part to a much-publicized incident in 1875 when Pinkerton detectives threw a bomb through the window of the house Jesse and Frank James lived. Jesse and Frank weren't home at the time, but their mother had her arm ruined and their little half-brother was killed. (The mother, Zerelda Samuel, for years would give a tour of her property for $.25, including a visit to the grave of Jesse, all the while telling the story of the Pinkertons who cruelly and wrongly destroyed her family. She stayed on the farm until her death at 83.) The nail in the coffin for the Pinkertons doing work for the government was in 1892, when Pinkerton agents killed several strikers during the Homestead Strike. In 1893, the Anti-Pinkerton Act was passed, reading "That hereafter no employee of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, or similar agency, shall be employed in any Government service or by any officer of the District of Columbia." The Pinkertons turned more towards strike-breaking for big companies, as well as private detective work and acting as private security. The 1936-1941 La Follett Civil Liberties Committee's investigations into their role against unions brought a lot of bad press, and they shifted their role towards what it is today.
I also included a little about two detectives who worked for the Pinkertons, Charles Siringo and Tom Horn, [here](_URL_0_). I think that post may also help answer your question about what they were allowed to do. Murder, obviously, was nominally illegal, though what constituted self-defense, especially in the service of their employers, was highly murky. Often contracts for "protection" to cattle barons or railroads amounted to murder-for-hire to get rid of opposition.
There were other detective agencies, though I haven't researched them.
Before I close, and perhaps shedding some light on the question of what could and could not be done by the Pinkertons, let me share a passage from Siringo's book, *Two Evil Isms, Pinkertonism and Anarchism.* It should, of course, be noted that this is a book written by a disgrunted employee of Pinkertons, and I haven't been able to verify the story. Background: Mr. Williams has discovered that a rich businessman has slept with his wife, so Mr. Williams has determined to kill him, having refused to being paid off. The businessman hires the Pinkertons, who decide the best way to save the businessman's life and reputation is to beat Mr. Williams over the head as a warning, and make it look like a robbery.
> At the mouth of a certain dark alley which he was in the habit of passing, operative T., who was a powerful young athlete, and who is at present writing a trusted police officer in an eastern city, was to spring forth with an iron gaspipe and slug the dastardly villain. Then his pockets were to be turned inside out, to leave the impression that robbery was the motive.
> It had been arranged that I assist operative T. by remaining in the background, ready to render assistance, if necessary, and to act as a perjured witness if matters should ever come to a showdown in court. Operative T. was to be masked. ... On my return to the office at 7:00 P. M., I found operative T. waiting for me. He explained the night's work which Superintendent Eams had detailed me upon. Here I rebelled and told operator T. that it would not be right, as Williams had committed no wrong, and besides, the slugging with a gas pipe might cause the man's death. He replied that it would make no difference, as no one outside of ourselves would know who did it, and that the agency would be well paid for it. I refused positively to take a hand in the outrage. ... I then read the riot act to operative T. and told him that if Williams was slugged I would give the secret away, and, if necessary, testify in court as to what he had just told me. ... It put a stop, though, to the murder of an innocent man, by a powerful, degraded, money-mad organization. And it also put a stop to me being detailed on murdering
operations in the future. I was virtually put on the black list for the next twenty years. | [
"Pinkerton, founded as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, is a private security guard and detective agency established in the United States by Scotsman Allan Pinkerton in 1850 and currently a subsidiary of Securitas AB. Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-ele... |
why do we salivate and gulp when we are nervous or put on the spot? | When you're in fight or flight response and your sympathetic nervous system is activated. Activation of the sympathetic nervous system actually shuts down saliva production, digestion and other rest and digest functions so you can use all your available energy to fight or run away. Some people think the nervous swallow is because saliva was building up before production was shut off, I personally believe it's a nervous reaction like saying 'umm'. It gives you that extra second before you need to respond. | [
"In general, gleeking occurs when an accumulation of saliva in the sublingual gland is propelled out in a stream when the gland is compressed by the tongue. The stream of saliva is released in the general direction of the front of the mouth. If the mouth is open the jet may project several feet.\n",
"Gleeking may... |
power usage by smartphones is progressively growing, but battery capacity stays relatively same. why? | Circuits in the phone follow Moore's Law (transistors double every ~18 months). The more transistors a phone has, the more power it uses. Moore's law says that number keeps increasing at an exponential rate. Even with good efficiency technology, that means power usage grows very fast.
Battery technology is a more linear scale for many reasons. Most have to do with the difficulty of material technology and energy storage. We haven't yet discovered a set of technology that allows batteries to increase at the same rate as transistors.
One thing to note in your statement though is that battery tech isn't staying relatively the same. It's actually improved quite a bit over the last few decades, and especially with the discovery of Lithium Ion technology. It just hasn't kept pace with the power that a computer could draw if it wanted to. | [
"By the end of 2017, smartphone battery life has become generally adequate; however, earlier smartphone battery life was poor due to the weak batteries that could not handle the significant power requirements of the smartphones' computer systems and color screens.\n",
"Increases in clock frequency have grown more... |
Why do fluorescent bulbs take time to achieve full luminosity? | CFL bulbs have to heat up. Depending on the bulb, there is some substance called amalgam that has to boil off before the bulb reaches peak luminosity.
_URL_0_ | [
"Standard fluorescent tubes are the common light bars you find in commercial ceilings. Fluorescent lighting has more color temperatures available which are more suited to aquariums than those of incandescent bulbs. They are also more efficient than incandescent lighting, averaging between 90 and 95 lumens per watt.... |
Are there any theories as to how Spartacus became a Slave then a gladiator? | We know almost nothing about Spartacus before his revolt.
Plutarch's Crassus:
> The first of these was Spartacus, a Thracian of Nomadic stock, possessed not only of great courage and strength, but also in sagacity and culture superior to his fortune, and more Hellenic than Thracian.
Appian (a little later than Plutarch) BCiv 2:
> At the same time Spartacus, a Thracian by birth, who had once served as a soldier with the Romans, but had since been a prisoner and sold for a gladiator, and was in the gladiatorial training-school at Capua, persuaded about seventy of his comrades to strike for their own freedom rather than for the amusement of spectators.
That's the Loeb translation. I understand there's some controversy about the translation of the bit about being a Roman soldier. I don't have a problem with the Loeb translation but[ here's the Greek](_URL_0_) for people better at it than I:
> ἐστρατευμένος ποτὲ Ῥωμαίοις
The Loeb doesn't give an ap crit; maybe a textual variant is where the translation becomes problematic.
Florus about the same times says:
> the man who, from being a Thracian mercenary, had become a soldier, and from a soldier a deserter, then a highwayman, and finally, thanks to his strength, a gladiator.
These are all second century CE sources (maybe late first century), so quite removed from the revolt of 73 BCE. Florus only exists in epitome.
That's pretty much our info. It sucks that our most detailed source Florus exists in epitome. It both gives the impression that there was originally more info in the text and makes you doubt the info that exists, because we don't know anything about the epitomer, how good his text was or how well he understood it, and whether he imported information from other sources.
Sources agree he was Thracian, two of them that he was involved in the military and imprisoned, and one that he was a deserter and bandit.
I imagine one reason Spartacus is such an interesting historical character is that his background is so spotty; you can fill it in with almost anything you can imagine.
| [
"Spartacus ( \"\"; ; c. 111–71 BC) was a Thracian gladiator who, along with Crixus, Gannicus, Castus, and Oenomaus, was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond the events of the war, and surviving historical... |
how to solve inequalities in algebra. | 640 - x > 2x + 40
600 > 3x
200 > x
Simply add and subtract like terms. | [
"Systems of inequalities can be written in terms of matrices \"A\", \"B\", \"C\", etc., and the conditions for existence of solutions can be written as complicated expressions in terms of these matrices. The solution for two polynomial inequalities in two variables tells us whether two conic section regions overlap... |
What is the source of animosity between Christians and Catholics specifically in Korea? | Since when are Catholics not considered Christians? I'm particularly surprised that OP as a Catholic doesn't include himself with the Christians... | [
"Christianity was linked even more with the patriotic cause when some Christians refused to participate in worship of the Japanese Emperor, which was required by law in the 1930s. Although this refusal was motivated by theological rather than political convictions, the consequent imprisonment of many Christians str... |
How precise are geologic maps? | As a geologist, I'll take a stab at this question.
The resolution *can be* very very high in certain circumstances (e.g. water table level determination by soundings to determine a 3-d map within maybe a couple meters?) but the real answer to your question is that it depends on what's "down there". [This Link](_URL_0_) is an excellent example of large-scale maps and the data used to generate them. Specifically, look at pages 11 and 12. It shows a 3-d representation of the Cherry Valley Limestone Thickness and the raw data that is used to create the map. It doesn't look like much data, 5 boreholes in all? But go back to page 3. You'll see that the density of boreholes in the lower right hand side of the region of interest that comprises the data in pages 11 and 12 is very low compared to the density of data in the upper-left hand side of slide 3.
I have been on-site on Marcellus Shale wells where the predicted beginning of the Marcellus has been 1 or 2 feet off of the observed beginning of the formation (at about a mile under the surface). It is important to remember in these cases, however, that formational changes are usually gradual, and not completely abrupt so it can be 1-2 feet off with an error of 1-2 feet, or essentially dead on.
So back to your questions I guess, yes basically samples are just taken across an area and generalized in between. A the surface, sometimes the boundary is very very clear and can be mapped within the foot via GPS. Sometimes hand-held XRF's are used nowaday to get a very good chemical signal for the surface boundary.
It's really not prohibitively expensive to take a ton of samples or do soundings if you're drilling for oil or gas, and the reliability of your information directly impacts the profitability of your final well. | [
"A geological survey map typically superimposes the surveyed extent and boundaries of geological units on a topographic map, together with information at points (such as measurements of orientation of bedding planes) and lines (such as the intersection of faults with the land surface). The maps and reports created ... |
How did hunting come to be such an important part of medieval aristocratic life? | For your average medieval person living in an area that logistically allowed for it, hunting game (even in the form of poaching) was a way to get by. It was a way to supplement your regular diet, and if you did it right it was free. (If you did it wrong, you were in a lot of trouble.) But for medieval noblemen and women it became an art, a sport, and a status symbol -- perhaps *because* they didn't necessarily need to hunt those animals down themselves if they wanted to eat meat. Hunting itself was ubiquitous throughout the entire Middle Ages and likely throughout history, but the medieval European hunt as an aristocratic custom and pastime reached its fullest flower in the 14th and 15th centuries; I don't think it's a coincidence that this is also where texts describing how and what to hunt (written both for the delight of genteel audiences and as advice for the staff that would help them) also proliferate.
For a look at literary constructions of medieval hunting, you could do worse than to look at Gaston Phoebus' *Livre de chasse* -- Gaston III, count of Foix, viscount of Béarn, was an authentic French nobleman of the second half of the 14th century with a nobleman's concerns. The chronicler Froissart describes Gaston in some detail, but among his remarks is this:
> He mightily loved dogs above all other animals; and during the summer and winter amused himself much with hunting.
One of those dogs comes to save Gaston's life later when it's used as an unwitting test for poison, administered to Gaston by his own son (Also named Gaston.) In general, the keeping of dogs as nobles' pets owes a lot to the practice of hunting using hounds, even if the later development into dogs that are more recognizably lapdogs defeats that purpose somewhat.
Gaston Phoebus wrote his *Livre de chasse* some time in the late 1380s, dedicating it to Philip the Bold, and it became one of the most broadly-disseminated texts on aristocratic hunting -- this might account for how many surviving manuscripts of it exist. (The English translation of Phoebus' text, *The Master of Game*, is also the product of an aristocratic writer -- Edward of Norwich, Duke of York. His edition is dedicated to the future Henry V of England.) It's a four-part treatise covering the benefits of hunting, the best ways to go about it, the qualities of different game and how to hunt them, as well as why men should hunt at all.
> Furthermore I will prove by sundry reasons in this little prologue, that the life of no man that useth gentle game and disport be less displeasable unto God than the life of a perfect and skilful hunter, or from which more good cometh. The first reason is that hunting causeth a man to eschew the seven deadly sins. Secondly men are better when riding, more just and more understanding, and more alert and more at ease and more undertaking, and better knowing of all countries and all passages; in short and long all good customs and manners cometh thereof, and the health of man and of his soul. For he that fleeth the seven deadly sins as we believe, he shall be saved, therefore a good hunter shall be saved, and in this world have joy enough and of gladness and of solace, so that he keep himself from two things. One is that he leave not the knowledge nor the service of God, from whom all good cometh, for his hunting. The second that he lose not the service of his master for his hunting, nor his own duties which might profit him most. Now shall I prove how a hunter may not fall into any of the seven deadly sins. When a man is idle and reckless without work, and be not occupied in doing some thing, he abides in his bed or in his chamber, a thing which draweth men to imaginations of fleshly lust and pleasure. For such men have no wish but always to abide in one place, and think in pride, or in avarice, or in wrath, or in sloth, or in gluttony, or in lechery, or in envy. For the imagination of men rather turns to evil than to good, for the three enemies which mankind hath, are the devil, the world and the flesh, and this is proved enough.
These are some pretty lofty aims that expand far beyond putting meat on the table. Phoebus details how to go about hunting harts, boars, wolves, and roe deer, as well as otters, badgers, hares, and foxes, and he deals with what we'd now call broadly "deer" in terms of their different life stages and how that dictated their qualities. From Norwich's translation, regarding the hart:
> The hart is a common beast enough and therefore me needeth not to tell of his making, for there be few folk that have not seen some. The harts be the lightest beasts and strongest, and of marvellous great cunning. They are in their love, which men call rut, about the time of the Holy Rood in September and remain in their hot love a whole month and ere they be fully out thereof they abide [in rut] nigh two months. And then they are bold, and run upon men as a wild boar would do if he were hunted. [...] he smiteth as the stroke of the springole, for he has great strength in the head and the body. They slay, fight and hurt each other, when they be in rut, that is to say in their love, and they sing in their language [Norwich adds 'that in England hunters call bellowing'] as man that loveth paramour. They slay hounds and horses and men at that time and turn to the abbay ['be at bay'] as a boar does especially when they be weary.
This isn't a 101-level text; it's clearly for people who know their stuff, or who would like to learn their stuff. He goes on to describe other actions of the hart by the season in which they occur, the behavior of harts when young and old, how harts seek to evade hunters by concealing their smell from the hounds, and so on in quite fine-grained detail for the other animals he describes as well. It's a mix of Gaston's (and Norwich's) folkloric understanding of the animal kingdom (harts live to be a hundred years old) and their practical understanding of it gained from practical experience as well as the study of other hunting texts. Illustrations on both version of the text showcase both the practical and the aesthetic concerns of hunting -- this scene of men on horseback accompanied by men on foot [hunting the roebuck](_URL_0_) shows the trappings of hunting (hounds, horns, swords and spears) as well as the excitement of the pursuit.
It took resources to put together a formal hunting party this way -- it took time and money to maintain horses and dogs as well as to employ lymerers (guys whose whole purpose is to act as handlers for scenthounds) and other staff to smooth the process along, and one had to be of a certain social class to access forests and game reserves, hence all the poaching. A host of weapons were employed (not just the bow and arrow we associate with genteel medieval hunting -- things could get pretty down and dirty) and aristocratic women might well be involved, even if their use of weapons (and birds of prey, in the case of falconry) had a gendered element. The birds one might keep and use for the purpose of hunting were closely dictated in such manuals along the lines of rank and class, not unlike sumptuary restrictions -- in Juliana Berners' 14th-century guide to falconry she dictates that gyrfalcons are for kings, merlins for ladies, goshawks for yeomen, and sparrowhawks for priests. (Berners herself may have been an abbess; well-off clergy weren't above hunting as a pastime.) This was nominally due to practical concerns (how could a gentle lady wrangle a massive bird of prey? how could a poor man afford an expensive bird more fitting to an emperor?) but primarily due to the aesthetics and social cachet of each kind of bird, just as sartorial restrictions on who could wear which velvet or what fur lining on garments served a practical purpose primarily to back up their social purpose.
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"Hunting began as a crucial component of hunter-gatherer societies, being an important source of food. The domestication of animals and the development of agriculture lessened the need for hunts, with food being more readily available. Hunting became a sport for those of the high social classes. In most parts of me... |
Can the human nervous system detect the signal spike associated with an incoming cell phone call? | Im also curious about this. I've always assumed this feeling is a product of the hindsight bias; we probably get that 'feeling' a call is about to come much more often than there is actually a call, but assign more weight to the feeling that actually does occur directly before the phone begins to ring. A more scientific answer would be appreciated! | [
"The neuronal signal comprises a stream of short electrical pulses of about 100 millivolt amplitude and about 1 to 2 millisecond duration (Gerstner, W., & Kistler, W. (2002) Chapter 1). The individual pulses are action potentials or spikes and the chain of pulses is called spike train. The action potential does not... |
how does one prove that data (such as text messages) recovered forensically is actually the data it is purported to be? | Like all evidence, any recovered electronics would follow a chain of custody - a legal document which records the sequence of custody of the piece of evidence. So long as the chain of custody is intact and the people on the chain are trustworthy, the evidence should be considered secure. | [
"The term \"data recovery\" is also used in the context of forensic applications or espionage, where data which have been encrypted or hidden, rather than damaged, are recovered. Sometimes data present in the computer gets encrypted or hidden due to reasons like virus attack which can only be recovered by some comp... |
Why was the American Intervention in Vietnam such a failure in comparison to British Anti-Communist action in Malaya? | This is a classical question of counterinsurgency. In modern understanding, the Malayan emergency is seen as the textbook success of a counterinsurgency operation while Vietnam is seen as a textbook failure.
For this, we have to understand the factors that came into play for the British. You have to study it within the context in which it was fought. What might have worked then might not have worked in a conflict now because of circumstances that are particular to this conflict. Some historians say that drawing generalized lessons from the Malayan Emergency might be an unwise idea but I say the opposite: these lessons can be a great starting point instead of starting out new. Population control, having a joint political-military control and the understanding of the people you're amongst are all valuable lessons. Gaining the trust of the population is one of those valuable lessons. Hearts and Minds was immensely important and while this was not a completely new concept, it was refined by the British and certainly made into something powerful in this conflict. It was about both providing and preventing. Providing a better quality of life, providing safety providing an understanding, a friendly face to an otherwise so menacing thing as war - while at the same time preventing guerrilla influence, preventing them from getting a hold of protected centres and so on.
Combine this with re-training the police, getting minorities involved in police work, make the whole society work in all aspects for the goal of pacification is another. Then again, the British also had some luck on their side. The insurgency was dominated by the Chinese minority and because of the Korean War, the economy got a boost as well. It was easy to see which ones could be insurgents and they also had no real place to go to for sanctuary other than the jungle. Another important aspect is the resettlement of the Chinese minority (amongst others) in affected areas.
This forced resettlement was something that went from failure to success in the Malayan emergency but mostly did so out of the circumstances it was in. Those that were resettled were those that would naturally support the insurgents: the Chinese minority. However, in the process of resettlement, many where forced from lands they cultivated and put into places they had no interest in being at first. These places looked more like slums than anything else. This made people turn away from the government. The resettlement did have its effect though: it effectively cut the guerrillas from a food source who now had to find other ways to get a hold of it. Soon enough, however, these resettlement centers were beginning to be provided with medical care, schools, clean water, access to the outside world through roads etc., as well as jobs or their own land which they could cultivate. This not only made them feel more like citizens but also like they had something to lose by supporting the insurgents. This, in combination with increased security by native police, made it very effective.
But what other options are there?
One of those options would be the very important task of putting soldiers amongst the people. By making them live amongst them, they not only increase the security but also earn the trust and respect of the people while at the same time creating a presence which could ensure a belief in the lasting security which could be brought to their village.
When it comes to Vietnam, the big issue was strategy. There are plenty of issues with US strategy in the Vietnam War. First of all, at the outset of it, the political leadership in the US wasn't ready to accept a prolonged war. They expected it to be short before moving on to the next "inevitable" conflict in the war against communism. This made it impossible to carry out a proper counterinsurgency war with proven methods. The army was also opposed to any change in doctrine and was firmly against switching from conventional to counterinsurgency. Pacification became a second priority.
Then there's issues with the choice of "search and destroy", the strategy of annihilation.
The use of attrition in the Vietnam War was primarily the use of firepower. One interesting aspect of this is the relation between the army on the ground and the air force. By this time, the focus of the overall armed forces was that the army, for example, was outdated since the cold war focus laid on the air force. Vietnam became more or less an excuse for the army to prove themselves that they had a role to play in the cold war.
So the strategic decision of attrition became one of the most well-known things about the military aspect of the Vietnam war: search and destroy. That was the overall idea. The infantry men would go out on patrols, lure out the enemy and completely annihilate them. However, this didn't play out that well. The army had overwhelming firepower thanks to fire support in form of artillery and air support. So the infantry were sent out on patrols (humping the boonies) acting more as bait rather than actual combat soldiers. The artillery man could be safe and sound, just as the pilot. But it was the soldier that had to endure the hardships of the Vietnamese environment and of combat. There were very few times that the US infantry had an actual initiative on the ground. They could go out on multiple patrols, ranging from days to weeks and never encounter an enemy until that one faithful patrol where all hell breaks loose. The VC/NVA planned these ambushes, knowing exactly where to hit them and how. They never tried to prolong the engagements because they knew that if they did so, they would have to suffer the overwhelming firepower that these infantrymen could call on.
But let's take an example when the US men on the ground actually did have the initiative. I'll give you a scenario. Over night, a contingent of main force VC has settled in a village and has put up two defensive lines. One outside the village and one inside the village. Now, what would a US force do in a situation like this? First of all, they would surround the village. They would not attack head on since that would lead to great casualties at once. Instead, they would use fire support to try and dislodge them from their positions, something that the VC in this scenario would have found ways to counter. The tactic of "hugging" the enemies, so that the opposite force wouldn't be able to use their fire support, is a classical one in this case. Another one was as simple as counter attacking and was often use if the defensive force was in superior numbers. However, there were times when the VC occupied villages for other intentions. For example, they could occupy a village with the intention to draw attention to the fact that they were there so that the US forces would attack with overwhelming firepower. The VC didn't care about civilian casualties. Because if the US forces played like the VC expected to and shelled that village to oblivion, then they could use that as a psychological weapon. They just shelled a village filled with civilians and thus no one could believe that they represented a morally superior cause.
The concept of search and destroy also leads us to the idea of body count. Now that was another concept that was important since it was implemented on the ground and was something that most officers obsessively strived for. They were all given a quota and they were expected to fill it. In the end, these things encourage atrocities. Civilians were labelled VC and counted into the statistics. The soldiers didn't care, because by now, they've had enough. They had seen their friends stepping on mines on the outskirts of villages or being shot through the neck by a sniper close to a hamlet. For them, all Vietnamese became VC in the end and no one could be trusted. | [
"British action and policy in defeating the Malayan counter-insurgency became a paradigm for future struggles with insurgents, including the U.S. war in Vietnam. Critics have stated that the Malayan emergency was much simpler to combat than many insurgencies and that the impact of hearts and minds programs has ofte... |
Why don't astronauts die from Radiation after a trip to space? (Going to the moon/mars/spacestation) | They do experience the effects of radiation, it just isn't normally intense enough to kill them. For example, many (most?) of the Apollo astronauts have cataracts. NASA was always worried about anomalous events like solar flares, which would have caused severe problems; they were just lucky.
[Here](_URL_1_) is an interesting article about the hazards of space travel, and [here](_URL_0_) is a chapter from a book on this very topic.
Edit: ~~not~~ have cataracts. | [
"Since astronauts are spending more time in outer space, they are receiving more exposure to ionizing radiation, a stream of particles that, when passing through a body, has enough energy to cause the atoms and molecules within that substance to become an ion. By directly or indirectly ionizing and thus damaging th... |
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