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What is the maximum FPS that a high-speed camera could achieve? | Here's a back-of-the-envelope estimated theoretical limit: Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle pairs time and energy together the same way it pairs momentum and length. So if we want to ask what's the minimum length of time it takes to record an image, we want to know what the minimum difference in energy is. So we know for light that E=hf=hc/λ and we know that light is in the 100s of nanometers in length. Let's say, to take a good picture we need 10s of nanometers of resolution of energy (10s of nanometers is 10^-8 m). Thus, ΔE=hc/10^-8m = hc x 10^8 m^-1 . ΔEΔt=h (or so, maybe there's a factor of 2 pi I'm missing). hc x 10^8 x Δt = h, h's cancel, Δt=(10^8 c)^-1 = 10^-16 (to order of magnitude. Thus the minimum exposure time for any image of visible light is something like 10^-16 seconds. Frequency, or FPS if you'd like, would be the inverse of that and be 10^16 Frames per second. Could you do this or make it? Probably not. But this is a physics approach to finding weird theoretical limits.
edit: this would also be easier if you knew the frequency of visible light off the top of your head. But I'm more familiar with its wavelength. | [
"Even higher speed imaging is possible using specialized electronic charge-coupled device (CCD) imaging systems, which can achieve speeds of over 25 million fps. All development in high-speed cameras is now focused on digital video cameras which have many operational and cost benefits over film cameras.\n",
"Feat... |
Could one perform a gravitational slingshot around a black hole? How effective would it be (if yes)? | Yes. As long as you stay far enough away from it, the gravity of a black hole works no different than that of a planet or star. Anything your spacecraft can do around a planet or a star, it can also do around a black hole. Since black holes are more massive than most stars (sometimes by a large amount), the distances and speeds involved will likely be larger, but the fundamental principles remain the same. | [
"This \"slingshot\" effect has been explored in theoretical physics: it is hypothetically possible to slingshot oneself \"around\" the event horizon of a black hole. As a result of the black hole's extreme gravitation, time would pass at a slower rate near the event horizon, relative to the outside universe; the tr... |
why is the us immigration process so complex? | I became a citizen recently. I've been in the us for fifteen years now on a permanent resident card (AKA Green Card).
Had either of my parents become citizens before I had turned 18, I would have become a citizen. (From what I remember, this only recently became a law) However, since we've been a bit too preoccupied with other things, I had to go through the process myself.
I had to fill out a very extensive form, detailing where I've lived, worked, and schooled for the past several years. And I mean, down to a 'T' in terms of dates. Starting and finishing days of school, employment, etc. This form was called the N-400.
I can't remember how much it cost exactly, but it was close to 700 dollars.
Here's the fun part, if you screw up the form, you don't get your money back. This is why there exist a lot of places that will double check the form for you (For a fee) to make sure you don't get screwed over.
Anyhoo, after all that was said and done, I got a letter stating when I would go downtown to meet with the officer of the court, who would give me my test.
I took a written test, a spoken test, and an oath in front of the officer. A few days later, I went to the ceremony with about 150 other people, where we received our certificates.
Hope that sated part of your curiosity. I don't really know how it's changed over years, just what I went through. | [
"The framework of U.S. immigration law has largely remained the same since 1965. The U.S. economy needs both high-skilled and low-skilled immigrant workers to remain competitive and to have enough workers who continue to pay into Social Security and Medicare as the U.S. population grows older. Nonetheless, there ar... |
why are things animals build (anthills, beehives) consitered 'natural', but things humans build (roads, houses) consitered unnatural? | Because we, as humans, find is useful to distinguish between things that we've made and things that other animals made.
If you want a less egocentric reasoning, due to technology, humans are able to make widespread changes to the Earth in ways that the biosphere hasn't had time to adapt to. There are consequences from that fact that are worth discussing and differentiating from "natural" activities. | [
"Animals have been found to use artificial structures as substitutes for hollows. For example, pygmy possums in the chute of a grain silo; or pardalotes in the top, horizontal pipe of a children's swing. Purpose built nest boxes, such as birdhouses and bat tubes, are also constructed for conservation and for wildli... |
how is a wind turbine able to spin with minimal wind given its enormous size/weight? | Due to the marvels of engineering. The wind tourbine simply has the ideal proportions in order for it to spin, even in gentle breeze. It simply covers the maximum area based on it's size. Now it might look like it spins slowly, but in reality it generates enourmous ammounts of electricity, simply because of it's size. | [
"The speed at which a wind turbine rotates must be controlled for efficient power generation and to keep the turbine components within designed speed and torque limits. The centrifugal force on the spinning blades increases as the square of the rotation speed, which makes this structure sensitive to overspeed. Beca... |
Did ancient Romans use to walk barefoot in their houses, or they kept heir shoes on? | Follow-up: Is this why some Roman houses had warmed floors (hypocaust) or was this completely unrelated to whether they had shoes on or not? | [
"The Romans were accustomed to carve pairs of footprints on a stone with the inscription \"pro itu et reditu\", \"for the journey and return\". They used them for protective rites on leaving for a journey and for thanksgiving for a safe return, when the traveler would place his feet in the footprints to mark the be... |
Some physical details of Alexandria during the end of the Ptolemy age? | Here is [**a great resource**](_URL_0_) I have had in my BMs for some time. | [
"The 'Geography' of Claudios Ptolemaios which was lost for over a thousand years and rediscovered in medieval times, is a further important source upon which the later cartography of the Renaissance is based. Ptolemy, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, about 150 A.D., gives the distances between the towns and settleme... |
at what point after putting ice cubes in a glass of water is the water at its coldest? | When you put ice cubes into the water, they'll quickly heat up to 0°C, and stay there until they melt. The reason is that it takes about ten times as much energy to melt ice at 0°C than it takes to heat it up from -18°C freezer temperature to 0°C.
You can test if an ice cube is already at 0°C by taking it out of the water. If the water at the surface freezes and the ice cube is sticky, it's still below the freezing point. If the water remains liquid, it has already heated up to the freezing point, where it's no longer able to freeze any water. This usually takes only a couple of seconds.
So typically, you can expect the water to be coldest when you give it a good stir and all the ice cubes have heated up to 0°C. It will then heat up as the ice cubes melt, although it will remain very close to 0°C for a long time if there's a lot of ice in the water. | [
"Chipped ice in water is the standard for the freezing point of water, 0 °C (32 °F). Ice made from water can be 0 °C, or a much lower temperature. The agitation of the machines is partially to keep the water from freezing solid. Some of the drinks have additives to make the freezing temperature of the mix lower, so... |
When public drinking fountains were segregated with Whites Only and Blacks Only signs, where did the Asians, Latin@s, Native Americans, etc. drink? | Segregated services/accommodations/etc weren't found generally throughout the United States. These laws were typically found in Southern states, which also tended to have the lowest foreign immigration during segregation. I can't find it at the moment, but I remember an earlier post about this issue, and it just seemed to be a case-by-case basis. Because of the racial classifications used at the time, locals would decide if a Chinese person was "Mongolian", for example, and segregate them with the non-white population accordingly.
It's worth noting that Latinos weren't always considered "non-white." As people of European descent speaking a European language, Latinos (generally Mexican-Americans) were considered "white" for a long time in much of the United States. The first interracial marriage struck down in the United States, for example, was the 1948 case *[Perez v. Sharp](_URL_0_)*. A Mexican woman tried to marry a black man in California, but the anti-interracial marriage law prevented her from doing so, since she was white. The California law prevented whites from marrying "a Negro, mulatto, Mongolian or member of the Malay race", but the court held that the law was contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment. As you can imagine, these racial divisions were hardly helpful at a time when Chinese and Japanese citizens were a non-negligible percentage of Californians.
One last point, more directly on your question about Asian Americans. In the case legalizing "separate but equal", only one justice dissented from the case. While the dissent is famous for decrying incipient segregation statutes that discriminated against black citizens, it was less than stirring when it came to Chinese residents of the United States. In fact, Justice Harlan says that one of the reasons that segregation is so evil is that Chinese could share accommodations with whites while blacks were given second class treatment:
> There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But, by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union, who are entitled, by law, to participate in the political control of the State and nation, who are not excluded, by law or by reason of their race, from public stations of any kind, and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race | [
"More than 100 cities across the United States received the fountains, and at least 70 are still in existence. (A handful were also located in Mexico and Puerto Rico.) Derby, Connecticut has a website dedicated to the fountains that includes an interactive map of the United States with locations and pictures.\n",
... |
Is Kutuzov thought of as a great general on the level of other generals of his era? | You are referring to the battle of Borodino, which was actually at the tail end of Kutuzov's distinguished career. In fact, he was brought out of retirement to lead the Russian army during Napoleon's invasion. For his other successes, see for example, his campaigns against the Ottomans 1806-1812. In the Battle of the Danube, Kutuzov decisively defeated a much larger Ottoman force. Earlier, he served under Suvorov, another great Russian general, who recognized Kutuzov's ability.
The biggest blemish on Kutuzov's record is the famous Battle of Austerlitz. However the battle was fought against his better judgement and at the insistence of Tsar Alexander.
As far as Napoleon's invasion of Russia, Borodino was only a single battle. One needs to look at the entire campaign in order to draw conclusions. And in the context of that campaign, the fact that Napoleon wasn't able to win decisively at Borodino really meant a strategic defeat. It was understood that the Russian army was weaker so a draw was a perfectly acceptable outcome from the Russian perspective.
After the battle, Kutuzov made a controversial and ultimately brilliant decision to surrender Moscow and to not put his army at risk. He knew that Napoleon's position in Moscow was untenable. At the end of the day, Kutozov did what no other general was able to do, which is force Napoleon into humilitating retreat which reduced his 600,000 strong Grand Armee into a pitiful group of stragglers who barely made it out of Russia. | [
"Žižka is considered to be among the greatest military leaders and innovators of all time. His accomplishments in this regard are especially unique and noteworthy as he had to quickly train peasants to repeatedly face highly trained and armored opponents who usually severely outnumbered his own troops, and for this... |
Suffragettes and Irish Republicanism | This was certainly a hot topic throughout the period for obvious reasons and the only woman elected in the 1918 General Election (yes, just one woman) was Constance Markievicz for Sein Fein (who was in jail in Holloway prison at the time and never took her seat).
Sylvia Pankhurst was expelled from the Suffragettes (the WSPU) for supporting the Dublin Lockout (just prior to WWI) and speaking alongside James Connolly who was executed by the British a few years later for his part in the Easter Rising - a rising that she backed to the hilt and her former comrades in the WSPU denounced.
It seems odd to say that people who were busy planting bombs in letter boxes and smashing windows were also very conscious of being "respectable" but certainly the mainstream of the women's suffrage movement in England actively opposed any link to Irish independence and it was only those who were consciously aligned to the left (like Sylvia Pankhurst) who gave their support, although this support greatly mattered in places like the East End of London that had very high levels of Irish immigration.
My understanding is that Irish suffrage organisations were split on "Home Rule" with some being opposed, some being for and some seeing it as a secondary question, but you're question wasn't about that so thankfully I don't feel the need to expand on a topic I only have a passing knowledge of.
The WSPU certainly saw Ireland as a place they could carry out actions but felt very little need to consult their Irish counterparts.
For example, when Asquith visited Dublin in 1912 four members of the WSPU came over from England and threw a hatchet at him (which apparently grazed him), they then tried to set fire to a theatre he was due to speak at later that day. Irish campaigners for the suffrage were horrified and denied any knowledge of the attacks or the women, who were sentenced to pretty hefty prison sentences as you might imagine.
The frustration of Irish suffragettes with their English compatriots viewing them as either appendages or, worse, non-existent can be summed up by Louie Bennett when she said "We Irish women must resent the independent interference of any English organisation in our affairs. English suffragettes cannot do any good work for us unless they co-operate with us and allow themselves to be guided by our more intimate knowledge of the Irish people and Irish affairs."
Good books on Syvlia Pankhurst include Kate Connolly's "Sylvia Pankhurst" and and "Sylvia Pankurst" by Shirley Harrison - but there are hundreds on the subject obviously.
You might also like to look at Ward's "Unmanageable Revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism" which I read some time ago but thought very good at the time. | [
"Irish republicanism has its origins in the ideals of the American and French revolutions in the late 18th century. In Ireland these ideals were taken up by the United Irishmen, founded in 1791. Originally they sought reform of the Irish parliament, such as an end to sectarian discrimination against Dissenters and ... |
Is there a limit to the amount of information our brain can send to a body part at one time? | Yes, there are limits in both the bandwidth (how much info can be sent in a unit time) and latency (response delay) in neurological systems. Among the factors determining both are the physics of [action potentials](_URL_0_). | [
"In theory, if the information and processes of the mind can be disassociated from the biological body, they are no longer tied to the individual limits and lifespan of that body. Furthermore, information within a brain could be partly or wholly copied or transferred to one or more other substrates (including digit... |
When Charlemagne was crowned emperor where was he the emperor of? | That's a very interesting and hotly debated question. Charlemagne was coronated the emperor of Rome. Pope Leo had to flee Rome due to conflicts with the population of the city. He asked Charlemagne for support and the king returned with the pope to Rome.
The sources we have on the subject are very sparse and they are mainly from an outsider perspective. What we can gather from these texts is that he was coronated Emperor of the Romans (cf. „Vita Leonis tertii" in „Liber Pontificalis"). The sources agree that the "normal" procedure of a coronation was followed: 1. The coronation, 2. the acclamation of the people, 3. the anointment. The texts make no reference to territorial claims of the emperor.
The idea of the translatio imperii, the translation of the empire, i.e. the understanding the Roman empire was passed upon the Holy Roman Empire was developed later. Late 9th century-12 th century by Otto von Freising.
The coronation of Charlemagne as emperor was more important for the pope than for the emperor himself. To be sure: His reign was extended to city of Rome formally, but it was the Papacy whose authority was immensely strengthened. | [
"In recognition of his successes and his political support for the Papacy, Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans, or Roman Emperor in the West, by Pope Leo III in 800. Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious (emperor 814–840) kept the empire united; however, this Carolingian Empire would not survive Louis I's dea... |
why can't anything travel faster than the speed of light, if black holes are strong enough to pull light in? | Why would the attraction of a black hole make anything travel faster than light? | [
"In special relativity, it is impossible to accelerate an object the speed of light, or for a massive object to move the speed of light. However, it might be possible for an object to exist which moves faster than light. The hypothetical elementary particles with this property are called tachyonic particles. Attemp... |
If I visited Rome during its Republic days and then again during its later Imperial era, how different would the city be? How easily could I recognize it as the same city? | First, and to me, most obvious, would be language change. Like all language, Latin was subject to change over the centuries. For example, Shakespeare's English is markedly different from current English, so too was Livius Andronicus's Latin different from, say, Ovid's. I think there was something like two-hundred-and-fifty or so years between their existences, so it might serve as a crude example to say, the differences we hear in the language of the early American nation and now, would have been something like the difference one would experience in "hopping" from 200BC Rome to 50AD Rome. Gratefully, we have extant writings from many periods of Roman history to compare and actually, see the differences in early period Latin and late period Latin, and, of course, all periods between.
| [
"Thus, the great ancient capitals were linked — cities such as: Athens, home to Athenian democracy, and the Greek philosophers Aristotle, Plato and Socrates; the city of Jerusalem, the Jewish capital, where Jesus of Nazareth preached and was executed around AD 30; and the city of Rome, which gave rise to the Roman ... |
how and when to properly use colons (:), semi-colons (;), dashes (-), and commas (,) in a sentence. what differentiates them from one another? | A colon is typically to designate you plan to talk about a series of things, such as: examples, phrases, and things you are listing.
A semi-colon separates two totally different sentences that each have their own complete subject and verb. A lot of people think they're kind of unnecessary and that you can split both sides of them into two sentences; it can be nice if the two sentences are so related that they support each other, though.
A dash - similar to a comma - creates a pocket of the sentence that calls your attention to it without totally breaking the flow of a sentence. The dissonance it creates is a little intentional - in a good way.
A series of back to back commas, as used here, is similar to the dash in that it provides a small additional thought that can clarify or add to your sentence. The deviating phrase is usually talking about the object that came just before it.
Otherwise, commas can be used in many ways. You see by this example, it can be used to separate a segue from the thought it's seguing to. It can also be used to prop up a minor interjection. (For instance:) Ouch, this is getting kinda long. Yikes, I hope I'm not rambling. You can also use them to designate a pause, especially in a place where you'd take a second to pause between parts of your sentence in out-loud conversation. | [
"The colon ( : ) is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line. A colon precedes an explanation or an enumeration, or list. A colon is also used with ratios, titles and subtitles of books, city and publisher in bibliographies, biblical citations between chapter and ve... |
critical reasoning - philosophy. | I have no idea what you're asking. | [
"Critical thinking is the analysis of facts to form a judgment. The subject is complex, and several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, unbiased analysis, or evaluation of factual evidence. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corre... |
If a position of a particle in the space dimensions is fuzzy, can the same be said about its position in the time dimension? | Yes. The most well-known formulation of the Uncertainty Principle relates uncertainty in position and momentum, but a second formulation relates uncertainty in energy and time - [link](_URL_0_) | [
"In the most general case, a three-dimensional coordinate system is used to define the position of a particle. However, if the particle is constrained to move within a plane, a two-dimensional coordinate system is sufficient. All observations in physics are incomplete without being described with respect to a refer... |
Would a paper plane fly on the moon? | Fly might not be the best word as it implies that there is some force causing it to stay in flight. But you could definitely throw it further, assuming your bulky space suit doesn't get in the way. It wouldn't matter if it's a paper plane or just a crumpled up ball of paper, it'd "fly" just the same since there is no air and thus aerodynamics don't play a part at all. Shouldn't be too hard to throw it several hundred metres, again assuming no bulky space suits. And professional baseball pitchers could throw it at least a few kilometres. | [
"BULLET::::- Philippe Lheureux – French author of \"Lumières sur la Lune\". An English language edition was published in 2003, \"Moon Landings: Did NASA Lie?\" He said that astronauts did land on the Moon, but to stop other states from benefiting from scientific information in the real photos, NASA published fake i... |
Would the weapons of the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae be made from bronze or iron? | To answer this one must consider both the rank and status of these soldiers and also the time period.
300BC is generally considered as being within the Iron Age, where Iron, instead of Bronze, was being more widely used. This began at an estimated time of 800BC, a good 500 years before Thermopylae.
Further, if one considered that these 300 Spartans (please do bear in mind that there were at least 6000 other soldiers from all over Greece fighting in the same battle) were Hoplites who were the among the heaviest armoured Spartan Infantry we can assume that they had the best equipment.
Further, they fought with their King, who one would assume to have the best armour and weaponry money could buy and have his best men with him.
Thus, if we consider all such factors we would conclude that generally the Hoplites would have iron short swords and iron blades on their spears. Bronze was mainly used in their armour (breastplate and, in particular, greaves. However, their breastplate tended to be rather heavy and so more commonly used were bits of hardened fabric glued together).
It would be somewhat understandable that people you've talked to would assume they had bronze weaponry as bronze was still a good metal to use as a weapon and they did have bronze armour, but the problem with bronze is that it bends very, very easily and if we consider that these soldiers fought for several days and for several hours on each of these days it wouldn't be very likely that they would have bronze weaponry as it would bend and break during the conflict.
Hope I answered your question. | [
"458—The Battle of Tanagra: According to Thucydides, Spartans aided the Dorians by invading Greece, because they were motivated by ethnic solidarity. Sparta sent out 1500 Hoplites and an additional 10,000 from their allies' forces to suppress the Phocians' Army invading Doris. The Spartans were victorious, but they... |
what is the goal of bacteria or viruses that make humans sick? why do they weaken their host? | They all "want" to live, divide and spread. They basically use your body as food and a living ground and a factory (viruses). Often the symptoms of a disease are just a side effect of them using your body and it fighting back (e.g. pain, fever), but sometimes the symptoms help spreading them (sneezing).
Evolution plays a big part here:
Over the long term, it is against the interest of pathogens (bacteria, viruses, etc.) to kill or damage its host body, since a dead human does not move around, limiting the chances to spread to other humans. We see that usually diseases become less damaging the longer they have infected humans (decades to millennia). AIDS viruses already have become less deadly. Ebola on the other hand is a very deadly disease, but quite rare, because people die before they can spread it a lot.
On the other side is the common cold. Theses viruses are so successful, because they only make you sneeze a lot, but leave you enough energy to still go everywhere. They are the most "successful" disease, and due to their adaptation to the body, only make you sick a little bit. | [
"Once pathogens attach to host cells, they can cause direct damage as the pathogens use the host cell for nutrients and produce waste products. For example, \"Streptococcus mutans\", a component of dental plaque, metabolizes dietary sugar and produces acid as a waste product. The acid decalcifies the tooth surface ... |
how do we calculate the fat and protein percentage in meat? | As far as I understand it, as a 5 year old myself, it's based on a calorimeter reading, which is essentially destroying an identical food in a controlled chamber to evaluate its energy potential (calories are a measure of energy, actually representing kilocalories) based on heat changes, combined with density and weight values already known. So, for example, a 12 oz sirloin can be calculated as we have the weight, a volume, and with those we have overall density.
Using measures we already know about the difference in density for fats and proteins, we can actually use the weight of the food compared to the volume (a volumetricly smaller 12 oz steak is leaner than a larger, fatty steak.) And we can double check using the calorie count (proportionally, fats are worth 9 cal and proteins are 4) to confirm measurements, as I understood in my high school chem class.
Edit: was corrected on proteins and fats. Thanks!! | [
"As a result, the analytical method that is universally recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), United Nations University (UNU) and the United States National Academy ... |
How did the Tribes in Pre-Roman Europe live? | I'm going to crib an answer from some older posts that I've written about pre-Roman Gaul and Central Europe more generally. But to start, I'd like to clarify one thing - generally the use of the term 'tribe' in that way is very problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, it conflates the social and political units which should be viewed as a separate objects. On a more general level, the term 'tribe' is unsatisfactory because it carries very derogatory undertones and is amazingly vaguely defined. Anyways, to answer your question, I'll address some aspects of Gallic/Continental Celtic societies during the period that you're interested in:
> Hallstatt and La Tène weren't cultures as you might imagine them, but material cultures. This means that when you see someone describe something as "Halstatt", they are referring to a set of similar artistic designs, stylistic weapon shapes, jewelry, clothing and pottery that were found across central Europe during the early Iron Age, not a distinct culture with a single language, social structure, economic mode of production etc. It also refers to polities that existed within a cultural zone where the use of either material culture was widespread. Both correlate with proto-Celtic and Celtic speaking peoples living in central Europe but one did not have to speak a Celtic language to use the Halstatt material culture, nor did one have to use that material culture if they spoke a Celtic language.
> So to answer your question more directly, Hallstatt material culture existed from about 1200-475/500 BC, and was mostly restricted to central Europe. Most of our examples of Hallstatt culture come from hillforts and princely tombs constructed in that period, probably by Celtic speakers, although Hallstatt culture probably extended to other linguistic groups, moreso than the La Tene culture would. Because the period of Hallstatt culture's existence is so long, archaeologists split it into four phases: A and B, which took place during the late Bronze Age, and C and D which were the transitional period between the Bronze and early Iron ages. During its initial stages, polities in the Hallstatt cultural zone were probably very small as archaeological evidence in the form of farmsteads and tiny villages do not suggest complex political organization, although burials of children with high status goods do suggest the hereditary transfer of status. Communities in the Hallstatt zone from periods A-C were clusters of farmsteads that roughly encircled a small village, tomb/religious sanctuary or a small hillfort. They would have been ruled by a chief living in one of the farmsteads, and disparity in wealth was not great. These communities were likely autonomous political entities theorized to have been between 7-15km in diameter.
> By the C period (900-600 BC), things change completely. The number of fortified sites such as hillforts expands dramatically as a small fortification ruled by a hereditary aristocrat becomes the nucleus for nearly every community. Iron working becomes widespread (although most people doubtlessly continued to use bronze or even stone/wooden tools) and trade routes open up, with Mediterranean goods coming through the Alps via Italy, Baltic amber being traded southwards and salt mined at sites like Hallstatt being traded in all directions, which was likely the basis for the increase in importance and wealth of the hereditary aristocracy.
> During the final D period of Hallstatt culture (600-450/500 BC), contact and trade with Greek and Etruscan polities becomes much more frequent, and will fundamentally change the political and social organization of the 'Celtic' world in central Europe. The establishment of Greek colonies in southern France moved the focus of political power from the Alpine region westwards, as polities closer to the supply of Greek commodities, increasing their political capital as Mediterranean goods were central in the Hallstatt prestige economy, dominated chiefdoms with unequal access to prestige goods. Because of this, centralized polities of an unprecedented scale for temperate Europe emerged, only to collapse and disintegrate around the 5th century. The first descriptions of Celtic peoples in Antiquity take place during this period as well, as the collapse of Hallstatt polities correlates with a period of massive Celtic expansion into the periphery of the Mediterranean world; it was during this period that Celtic peoples like the Boii and Senones invaded the Italian peninsula and settled in Cisalpine Gaul.
> Increasing contact with the Mediterranean and the collapse of Hallstatt polities led to the development of the La Tene culture within the Hallstatt zone. This combined artistic elements of the the temperate European and Mediterranean worlds to create a material culture that is recognizably "Celtic". As well, the 'center' of this cultural zone shifted from the Alps to Gaul, but it was much more expansive than its predecessor, reaching from Ireland to Romania, and from Spain to Scotland. During the La Tene period political centralization increased rapidly; coins were minted in the La Tene cultural zone and quickly changed from being mere prestige goods collected for their intrinsic value and began circulating as currency, indicating the presence of political authorities that guaranteed their worth. Significantly large settlements (oppida) appear during the La Tene period and become fortified with ramparts relatively quickly. Oppida were either formed around existing settlements or consciously constructed and had their populations moved inside in a short amount of time. These sites can be qualified as towns and served as the center of political and economic power for the territory that surrounded them.
> Arms and armour become significantly bigger and badder than those of the Hallstatt period, with the development of massive longswords, 4 foot long shields, chain mail and sophisticated helmets with neck-guards, as well as the four-pommel saddle which ended the use of chariots in warfare as cavalry became more dependable. Social stratification is much more evident than during the Hallstatt period, with society being largely controlled by a warrior-aristocracy and druidic caste drawn from that same aristocracy, the emergence of specialized craftsmen in oppida and the existence of a possibly substantial slave population. It is towards the end of the La Tene period that states actually emerge in temperate Europe, mostly in Gaul and southern England. In fact, Caesar describes many Gallic notables as magistrates elected yearly rather than hereditary kings, which may or may not be a simplification of Gallic political offices for Caesar's republican readership. The commercial use of coinage combined with written demographic documents described by Caesar indicate that a class of individuals endowed with administrative powers likely existed, at least in southern and central Gaul. By the time of the Caesarian conquest of Gaul beginning in 58 BC, many polities in the La Tene cultural zone had attained the qualifications of statehood, or were just on the cusp of becoming state societies. These claims aren't universal across the La Tene world and mostly characterize Gaul and southern England; the first indigenous state society in Ireland only emerged around the 12/13th century AD while coinage and urban settlements were only introduced there by Scandinavians in the 9th century AD.
> La Tene culture sort of died out in continental Europe after the Caesarian conquest of Gaul but existed for some time under Roman rule. It did continue to exist in Ireland and Britain for several centuries, and continued to evolve with influence from Eastern Mediterranean monastic Christianity, Scandinavian artistic forms and so on.
Continued in post 2... | [
"In Roman times, the region was populated by various tribes of Celto-Germanic admixture, including Celtic-based tribes – like the \"Galice\" or \"Gaulics\" and \"Bolihinii\" or \"Volhynians\" – the Lugians and Cotini of Celtic, Vandals and Goths of Germanic origins (the Przeworsk and Púchov cultures). During the Gr... |
humble bundles.. and how it works from the game developers' perspective. also.. how much does each dev get from a bundle? | Not sure about the first question, but the amount the developers get is determined by the buyers themselves. When you buy a bundle from the site you can choose how to split the money between all the developers, the charities and the humble bundle site. | [
"Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and the rest split between the game developers. Humble Bundle continues to o... |
when is self defense legal in the usa? | You are justified in using force to stop the credible threat of imminent force against your person. For example if you were struck and you needed to fight back to prevent further attack it would be justified.
On the other hand if you were just struck once and had no good reason to think the attack would continue, your striking back would not be justified. If you could have just walked away like you did later, you could be charged with battery. | [
"In both \"Heller\" (2008) and \"McDonald\" (2010) the Supreme Court deemed that the right of self-defense is at least partly protected by the United States Constitution. The court left details of that protection to be worked out in future court cases.\n",
"Self-defense laws in the United States, particularly reg... |
why does canada have such high gas prices? | > They say we're amongst the most oil-rich nations in the world, yet we're paying twice as much for gas as we were 10 years ago.
Canada has a lot of oil, but your car runs on gas. They have to sell oil to the US to be refined, then buy back the gasoline. | [
"Even with oil market fluctuations, prices for gasoline in the United States are among the lowest in the industrialized world; this is principally due to lower taxes. While the sales price of gasoline in Europe is more than twice that in the United States, the price of gas excluding taxes is nearly identical in the... |
why is counterfeiting and copying is so rampant in china? | It is not a lack of innovation...it is just about money.
Most of what China manufactures is for export, that's the backbone of their economy. So long as it makes money, and don't hurt Chinese companies, the government doesn't put a lot of effort into enforcement.
This is a huge point of contention with other countries, China's unwillingness to enforce intellectual property laws. | [
"Chinese authorities also ordered copies of \"Time Magazine\" sold there to remove a story about tainted Chinese products. Apparently, other stories about faulty exports have been censored. Officials have argued that they have been \"smeared\" by media agencies and were planning to take retaliatory sanctions agains... |
why are all of the walmart employees going on strike? | 1. The economy doesn't work like that. There aren't a lot of jobs in a lot of places. Unemployment may be back to relatively close to pre-2007 but the jobs that have been coming back have been created have overwhelmingly been low wage jobs. Throw onto that the fact that they put many small businesses out of business since they can't compete with the prices at Walmart, and Walmart can only sell at those prices by paying poverty wages at nearly every level of their operation.
2. Why not? Somebody has to stand up to Walmart, and politicians won't. All Walmart cares about is making money, and they don't make money if workers don't work. They are using collective action to make Walmart listen and respect their right to form a union. Walmart pretty much by policy violates labor laws every day by firing pro-union workers, telling employees not to talk about how much they make, and even making people work off the clock.
3. Service work us the new bedrock of our economy. You can't outsource it. It's here to stay. We can decide to make those jobs good middle class jobs. You probably think of jobs in manufacturing as solid middle class jobs. Well, until workers in the 20s and 30s started striking in the steel mills, paper mills, etc., those jobs were the worst, most dangerous, lowest paying jobs around. But those workers fought to form unions, make their voices heaed, and made a whole new class of middle class jobs that led to the great expansion of the middle class in the 50s and 60s. We have the opportunity to make that choice now. And right now, wealth inequality is at levels we haven't seen since 1929, so it seems like as good a time as ever. | [
"In November 2012, the United Food & Commercial Workers joined with several Walmart workers with a plan to go on strike on Black Friday at several stores nationwide in protest to low pay, an increase in health insurance premiums, and not being given the option to have the day off or having Thanksgiving off. Walmart... |
set theory in mathematics. | Sets are collections of objects. Set theory is a formal way to look at "collections of objects" and apply math to them (define what it means to add, subtract, multiply, intersect, etc.) these things. Why? Because it's useful; some things in reality are related and could be grouped together as a collection, and being able to do math with them opens the door to doing other sciences with them. | [
"Set theory is the branch of mathematics that studies sets, which are collections of objects, such as {blue, white, red} or the (infinite) set of all prime numbers. Partially ordered sets and sets with other relations have applications in several areas.\n",
"Set theory is a branch of mathematical logic that studi... |
'critical mass' in nuclear plants | A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile (material that is capable of sustaining a chain reaction of nuclear fission) needed for a nuclear chain reaction. | [
"A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, the nuclear fission cross-section), its density, its shape, its enrichment, its purity, its temperature, and its s... |
How did the demographics of the Roman army change under the Republic? What social and cultural changes came about as a consequence? | Off the top of my head, the reforms of Gaius Marius seem to be the most relevant topic to start with.
Marius raised armies from the Head Count, which were a teeming mass of the lowest class of citizens in Rome. Previously, armies had been raised from landholders and their sons, but as Rome had more land to protect, it needed greater numbers of men to protect it. His troops performed quite well, but they were supplied by the State rather than out of each soldier's pockets, making warfare much more expensive. This broke the tradition of a three-class army of hastati, principes, and triarii.
His soldiers were usually rewarded with land, creating a tradition of strong loyalty in a particular region to one general or faction. It wasn't long before Roman armies became very culturally diverse, with different legions raised from all over the budding empire over the years. This would see Gauls, Numidians, Greeks, etc. serving under Roman colors. | [
"Shaped by major social, political, and economic change, the late Republic saw the transition from the Roman army of the mid-Republic, which was a temporary levy based solely on the conscription of Roman citizens, to the Imperial Roman army of the Principate, which was a standing, professional army based on the rec... |
how can a tiny magnet be stronger than the whole earth's gravity, when i pick up a little peace of metal from off the ground? | Short answer: gravity is actually really freaking weak compared to things like electromagnetism and the weak and strong atomic forces.
However, gravity is also mono-polar. What this means is that while you have north and south magnetic poles and positive and negative electrical charge, there is no anti-gravity that is paired to gravity.
Therefore, at the larger scales, the stronger forces end up canceling each other out with their opposites while gravity just continuously adds up, not giving a fuck. | [
"The greater force exerted by rare-earth magnets creates hazards that are not seen with other types of magnet. Magnets larger than a few centimeters are strong enough to cause injuries to body parts pinched between two magnets or a magnet and a metal surface, even causing broken bones. Magnets allowed to get too ne... |
american psycho | What don't you understand? | [
"American Psycho is a musical with music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik and a book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. It is based on the controversial 1991 novel \"American Psycho\" by Bret Easton Ellis, which also inspired a 2000 film of the same name, which starred Christian Bale. Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom... |
How were non-staple crops grown in medieval and earlier times? | This is a very large question, so I'm going to try to touch briefly on all aspects of it, without giving a complete history of European agriculture. If you want more detail on any area, shout and I'll do my best, and there's a solid list of sources at the end.
Legumes were a field crop as well as grains - in the later medieval era, they were part of the new three-field rotation, where a grain was planted in year one, a legume in year two, and then the land was left fallow for the third before going back to grain again.
Hard fruits (apples, pears, quinces) and stoned fruits (damsons, plums, etc) were grown in orchards, or in the case of crab apples, were found wild. Soft fruits are harder to pin down, but many of them would have been picked from the wild as well. For some odd reason, many documentary sources mention strawberries, but few mention blackberries or raspberries (although archaeobotanical work has shown their seeds present in medieval middens and other remnant area).
Commercial selling wasn't really a thing in the same way it is in the modern era. There were a few reasons for this - it was very hard to preserve non-grain crops for transport, there weren't large markets into which to sell, and there was a degree to which buying from a producer and selling to the public was frowned upon, or even illegal. There were various names for the practice - regrating (buying goods in small lots and selling them together), forestalling (meeting goods coming to market, buying them up and reselling at a higher price), and huckstery (buying goods and reselling from a tray or wagon). So in most areas of Medieval Europe, you bought from the producer, or you didn't buy at all, and vice versa.
Almost everyone, peasant or noble estate, kept a kitchen garden of some kind. At the poorest level, it held onions and not a lot more. At higher levels (monasteries in particular) there were incredible arrays of vegetables and herbs - the border between food and medicine was a lot more porous than it is now. This is a thing that actually seems to be true pretty much worldwide, even in urban areas; our post-Victorian lack of kitchen gardens sets us aside from most of history in a pretty marked fashion.
Wild food was good for variety - a lot more hedgerow and forest plants are edible than we really take account of, and things like wild garlic, young nettles, hazel nuts, and so forth added seasonal variation on otherwise plain pottages and breads (and in the case of the nettles, the stalks could also be made into a linen-like cloth).
Almost nobody, however, grew only one crop. Since crops were almost always for immediate consumption as well as for sale, if you grew one crop and it failed, you were done for. And given that medieval grain crops were not nearly as productive as today, sometimes only giving a 1:2 or 1:3 return on grain planted, even a successful year was pretty tight. Many medieval folk planted *maslin*, a mixture of two or more grains (often wheat and rye) in one field, so that if one failed, at least the other would come up. And supplementary crops, the kitchen gardens, and wild food were all relied on as well. The exception to that seems to have been grape-growers, who were often completely reliant on the grape harvest - which was occasionally disastrous.
**Sources:**
Vera. K. Ninez, Household Gardens: Theoretical Considerations on an Old Survival Strategy (1984)
Amandine Cornille, et al, *New Insight into the History of Domesticated Apple: Secondary Contribution of the European Wild Apple to the Genome of Cultivated Varieties*
Steve Hindle, 'Rural Society' in Beat Kumin, *The European World 1500-1800* (2009)
Grenville G. Astill and John Langdon, *Medieval Farming and Technology: The Impact of Agricultural Change in Northwest Europe* (1997)
Bruce M. S. Campbell and Mark Overton, 'A New Perspective on Medieval and Early Modern Agriculture: Six Centuries of Norfolk Farming c.1250-c.1850' in *Past & Present*, (1993) No. 141, pp 38-105.
Christopher Dyer, *Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520* (2002) | [
"Field crops included wheat, rye, barley and oats; they were used for bread and animal fodder. Peas, beans, and vetches became common from the 13th century onward as food and as a fodder crop for animals; it also had nitrogen-fixation fertilizing properties. Crop yields peaked in the 13th century, and stayed more o... |
why is it soothing to breathe in with your mouth after eating something super spicy? and why does is hurt more while exhaling? | Cool air in. Warm air out. The same reason cool water soothes a burn and hot makes it worse. The air on your lungs is warmed by your body and isn’t as cool as the air coming into your mouth. | [
"This may usually be prevented by rinsing the mouth with water after using the inhaler. Other adverse drug reaction side effects may rarely include: a smell similar to burning plastic, unpleasant taste, hoarseness or nasal congestion, pain or headache, and visual changes. Allergic reactions may occur, but rarely.\n... |
- why does it matter how much a presidential candidate raises for campaign contributions. isn't it associating votes for money? | The media portrays a candidate's ability to raise money as a signal of several things:
* 1 - Their base is happy with them.
* 2 - Wealthy people think the candidate is viable.
* 3 - They have a good organization of campaign staff supporting them.
It's all a sort of feedback loop. The better a candidate does, the more money people are willing to donate because they think their money will be well spent on a candidate that wins. And the more money a candidate raises the better people feel they are doing.
| [
"One of the most important aspects of the major American political campaign is the ability to raise large sums of money, especially early on in the race. Political insiders and donors often judge candidates based on their ability to raise money. Not raising enough money early on can lead to problems later as donors... |
Using flint to make a spark, how does that work? | Contrary to common understanding, the spark doesn't come from the flint, but from the firesteel
The flint is just acting as an extremely hard knife which slices or scrapes off pieces of steel. The effort of slicing the steel and bending it out of the way takes a lot of force, and generates a lot of heat.
The harder the steel, the more force is needed, and the more heat is generated (which is why you can't use any old hunk of iron, you need a fully hardened piece of steel, like a file). Eventually, if the steel is hard enough, it gets so hot as its ripped off that it actually burns in the air and that is the spark that you see.
You can test the flammability of steel for yourself (outside, in a safe place) by lighting a piece of steel wool on fire. The high surface area of the wool, like the tiny shavings of sparks, allows it to burn easily. | [
"The flint is held in a clamp at the end of a bent lever called the cock. Upon pulling the trigger, this moves forward under the pressure of a strong spring and strikes a curved plate of hardened steel (called simply the steel, or in 17th century English dialect the frizzen) to produce a shower of sparks (actually ... |
How historically accurate are Vietnam War movies? | Wouldn't that be part of your assignment though? To figure out just how accurate it is? I'll be happy to point you to books that can answer your question, but I will comply with the stance that AskHistorians have:
> Our users aren't here to do your homework for you, but they might be willing to help. Remember: **AskHistorians helps those who help themselves.** Don't just give us your essay/assignment topic and ask us for ideas. Do some research of your own, then come to us with questions about what you've learned. | [
"After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, there was an increase in American films that were more \"raw\", containing actual battle footage. A FilmReference.com article noted that American filmmakers \"appeared more confident to put Vietnam combat on screen for the first time\" during that era. These American post-war f... |
How big would a pool of water need to be for a human being to survive a plugged-in toaster dropped in it? | [Someone tried this.](_URL_1_). You need to be surprisingly close to the hot wires before you can even feel it
Skip ahead and he uses a voltmeter to measure the voltage. At [~3 inches from the live wires the voltmeter is reading less than 5 volts](_URL_0_), which is not enough to pass through your skin | [
"The company Caroma in Australia developed the Duoset cistern with two buttons and two flush volumes as a water-saving measure in 1980. Modern versions of the Duoset are now available worldwide, and save the average household 67% of their normal water usage.\n",
"In 2010, about 56% of the global population (5.9 b... |
why does the u.s. grow so much corn? | Because we do a lot with corn. It's used to eat, to feed to livestock, to make oil and sweetener, to distill into ethanol, etc. Corn is native to this part of the world and it grows well. Why *wouldn't* we grow so much corn? | [
"The production of corn (\"Zea mays mays\", also known as \"maize\") plays a major role in the economy of the United States. The US is the largest corn producer in the world, with of land reserved for corn production. Corn growth is dominated by west/north central Iowa and east central Illinois. Approximately 13% o... |
What are some of the most controversial actions taken by the CIA or FBI? | 1973 Chilean coup d'etat
The Nixon administration and the CIA assisted in the overthrow of democratically-elected Salvadore Allende. Allende was a socialist (gasp!), and therefore not particularly well liked by Washington. Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean Army's Commander in Chief, took over the government and implemented more US-friendly neoliberal policies. | [
"The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971. COINTELPRO tactics are still used to this day, and have been alleged to include discrediting targets through psychological warfa... |
How did cleanup in Nagasaki and Hiroshima proceed following the atom bombs? | The mental image that most people see when they think of the damage caused by Little Boy and Fat Man being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is something like [this](_URL_4_): a wide expanse of rubble, debris, and hollowed out buildings; with the bodies of the victims vaporized by the immense destructive power of the nuclear explosion. This however, is a misconception. The vast majority of deaths caused by the nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were due to severe burns, lacerations, and crushing damage from falling debris and collapsing buildings. About 85% of the deaths could be traced to these causes, no different from a normal bombing raid that Japan was subject to. Only about 15% of deaths would be due to acute radiation poisoning, something unique to the atomic weapons. But these people would not have been vaporized or obliterated. Their burned and battered corpses would have littered the rubble of the destroyed cities; some 90,000 corpses in the case of Hiroshima, with a further 75,000 in Nagasaki.
The reason most pictures of the ruins don't show these tens of thousands of dead bodies is that they were almost all taken months after the attacks, during the US occupation of Japan. The photo I linked above was taken in October of 1945, two months after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The Japanese civil defense forces had already recovered and buried the vast majority of the dead from among the rubble at that point. There are few pictures of the immediate aftermath of the attacks, but the Japanese military photographer Yosuke Yamahata did take a few pictures on August 10th in Nagasaki, the day after the bombing. *warning, pictures of severe injuries and corpses at the links* [Here](_URL_0_) are [some](_URL_1_) [examples](_URL_3_). The photographer would later die of cancer of the duodenum. From these pictures, you can get some idea of the massive number of burial parties and medical teams that would be necessary to comb through the wreckage of the cities and recover the dead, and treat the wounded.
While the atomic bombs were unique in their destructive power, as one bomb could now do the job of an entire air wing, the Japanese had already endured dozens of cities being similarly destroyed by the saturation bombing of the US air force. The Japanese military and civil defense forces were thus well drilled in fighting the fires started in the wake of bombings, treating the wounded, and burying the dead. These are the primary tasks that would have been conducted in the first days and weeks after the bombing. On August 7th, a Hiroshima Security
Headquarters was established under the command of a Vice Admiral, with the goal of medical services being provided and the dead disposed of within 3 days of the attack. After the dead had been buried and the wounded had been sent to whatever medical facilities were available, the task of surveying and clearing the vast fields of rubble and debris began. This process took the better part of 2 years to complete. First, the rubble was cleared from the major streets, allowing trucks and heavy equipment better access to the site. [Here](_URL_5_) we can see the progress, as by March of 1946, the main roads have been cleared of debris, and many of the ruined buildings have been demolished and cleared away. This being done, it was possible to start restoring the infrastructure necessary to rebuild the city; water and sewage lines, electrical lines, food distribution, etc. By August of 1947, two years after the bombing, the majority of those living in Hiroshima were still in temporary shelters, but there were stores and homes being rebuilt already. This can be seen [here](_URL_2_) in a series of panoramic photos by Shunkichi Kikuchi.
A small number of the City of Hiroshima staff were still in place after the attack, and worked hard to ensure food distribution and production in the city. They went so far as to distribute seeds and promote gardening on a small scale as starvation was a real possibility. On August 21 1945, they met the in the ruined city hall with the occupying US forces, who laid out a program of privatizing military resources and demobilizing students and soldiers in the area.
The pace of reconstruction was slow, as the city was estimated to require some 2 billion yen to rebuild, and the city's reconstruction budget in 1947 was only 56 million yen. In the absence of city or federal investment, most of the early reconstruction in Hiroshima was done by private citizens acting on their own initiative.
| [
"In the spring of 1948, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) was established in accordance with a presidential directive from Truman to the National Academy of Sciences–National Research Council to conduct investigations of the late effects of radiation among the survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1956, ... |
How did the relationship between the Seminole clan of Florida and Florida State University come to be? | Keeping it brief since my memory is fuzzy, but if I remember right FSU had an old generic 'Indian' mascot with the label Seminole that was found to be extremely offensive. After some controversy an agreement was reached between local tribes and the Uni to keep the mascot on a couple of conditions. They had a group brought in to revamp the old mascot to feature a Seminole hero. Classes about Native American history was also later added.
I think I've heard of other Seminole tribes being not very happy with the Floridian sect because of their cooperation with the University.
Why they chose Seminoles in particular to be their mascots in the first place I have no idea (other than the Seminoles being a prominent local tribe), but I imagine its for the same reasons that schools, sports teams, etc. use other groups of people as mascots (a common non-Native American one I can think of off the top of my head are the Spartans).
More generic Native American terms like Indians and Red Skins are of course still around. Extremely outdated and quite frankly silly that people still argue over changing them because of "tradition".
Why can't we all just stick to animal mascots? | [
"Although today the term Seminole is used, this name originated due to a European misnomer, which categorized a diverse group of autonomous tribes together under the name Seminole. The Spanish first recognized the speakers of the \"core language\" Mvskoke, and called them \"cimarrones,\" or \"free people\" (Seminol... |
why do characters in games have a separated "graphic model" and a "hit box model"? why can't the graphic model be used to detect hits? | There's probably multiple reasons, to start though hit detection can be expensive depending on the complexity of the model and the speed of the game (the faster things move the more often you have to check and the less time you have to complete that check).
The more complex the "hit detection" model, the more intensive it is to check. Take two spheres for example. If you know the center point and radius of both spheres, all you need to do is ask "Is the distance from center A to center B equal to or smaller than the radius of A + B?" If the answer is yes, the objects have collided. This gets slightly more complex with rectangles, but it's still pretty easy.
Now if you change one object to a polygon with 800 sides/polys (a very simply character model in modern times). You now have to check the position of all 800 sides to determine if it collided with another object because you don't have a single "center" for all polygons and can't simply check distance from a non-existent center. | [
"Different graphic styles are used throughout. The game is usually displayed in a top-down perspective, showing representations of the different locations while the player is represented by the # symbol. Several segments of the game make use of all-text screens with limited ASCII animation, while other segments use... |
Why is it that women significantly underperformed compared to men in chess when it is a purely intellectual activity/sport? | You can find an answer to your question [here](_URL_0_) | [
"BULLET::::- \"The difference between the sexes is remarkable in chess, but not any more so, to my mind, than in any other field of cultural activity. Women cannot play chess, but they cannot paint either, or write, or philosophize. In fact, women have never thought or made anything worth considering.\"\n",
"Duri... |
why most clothing manufacturers don't make women's pants with specific widths and lengths like men's pants. | There are different schools of thought on this but these are the main 3 I learned in school/work:
*Women's clothes have incorporated more and more stretch/spandex material which gives, quite literally, more wiggle room when it comes to sizing.
*More and more of your clothing is coming from China/Vietnam and they do not have a standard set of measurements (a size 8=so many inches) and you can basically set a size range for yourself as a company/designer. If your customer tends to be a little bigger, then you can up the measurements on every size of the garment while still having a recognizable sizing scale. Every company will also have a "fit model" who is about a size 6/8 and they will scale sizes down and up from the measurements taken from the garment that fits this model.
*Women tend to carry fat in a BUNCH of different places compared to men. Sizing for women from bust point to waist to hip is a nightmare (I'm currently 3 different sizes in all of those points) so having a numbered sizing scale (size 2,4,6 etc.) allows for a range of inch measurements underneath each size. They also create these sizing scales typically on a woman who is fairly proportional (the fit model is the adequate weight for her height) so if you've got a bit of junk in the trunk or you're a bit top heavy, most fast fashion companies are not going to be able to compensate for that.
Sorry that went on forever, I hope I answered your question.
Source: I have a bachelor's degree in merchandising with a focus in apparel | [
"Since the 1970s and the rise of pants/trousers for women as an option for all but the most formal of occasions, no one skirt length has dominated fashion for long, with short and ankle-length styles often appearing side-by-side in fashion magazines and catalogs.\n",
"Clothing designed to be worn by either sex is... |
what exactly happens during the process of making glass so it gets transparent? | When light is absorbed by a material, the electrons are struck by a photon and jump up one or more energy levels. However, it has to be struck by a very specific frequency of light in order to be absorbed. Most opaque materials can absorb a huge range of frequencies within the visible spectrum. Glass, however, cannot absorb any of the visible frequencies of light.
It's like picking up a ball (electron) and putting it on a shelf (energy level). You (the photon) can only reach up so high; if you can't reach, there's nowhere to place the ball (electron) except the floor (ground state). Since you didn't put the ball on the shelf, you didn't exert yourself (get absorbed), and could move on to find a different ball and shelf pair (atom). If all of the shelves are too high, you'll walk through the warehouse full of shelves (the material) without ever lifting a ball up, and someone will see you exit the other side. | [
"Although silica glass is naturally colorless, chemical imperfections in naturally occurring silica sometimes results in discoloration during the production process. Historically, glass makers have compensated for this by adding a chemical decolorizer. Since ancient times, one of the most common chemical decolorize... |
Why does the Shingles virus cause a rash? | As you know, but I'm restating, Shingles is merely a reactivation of the varicella zoster virus. The primary infection is commonly called Chicken Pox. After the primary infection, some of the virus will stay sequestered in the dorsal root ganglion of your nerves.
The reason it manifests in the way it does is that when it reactivates it reactivates along a nerve branch. On your skin we call this a dermatome. It simply means the area of skin innervated by a particular nerve branch.
This is the reason the blisters happen in a patch. The virus has been reactivated in that dermatome. The reason for the blistering is that it goes from the nerve fiber endings into your dermis.
As a fun note, herpes simplex virus acts very similarly but goes dormant in the trigeminal nerve ganglion (for cold sores) and the ganglion assigned to the genitals (for genital herpes). | [
"Shingles, also known as zoster or herpes zoster, is a viral disease characterized by a painful skin rash with blisters in a localized area. Typically the rash occurs in a single, wide stripe either on the left or right side of the body or face. Two to four days before the rash occurs there may be tingling or local... |
Do black holes cause nuclear fusion? My guess is not, so why not? | Because nuclei do not exist in black holes. With no nuclei, there is no nuclear fusion. | [
"Not all supernovae are triggered by runaway nuclear fusion. Type Ib, Ic and type II supernovae also undergo core collapse, but because they have exhausted their supply of atomic nuclei capable of undergoing exothermic fusion reactions, they collapse all the way into neutron stars, or in the higher-mass cases, stel... |
When a doctor gives you a specific percentage (like there’s a 10% possibility that you will be cured), what is that percentage based on? | Part of it is surely guesstimation, but more than anything, the doctor has access to data about the survival rates of a certain disease. Something like this one: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)
In other words, hard numbers about how many people in the past have been cured and how many have not.
Of course, real doctors have access to medical journals with state-of-the-art studies, and thus, possibly more accurate data. More common diseases are likely to have much metastudies done about their survival rates and possibly there is enough data to determine the survival rate with respect to variables such as age, sex, etc. The estimate can then be improved by using what they know about you and using more specific statistics.
(edit) That linked page actually has estimates with respect to ethnicity and sex, if you scroll a bit down. | [
"Prescription drug dosage is based typically on body weight. Drugs come with a recommended dose in milligrams or micrograms per kilogram of body weight, and that is used in conjunction with the patient's body weight to determine a safe dosage. In single dosage scenarios, the patient's body weight and the drug's rec... |
Do all gases with similar degrees of freedom "gain" temperature at the same rate? | Yes, the equation doesn't lie. But the assumptions that go into the equation are hidden. Everything you've said is correct for an ideal gas. If you bring your system into a situation where it doesn't behave ideally, then there are additional parameters which vary between substances. For example, the next simplest model for a gas would be the Van der Waals equation of state. In this new equation of state there are two parameters "a" and "b" which are specific to a particular gas. This is unlike the ideal gas equation of state which holds for an arbitrary substance as long as the ideal approximation is valid.
Edit: I forgot to supply some links for addition information. [Here is an overview of the VdW equation of state](_URL_1_), and [here](_URL_0_) is something a little more in depth. | [
"These extra degrees of freedom or \"modes\" contribute to the specific heat of the substance. Namely, when heat energy is injected into a gas with polyatomic molecules, only part of it will go into increasing their kinetic energy, and hence the temperature; the rest will go to into those other degrees of freedom. ... |
why are some large cities like austin, tx, chicago, il, and atlanta, ga so under-represented in most media? | Think of this from the other way. That is why are most TV shows set in LA or NY, and not say Phoenix, AZ or Pittsburgh, PA.
Well, here's a few reasons: 1) Most TV is shot in LA or NY. 2) Most people who work in the TV business, production or otherwise, live in LA or NY 3) LA and NY are the two largest markets in the US, which means you already have a built in, very large audience for setting your show there [Chicago is market #3 and actually get a good sized portion of TV, as there is studio production there too] 4) Since most production is done in LA/NY, doing remote production in Austin or Memphis can get difficult and expensive (side note, for tax and financial reasons, you often see shows shot in Albuquerque, NM or Vancouver, BC as you can shoot cheaply there, though the shows are generally not set in those locations)
| [
"New York City has always been given the unique rating 1-AAAA due to its preeminent status in the national hierarchy. Chicago was originally the only other city rated 1-AAA as having influence over a large area of the country. In 1988, Los Angeles was similarly given a 1-AAA rating. Thirteen cities are given the ra... |
what is the limit to seeing back in time? | You cannot see past the part of the universe expanding faster than the speed of light
Essentially imagine yourself on a endless roll of carpet.
If the speed you can run at is 5mph, and the carpet unrolls at 6mph, you will never get to the end of the roll, it will forever unroll and get further and further away from you.
This explanation is somewhat convoluted but i believe it's the gist of it.
If you swap the unrolling carpet for the expansion of the universe and the running person with the speed of light then you have the limit to seeing back in time. | [
"In physics, a theoretical lower-bound unit of time called the Planck time has been proposed, that being the time required for light to travel a distance of 1 Planck length. The Planck time is theorized to be the smallest time measurement that will ever be possible, roughly 10 seconds. Within the framework of the l... |
Under the idea that there is the "Goldilocks" zone around a star, how likely is it that a solar system would have two life-supporting planets? | Our solar system has/had that. Venus, and mars both fall in the goldilocks zone of our system albiet the very inner edge and outer edge of it. | [
"On the other hand, the variety of star systems that might have habitable zones is not just limited to solar-type stars and Earth-sized planets. It is now estimated that even tidally locked planets close to red dwarf stars might have habitable zones, although the flaring behavior of these stars might argue against ... |
why are the ₹500 and ₹1000 notes being destroyed in india? | The main stated reason is to target "black" or untaxed money.
What the government is really going after is the hard cash that circulates off the books. By making the current 500 and 1000 rupee denominations illegal tender, anybody who has large sums of money stored in these currencies will have to go to the bank with their PAN card as well as their national ID card, otherwise their money is worthless.
This lets the government record how much money is being exchanged by an individual, and also lets them look at that money with regards to their tax payments and income returns.
If they find a discrepancy, say, a person makes 100,000 a year, but comes to exchange 300,000 worth of money with no explanation as to where that income has come from, odds are it's not legal, because no Income Tax has been paid on that. It's an extreme example, but it's just to illustrate a point.
At the same time, the government plans to roll out new denominations of 500 and 2000, ~~which are supposed to have more effective tracking technology in order to know exactly where the money is going. These new notes are supposed to have chips in them that can be found by satellites. If they find a large number of these notes accumulating in one place, it's probably being laundered or kept off the books, which would help the IRS and police raid any black money sites.~~
Edit : The bit about the chips is really an unfounded rumor. Sorry about putting that in there. One thing that's for sure is the Reserve Bank of India will be issuing new redesigned notes, which they will be able to keep track of based on the number they've printed and the serials. | [
"Due to the discovery of a large number of counterfeit Series D banknotes at the end of 2004, all Series D banknotes except ¥2000 were virtually suspended on January 17, 2005, and officially suspended on April 2, 2007. According to a news release from the National Police Agency, they seized 11,717 counterfeit Serie... |
why do jehova's witnesses have a bad rep? | I think it’s because the religion can be controlling by modern standards. Some examples include the refusal of certain medical procedures involving blood transfusions and forbidding most mainstream cultural celebrations like birthday parties. I’m sure that like most religions there exist a variety of interpretations though so maybe not all follow those restrictions | [
"Hal, during his search for Rosemary, finds that Mauricio had his own reason for stopping Hal's hypnosis: He has an inoperable vestigial tail, which has prevented him from ever getting close to a woman. Mauricio confesses he was envious of Hal's happiness and is afraid to start a relationship with a woman. Hal conv... |
Which figures from Greek mythology have a basis in reality? (e.g. were Odysseus, Agamemnon, Hercules, Oedipus etc. based on real people?) | Perhaps one of our Classical literature experts will reply to your specific questions. In general, seeking any real person behind a folk story is a fruitless and frustrating endeavor. This sorts of questions crop up frequently - in general and on this subreddit. I developed an answer for /r/askhistorians, which I used in an appendix for my [Introduction to Folklore](_URL_0_). Here is the answer I developed:
When I see the posts like this asking about whether there were real people or events behind legends, myths, and/or the ancient gods, I respond with a number of observations. First, the idea that the gods and heroes of legend are based on real people had an early proponent in the Greek, late-fourth-century BCE writer, Euhemerus, giving his name to this approach to myth and legend: Euhemerism. Folklorists generally regard the idea that there was an actual basis for most oral tradition as barking up the wrong tree, because the original “real” event behind a story is usually elusive and searching for that core is a futile exercise. In addition, research into how stories began usually concludes that they emerge in a rather spontaneous way, typically without an actual incident to inspire them.
A few examples: the Classical Greek story of Perseus is an early manifestation of a widespread folktale, catalogued by the twentieth-century folklorists Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson as AT 300, “The Dragon Slayer.” Was there a proto-Perseus who rescued a maiden from some sort of extraordinary threat or perhaps from some sort of human sacrifice? It is hard to answer that question, but it is not hard to imagine how far back in time that proto-incident would have had to occur: AT 300 is spread throughout Eurasia. It was collected from cultures that could have no conceivable literary connection with ancient Greece, and yet the shared assortment of motifs in the numerous variants clearly show some sort of genetic, that is, historically-connected relationship. Would we need, therefore, to go back thousands of years before the first recordation of the Perseus story in order to find this proto-Perseus? It is much easier to understand that the folktale simply diffused and that one of its manifestations was in ancient Greece.
Now, let’s consider another example that has inspired a lot of spilled ink. A simple Google search for the “origins of King Arthur” provides more websites than one could easily read in a week. Was there a proto-Arthur? Perhaps. Maybe there were several. But what does that prove? Every society has remarkable characters, and it may be a natural process for these sorts of individuals to attract all manner of traditional stories that have nothing to do with the original inspiration of the cycle of legends.
So what do we have with Arthur? Was there a core source (or sources) for this legendary character? Let’s concede for the sake of argument that the answer is yes. Now, did this individual have a great warrior at his side who became ensnared by the leader’s wife in the fashion of Lancelot and Guinevere? That is more problematic since this type of story is also associated with Diarmuid and Grainne in the Irish court of King Finn and with the Cornish stories of Tristan and Isolde in the court of King Mark. One could even argue that it is the story behind Helen of Troy. In fact, it appears that this was a widespread type of story that became associated with various courts of historical legend. We cannot conclude that every great king had a queen who was attracted to one of his warriors and coerced him to take her away. This is simply a story that was attached to cycles involving great courts. In short, the further one goes back to find the “real Arthur,” the less the candidate (or candidates) look like the King Arthur who has been beloved for centuries. The proto Arthurs are not really King Arthur. They may be seeds but they look nothing like the tree that would grow over the centuries. We do not hold an acorn and say “Ah, I have in my hand a mighty oak tree.” It is not yet a tree. It is a seed. And the two look very different even if they are genetically linked.
One more example: there is a widespread legend told by countless families of the ghostly appearance of a loved one in anticipation of news that the individual died. This became a popular tradition in post-Famine Ireland because so many relatives lived in North America or elsewhere. But it is frequently told by all sorts of people internationally. So we can ask, are there real-life, actual inspirations for this legend? That is, do the spirits of the dead actually come to visit loved ones? Well, how the hell should I know? To paraphrase a famous line from the television show “Star Trek,” “Damn it Jim, I’m a folklorist, not a ghost hunter.” And I have no intention of becoming a ghost hunter. It doesn’t matter what is behind stories so much as it does that people tell these stories. I’m in it for that part of the game; I consider stories as they are told over time, to gain from that material some insight into the past, into culture, and into the human condition. I am a folklorist. And with that, my plate is full.
| [
"Though the mythological characters themselves can be traced to various pre-Hellenistic sources, such as book 9 of the Odyssey, the comprehensive artistic representation of the fabled lovers’ tryst, the rejection and consequent dejection of Polyphemus and the subsequent murder of Acis was realized much later in \"O... |
how long does it take for a food to lose its nutritious value? | For a lot of foods, even following breakdown by bacteria, there can still be nutritious molecules present. The larger issue is that there may *also* be harmful microorganisms present that would hurt you more than the nutrients will help you. | [
"Perishable goods (like foods and drugs) lose all their use value after the expiration date and can't be bought nor sold as their commercial price and value falls to zero. As the drug or food expiration date comes forth, any perishable good loses its value day-by-day.\n",
"\"Sell by date\" is a less ambiguous ter... |
How did Chinese people compile dictionaries of their characters before the conveniences of modern life? | #How it was recorded in the past
You've said:
> How did people record those characters in the past, when communication, research, archival and preservation were presumably difficult feats to achieve?
But actually I'm not clear on what you mean about communication and archiving being difficult feats to achieve. China had printing presses and paper and bound books, and before that bound bamboo scrolls, stored in libraries/collections across the region. You had the Zhou administration sending people throughout the state to do surveys and collect census data. From early on, things like data collection and archiving were not that unheard of.
That said, the way it was done was the way you'd do it today, more or less. For example the Fāngyán (方言) was a very early dictionary of dialectal variation, compiled over 2000 years ago, done as a sort of regional word list (more like what you find in a phrase book than what you'd get from Webster's). People went around the country documenting what people in other places called certain things and eventually it was all compiled into a single text.
A couple centuries later, you get the Shuōwén Jiězì (說文解字), a character dictionary which is one of the earliest (if not the earliest) attempt to describe etymologies of characters. It got plenty wrong, but is still heavily relied on today by the average Chinese speaker as the go-to source for etymology (but really, it got stuff wrong, and the field of Chinese character etymology is still alive and thriving).
#Standardisation and Teaching
Chinese characters have never been all that standardised. You still see a lot of variation that's never really gone away. For example 峰 and 峯, or 群 and 羣, which are for all significant purposes the same thing. There's even more variation which unfortunately isn't really supported by Unicode, so I can't easily type it here to show, but similar sort of stuff.
That said, the most significant form of both standardisation and teaching has to do with the classics. To this day the "Three Character Classic" 三字經 is an early text for children to memorise as a way to learn characters, even though they haven't got a clue what the heck the thing's actually talking about. For those wishing to proceed to the Civil Service Exams, it was the Confucian classics that provided the bulk of the materials and, with that as the ultimate goal in education, it was the same texts which were really the foundation of *any* learning for the average person. Obviously things like tallying how many bolts of silk you just sold at your shop in the city market don't follow that as closely. But for the most part, what standardisation there is is ultimately the result of convention, as variant forms fall out of fashion and one single form becomes the norm.
There *have* been specific attempts to standardise characters and get rid of variants. One of the most well known early examples is the creation of Small Seal Script (小篆) under the leadership of the First Emperor of Qin (秦). This was done to unify the written correspondences between the different parts of the country. Obviously it didn't work completely, since variations still survived and new ones developed over time. Still, this was probably the most significant standardisation with the greatest long-term results.
Other later attempts were also made, but still to this day no one single standard exists. Only conventions.
#Decipher ancient documents
One of the secret tricks for reading Classical Chinese is to already know what it says. The language that was in use for writing (Classical Chinese, 文言文) never really reflected the speech of the average person. It was intentionally poetic or obfuscated or some other word that I'm having trouble remembering. Point is, it wasn't something the average Zhou could just pick up and read without having some training. Classical Chinese texts are full of literary allusions, idiomatic speech, references to other documents and that kind of thing, making it really hard to know what's being said if you don't have the background and an idea of the gist before you start. Add to that that there's no punctuation, when the position of the otherwise-absent punctuation can completely shift the meaning. It's a pain. It's a pain today and it was a pain a thousand years ago.
Then add to that the fact that, as you pointed out, the language is constantly changing. There is not one "Classical Chinese". There is a continuum of Classical Chineses that all kinda run together, with different points on the continuum represented by specific now-well-known texts.
The solution to this is the fact that it is a continuum. You had people at point B who could make sense of A, then people at point C later on who could make sense of B were able to then rely on the passed-down knowledge of point B in understanding A, so that we can go back and work out the shifts from point to point in order to understand A from point G or whatever.
It's not the case that you're in 2016CE suddenly discovering a text from 16CE and having nothing else to go on.
#Remembering the Pronunciation
Early (and sometimes modern) dictionaries (using the term very broadly here) of Chinese characters employed what's called the *fǎnqiè* 反切 system. The idea is that any character's pronunciation can be represented with two other characters. One represents the beginning of the syllable, and the other represents the rhyme and the tone.
An example would be 東 *dong* which could be spelled with 德 *de* and 紅*hong*. Since 德 and 紅 would be widely known characters, even if 東 was not, you'd be able to know that it starts with < d > , ends with < ong > and has a *píng* 平 tone (since that's what 紅 has).
This is an invaluable feature of older dictionaries not just for people of that time but for much more recent scholars like Bernhard Karlgren (高本漢) who used the system for his early reconstruction. Even today, while we don't rely on this as heavily as we once did, it's still quite useful for determining how pronunciations have changed over time.
So basically you don't need to remember the pronunciation because it's all spelled out for you in the dictionary itself.
#Yup.
Let me know if that all made sense or if you want me to expand on anything.
I'll could probably add sources if people are going to be weird about that, but since nothing I've said is really controversial or not otherwise common knowledge in Sinitic circles, I haven't bothered. Frankly I'm not sure what I'd need to source anyway. | [
"The precursors of Chinese dictionaries are primers designed for students of Chinese characters. The earliest of them only survive in fragments or quotations within Chinese classic texts. For example, the \"Shizhoupian\" was compiled by one or more historians in the court of King Xuan of Zhou (r. 827 BCE – 782 BCE)... |
Why was the 1984 U.S. presidential election such a landslide? Was it more that Reagan was so popular, or more that Mondale was so unpopular? Was there a better Democratic candidate out there? | It is important to note that the extent of Reagan's landslide is really exaggerated by the electoral college, and by comparison to today's highly polarized politics. Looking at the map on which Reagan won 49 states, you'd think that *nobody* voted for Mondale. In fact, 40.6 percent of American voters chose Mondale, compared to 58.8 percent of voters who went for Reagan. Certainly, this is a clear cut victory, and in the context of America's polarized politics today, it feels like a landslide. But it wasn't particularly unusual for 20th century presidential elections. Harding in '20, Hoover in '28, Roosevelt in '32 and '36, Eisenhower in '56, Johnson in '64, and Nixon in '72 all won similar percentages of the popular vote (between 57% and 62%). Basically, Reagan won by about how much presidents in the 20th century tended to win by when the American public approved of how they were doing (or disapproved of their predecessor). So yes, Reagan was a popular president, and some of the previous commenters have done a good job of explaining why, but his victory in 1984 was not particularly exceptional or dramatic, and significant minority of Americans did not vote for him. (All statistics from wikipedia.) | [
"Reagan also enjoyed high levels of bipartisan support during the 1984 presidential election, both in Texas, and across the nation at large. Many registered Democrats who voted for Reagan (Reagan Democrats) stated that they had chosen to do so because they associated him with the economic recovery, because of his s... |
When you are scared or excited can your heart actually "skip a beat"? | Cardiac RN here, premature atrial contractions (PACs) and premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) happen all the time and we are not aware of them. If they are sustained and cause the individual to become symptomatic (short of breath, fatigue, chest pain) then see your doctor or go to the ER. Many times sustained arythmias can be managed medically (with drugs) and individuals can live with certain dysthymias.
There is a set track within the center of the heart that initiates the impulse (normally) from the sinoatrial node which is located just below the atriA and conducts the heart rate within 60-100 beats per minute. the impulse then travels down to the AV node where beats are maintained between 40-60 beats per minute. Should the atria miss their que in the cardiac cycle, the AV node takes over and thus we experience a PVC. This is the body's way of compensating to maintain an efficient amount of cardiac ouput so our vital organs remain perfused with fresh oxygenated blood.
We usually do more for low heart rates since they tend to be more lethal. The heart is an amazing organ because its cells generate their own activity. Sometimes cells in the atria fight with each other and cause miss firings around the SA node and produce irratic heart rhythms like Atrial Fibrilation or Atrial flutter. These two Atria associated rhythms are what most people experience when they become symptomatic and claim "their heart skipped a beat". The risk of these rhythms is stroke because the atria are uncontrollably quivering, causing blood to be poorly cycled. Residual blood from incomplete pumps can dislodge and cause a clot. This patients who are diagnosed with these arythmias are put on blood thinners like Coumadin, or Xarelto.
I love my job. | [
"Prolonged atrial flutter with fast heart rates may lead to decompensation with loss of normal heart function (heart failure). This may manifest as exercise intolerance (exertional breathlessness), difficulty breathing at night, or swelling of the legs and/or abdomen.\n",
"Premature heart beats come in two differ... |
as stupid as it sounds, why can’t the us keep selling bonds and increasing the national debt? | This is exactly what we are doing all the time. How are you thinking this is different...? | [
"According to the Treasury, \"failing to increase the debt limit would . . . cause the government to default on its legal obligations – an unprecedented event in American history\". These legal obligations include paying Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the debt, and many other ... |
Have there been different interpretations of the Ten Commandments throughout history? | There has been significant debate over how the commandment against "graven images" should be applied. For Judaism, it means no images for God, and no sculpture outside a few divinely commanded exceptions. Islam is strict about no images of God or His prophets, with images of humans and animals in general being discouraged. Christianity has a number of different positions. Both the Byzantine and Protestant Iconoclasts (anti-image) were against images depicting religious figures, especially Christ God, but not images of civil figures. The conservative Iconodule (pro-image) position allows for images of civil and religious figures, with great emphasis on including Christ God because of the Incarnation, but excluding God the Father as immaterial, uncircumscript, and undepictable, and with an aversion to sculpture. The more liberal Iconodule position is similar, but allows for images of God the Father and for sculpture. Modern day Protestants lean towards iconoclasm, but have softened considerably since the Reformation. Roman Catholics tend to hold the liberal Iconodule position, and Eastern Orthodox tend to hold the conservative Iconodule position.
The classic work defending the conservative Iconodule position is St. John Damascene's *Three Treatises on Divine Images*. The Protestant Iconoclast position is presented fairly well in Calvin's *Institutes*, Book I, iirc. Those are the two I am most familiar with. | [
"The Ten Commandments are recognized as a moral foundation by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They first appear in the Book of Exodus, according to which Moses, acting under the orders of God, freed the Israelites from physical slavery in Egypt. According to Church teaching, God offered a covenant—which included ... |
Prior to 1450, what did Africans think about their own civilizations when compared to other non-African civilizations? | > they were not as advanced as other non-African civilizations
I just wanted to point out that Africa was not as underdeveloped as we often assume. See [here.](_URL_0_)
| [
"Edward Wilmot Blyden, an Americo-Liberian educator and diplomat active in the pan-Africa movement, perceived a change in perception taking place among Europeans towards Africans in his 1908 book \"African Life and Customs\", which originated as a series of articles in the Sierra Leone \"Weekly News\". In it, he pr... |
Why did the Roman Emperors keep up the illusion of a Republic? | The actual nature of this "illusion" is extremely complex and varied enormously by region and class. So before I launch into the particulars, I should make clear that starting with Augustus, the emperors presented themselves to each group in the manner familiar to that group.
The illusion of consent based rule and Senatorial primacy is not, in fact, an empire-wide message. Rather, it was only presented to the select group of upper class political elite who were the effective leaders during the Republic. So in effect, this image is being conveyed only with the center of the city of Rome. Once you step outside the city, the message becomes different. This is where Imperial cult temples come from: despite what you may have learned in school, these were *not* only constructed after the death of the emperor. Temples to living emperors, or monuments portraying emperors in a god-like fashion, are quite common in the Greek East and certain other areas--Leptis Magna, for example, which was Septimius Severus' home city built a famous arch dedicated to him as a god. Imperial monuments in the city of Rome show the emperor surrounded by senators and flanked by lictors, but in Egypt he will be portrayed as Pharaoh.
But this doesn't really answer you question: why such an emphasis on message, specifically one that demotes him to simply *primes inter pares*? the reason is that as much as Imperial derived from the military, the Principate could not effectively govern without the preexisting elites. This was the case in the Greek cities of the east, where portrayal of the emperor as divine allowed elites to maintain the fiction of political independence, and in the city of Rome, where portraying the Senate as still the ultimate force allowed the elite to maintain their fiction of primacy. In this way, Senators could maintain their dignity by not bowing to a king while the emperor reaps the practical benefit of essentially being a king. Augustus was very pragmatic: he allowed all of the old honor and glory to remain with preexisting elite while he ran things.
Incidentally, what you have with emperors like Caligula and Nero is someone who is tired of the bizarre dichotomy between divine monarch in the East and *primus inter pares* in the West. They essentially broke the illusion of consent based rule, and so while they may not have actually been exceptionally tyrannical, they gained the reputation. Domitian as well,m but he was far more calculating about it.
EDIT: *The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus* by Paul Zanker is the key work on this topic. | [
"The original status of the Roman emperors was in contrast to the kings of Rome who were expelled in the early years of the city, paving the way for a republic. Therefore, the Emperors were traditionally acclaimed by the Senate or by a legion speaking for the armies as a whole, and were subsequently confirmed witho... |
what massage therapists mean when they say i have “a lot of knots”? | A knot is a spot in your muscle where tension is "stuck" causing the muscle to be tense all the time which has a negative effect on the body an possibly cause pain. | [
"Massage is the manipulation of soft tissues in the body. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet, or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pain. A person who was professionally trained to give massages was traditionally ... |
Has an industrial accident ever caused volcanic lightning? | Volcanic eruptions typically involve quantities of energy and matter that are very large by human standards. (It would have to be a *heck* of an industrial accident to be in the same ballpark.)
But something that might be of interest are pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) clouds that can result from forest fires, and can produce lightning.
\-
_URL_0_
\- _URL_1_
Human activity can cause forest fires, so under the right conditions human-produced clouds can cause lightning. | [
"Volcanic lightning is an electrical discharge caused by a volcanic eruption, rather than from an ordinary thunderstorm. Volcanic lightning arises from colliding, fragmenting particles of volcanic ash (and sometimes ice), which generate static electricity within the volcanic plume. Volcanic eruptions have been refe... |
why, despite all the advances in browser technology, does the screen still jump when an off-screen image or other part of the site loads? | Because your browser still doesn't know how big that image is going to be until it downloads it, so it has no way of knowing how much space to leave. The people who design the website could plan for it, but many of them don't. | [
"According to this SANS Institute Internet Storm Center article, using a web browser other than Internet Explorer \"may\" offer additional protection against this vulnerability. Depending on settings, these browsers may ask the user before opening an image with the .wmf extension, but this only reduces the chance o... |
why carbohydrates are at the bottom of the pyramid and sugar at the top, when they're basically the same thing (glucose)? | Because the food pyramid is bullshit and was mainly promoted by American farmers and the United States Department of Agriculture, who, as you might guess, wanted to sell more of their products. | [
"\"Carbohydrate\", \"glycan\", \"saccharide\", and \"sugar\" are generic terms used interchangeably in this context and includes monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, and derivatives of these compounds. Carbohydrates consist of “hydrated carbon”, i.e. [CHO]n. Monosaccharides are a carbohydrate that ca... |
should we wash fruits and vegetables before refrigerating or right before we eat them? | Before eating.
Generally speaking most fruit and veg live longest being kept in a cool, dark and dry place.
Washing them before refrigerating increases the risk of you putting them in the fridge slightly damp which will (generally) speed up quite significantly how quickly they spoil. | [
"Home drying of vegetables, fruit and meat can be carried out with electrical dehydrators (household appliance) or by sun-drying or by wind. Preservatives such as potassium metabisulfite, BHA, or BHT may be used, but are not required. However, dried products without these preservatives may require refrigeration or ... |
what happens if they don't raise the debt ceiling? | There would be a Federal shutdown and people would overestimate how horrific it would be (like Y2K virus).
But ultimately the "debt ceiling" and the "fiscal cliff" are tiny hiccups compared to what's coming. The US will default, and the unemployment will rise to astronomical levels while the purchasing power of the dollar falls drastically. This is due to the fact the US isn't able to finance its obligations long-term, and is borrowing the majority of its yearly-spending. In order to avoid this, it must cut nearly 2/3 of the budget. But that will not happen. | [
"Since the United States Department of the Treasury has no authority to issue or incur debt beyond the debt ceiling set by the United States Congress, failure to reach an agreement between the necessary members of the government to raise the debt ceiling meant that certain debts would not be paid, and this would po... |
Why is the shadow of an eclipse, as seen from space, like a water droplet when moving away from night's shadow? | Because the Earth is a ~~sphere~~ oblate spheroid.
EDIT: Slight technical term correction | [
"The shadow of the Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is always a dark circle that moves from one side of the Moon to the other (partially grazing it during a partial eclipse). This could be produced by a flat disc that always faces the Moon head-on during the eclipse, but this is inconsistent with the fact t... |
What are some of the great works of sub-Saharan African architecture, and why have I never heard about them? | One that immediately pops out in my mind is Great Zimbabwe: _URL_1_
As to why you've never heard about them, I can't really answer that definitively. If you would like to learn more about the empires that existed in Africa and may or may not have created some impressive structures, [here](_URL_0_) is a good springboard. | [
"ArchiAfrika was founded in 2001 by a group of Dutch architects that spent many years in Africa. When they returned to the Netherlands, they discovered that African architecture was relatively unknown in the Western world and wanted to do something in order to change this situation. After their experience in Africa... |
why i can't recharge normal household batteries? when they build them they charge them, so why can't i? | They don't charge them when they build them. The current is generated by a chemical reaction, and the batteries are built with the required ingredients for the chemical reaction. They don't build an empty battery and then charge it up. When you make a "battery" by sticking nails in a lemon, you don't have to charge up the lemon first. | [
"Batteries with greatest energy density such as metal-air fuel cells usually cannot be recharged in purely electric way. Instead, some kind of metallurgical process is needed, such as aluminum smelting and similar.\n",
"Primary batteries, or primary cells, can produce current immediately on assembly. These are mo... |
why are chinatowns celebrated in american cities as tourist destinations? what's the cultural significance compared to say a braziltown? | We do not have a lot of Brazilian immigrants, and those that we do have are not extremely likely to congregate.
That said if a Braziltown did form it would not have the same draw as a Chinatown because it is not culturally different enough. Brazil is a former Portuguese colony and much if not most of their culture has developed out of its European roots, just like the US has. Chinatowns do not have European roots, they are vastly different from the culture around them and that difference is what is entertaining and what attracts people. | [
"One of the major reasons tourists visit Chinatown is to see how immigrants live and work today. They can see how the job market has grown as immigrants made a life for themselves from the early markets to the laundries that opened when the settlers first arrived in Chinatown.\n",
"Chinatown remains a popular tou... |
why does the sound of a knife/fork screeching on a dinner plate sound so terrible to us humans? | The two main theories are:
1) The sound reminds us of the sounds/calls a lot of primates and apes make when they are scared, in stress or alarmed. It could be hardcoded in our DNA to react to this sound with negative emotion, stress and fear
2) The typical frequencies produced are the same that can give rise to resonance in the ear canal, thereby amplifying the sound to unpleasant or even painful levels. | [
"Staring at another diner's plate is also considered rude. It is inappropriate to make sounds while chewing. Certain Indian food items can create sounds, so it is important to close the mouth and chew at a moderate pace.\n",
"One explanation for the adverse reaction is that the awful sound is similar to the warni... |
Did rivalries between different organisations (such as the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS) negatively effect the Third Reich's war effort? | I'm not sure about the SS and the Wehrmacht, but government ministries and officials were often engaged in bitter bureaucratic rivalries and intrigues, usually due to having overlapping fields of responsibility or power. There's some evidence that this was deliberately encouraged by the Hitler. In *Inside the Third Reich*, Albert Speer writes:
> He [Hitler] also did not like establishing clear lines of jurisdiction. Sometimes he deliberately assigned bureaus to the same or similar tasks. "That way," he used to say, "the stronger one does the job."
Hitler's quasi-Darwinist thinking in this regard doesn't really seem to work out, however, and the practical result of the constant bureaucratic struggle was a lot of wasted time, money, resources, and talent due to inefficiency and the unwillingness of ministries to cooperate with each other. This definitely would have affected the war effort in terms of logistics. | [
"In the beginning, there was friction between the SS and the Army, as the Army feared the SS would attempt to become a legitimate part of the armed forces of the Third Reich, partly due to the fighting between the limited armaments, and the perceived fanaticism towards Nazism. However, on 17 August 1938, Hitler cod... |
how do wireless providers make money from mvnos? | MVNO's are based on the internal accounting principle that every cost shall be applied to the business unit that consumes the good or service.
Basically, think of Sprint (which is the major network company that serves MVNO's) as two companies: a wireless network operator, and a wireless service retailer. The network operator builds, maintains and operates the network. The wireless service retailer buys service from the network operator, and resells it to retail customers in the form of cell phone contracts. Using the aforementioned accounting principle, the network company 'buys' the network (by building it) and 'manufactures' wireless service; the retail company buys finished wireless service from the network and resells it to consumers. It's similar to how car manufacturers work - Ford builds a car, then sells it to a dealer wholesale, who then sells it to a consumer, retail. Ford makes a profit when they sell it to the dealer, and the dealer makes a profit when they sell it to the consumer. In actuality, the dealer's profit on the sale of a single car is often larger than Ford's profit on the same single car is, but Ford sells millions of cars, whereas the dealer sells maybe a few hundred.
The MVNO goes to Sprint ant says "I can buy the wireless service from your network division for the same amount that your internal retail division does, but I can add value (lower cost, better service, different phones, different payment methods, etc) that your retail division can't or won't."
Sprint likes this, because it helps earn extra revenue for the network, without doing things it might not like to do (eg, cutting prices, or changing policies that discriminate against lower-income consumers).
So your question starts from a few flawed premises:
> creating competition
Most of the MVNO's on Sprint's network (for example) don't compete with Sprint (they are going after a different market segment - usually pay-as-you-go customers who don't or can't get contracts).
> undersells your own same product
They are underselling the retail division, but they pay at least the same rates as the retail division does for network access - and potentially more. In addition, the MVNO's probably have to make volume commitments (ie, guarantee that they will buy $X Million in service per annum) which is great for your balance sheet because big commitments are cheaper than a bunch of small ones.
> using your own network be bad for business?
From the perspective of the network company it isn't, because they are getting paid more money for the same network service (ie, they have to pay for the network regardless of how many users are on it, by getting more users they are able to spread the cost of maintaining the network over more users and thus increase profitability).
It's actually a kind of 'best of both world's' mode.
Vertical integration actually sucks for shareholders. Wall Street and banks like it, but in the long run it destroys the company through stagnation. | [
"Mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) in the United States lease wireless telephone and data service from major carriers such as AT&T Mobility, Sprint Corporation, T-Mobile US, and Verizon Wireless, as well as the regional carrier the United States Cellular Corporation, for resale. , MVNOs served about 36 milli... |
how do the highs differ and compare to each other in psychedelic/hardcore drugs like ecstasy, mdma, shrooms, dmt, coke, heroin etc..? | Well, MDMA and ecstasy are the same thing, and I have not taken that.
Coke is a stimulant so the high is gives you a feeling of alertness and euphoria. It will make you boring to others because all you want is more coke.
Heroin is an opiate, so the high is sedate, warm and dreamy.
Mushrooms are hallucinogenic and cause possible hallucinations, and thoughts and conversations feel deep and meaningful, which may or may not be actually true. :)
| [
"These drugs vary in potency: for example fentanyl is about 80 times as potent as morphine (heroin is roughly two times as potent). More significantly, they vary in nature. Pharmacology and CSA scheduling have a weak relationship.\n",
"Cross-cultural studies have found that cultures high in Openness to experience... |
how does dairy pricing work, and why do most coupons exclude dairy? | The milk prices are set by the Farm Bill, which requires milk prices to stay low. The Farm Bill would have expired along with a number of other bills. The collective expiration and the results those expiring bills would have effects on the economy as a result of changes in spending and taxation that is all called the fiscal cliff. The reason the Farm Bill is included is that it deals with more than just the price of milk, it deals with the taxation of farm goods, disaster aid for farmers, subsidies for farming, and even food stamps.
If the Farm Bill had expired, the milk prices would have instead been regulated by another bill passed in 1949 that dealt with milk prices. However, this other law would lead to much higher prices, maybe two or three times higher, because it would have changed the way milk is bought from farmers and sold to consumers.
This increase in milk price would have been good for some milk farmers, but not good for consumers or anyone trying to sell milk competitively overseas.
| [
"The Dairy Export Incentive Program (DEIP) is a program that offers subsidies to exporters of U.S. dairy products to help them compete with other nations. USDA pays cash to exporters as bonuses to help them sell certain U.S. dairy products at prices below the exporter’s cost of acquiring them. The program was origi... |
If most weather patterns and storms move Eastward in the U.S., why do all the Hurricanes seem to travel Westward? | At lower latitudes, where hurricanes form, the prevailing direction is west. Once pushed more north, they will curve to the east.
More words:
In the tropical latitudes, tropical storms and hurricanes generally move westward with a slight tendency toward the north, under the influence of the subtropical ridge, a high pressure system that usually extends east-west across the subtropics.[9] South of the subtropical ridge, surface easterly winds (blowing from east to west) prevail. If the subtropical ridge is weakened by an upper trough, a tropical cyclone may turn poleward and then recurve,[10] or curve back toward the northeast into the main belt of the Westerlies. Poleward (north) of the subtropical ridge, westerly winds prevail and generally steer tropical cyclones that reach northern latitudes toward the east. The westerlies also steer extratropical cyclones with their cold and warm fronts from west to east.[11]
_URL_0_ | [
"As they move north, Atlantic hurricanes typically are forced east and out to sea by the Prevailing Westerlies. In Sandy's case, this typical pattern was blocked by a ridge of high pressure over Greenland resulting in a negative North Atlantic Oscillation, forming a kink in the jet stream, causing it to double back... |
Question about the Taliban, Cold War, and the U.S | The answer is... its complicated... While there is definitely overlap between members of the Muj in the 1980s and the Taliban in the 1990s, the Taliban shouldn't be viewed as a successor group, as they were actually founded in opposition to the Mujahideen groups that took power following the ouster of the Communist government in 1992. [This previous answer I wrote goes into it more in-depth](_URL_0_), but I'd be happy to answer any questions you have from it here! | [
"The United States never recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Ahmed Rashid states that the US indirectly supported the Taliban through its ally in Pakistan between 1994 and 1996 because Washington viewed the Taliban as anti-Iranian, anti-Shia and pro-Western. Washington furthermore hoped that the Talib... |
; why does traffic construction, (like an intersection), seem to take so much longer than other construction projects of equivalent size (like a medium sized building)? there seems to be huge stretches of time where little to know progress is made. what's going on? | 1. Utilities in the work area need to be located by hand excavation (that's the law)
2. Utility relocation, protection, and support can be tedious and time consuming. Gas, steam, and electric are dangerous to relocate, therefore every precaution is taken. Telecom relocation is time consuming due to copper and fiber splicing. Water may only be able to be taken out of service at certain times. Sewer is typically fairly deep and time consuming to shore up trenches.
3. Materials cannot often be brought in and stock piled due to space restrictions. Depending on where you're working, they might not allow you to store any materials on site. This means everything has to be brought in when it's needed, even the excavation equipment might need to be removed and delivered daily.
4. Truck loads of material brought in (fill, concrete, pipe) have to be ordered and picked up or scheduled for delivery. Example: you order a concrete truck and it sits in a traffic jam, it gets there late. If it's been spinning in the drum too long, it's no longer any good and the load is rejected. Now you wait for another load to come.
5. Work permits typically stipulate the times you can work. I've gotten permits where we could only work 10am - 2pm, Monday - Thursday or 8am - 6pm Weekends only. Subtract at least an hour of productivity from that for opening up the job site and cleaning up.
6. Unforeseen circumstances cause a lot of delay (inadequate design on the engineer's part, poor planning on the contractor's part, utilities not known about until the tooth of a machine bucket ripped through it.)
This is not to say that some of this doesn't happen in building construction, it does, but their job sites are usually less constrained than road work.
Source: Civil Engineer, worked construction in NYC for 10 years. | [
"The Fast-track construction process obtaining permits and commencing construction on a portion of the project before the design is fully completed. This process, where \"time is money\", can involve significant design changes being made during construction. This can create confusion and delay and significantly inc... |
how did evolution make this bug look like a leaf? | Very, very slowly.
10 million years ago, this bug's ancestors may have just looked something like little green grasshoppers. Then, one was born that had a tiny mutation - the edges of his thorax (butt) weren't rounded, but were instead sort of jagged. It didn't change much about his life, but maybe it saved his life from one bird that didn't see him. His kids had that sort-of-jagged butt too, and sometimes they wouldn't get eaten and a round-butt bug next to them would be eaten, so they survived (and bred) a little more.
Then one of those kids had another weird mutation - little ribs that stuck out. He and his kids had a better survival rate than anyone else. Then a kid had a mutation that made him orange - he didn't live long at all. But another kid had a mutation that made him curve this way, or made him a little more green, or a little more X, Y, Z.
A few million generations later, the surviving kids have accumulated dozens of mutations that helped their ancestors survive - they finally look like a leaf, even to the best eyes of humans and hawks. | [
"The earliest leaf insect (Phylliinae) fossil is \"Eophyllium messelensis\" from the 47-million-year-old Eocene of Messel, Germany. In size and cryptic (leaflike) body form, it closely resembles extant species, suggesting that the behavior of the group has changed little since that time.\n",
"The genitalia of the... |
does being a bouncer or security guard exclude you from the consequences of beating someone up? | Depends on where you are, but generally the guide is 'reasonable force'. But bouncers / security guards don't have a 'get out of jail free' card. | [
"In December 2008, three of Pascha's bouncers beat up an Albanian man who supposedly had ignored an order to stay away from the house and who might have been involved in the bouncer scene. The three men received fines and suspended sentences of 18 months for aggravated assault.\n",
"Movies often depict bouncers p... |
if deserts were former oceans, then what is stopping current oceans from turning into deserts? | Only that their low elevation keeps water flowing into them. If you could make the bottom rise up high enough (above sea level), an ocean area that doesn't see much rain would then be a desert. | [
"Desertification is a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry area of land becomes a desert, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife. It is caused by a variety of factors, such as through climate change (particularly the current global warming) and through the overexploita... |
Is there any Scientific Validity to Salt Lamps releasing negative Ions into the air around them? | Any time you hear "negative ion" as some sort of health benefit (or any benefit), think "utter garbage." Get a refund if you can and try to educate your mother.
The only context that phrase should be used should be in some sort of chemistry or biochemistry. There is nothing specific about all "negative ions" that are good for you. It's an umbrella term for ions that have a negative charge. | [
"\"With regard to the heat rays, the emanations of there from a tube of radium bromide, which had previously photographed itself on a photographic plate in the dark room, was shown by Bunsen's Ice Calorimeter, which instrument not only proves that heat is given out continuously by the salt, but measures accurately ... |
what happens if the us president goes insane and orders the military to do something unprecedentedly immoral? | If the president were actually crazy, then the 25th Amendment is the plan you are looking for. The most relevant part reads:
> Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
So, basically, the cabinet and the VP could say "sorry, motherfucker's gone bonkers," and take legal power away from the president, and then undo all the orders. | [
"In order to discourage the military from staging coups in the future, how about if they line all of us up and shot us one by one? I do not certainly want to be arrested, given some sort of trial and shot. But I would be a stupid General if I sit in the comfort of my farm and await the VENGEANCE that is about to be... |
Do polyglots experience cognitive deficits because of learning multiple languages? | No, in fact multi-lingualism is known to have a variety of cognitive *benefits*.
The idea that speaking more than one language caused intellectual deficits in children was promoted in the early to mid-20th century with the justification that it would somehow "overwork" a child's verbal learning capacities, however, it probably had more to do with [that other thing that was common in America around that time](_URL_0_).
Source: _URL_1_ | [
"Research generally supports the belief that language comprehension in the bilingual brain is malleable. Listening to stories in L1 and L2 results in largely dissimilar patterns of neural activity in low proficiency bilinguals—regardless of age of acquisition. Some researchers propose that the amount to which one m... |
How was the relationship between Francisco Franco and the Spanish monarchy? | While I can somewhat provide information from the years 1936-1939, I cannot answer over the course of Franco’s lifetime.
Francisco Franco’s rise to power occurred during the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1939. The last King of Spain, Alfonso XIII had abdicated in 1931 in the face of widespread dissent and dissatisfaction and would spend the war in exile in France. Shortly thereafter, the Second Republic of Spain was declared. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War began with the uprising of much of the military of Spain, supported by the rightist coalition that would soon become the Nationalists. Within this rightist coalition, known as the National Front, three groups of political interests were allied. The Alfonsist Monarchists supported the reestablishment of a monarchy in Spain and the return of Alfonso XII. The Carlists supported an ultra-Catholic monarchy headed by the rival claimant Don Carlos. The third member of the Nationalist movement, the Spanish Falange, was a fascist movement that favored a dictator in place of a monarch. During the course of the war, Franco would make use of these movements to build his own base of power, however he never legitimately attempted to reestablish Monarchy in Spain in his rise to power.
Historian Anthony Beevor states that Alfonso XIII did in fact support the Nationalists monetarily. “Ex-King Alfonso’s immense generosity to the nationalist movement, giving $10 million, was only possible as a result of the vast fortune he had reputedly managed to transfer abroad” Beevor 138).
Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
Preston, Paul. The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Revenge. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print. | [
"During Francoist Spain, Gen. Francisco Franco was the de-facto Dictator of Spain and properly adopted the style His Excellency, since he was both Chief of State and Government, without being a \"royal\".\n",
"When General Francisco Franco declared Spain a monarchy in 1947, he characterised it as a restoration. H... |
My medical-resident wife once said, "I've taken enough microbiology to know that those things don't work," talking about public restroom toilet seat covers. What's the science here? | Toilet seats are not a favourable environment for bacteria to grow in, so adding a barrier won't do much to decrease the already low chance of transmission. Bacteria like moist areas - not too wet, not too dry. A flat, smooth surface can dry rather quickly. Something like your kitchen sponge is what you should worry about... | [
"Intelligent toilets and electronic bidets aid numerous health concerns, especially for users with sensitive or damaged skin. By eliminating fecal bacteria left behind by toilet paper, intelligent toilets also dramatically increase a user’s hygiene by preventing the spreading of bacteria to each user’s hands. Intel... |
how do people swim across oceans? don't they get tired and need to rest? how do they eat, drink and sleep? | From the Wikipedia article about Benoit Lecomte: From 16 July to 25 September 1998, Lecomte undertook a swim in stages from Hyannis, Massachusetts to Quiberon, Brittany, France, including a one week stop in the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago[1].
During his 3,716 mi (5,980 km; 3,229 nmi) 73 day journey, Lecomte was accompanied by a 40 ft (12 m) sailboat that had an electromagnetic field for 25 ft (7.6 m) to ward off sharks. He was accompanied by a crew of three aboard the sailboat, where he could rest and eat between each swimming period. Lecomte typically spent eight hours swimming each day in sessions of two to four hours.
The stated purpose of the swim was to raise money for cancer research as a tribute to his father.
Lecomte's claim has not been recognized by the Guinness World Records. | [
"Many swimmers swim for recreation, with swimming consistently ranking as one of the physical activities people are most likely to take part in. Recreational swimming can also be used for exercise, relaxation or rehabilitation. The support of the water, and the reduction in impact, make swimming accessible for peop... |
what's the hard white stuff that builds up on your teeth, and how do i prevent it from building up? | It's plaque, also known as calculus (unrelated to the mathematical field). This forms when you allow the normal bacteria in your mouth to build up layers of biofilm on your teeth.
You prevent it by brushing your teeth (properly and for the full two minutes or more), flossing, and rinsing with a mouthwash twice a day. To really prevent plaque, brush your teeth after meals if you can.
The dentist will still spend time cleaning your teeth even if it's aesthetically spotless because the best way to ensure dental health is to regularly detail clean the teeth with their equipment. | [
"Dr. Stanley specialized in the soft tissue in the core of teeth called 'pulp'. The pulp is responsible for creating tooth dentin and for maintaining the vitality of the tooth throughout life. It is also responsible for the pain experienced if the tooth is diseased or damaged, and also for hot and cold sensitivity.... |
(i know little about business.) what would have to happen for a massive and remarkably popular company like starbucks or mcdonald's to ever go out of business? | These companies are so large and resilient they probably would never go out of business unless something completely revolutionary appeared on the market that ended the need for what they provided. These corporations are deadly efficient and extremely resilient, often able to take huge losses in customers and revenue. They adapt to new trends very quickly and can dump flaming dump trucks of money into marketing and PR to promote themselves. So if you wanted to make McDonalds go out of business for example, find a way to provide good-tasting, convenient food for less than dirt cheap. Or somehow make food obsolete. | [
"In a November 19, 2008 CNBC article, Jordan Kimmel, a fund manager at Magnet Investing in Randolph, New Jersey, said that if the Big Three automakers were liquidated or completely shut down, foreign companies such as Honda and Toyota would open up new manufacturing plants in the U.S., and there would be no long te... |
why does the appendix have to be cut out because of appendicitis, why can't it just be cleaned, what exactly is causing the blockage? | Go to the doctor right away. The appendix will grow and grow until it bursts, and you develop a severe immune response. There is not enough blood penetration to the appendix, and it is filled with so much crap that you would need to manually clean it out. That's a lot harder than just taking it out, and never having to worry about it again.
You should be posting this from a hospital.
Have you been diagnosed with appendicitis by a doctor or yourself? | [
"Appendicitis is caused by a blockage of the hollow portion of the appendix. This is most commonly due to a calcified \"stone\" made of feces. Inflamed lymphoid tissue from a viral infection, parasites, gallstone, or tumors may also cause the blockage. This blockage leads to increased pressures in the appendix, dec... |
If bacteria eventually becomes resistant to antibiotics, do we have a back-up plan? | This is a topic of much discussion. Currently use of anti-biotics is trying to be reduced as much as possible. If anti-biotics fail, we will have to develop new bactericidal agents artificially.
This is why MRSA is such a pain. Anti-biotic treatment is hard as it is resistant to most things.
Good cleanliness and hygiene in hospitals should limit the need for anti-biotics somewhat. Hot soapy water kills more or less all bacteria.
In short, if they get too resistant we will need to develop new agents artificially or be lucky and find new ones. | [
"When bacteria are challenged with antibiotics, a small and distinct subpopulation of cells is able to withstand the treatment by a phenomenon dubbed as \"persistence\" (not to be confused with resistance). Due to their bacteriostatic properties, type II toxin-antitoxin systems have previously been thought to be re... |
How independent were the Warsaw Pact countries? | Depends if Russian forces were permanently stationed in the country or not; Poland, the GDR, Czechoslovakia after 1967 and Hungary did have them, so they had to adhere strictly to all changes in the Soviet foreign policy.
Czechoslovakia did not have a permanent presence of Russian forces until 1967, so they had a greater degree of independence.
In Romania there were was no Russian contingent, so they were more independent in matter of foreign policy; for example: unlike the rest of the Eastern block they did not break of diplomatic relations with Israel in 1967. Also they were on friendly terms with the Chinese Party - after the Sino Soviet split, and they had stronger ties to the West - strongest ties among the block countries.
Albania left the Warsaw Pact in 1961 - they sided with Mao when the Sino Soviet split happened.
In terms of the economy and internal affairs there were a lot of variations between member countries - in the period after the death of Stalin.
- Hungary since the 1960ies experimented with economic reforms; allowed a measure of private enterprise and produced more consumer goods _URL_0_ ; however by the end of the eighties they also took up a lot of foreign debt/western credits that had to be payed back.
- Poland during Gomulka had its liberal moments; unlike the rest of the block they never collectivized agriculture, and Poles were allowed to travel to the west and read newspapers from the west. After the six-day war the Gomulka regime staged an openly Antisemitic campaign that forced the remaining Jews out of Poland (very uncommon ideological tones; in the Soviet Union official antisemitism was more veiled as Anti-Zionism) ; in the seventies they took large scale credits from the west, these credits went bad. Also they had to tolerate strikes and Solidarnosc - a unique event for the eastern block. The remaining eighties were all around economic austerity (foreign debt had to be payed back) and suppression of Solidarnocz. Another unique feature among block countries was that the Catholic church had a lot of influence in Poland.
- the GDR was mostly very strict ever since collectivization in 1960 (the Berlin Wall was build as a result of these failed policies - since collectivization everyone who could just ran away), it had a very short liberal spring around 1963-65. However salaries were relatively high, if compared to the other eastern block countries; In the eighties they took a lot of debt from the West, so by 89 the regime was economically bankrupt.
- Romania had a strict personality cult, Also they banned abortions (unlike the rest of the block countries). Since the eighties they became nasty towards Hungarians living in Romania, and the regime became more and more nationalistic; in the eighties they also had to pay back this huge pile of foreign debt, so living standards were very bad - worst place to live among all block countries.
- Czechoslovakia liberalized the economy in the sixties, so in the end they had the Prague Spring, this was brought down by intervention of the Soviet Union and the rest of the Warsaw Packt; during subsequent Normalization the regime tried to bribe the population, so as long as you did not have anything to do with politics it was a pleasant place to live; also repressions against Charter 77 were not quite as strict and nasty as they could have been (the nasty period was in the late sixties and early seventies). Also in Czechoslovakia they somehow managed to do without piling up a large mountain of foreign debt.
| [
"BULLET::::- The Warsaw Pact was a collective defence alliance formed in 1955 among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Comecon, the regional economic organization for the socialist states of Central... |
Did the Vatican stay quiet during the Holocaust? and if they did, how come? | I addressed this question in [an earlier series of posts](_URL_0_). The allegation of silence began in 1963 with a play, *The Deputy* by Rolf Hochhuth. The 1999 book *Hitler's Pope* popularized the idea. Largely, the debate over Pius XII's actions during the war has been taken up by partisans. Some authors have demonstrated an axe to grind against the papacy or Catholicism and have let that bias affect their work. Other authors have demonstrated a bias in favor of the papacy or Catholicism and have let that affect their work as well. This has sadly left little room for real historical inquiry. In summary, the papacy was not silent during the Holocaust, but its words were couched in diplomatic language and the Vatican was bound by treaty to observe strict neutrality in foreign affairs.
As always, followup questions by OP or others are encouraged. | [
"Although Pope Pius XII did not publicly speak out against the murder of the Jews during the Holocaust, the Vatican did take action to save many Jews in Italy from deportation, including sheltering several hundred Jews in the catacombs of St. Peter's Basilica. In his Christmas addresses of 1941 and 1942, the pontif... |
why is it so hard to use our non-dominant hand for things like sports? | Since you've been able to control your fine motor skills you have been favouring your dominant hand for most things which means that the muscles in that hand are are more finely tuned and have more 'muscle memory' than your non-dominant hand. Your non-dominant hand just hasn't had as much practice doing things. | [
"Also, it is not uncommon that people preferring to use the right hand prefer to use the left leg, e.g. when using a shovel, kicking a ball, or operating control pedals. In many cases, this may be because they are disposed for left-handedness but have been trained for right-handedness. In the sport of cricket, some... |
What is the origin of the evil step-mother trope? Does it have any historical context? | There are two main camps when it comes the origins of the evil stepmother trope and I'll call them "the inheritance theory" and "the psychological theory."
The inheritance theory says that the evil stepmother trope has concrete historical roots in the form of frequent conflict between the children of the first marriage with their stepmother and half-siblings over the father's assets after his death. While we often think of stepmothers as a modern phenomenon, they were not. The high rates of women dying in childbirth in the past meant it was not uncommon for children to lose their mothers while they were still quite young and for their fathers to remarry. While children might not have been totally conscious of the future issue of the inheritances, the stepmothers most certainly would have been aware that whatever children they had with their husband were almost certainly not going to be the primary heirs unless the children of the first wife all died. This was especially an issue for royalty and titled nobility: only one child could inherit the title of king or duke or count, after all. If she had no children with the father, but only with a previous husband, then the issue became even more urgent because she might even receive only her dower after the father's death while her children by her previous husbands might be left with virtually nothing. The German fairy tale, "The Juniper Tree" is one of the few that makes the financial motives of the evil stepmother explicit: she hates and mistreats her stepson because she wishes that her own daughter, Marlinchen, would inherit all of the father's fortune.
The inheritance theory has much to recommend it. There are numerous examples in history of women who were in conflict with their stepchildren over their wish for their own children to inherit. An early example is the Anglo-Saxon queen, Ælfthryth, who possibly organized the murder of her stepson, Edward the Martyr, so that her own son, Æthelred the Unready, could become the king of England instead. Sichelgaita of Salerno, the Lombard second wife of Robert Guiscard, is another example: the chronicler Orderic Vitalis claimed that Sichelgaita poisoned Robert and then tried to poison her stepson, Bohemund, so that her own son, Roger Borsa, could inherit the title Duke of Apulia.
Though less violent, there was also notoriously conflict between Ralph Neville, 2nd Earl of Westmorland and his stepgrandmother, Joan Beaufort. You see, even though she was a legitimized bastard, Joan Beaufort had royal blood in her veins, as she was the only daughter of John of Gaunt and his long-time mistress, Katherine Swynford, and thus the granddaughter of Edward III. Perhaps because of his second wife's royal blood, the first Earl of Westmorland's will secured numerous inheritances for his five surviving sons and rich dowries for his five daughters by Joan, which severely cut into Ralph Neville's inheritance. A further bone of contention was over Joan's dower, which (among other things) entitled her to live at Raby Castle until her death. Ralph Neville spent much of his life trying to recover the inheritances he regarded as his, as he was the heir by primogeniture, but was unable to do so because of the powerful connections that his stepgrandmother and half-uncles and aunts all had: Eleanor was married to the Earl of Northumberland, Katherine to the Duke of Salisbury, Richard was the Earl of Salisbury *(jure uxoris)* and father of the famous "kingmaker", Anne was married to the Duke of Buckingham, and Cecily was married to the Duke of York. When the Wars of the Roses broke out, the two branches of the Nevilles went in opposite directions, with the descendants of Margaret Stafford mainly being Lancastrians while the descendants of Joan Beaufort were mostly Yorkists.
The psychological theory, on the other hand, posits that the figure of the evil stepmother in fairy and folk tales was and remains popular because it allows children to "safely" express all of the hatred that they feel toward their mothers by putting it on a maternal figure who is safer to express hatred of because she's not the child's "real" mother. This was a theory that was invented or at least popularized by Bruno Bettelheim, who has since become extremely controversial, to say the least, but I thought I should mention it regardless.
**Sources**:
Abate, M. (2012). "You Must Kill Her": The Fact and Fantasy of Filicide in "Snow White". *Marvels & Tales,* *26*(2), 178-203.
Bettelheim, B. (1989). Transformations: The Fantasy of the Wicked Stepmother. In Oring E. (Ed.), *Folk Groups And Folklore Genres Reader: A Reader* (pp. 178-184). LOGAN, UTAH: University Press of Colorado.
Gray-Fow, Michael J. G. “The Wicked Stepmother in Roman Literature and History : an Evaluation.” *Latomus*, vol. 47, no. 4, 1988, pp. 741–757.
Haase, D. (2000). Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship: A Critical Survey and Bibliography. *Marvels & Tales*, *14*(1), 15–63.
Watson, P. A. (1995). *Ancient Stepmothers: Myth, Misogyny and Reality*. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Williams, C. (2010). Who's Wicked Now? The Stepmother as Fairy-Tale Heroine. *Marvels & Tales,* *24*(2), 255-271. | [
"Obscure Destinies is a collection of three short stories by Willa Cather, published in 1932. Each story deals with the death of a central character and asks how the ordinary lives of these characters can be valued and how \"beauty was found or created in seemingly ordinary circumstances\".\n",
"Rose Elliot (Iren... |
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