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why do phones/mp3 players "lie" about battery percentage? | Because your phone/mp3 players is like a child eating a cake. Let's say that your parents need to leave to run an errand. They tell their friends, OK, I am almost out the door, my child just needs to finish eating the cake. The mom estimates that it will take about 5 minutes before he's done with the cake. Well, the child get's distracted with the balloons in the room and starts rubbing his fingers in the cake instead of eating it or starts throwing the cake on the floor. That's hard to predict. Maybe it will now take 10 minutes to finish the cake. If the kid just continued eating the cake, it would be done (the cake would be gone) and the original prediction of the mom would be correct. The cake is the battery and the mom is the operating system trying to estimate when the cake will be done. You are the baby that keeps doing different things with the cake. Doing different things with the cake causes it to last longer or shorter. Battery life is estimated based on how the device is being used. Or, how fast the baby is eating the cake. | [
"Ni–Cd batteries can be charged at several different rates, depending on how the cell was manufactured. The charge rate is measured based on the percentage of the amp-hour capacity the battery is fed as a steady current over the duration of the charge. Regardless of the charge speed, more energy must be supplied to... |
When a cancer metastasizes, does its function change? | This is actually an ongoing area of research. The old theory was that the tumor was fairly homogeneous, and so when a metastasis arose, those cells had the same function as the original tumor.
> Would a person in this situation be considered to have skin cancer in the brain?
Yes - you can examine the cells histologically and see that they are indeed skin cells which have moved themselves into the brain.
Now the interesting part is the following: what does it take for a cell to be able to split off and form a new tumor colony? This falls under the umbrella of tumor heterogeneity - the idea that a tumor is at any time composed of many different "cell types," meaning that the cells that form the tumor don't all have the same genotype. The theory is that, perhaps a tumor is constantly shedding cells, and only a certain type is able to survive under the differing selective pressures imposed by metastasizing. In other words, the traits needed to survive in a primary tumor may be different than the traits needed for metastasis and colonization of distant sites, and these selective pressures may lead to changes in cell function between primary and metastatic tumors. Also worth noting is that these changes aren't going to be huge (in your example, they will still both be derived from skin cells), but it may lead to differences in the response to various drugs.
I'm not very well versed in the research here, so there may have already been studies of differences between genotypes in metastatic colonies vs primary tumors. But if you want to read a more in-depth review of the idea of tumor heterogeneity, you can check out [this paper](_URL_0_). | [
"Metastasis involves a complex series of steps in which cancer cells leave the original tumor site and migrate to other parts of the body via the bloodstream, via the lymphatic system, or by direct extension. To do so, malignant cells break away from the primary tumor and attach to and degrade proteins that make up... |
I've read the seating arrangement of King Louis XVI's legislative assembly during the French Revolution gave rise to the terms "left" and "right" in politics. Is this true, and if so why did they "stick" in modern day politics? | Not even close to my field but this is supported by the Oxford English Dictionary:
From the entry on "centre" as referring to those with moderate opinions:
> Polit. In the French Chamber (which is arranged in the form of an amphitheatre), the deputies of moderate opinions who occupy the central benches in front of the president, between the extreme parties who sit to the right and left. left centre: the division of this party inclining towards the opinions of the left, and sitting adjacent to them. Also transferred to the political opinions so indicated; and to the politics of other countries. (See also right-centre n. 2.) In Germany the Centre is the Catholic or Ultramontane party.
(This use originated in the French National Assembly of 1789, in which the nobles as a body took the position of honour on the President's right, and the Third Estate sat on his left. The significance of these positions, which was at first merely ceremonial, soon became political.)
This is expanded somewhat in the entry on "right" as:
> [Originally after French le côté droit the right-hand side (of the Assembly) (1792, with reference to the seating of nobles and high clergy to the right of the Chair, and the third estate and lower-status clergy to the left). The first division of this sort is commonly identified as taking place during the meeting of the French Estates General in 1789. It was then repeated in a vote in the constituent National Assembly on August 28, 1789: see quot. 1837 and the note at centre n.1 16.]
In two of the three entries the earliest such attribution is to Thomas Carlyle's 1837 *History of the Revolution in France* where the OED cites:
> T. Carlyle French Revol. I. vi. ii. 307 There is a Right Side (Coté Droit), a Left Side (Coté Gauche); sitting on M. le President's right hand, or on his left: the Coté Droit conservative; the Coté Gauche destructive.
But was predated by The Annual Register for the year 1829:
> "The result of this election proved that..the union—scarcely a natural union—of a fraction of the extreme right or royalist side, with the whole of the left, or liberal side, which, at the general election had driven him from office, was still continued to keep him out."
NB that the OED has entries for usage of the word "right" meaning "orthodox" if not strictly "conservative" from a much earlier date. | [
"In the legislature, Jean-François Lacroix raised various motions against royal ministers, the court and the king and he was said to have been the first who described the parties of the Assembly using the terms \"right, middle, left\" to refer to the liberal, moderate and radical divisions of the assembly. On 6 Oct... |
In the case of multiple injuries, does the pain from the different stack up, or do we only feel the pain from the most damaging injury? | This is a tough question to answer, as the amount of scientific information on it is lacking.
In short, it is believed that pain doesn’t stack in strength, but that you feel only what your mind focuses on – which is almost always the sharpest pain source.
This is called ‘The Principle of the Dominant’, put forward by Russian scientist Ukhtomsky. In this principle, Ukhtomsky explains that the brain chooses one focus of excitation, and that the other sources are ‘tuned out’. It may be possible to ‘feel’ one of the other sources by shifting your attention to the other injuries during this time.
This also makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint – your body tells you to take care of the most serious injury first by directing your attention to it.
TLDR: Pain doesn’t stack, your brain focuses on most serious source of pain. | [
"Complications are likely to result in cases of excess blood loss or punctures to certain organs, possibly leading to shock. Swelling and bruising may result, more so in high-impact injuries. Pain in the affected areas may differ where severity of impact increases its likelihood and may radiate if symptoms are aggr... |
i can't see air, yet i can feel it. when wind blows against my hand when i stick it out of a car window, what exactly is hitting my hand that makes me feel it? | What you're feeling is the collective pressure of trillions of air molecules hitting your hand with enough kinetic energy to move your arm. There are roughly 2.69 x 10^22 molecules per liter of air at sea level.
When you blow up a balloon, it's the same thing: air molecules under pressure bounce around randomly, and trillions of them bounce against the walls of the balloon, keeping it inflated.
The word "kinetic" implies motion, inertia and impact. To say that air molecules have kinetic energy means they are literally like small particles flying around and hitting things. | [
"BULLET::::- Pericutaneous space: The space just outside our bodies but which might be near to touching it. Visual-tactile perceptive fields overlap in processing this space. For example, an individual might see a feather as not touching their skin but still experience the sensation of being tickled when it hovers ... |
how does a finger print sensor work? | When you take a close look at your fingers, you’ll notice that there are very small ridges on them. Everyone has a slight difference between the heights of these ridges, the distances between them, and all the empty spaces or unique points of these ridges.
When you use a biometric system to record and use a fingerprint scanner, you often have two systems: an Optical and a Capacitor scanner.
Optical scanners work by shining a bright LED light over the finger placed for scanning, and takes what is essentially a digital photograph of the finger print. The ridges closest to the scanner will reflect the most light, and the depths and curves will usually reflect less. The scanner records these “images” and sends the data to a computer that calculates the depths and distances between ridges, that are again, unique to (almost) everyone.
The second type of scanner, a capacitor scanner, is more commonly found in phones and various tablets, and is more commonly known. These work by using a capacitor that stores a current, and another computer that measures these currents. When you place your finger over a plate where the capacitor is working, the ridges closest to the plate will affect the conductivity of the capacitor, whereas the air in the ridges between will leave it relatively the same as before the finger was placed. A computer records these changes, and because each distance and curve between ridges are different, the recorded difference will be different. This is how your electrical “fingerprint” is recorded!
Edit: I didn’t expect this to blow up so much! In regards to all the interesting questions, I will get to them as soon as I can, and read up on the topic to make sure I’m not spouting none sense. I’m currently slammed at work, but I will make time to answer you all. :) | [
"A fingerprint sensor is an electronic device used to capture a digital image of the fingerprint pattern. The captured image is called a live scan. This live scan is digitally processed to create a biometric template (a collection of extracted features) which is stored and used for matching. Many technologies have ... |
why do windshield wipers push the water to the drivers side? | The wiper is vertical when it reaches the driver's side, getting more water off than the passenger side. | [
"The effect that windshield wipers have on a vehicles airflow varies between vehicles; however, they are often omitted from race vehicles and high efficiency concepts in order to maintain the smallest possible coefficient of drag. A much more common option is to replace the windshield wipers with lower profile wipe... |
Why did Allende put Pinochet in charge of Santiago and later the entire Chilean army? Was his loyalty never questioned? | So, Pinochet was simply the next senior commander up for the job. There are a couple of reasons why Pinochet was not suspected, namely Chile’s recent political history. It was considered, by the early 1970s, to be the most stable country in South America. It had the longest tradition of representative democratic, republican government, unbroken by authoritarianism or military intervention for decades. No one really saw a coup d’état coming because of this democratic tradition, which, especially by the 1970s, was unfortunately one of the exceptions in the region.
The other reason why Pinochet was appointed commander-in-chief of the Army was because of some amount of meddling by the United States. The commander-in-chief of the Army before Pinochet was General Carlos Prats, who was never as radical as Pinochet and was known to have opposed any independent action taken by the military against the government. This embodied what was known as the Schneider doctrine, named after the commander-in-chief of the Army directly before Prats. Richard Nixon, upon Salvador Allende’s election, placed a number of economic sanctions upon Chile as a sort of punishment for its election of a socialist president. While the sanctions crippled Chile’s economy, they failed to remove Allende from power. So, the Nixon administration turned to the military in Chile as a way to forcibly remove Allende. The issue was that they understood that Prats, as commander-in-chief, would refuse to head any sort of coup d’état against the democratic government. The economic sanctions imposed on Chile resulted in large-scale protests from moderate and conservative middle and upper class people. A failed coup in June 1973 resulted in gatherings of women, mainly the wives of Chilean army officers, outside of General Prats’s house, yelling at him and shaming him for failing to restore order. They used some rather rude words that I would rather not share here. There is some evidence to indicate that it was the American diplomatic corps and the intelligence services who organized for these women to stage these protests, which resulted in Prats’s resignation. With Prats out of the way, it was only three months later, on September 11, 1973, that Allende was overthrown by Pinochet. Prats and his wife escaped to Buenos Aires, where they were both murdered A little over a year later by members of Pinochet’s secret police, the National Intelligence Directorate (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, or DINA). There was also a former CIA agent named Michael Townley who, after he left the intelligence services, became a mercenary hired by the DINA to participate in General Prats’s assassination. He was also involved in the assassination of Allende’s ambassador to the US and later Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier in Sheridan Circle in Washington DC two years later. | [
"Allende used this thesis as one of the bastions of his government, in order to keep the armed forces in line and prevent a possible coup d'état against his government. After General Prats' resignation as Army Commander-in-chief, Allende appointed General Augusto Pinochet as Army Commander-in-Chief, and this thesis... |
What did cannonball impacts actually look like in 18th century warfare? | In the 19th century, there were four primary types of ammunition fired by field artillery. Each one had different uses and very different effects on their unlucky victims.
You can see [the cross-sections of four types of ammunition used during the American Civil War (1861-1865).](_URL_1_).
* A: **Roundshot** with a wooden sabot attached by iron bands (the sabot was a wooden block that helped seat the ball against the powder charge and kept it from bouncing down the barrel.
* B: **Roundshot** with sabot and powder charge (inside bag).
* C: Details of the iron bands.
* D: Wooden sabot.
* E: Cutaway view of an **exploding shell**. Note the hole for the fuse at the top of the shell.
* F: Cutaway view of a **spherical case shot**, aka a shrapnel shell. Note the bursting charge of powder in the middle and the metal balls inside the case.
* G: Cutaway view of **case/canister shot**.
* H: **Canister/case shot** with powder charge (inside bag).
* I: Wooden sabot for canister shot.
Let me discuss each type in a little more detail, since each type killed and maimed in different ways.
**1: Round/solid shot:** Roundshot was just a solid iron (occasionally stone) ball. The oldest and simplest artillery projectile, roundshot was also the most common artillery projectile fired during the American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the other conflicts of the late 18th and early 19th century. In fact, 70-80% of the rounds fired by the Royal Artillery during the Napoleonic Wars were roundshot!
Donald Graves writes about the ammunition load carried by British and American artillery in the War of 1812. As you can see, most of it is roundshot:
> A Royal Artillery light 6-pdr. gun \[firing the fairly small six-pound roundshot\] was supplied with eight roundshot in its axle boxes and 32 roundshot, five heavy and five light canister rounds in the limber box, with 92 roundshot, heavy and light canister rounds and twenty shrapnel rounds in its ammunition wagon. American 6-pdr. guns \[were\] well supplied with eighteen roundshot in their ammunition chests while 62 roundshot and 30 canister rounds were carried in their caissons.
As Graves points out, these guns had a relativity short range.
> As a general rule, the maximum range of light guns was about 1,000 yards while heavier piece\[s\] reached out to about twice that distance. The maximum effective range, however, was considerably less. Given the inherent inaccuracy of the smoothbore gun which had no rifling to impart a stable trajectory to its projectiles, horizontal displacement of the trajectory was very marked at ranges over 800 yards. The maximum range for howitzers \[which fired roundshot at this range\] was between 1,000 and 1,400 yards but their maximum effective range was around 800-900 yards for the light calibres. British practice was to fire shrapnel or roundshot at ranges over 600 yards.
Roundshot fired at packed ranks of men had a decent chance to hit. Patrick Griffith summarizes some Napoleonic tests against company-sized targets.
|Nation|Range (m)|Hit %|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Austria|1000|40-70|
|Prussia|800|35|
|Britain|950|26-31|
|Belgium|900 |20|
Roundshot was the heaviest and longest-range projectile available to gunners, so tactics of the era made good use them. Gunners tried to "graze," or bounce, roundshot off of hard, flat ground. This helped rounds travel further, giving them more chances to hit enemy men, guns, and horses. As Graves says:
> The trajectory of roundshot was fairly flat - leaving the gun muzzle, it dropped steadily until it hit the ground on "first graze" and then ricocheted and continued on to its "second graze" at which point some 80% went on further. Throughout most of its flight, the shot was below height of a man, skimming, grazing and bouncing until energy was spent.
Gunners tried to position their guns to deliver [oblique fire](_URL_3_), bouncing roundshot down a line of infantry to wipe out as many men as possible. Patrick Griffith writes about how gunners sought to achieve this flanking fire:
> Cross fires and enfilades were for ever foremost in gunners' minds, and in the Napoleonic Wars the French became expert at achieving them ... When artillery was used to support an attack it would once again attempt to fire into the enemy's flank ... The closer the artillery could come, the better; and the French became very bold in this role.
Men marching in column were also vulnerable to cannon fire from their front. Roundshot fired at a narrow line of men might only kill 2-3 men. Roundshot fired at a column would kill dozens. [For reference, a line of infantry in the center-left and columns on the right](_URL_0_). In his memoirs of the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, French officer Jean Barres wrote about the lethal effects of artillery:
> The cannonballs ploughed through our ranks from the first to the last, each time sweeping away at least 30 men when they took the column full on.
There are other cases of multiple men being mowed down by one roundshot. At the Battle of Konigsberg in 1807, 13 men were hit by a single roundshot!
To make matters worse, in a densely-packed formation, men hit by a roundshot could also be violently shoved into other men, causing further injuries. Barres wrote about the Battle of Eylau in 1807:
> Once, the file touching me on the right was struck full in the chest ... The shock was so violent that those next to the men struck were thrown down together with the poor wretches who were hit.
James Burbeck writes more about the effects roundshot had on its luckless targets:
> The cannonballs themselves were subsonic, and lobbed slowly through the air, loudly whistling as they approached. Even at the end of its effective range, rolling shot would bowl men over and cause widespread injury. If flying shot hit a horse, it was not just a matter of the horse falling over; the ball might strike the saddlebags, scattering the contents in every direction as the horse went spinning, splattering pieces of the animal closely behind the chunks of leather and cloth. At close range, artillery fire would punch holes straight through entire sections of units.
At the Battle of Corunna in 1809, French artillery took a brutal toll on the senior British officers. One witness wrote:
> "Sir John Moore, while earnestly watching the result of the fight about the village of Elvina, was struck on the left breast by a cannon shot; the shock threw him from his horse with violence, but he rose again in a sitting posture … No less a victim of this galling fire was Sir David Baird himself, his left arm smashed by a roundshot…"
Moore's wounds were especially bad. The hole in his left shoulder was so deep that his lung was showing. His left ribs and collarbone had been crushed. His chest muscles hung from his body in strips. His left arm dangled from a few strips of flesh. Needless to say, Moore was mortally-wounded.
In a similar vein, Kevin Kiley writes about the devastating effect of a 192 massed Austrian guns at Aspern-Essling in 1809:
> General Pouzet, a longtime friend of Marshal Lannes, was killed, and St. Hilaire was mortally wounded, having a foot blown off by artillery fire. Lannes saw his friend being taken to the rear in a blanket, and he was later hit by a roundshot which shattered both knees, mortally wounding him. Both he and St. Hilaire would die in great agony after the battle was over and they had been evacuated. Lannes could not save them.
British infantry officer Major Thomas Austin was luckier than some men hit by roundshot, but not by much. He wrote in his diary (later published under the apt title *Old Stick-Leg*) about his experience:
> "...another cannon-ball swept off my left leg below the knee-joint; and although felled to the earth by the irresistible force of the blow, I experienced no sensation of faintness; but felt excessively hot, thirsty and savage. ... The moment after being struck down, I had sufficiently recovered from the shock, or more correctly had not been prostrated by it, as to be able to sit up and examine my wound.
>
> **I found the bones were laid bare for some distance up the limb, and appeared as white as the finest ivory, the tendons dangling and quivering like so many pieces of thread; ... Soon after receiving my wound, however, there came on a burning sensation in the injured part which gradually spread over my whole frame, and I felt parching thirst which seemed to have converted my tongue into a fire-brand; ... The battlefield was, to me, now divested of all the excitement and dignity of glorious war."**
Medical historian Michael Crumplin recounts some similar injuries sustained by British soldiers during the later Battle of Waterloo in 1815:
> **Wounds from heavy (3–12lbs) iron round shot were usually fatal if received centrally or on the head and neck. Many limbs were** [**avulsed \[i.e. ripped off\]**](_URL_2_) **by round shot. Tangential strikes by these large balls could cause severe tissue internal disruption.** Quartermaster Sir William Howe de Lancey was hit a glancing blow on his left loin by a round shot. He took a week to die and, at post mortem, eight ribs had been avulsed from his spine and he had suffered muscle, lung and renal injuries. | [
"BULLET::::- Wallis states that his idea came from Nelson's bouncing cannonballs into the sides of enemy ships. (He also states that Nelson sank one ship during the Battle of the Nile with a \"yorker\", a cricket term for a ball that bounces under the bat, making it difficult to play.) There is no evidence for this... |
Who were the Diggers, really? Disaffected peasants? Proto-communists? Just another religious faction? | The diggers didn't call themselves diggers, they called themselves the True Levellers, which helps us quite a bit in understanding their relationship with other ideas and groups of the late 1640s/early 1650s.
Levellers were a large and powerful faction within Parliament's army, they were associated with people of low birth and radical Protestant beliefs (e.g. Baptists, Independents, Anabaptists.) The Levellers organized soldiers to advocate for an end to political and religious hierarchies (especially against tithes) and demand manhood suffrage. Their basic idea was that since Parliament had asked the people to support it during the war, and the people had won the war for Parliament, that Lords and gentry could not go back to tyrannizing the common people. By this time the soldiers of the army thought of themselves as serving a higher purpose than their immediate orders.
From *The Case of the Army Truly Stated*
> that the Army took up arms in judgment and conscience for the people’s just rights and liberties, and not as mercenary soldiers, hired to serve an arbitrary power of the state, and that in the same manner it continued in arms at that time. And . . . it was declared that they proceeded upon the principles of right and freedom, and upon the law of nature and nations. But the strength of the endeavours of many hath been and are now spent to persuade the soldiers and Agitators that they stand as soldiers only to serve the state, and may not as free Commons claim their right and freedom as due to them, as those ends for which they have hazarded their lives, and that the ground of their refusing to disband was only the want of arrears and indemnity
So in this atmosphere of revolution there is a smaller movement, led by Gerard Winstanley, that takes it further still. Their religious beliefs are extremely radical-- indeed their theology is protomaterialist-- but they're on the spectrum of radical Protestant thought. The Diggers aim to bring waste and common lands under cultivation and end private landholding, they don't aim to do this by armed force but by example; they are one of many groups who see God's hand in England's recent events and expect God's kingdom to be shortly established on Earth. Diggers, like many other religious radicals, believe in equality and personal independence, that God speaks to all people, very similar to the contemporary Quaker concepts of 'Inner Light.' From *The True Levellers Standard Advanced*:
> And the Reason is this, Every single man, Male and Female, is a perfect Creature of himself; and the same Spirit that made the Globe, dwels in man to govern the Globe; so that the flesh of man being subject to Reason, his Maker, hath him to be his Teacher and Ruler within himself, therefore needs not run abroad after any Teacher and Ruler without him, for he needs not that any man should teach him, for the same Anoynting that ruled in the Son of man, teacheth him all things.
As for texts, if you want a good primary source to start with you can read Gerard Winstanley's [justification and call to action](_URL_0_). For secondary sources I recommend [Christopher Hill's book](_URL_1_) | [
"The Diggers were a group of Protestant radicals in England, sometimes seen as forerunners of modern anarchism, and also associated with agrarian socialism and Georgism. Gerrard Winstanley's followers were known as \"True Levellers\" in 1649 and later became known as \"Diggers,\" because of their attempts to farm o... |
Could mining asteroids for useful minerals be feasible? | The good news is; [Asteroid mining is very close to technical and economic feasibility.](_URL_0_)
Many asteroids consist of materials that do exhibit similar behaviour as Earth, so the technology used to perform the actual mining process should not be a problem. It is more to do with the lack of gravity and oxygen that is needed for the equipment to work.
Obviously, only the very rare minerals would be feasible at this stage, and the deposits would need to have a significantly high ore grade.
| [
"Asteroid mining will also be a key player in space colonization. Water and materials to make structures and shielding can be easily found in asteroids. Instead of resupplying on Earth, mining and fuel stations need to be established on asteroids to facilitate better space travel. Optical mining is the term NASA us... |
encapsulation in java | Encapsulation is when you make some parts of your program unable to access other parts of your program. The purpose of encapsulation is to help you (or others) safely make changes to one part of your program without damaging other parts. Programs that use encapsulation are also easier to understand.
In Java, one of the main ways to use encapsulation is to create classes with private member variables.
Suppose you want to make a class that represents a circle. Let's pretend that for some reason it's really important to you that the area of the circle does not need to be computed using pi*r^2 each time you want to find it. You might write the Circle class like this:
public class Circle {
public double radius;
public double area;
}
And then when you want to create a circle you just call **new Circle()** and then set **circle.radius** to r and **circle.area** to pi*r^2.
One problem with this is that you are forcing anyone who uses the **Circle** class to understand the formula for finding the area of a circle. It would be better if only **Circle** needed to know how to find the area. So you might change your code to this:
public class Circle {
public double radius;
public double area;
public Circle(double radius) {
this.radius = radius;
this.area = computeArea(radius);
}
public double computeArea(double radius) {
return Math.PI * radius * radius;
}
}
Now you can create a circle without worrying how to find its area. But there is still a problem: what if you want to change the radius of the circle? When you change the radius, you also need to change the area. This is something that anyone who uses the **Circle** class needs to remember. It would be better if they didn't have to remember this.
Here is how to fix this problem:
public class Circle {
private double radius;
private double area;
public Circle(double radius) {
setRadius(radius);
}
public double getRadius() {
return this.radius;
}
public void setRadius(double radius) {
this.radius = radius;
this.area = Math.PI * radius * radius;
}
public double getArea() {
return this.area;
}
}
Now whenever someone wants to change the radius of the circle they call **setRadius**, and the area is automatically updated to match the new radius. People using **Circle** don't need to understand how to find the area of a circle and don't need to worry about messing anything up if they set the radius.
Finally, suppose you decide that you don't want to store the area of the circle inside **Circle** anymore, and you just want to compute it when someone asks for the area. Then you can change the class to this:
public class Circle {
private double radius;
public Circle(double radius) {
this.radius = radius;
}
public double getRadius() {
return this.radius;
}
public void setRadius(double radius) {
this.radius = radius;
}
public double getArea() {
return Math.PI * radius * radius;
}
}
Even though you've changed the way **Circle** works on the inside, anyone who looks at it from the outside sees the exact same thing. So if somebody has some code that uses **Circle**, you can make this change and their code will still work.
I hope this helps! | [
"The Java type system, however, treats enumerations as a type separate from integers, and intermixing of enum and integer values is not allowed. In fact, an enum type in Java is actually a special compiler-generated class rather than an arithmetic type, and enum values behave as global pre-generated instances of th... |
Will sea levels affect true elevation as it rises because sea level is considered 0’? | Yes and no, and there's a lot of nuance in this question! First of all, "true elevation" doesn't really exist. We always have to measure elevation above some reference, which we call a datum. It is indeed very common to use "sea level" as the datum, but precisely what that means varies depending on what system you're using. For example, your datum might be an ellipsoid that approximates the shape of sea level around the globe, or it might be a more complex model that takes into account gravity differences to determine where sea level would be around the world (over land or ocean). A lot of elevation measurements use a model that tries to represent sea level taking tides into account, but even this is an approximation. Sea levels are not constant around the world - differences in water temperature, salinity, currents, tides, waves, large landmasses affecting the gravity, etc. mean that there really isn't a true 0' sea level, so every elevation measurement is an estimate.
That being said, as sea levels rise significantly in the future, our measurements will likely have to be adjusted, or the error accounted for. All altimeters are calibrated to some datum, and probably won't automatically adjust (unless you have something sophisticated that takes updates). But eventually I suspect that we will either have new standard datums that are used for elevation measurements, or everyone will start specifying things like "1543.6 m relative to the WGS 84 datum, or 1540.1 m according to so-and-so's new estimated 2116 datum." | [
"In common usage, elevations are often cited in height above sea level, although what “sea level” actually means is a more complex issue than might at first be thought: the height of the sea surface at any one place and time is a result of numerous effects, including waves, wind and currents, atmospheric pressure, ... |
Is cancer caused by random error and if yes why are there the common types of cancer? | The 'cause' of cancer is different dependent on the type of cancer. However despite this they all follow a simplistic premise; the cells lose control of their ability to divide.
Cells have a [cycle](_URL_1_) which they follow and when the circumstances are correct, divide. DNA damage due to carcinogens damage one or several of the protein mechanisms that control checkpoints which allow cells to pass into a the dividing phase of the cycle. This damage is commonly to genes for proteins like [P53](_URL_0_). It can however take many mutations within different genes in the cell to take down enough cellular safeguards to initiate uncontrolled cell division.
When this happens cells divide continuously, producing telemorase to prevent [Senescence](_URL_2_). This can form tumors which can either be benign and need removing or aggressive and spread to other organs.
Cancer treatments commonly focus on targeting cells that present signs (in the form of specific receptor profiles) that they are dividing too quick. Different cancers however have different profiles (you need to make sure you're killing only the cancer cells and not healthy ones) and require individual treatments. | [
"A number of authors have questioned the assumption that cancers result from sequential random mutations as oversimplistic, suggesting instead that cancer results from a failure of the body to inhibit an innate, programmed proliferative tendency. A related theory developed by astrobiologists suggests that cancer is... |
why is it there are no american made anime? (i.e. japanese style animation) | Well anime is a big part of Japanese culture. The American version of "anime" is cartoons I guess. Don't know why, but it's just culture. | [
"Despite numerous attempts, any efforts to convince US companies to license Japanese animation fail with the exception of a handful of companies that were intent on \"carving up\" any series rewriting them into kiddy cartoons. Sean Leonard states that entertainment executives at the time mistakenly assumed thought ... |
Seeking a complete narrative of history (esp. non-Western). | Not exactly what you're looking for, but I can recommend "A history of the World in 100 Objects" - both the book and the radio series. It's less about events, more about general trends, though (and better for it imho). | [
"Roads Not Taken: Tales of Alternate History is an anthology of alternate history short works edited by Gardner Dozois and Stanley Schmidt. It was first published in paperback by Del Rey/Ballantine in July 1998.\n",
"Changing direction in the 1990s, Gordon began to explore narrative, story-telling history, as a w... |
how can verizon promise faster internet, by upgrading, when they can't deliver a fraction of the speed i'm already paying for? | Because their advertising and your contract says "up to" X Mbps. As long as their network is configured to theoretically allow that amount, they're legally fulfilling their obligation. | [
"AT&T and other Internet Service Providers have launched their own gigabit services since Google Fiber was revealed. Some cable subscribers have also had their speeds increased without additional costs.\n",
"In July 2014 Verizon FiOS announced it would increase customer upload speeds to match download speeds for ... |
How far is the horizon from a human point of view? | When you are on a sphere of radius R and look out to the horizon from a height h, the distance to the horizon is sqrt{2Rh}.
For a typical person, this is about 3 miles or 5 km, if you're just standing up on the Earth.
[This site](_URL_0_) has an online calculator that tells you how far away the horizon is as a function of height, as well as an explanation of the geometry that determines this distance.
Edit: As a couple of people have pointed out below, I neglected to mention that sqrt{2Rh} is an approximation, valid when the height h is much less than the radius R. For a perfect sphere, the exact formula is sqrt{2Rh+h^(2)}=sqrt{2Rh(1+h/2R)}. For the Earth, one must also correct because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere. | [
"To compute the greatest distance at which an observer can see the top of an object above the horizon, compute the distance to the horizon for a hypothetical observer on top of that object, and add it to the real observer's distance to the horizon. For example, for an observer with a height of 1.70 m standing on th... |
How come the Vikings in Newfoundland didn't cause a Columbian exchange of plants, animals and diseases? | While I can't recommend anything on the topic of plants and resources (Which are very good questions!) I can suggest these two older threads on why the Norse explorers didn't spread disease. There's always more that can be said, but you might like to start some reading with these:
[If the Vikings visited North America before 1492, was there any evidence that any population was wiped out (partially or otherwise) by small pox?](_URL_0_) by /u/Reedstilt.
and [One of the main reasons Europeans were so utterly victorious against Native Americans was the introduction of diseases, that decimated the population. Why did the Norsemen of Vinland not bring diseases that carried the same effect?](_URL_1_) primarily from /u/anthropology_nerd which looks at diseases in the new world. | [
"It is generally accepted by Norse scholars that Vikings explored the coasts of Atlantic Canada, including New Brunswick, during their stay in Vinland where their base was possibly at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, around the year 1000. Wild walnut (butternut) shells found at l'Anse aux Meadows suggest that the ... |
Bright skies during thunderstorm? | Might be caused by low sun angles being able to scoot in underneath the cloud layers, basically catching the sunset and diffusing it.
| [
"There is mounting evidence, including Doppler on Wheels mobile radar images and eyewitness accounts, that most tornadoes have a clear, calm center with extremely low pressure, akin to the eye of tropical cyclones. Lightning is said to be the source of illumination for those who claim to have seen the interior of a... |
I am a merchant on the Silk road, what is a day on the journey like? | There's a bit of a misunderstanding of what the silk road actually was, it was a web of different trade routes taking all kinds of things across Eurasia. You wouldn't be a trader going from China all the way to Europe, you would most likely be a camel driving trader in central asia selling your wares on to the next central asian trader who will take it a bit further west and so on and so forth adding a mark up at each stage. Your life would be very similar to camel driving traders from every point in history up until recent times. | [
"The Great Silk Road (term for the first time was used in 1877 by German geographical scholar Ferdinand von Richthofen) is the caravan route of the ancient times and Middle Ages from China to the countries of Central and Minor Asia. The Great Silk Road was named after the main trade item-silk, which until the 6th c... |
how does massive amounts of snow not cause flooding as it all melts? | It does, it's just not flooding at the front door. The snow melts slowly in the spring as the temperature rises. Some years there is so much runoff that the Mississippi spills out of it's banks. Some times the Corp of Engineers [purposely floods communities](_URL_0_) to save others. | [
"In many cold mountain areas, snowmelt can be a key mechanism by which landslide initiation can occur. This can be especially significant when sudden increases in temperature lead to rapid melting of the snow pack. This water can then infiltrate into the ground, which may have impermeable layers below the surface d... |
Did Victorian & Edwardian doctors actually stimulate women with their hands and primitive vibrators to treat "female hysteria?" | Yes, they actually did. Females desiring sexual experiences was considered a form of mental illness, so some would go to a doctor to treat these urges. One mode of therapy was vaginal stimulation.
Krafft-Ebing, a 19th-century doctor and early sexologist, wrote about female sexuality as a perversion in his work *Psychopathia Sexualis*. Michel Foucault also reflects on the treatment of these women in his *History of Sexuality*. | [
"BULLET::::- Lieberman disputes the theory that Victorian doctors used vibrators to cure women’s hysteria. Lieberman traced the theory back to Rachel Maines’ \"The Technology of Orgasm,\" and while agreeing that sources do back up claims that Victorian doctors used vibrators to treat upwards of 300 different diseas... |
If I tied a bag around my head, how many plants would I need to put in the bag for me to be able to breathe comfortably? | might be better phrased if you were in a sealed room as I think it would have to be a mighty big bag. | [
"However, bags have been patented for protecting the fruit, vegetables and small plants by Kollath and Huffman (2000). These bags are made of perforated materials passing sunlight, water and air but having perforations sufficiently large to exclude insects. Guthrie (1988) patented bag for processing fruit or vegeta... |
how can gas station/mini-marts (in the us) reject large bills? | "legal for all debts" means *debts*. If they haven't agreed to the sale and you haven't received the goods, there's no debt yet. | [
"Large retailers who currently have a physical presence in most or all states are already required to collect sales tax on interstate sales to consumers in those states, so the bill would not have had a significant effect on them. (Technically, those sales are considered intrastate sales for taxing purposes because... |
If you placed an electric scale in a vacuum, set it to zero and took it out, would it measure the weight of the atmosphere? | No. The pressure from the atmosphere would be pushing up from the bottom as well as down from the top. If you had a scale that operated as some kind of airtight piston that whatever you're weighing pushes down, then it would measure the weight of a column of atmosphere with a cross-section the same as the scale. Interestingly, it wouldn't have to be upright to do it.
Although I guess the scale I described would still need to be calibrated in a vacuum, like you said. | [
"Pounds per square inch absolute (psia) is used to make it clear that the pressure is relative to a vacuum rather than the ambient atmospheric pressure. Since atmospheric pressure at sea level is around 14.7 psi, this will be added to any pressure reading made in air at sea level. The converse is pounds per square ... |
Is it possible to rationally solve the equation a^x = x^a?
| No, it's not possible. The solution xORioN63 gave isn't really a solution; it's in terms of the W product-log function, and that function is basically *defined* to be the solution to your equation. | [
"would lead to a nonlinear system of algebraic equations which could not be easily solved as above; however, it is possible in some cases to linearize the problem by using the old value for formula_15, that is formula_16 instead of formula_17. Other times, it may be possible to estimate formula_17 using an explicit... |
Why didn't the Romans conquer Poland or Eastern Europe? | The Romans were mostly interested in conquering areas that had a high degree of self sufficiency which could provide a tax base for them to extract from. Poland and eastern europe (as well as parts of Germany) did not have the higher level of urbanism at this time as in comparison with some Celtic Gallic settlements, which were in many ways already integrated into the Roman trade network in the case of southern Gaul.
The Teutoberg Forest story is noteworthy in 19th century germanic interpretations as to why the "march of the Roman Empire" was halted, but in reality incursions into Germany continued even after that disaster, and they were intended less for conquest or expansion than they were to play "whack-a-mole" with barbarian tribes in a bid to force them into some kind of political structure that would be compliant with Roman diplomatic efforts.
It was basically a cost/benefit analysis that decided the prestige to be gained by conquering more territory was outweighed by the lack of financial benefits accorded to conquest.
This is the same reason why the Roman Empire had no desire to conquer the empty wastelands of the Sahara south of the Mediterranean coastlines.
Keep in mind too, our modern "nationalistic" desire for territorial conquest tends to stem from our thinking of geography in terms of maps. "Why is this empty area not ours? Lets go get it." The Romans thought in terms of where there was "civilization" (derived from civitates, which means city/urban/administrative area).
Sources:
* Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Print.
* Goodman, Martin, and Jane Sherwood. The Roman World, 44 BC-AD 180. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.
* Heather, P. J. Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
| [
"One of the reasons for the Roman withdrawal was the pressure put upon the empire's military resources by the incursion of barbarian tribes from the east. These tribes, including the Angles and Saxons, who later became the English, were unable to make inroads into Wales except possibly along the Severn Valley as fa... |
how natural immunity to diseases works | What do you want to know in particular?
Short summary is that most foreign proteins illicit an immune response. Bacteria and viruses generally have several of these foreign proteins (called antigens). Your body has the ability to produce immune cells that respond specifically to any antigen. When a bacteria or virus multiplies in your body, its antigens will be all over your body. Certain immune cells capture these antigens and bring them to your lymph nodes, where the immune cell which reacts to the antigens present on the pathogen clones itself over and over until there are large numbers in your body.
These immune cells kill the pathogen in question, and once they are done some stick around. If that same antigen is detected in your body again, those immune cells that stuck around can multiply quickly to respond to the pathogen before it reaches the levels necessary to make you sick. | [
"Immunity against infections that can cause serious illness is generally beneficial. Since Pasteur provided support for a germ theory of infectious disease, we have increasingly induced immunity against a widening range of diseases to prevent the associated risks from the wild infections. It is hoped that further u... |
if you go at the speed of sound could you run on water? | [Identity concealed] is not correct. You can run on water ([just watch this cute little lizard do it!](_URL_0_)), and you can do it at a speed significantly slower than the speed of sound. The exact speed required depends on the surface area and shape of your feet, the frequency and force of your steps, and the surface tension of the water. It's really an engineering question and not a physics question to optimize those parameters to run on water at a reasonable speed. | [
"In salt water that is free of air bubbles or suspended sediment, sound travels at about ( at , 10°C and 3% salinity by one method). The speed of sound in seawater depends on pressure (hence depth), temperature (a change of ~ ), and salinity (a change of 1‰ ~ ), and empirical equations have been derived to accurate... |
Are people "born gay"? I saw this topic being dicussed in r/christianity and thought it would be helpful to get the opinion of a biologist/neuroscientist. Thanks. | Depends on what you mean by "born gay". If you mean as opposed to having made some kind of conscious or subconscious choice, the answer would be that people don't choose. Both in the opinion of the majority of people who are gay, and as a broad consensus among psychiatrists etc.
There are a lot of phony claims circulating in those 'debates'. For instance, equating being "born with" a certain trait, and that trait being genetic. It's perfectly possible to have a permanent physical trait that has no basis in genetics. Your fingerprints, the distribution of freckles on your skin, birth defects, etc.
That said, I believe (and am under the impression this is what most believe), that homosexuality _does_ have a genetic component. Which brings us to another phony claim: The fact that a trait may be genetic _doesn't_ mean that everyone with the gene has that trait. Genetics isn't actually absolute, it can (and often does) change the _probabilities_ of outcomes, rather than work as an on-off switch.
The other phony claim that gets thrown around a lot is the false assumption that just because _we_ think a trait is important, that it's _biologically_ important. That assumption has a very bad track record. We're pretty superficial, so humans assume things we _see_ are important. Hence racial theories that attributed practically everything about a person to their skin color, nose shape, skull shape, etc. Today, we know those things are aren't really significant indicators of anything. So just because we, for social/religious/cultural reasons, happen to think homosexuality is massively important, doesn't mean it has that role in biology. We also tend to falsely assume there's a one-to-one correspondence between traits and genes. That's just completely false. It's in fact very unusual that a change to a gene would only change one 'trait' (from our _human_ definitions of what 'separate traits' are). We can't see the machinery 'under the hood', so to speak, so it's not at all obvious what things are _actually_ connected, and what's not.
Finally, you've got the bogus statement that homosexuality couldn't be genetic, since gay people can't reproduce (or are at least less likely to). That just means you're ignorant of basic genetics: To begin with, by that rationale, there would be no deadly hereditary diseases. (There are lots of them). The reason can be deduced from the explanations above: The gene that causes the disease may not guarantee you get the disease, the gene that causes the disease may affect other things as well, and do so in beneficial ways ([Sickle-cell anemia](_URL_0_) is the textbook example of this. If you carry the trait, you have increased resistance to malaria, but you increase the chance of your offspring getting the lethal disease).
See, evolution does not "care" about _individuals_. It's the survival of the _population_ that matters. So the only precondition that exists for a "gay gene" to exist, is that it does not make every single person with the gene a homosexual, and that it has some other, beneficial, effect. That's not unlikely, but in fact the most likely scenario.
It's not hard to come up with plausible theories of how such a gene (or set of them) could arise. Obviously, homosexuality is inimitably related to how sexual attraction works. The fact that it's observed in a large number of other species would indicate that the traits (if genetic) evolved early, and so may be integral to how sexual attraction works for us.
So, you might for instance have a situation where a gene increases sexual attraction in most of the carriers of the gene, but causes a minority of them to be attracted to the 'wrong' sex. From the evolutionary perspective, that's valuable trait, as long as the increased reproduction in the 'straight' portion of the population outweighs the deficit due to the 'gays'.
In other words: For all we know, nature did _not_ necessarily choose between a 'gay gene' vs a 'straight gene'. It could well have been between a '95% straight gene' and an 'not-attracted-to-anyone-in-particular gene'. It's entirely plausible that the existence of homosexuality in a small portion of the population may be **necessary** for sexual attraction as-we-know-it!
So the question you might ask instead is this: Would you have been born straight if there hadn't been any gay people?
| [
"People are not born homosexual. According to Scripture and science, homosexuality is not part of someone's biological constitution. People will argue to the contrary, but being gay is not like left-handedness. There is absolutely no scientific evidence of a gay gene. Nature or nurture? The answer is the latter. Th... |
what do engineers typically do all day when working for a company. | Look up detailed technical information and design solutions to little bits of a large, complicated problem.
Study customer requirements and think about how these might be solved.
Look at problem reports (defects, bugs) and think about what must have gone wrong and how to improve the design.
_URL_1_
_URL_0_ | [
"An Engineer-in-Training does engineering work, such as design, under the supervision and direction of a Professional Engineer, who are exclusively able to perform certain tasks, such as stamp and seal designs and offer services to the public.\n",
"Engineering technicians help solve technical problems in many way... |
Physics: if b particles are electrons, can they be captured to produce electricity DIRECTLY from a radioactive source? | [Atomic batteries](_URL_0_).
> Nuclear battery technology began in 1913, when Henry Moseley first demonstrated the beta cell. The field received considerable in-depth research attention for applications requiring long-life power sources for space needs during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1954 RCA researched a small atomic battery for small radio receivers and hearing aids.[3] Since RCA's initial research and development in the early 1950s, many types and methods have been designed to extract electrical energy from nuclear sources. The scientific principles are well known, but modern nano-scale technology and new wide bandgap semiconductors have created new devices and interesting material properties not previously available.
There was even a [direct use](_URL_0_#Direct_charging_generators) of the charged particles from a radioactive material to produce electric current.
> In the first type, the primary generator consists of a capacitor which is charged by the current of charged particles from a radioactive layer deposited on one of the electrodes. Spacing can be either vacuum or dielectric. Negatively charged beta particles or positively charged alpha particles, positrons or fission fragments may be utilized. Although this form of nuclear-electric generator dates back to 1913, few applications have been found in the past for the extremely low currents and inconveniently high voltages provided by direct charging generators. Oscillator/transformer systems are employed to reduce the voltages, then rectifiers are used to transform the AC power back to direct current. | [
"The particles are injected at the right time so that the oscillating voltage differential between electrodes is maximum as the particles cross each gap. If the peak voltage applied between the electrodes is formula_1 volts, and the charge on each particle is formula_2 elementary charges, the particle gains an equa... |
how do we sleep comfortably during daylight but not when the lights are on at night? | Most likely has to do with the amount of blue light coming off interior lights. The sun is full spectrum and even has a warm yellow glow to it, which is relaxing. Blue light, is hard to focus on and causes eye strain and also is known to reduce melatonin production, which is a hormone produced for sleep. | [
"The optimal sleeping light condition is said by some to be total darkness. If a nightlight is used within a sleeping area, it is recommended to choose a dim reddish light to minimize disruptive effects on sleep cycles. In addition, nightlights may be useful in locations other than sleeping areas, such as hallways,... |
the differences between being pansexual, bisexual, and omnisexual? also, how do some people identify as neither male nor female, both, or something else entirely? | These terms, as stated in comments already made, can be confusing because they are used as personal identifiers as well as definitions of various forms of sexuality. This confusion can be understood by imagining two people who identify as Christians, for example. One person might try and live a good life by a set of moral codes, while the other attends church every Sunday and reads the bible in their spare time. Because these words are adapted by people, and used to self identify, their meanings can look differently depending on who's wearing them.
Bisexuality refers to a sexual preference for "both men and women". From an academic or critical perspective, this leaves out room for people who don't identify as somewhere inbetween, outside, or within both of these gender categories. Someone who is well read on gender and sexuality might use the term bisexual if they are attracted to both men and women, but not trans* individuals. In an everyday setting, like a high school, someone might identify as bisexual while being open to dating trans* identified people. The other terms are less well known, and therefor, less understood.
Pansexuality accounts for attraction/love/interest in people all across, or outside, the gender spectrum. In my exposure to the term, it is a way of indicating what some people might regard as "bi-sexuality" while respecting that some of the people they are attracted to don't fit in categories like man or woman. In some communities, pansexuality speaks specifically to the disregard of gender in selecting a romantic or sexual partner. The gender indicators of a person take no effect in one's selection of them as a viable partner. This, however, is not shared by all members of the pansexual community.
Omnisexual is more recent a term than those above, and refers to different things by different people. For those who self identify as omnisexual, it often means an appreciation for the specific nuances of all gendered or non gendered bodies and people of the world. Rather than erasing the gendered components of a person when assessing their attraction, these parts of them are incorporated in what makes them desirable and attractive. There are pansexuals who identify with this line of thinking as well, I would even argue that the majority of those who identify as pansexuals and omnisexuals have more in common with one another than the terms lend one to imagine.
As for your second question, I want to point out the use of these words to mean different things, though are often conflated in everyday conversation.
Male or female are words used to describe the biological sex category of a sexually producing organism. Cats, some plants, fish, and many other beings are categorized by these two words. A two-sex system or binary only accounts for bodies that completely adhere to the biomedical standards that were assigned to each sex. If a person is born with externally male genitals and ovaries, or has an XXY or non-binary chromosomal makeup, these categories don't serve them. In the global West, babies born with these bodies are often surgically intervened or socially raised to represent one gender or the other. The individual, however, might feel as though they are both male and female, or neither.
Conversations about men and women refer to gender, not sex. Gender is a social construct, that changes and holds different meanings throughout time and geography. A person is often called a "boy" and eventually a "man" if they are born and assessed as being of the male sex. Blue and pink blankets, long and short hair, and the many other ways we have to communicate about how we identify fall under gender, which doesn't refer to a person's biological sex.
So, if you are born into this world, and you are assessed to be a woman, you'll be raised under a set number of societally maintained standards. If you grow up, and realize that what everyone is calling a boy is more like you than what you see is a girl, then you might consider yourself "trans". This short prefix is used to indicate the wide range of sex and gender categories that aren't covered by "man" or "woman", "male" or "female". You could grow up as a boy, realize you don't feel much like a boy, but also don't feel like a girl. In this sense, you are neither of these categories. You might feel like there is another word to describe your identity in a way that the words you've been taught don't describe. Thus, people identify as "something else entirely", as you mentioned.
I hope this was concise and clear, though I know it is super lengthy.
Source: A Women and Gender Studies and Sexual Diversity Studies graduate. | [
"The definition of pansexuality can encourage the belief that it is the only sexual identity that covers individuals who do not cleanly fit into the categories of male or man, or female or woman. However, bisexual-identified people and scholars may object to the notion that bisexuality means sexual attraction to on... |
How much better off were the Irish before they were controlled by the English? | I will disregard the gross generalisations inherent in the question, as well as the inaccuracies, both in History and in terminology, but I do urge you to think more carefully about the context, rather than accepting as truth the popular views that you have heard.
To answer the question, however, the ordinary Irish people would have lived in exactly the same way before and after the English came to Ireland. Even after the Act of Union, most Irish people's lives would have been little different, and would have been little different to those of ordinary people in Britain.
The way of life of the people of Gaelic Ireland changed not at all when it became part of the English crown. Nicholls in "Gaelic and Gaelicised Ireland in the Middle Ages" (the only book I have to hand) describes the background, politics, legal system society the church and the economy in the period before and after the arrival of the English, and all that changes, he suggests, is that some of the overlords become English, and that these English overlords very quickly, within a generation or two, become Gaelicised. So, life wasn't better, it was the same. Even after the Tudor changes in the political control of Ireland, all that really changed was the identities of the overlords, life for the Irish remained pretty much the same.
Just out of interest, why do you imagine that the Irish were better off before? | [
"By the middle decades of the 14th century, the Hiberno-Norman presence in Ireland was perceived to be under threat, mostly due to the dissolution of English laws and customs among English settlers. These English settlers were described as \"more Irish than the Irish themselves\", referring to their taking up Irish... |
Bayonet charges vs bayonet *battles* | During the Battle of Borodino, the Russians set up several heavy fortifications on the Radevsky redoubt in order to force the French into an attritional battle rather than a battle of movement that was Napoleon's style of combat. In order to take each of the three redoubts, the French would have to focus artillery and charge with the bayonet because the earthen works would be enough to defend against the French firepower. Further, the Russians did fight in these positions because Russian tactics were more about being stubborn than actually having a tactical doctrine.
However most of the time a bayonet charge is exactly what you mention, basically a scare tactic in order to force an enemy out of a position. | [
"The bayonet has become a symbol of military power. The term \"at the point of a bayonet\" refers to using military force or action to accomplish, maintain, or defend something (cf. Bayonet Constitution). Undertaking a task \"with fixed bayonets\" has this connotation of no room for compromise and is a phrase used ... |
Scientists confirmed that z8_GND_5296, the farthest galaxy ever discovered, is 30 billion light years away. The age of the universe is estimated at around 13.8 billion years. How is light from z8_GND_5296 reaching our telescopes if it takes its light 30 billion years to reach us? | The universe expanded while the light was coming from that gallaxy to us, so the space in between became larger throught the light's trip, the light also expanded and became red shifted.
in a simpler way: the distance is 30 billion light years NOW but it didnt when the light was emitted or travelling. | [
"The James Webb telescope should be able to detect galaxies more than 13.4 billion light years away, less than 300 million years after the Big Bang. Bremer states that it, and eventually the European Extremely Large Telescope, which will have a mirror five times the diameter of Yepun's, and is tentatively scheduled... |
why are perfume commercials so goddamn weird?! | A few reasons, one they're selling a smell, something that doesn't translate well over tv, print or radio. Second it's a smell, you either like it or you don't.
So what they're selling is an image of a lifestyle. For example Axe products are mostly marketed to young men, who [buy their own products](_URL_0_). So axe commercials are, [wear this](_URL_4_), get lots of hot chicks fawning over you. Because that's what a young man (generally)wishes for.
Colognes that are marketed to older men, like [Polo](_URL_2_) are mostly purchased by women. So the guy is always some suave fit guy who lives an active lifestyle, does cool things, and always loves the his woman. If you are male, what appeals to you in this [commercial](_URL_1_)? Probably almost nothing, you probably have very little interest in seeing a shirtless, fit, good looking guy. This commercial has a lot more interest to women, sophisticated well dressed guy, who looks even better at home.
Women's perfumes pretty much all sell the same fantasy. Wear this, and you'll have the perfect date with the perfect guy.
_URL_3_
_URL_5_ Same thing, eyes met in a crowd, given a flower by a cute kid who did something innocent yet romantic. | [
"An unrelated perfume of the same name had been released in March 2018 by Belgian parfumier Kamila Aubre; Aubre said that she \"noticed some unusual statistics on her website\" after the episode's release but had assumed the increase in purchases would be because of a \"beauty blogger\" mentioning the product, havi... |
why do people tend to snap their fingers when trying to recall something? | nothing to do with anything. it's learned behavior. it is only done by people who have been exposed to other people doing it. stop next time you're doing it and ask yourself why. you'll have your answer. you're doing it so the person you're snapping at shuts up and lets you think and doesn't interrupt you. its your local way of communicating that you don't want to be interrupted verbally. you're "thinking aloud" and don't want their input so you're showing you're not listening by generating noise that you control, and can ignore as you think, but which they feel obliged to accept means 'shut up' because it interrupts them if they try to contribute. | [
"BULLET::::- Tip of the tongue: when a subject is able to recall parts of an item, or related information, but is frustratingly unable to recall the whole item. This is thought to be an instance of \"blocking\" where multiple similar memories are being recalled and interfere with each other.\n",
"To differ, other... |
why does cartoon network (and to some extent other networks) have its logo onscreen constantly? | It is to identify the source if it is played at some other time. For people watching it it is just an ad but for, say, a theater showing it it is evidence that they aren't necessarily using a legal source. | [
"On October 1, 2011, Cartoon Network introduced new branding and a logo. Designed by Brand New School, it makes heavy use of a black and white checkerboard motif. The slogan \"It's a Fun Thing!\" was also introduced. Many older advertisements and bumpers from the previous branding were retained, albeit with the add... |
why do well-fed pets still scarf down their food in one big bite? | Same reason people overeat.
We are genetically programmed to act as though food is scarce. We eat as much as we can as fast as we can, so we have the calories to go without for a few days. Our bodies don't know food is so abundant that is no longer necessary. | [
"\"Schefflera\" poisoning is due to the species containing \"sharp\" calcium oxalate crystals that are insoluble and damage the cells and tissues of the animals ingesting them. Depending on the amount that a pet consumes the resulting damage (swelling) of exposed tissues and digestive tract may be fatal to the anim... |
why does the troposphere move faster than earth? | The atmosphere does not rotate faster than the earth. You appear to be looking at a small segment of the atmosphere: the prevailing westerlies in the lower troposphere in the temperate regions of the planet and attributing that motion to the whole atmosphere. The temperate prevailing westerlies are only one component of the worldwide circulation of air, which also has easterly, northerly, and southerly components, and is quite complex. | [
"The large-scale circulation of the Earth's atmosphere is driven by the difference in absorbed solar radiation per square meter, as the sun heats the Earth more in the Tropics, mostly because of geometrical factors. The atmospheric and oceanic circulation redistributes some of this energy as sensible heat and laten... |
Why are unripe pineapples toxic? | Because bromelain. Cf. _URL_0_ | [
"Pineapples are subject to a variety of diseases, the most serious of which is wilt disease vectored by mealybugs typically found on the surface of pineapples, but possibly in the closed blossom cups. Other diseases include citrus pink disease, bacterial heart rot, anthracnose, fungal heart rot, root rot, black rot... |
Does battery charging time also decrease with battery capacity? | > Does battery charging time also decrease with battery capacity?
If you charge at the same current and voltage, yes. But this will be more a limitation of the charger than the battery.
If you charge at the same rate relative to capacity (for example 2C, or 2 x the amp hour capacity), then large and small batteries will charge at the same speed. This is probably the answer you are looking for.
If you also take into account getting rid of the excess heat from large batteries (this could be larger cells, or more of them packed together), you will have to slow the rate down for the larger batteries, so the larger batteries will again be slower. | [
"In this stage, the battery is continued being charged at a constant (over)voltage U, but the charge current is decreasing. The decrease is imposed by the battery. The voltage in the U-phase is too high to be applied indefinitely (hence, overvoltage), but it allows charging the battery fully in a relatively short t... |
what is actually happening when you "charge" something that is glow in the dark? | The chemical bonds in the glowing component can temporarily store energy and then release it at a constant rate. When "charging" it, you're exposing the chemical to ultra violet light (or any wavelength of light i guess it depends), the photons excite the molecules and energy is stored. The energy is then released as the molecules go back to their typical energy state. This released energy takes the form of light. | [
"Some examples of glow-in-the-dark materials do not glow by phosphorescence. For example, glow sticks glow due to a chemiluminescent process which is commonly mistaken for phosphorescence. In chemiluminescence, an excited state is created via a chemical reaction. The light emission tracks the kinetic progress of th... |
Are certain parts of the universe expanding faster than others? | So the expansion of the Universe is linear in distance from the observer. V=Ho*D
So the further the object is from Earth, the faster it is receding. So in that sense, yes, things are expanding away from us with different speeds.
But remember, it is all a point of reference. D is the proper distance from the observer. If we say that Earth is at point A in space, and we measure something 100 Mpc away from us at point C, it would be receding with a velocity of roughly 7500 km/s.
If you were at point B which were 200 Mpc away from point C you would measure 15000 km/s.
Its just like an explosion. All the points are expanding out from each other. | [
"Current evidence suggests that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating, which means that the second derivative of the scale factor formula_23 is positive, or equivalently that the first derivative formula_24 is increasing over time. This also implies that any given galaxy recedes from us with increasing... |
When it became public knowledge that asbestos was harmful to humans, what was the reaction of the U.S. workforce? Was there a massive wave of scientific denial on par with today's society? | can you expand on what exactly you mean by
> scientific denial on par with today's society | [
"Asbestos was known in antiquity, but it was not mined and widely used commercially until the late 19th century. Its use greatly increased during World War II. Since the early 1940s, millions of American workers have been exposed to asbestos dust. Initially, the risks associated with asbestos exposure were not publ... |
how does organ compatibility work? | Multiple factors go into testing if someone is compatible for receiving an organ. The two major tests that must be done are testing for Rh/blood type and Major Histocompatibility complex (MHC). Think of MHC's as a flag that cells show to the body. If this "flag" does not match with the recipients then the immune system with reject and attack the transplanted organ. Only identical twins with have identical MHC's so the doctor must try to match them as close as possible. In almost all transplants the recipient must take immuno represent drugs so the body will not reject the organ.
In regards to blood type and Rh factor the recipient an donor must match. There are 4 different types of blood A, B, AB, and O. AB is known as the universal acceptor and O is known as the universal donor. People with type A blood have antibodies that are specific for this type of blood and can not receive blood with type B antibodies. Type AB blood have both antibodies so they can receive any type of blood. Type O blood have no antibodies so they can donate to anyone however they can only receive type O blood. Blood also has a Rh factor which is a protein on the blood. Someone with a negative Rh factor will not be able to accept Rh Positive blood due to the immune system thinking this protein does not belong. Someone with Rh positive blood will be able to receive whatever blood they want due to the that protein not being there for the immune system to attack. | [
"Internal and external organs are included in the reproductive system. There are two reproductive systems including the male and female, which contain different organs from one another. These systems work together in order to produce offspring.\n",
"Organ transplantation is a medical procedure in which an organ i... |
if the us is allied with saudi arabia, why did we topple saddam hussein and replace him with a cia trained shia who is allied with iran? | For better or for worse the Americans did in fact install a democratic government. As a result, the Americans could not just "install" their preferred candidate for PM.
After the civil war, the Americans decided the Iraqi political system needed change. Maliki, since returning to Iraq, had impressed the right people working for the Americans, was not corrupt, and was politically weak which would necessitate building a coalition among the differing factions. The Americans, despite reservations, ultimately decided to back Maliki for PM because he would be able to win support from the Sunni, Shia, and the Kurds.
| [
"BULLET::::5. \"Saddam did not consider the United States a natural adversary, as he did Iran and Israel, and he hoped that Iraq might again enjoy improved relations with the United States, according to Tariq 'Aziz and the presidential secretary.\"\n",
"Officially, Saudi Arabia wished to see Saddam Hussein and th... |
how is interplanetary internet ever going to be possible, even if it does, what could be the possible bandwidth someone would get? | Bandwidth isn't the issue, it's latency. A nice laser or microwave beam could carry a lot of information at a very high bandwidth, but the minimum speed-of-light round trip time Earth to Pluto is 10 hours. | [
"Interplanetary communication is greatly delayed by interplanetary distances, so a new set of protocols and technology that are tolerant to large delays and errors are required. The interplanetary Internet is a store and forward \"network of internets\" that is often disconnected, has a wireless backbone fraught wi... |
Was America the first democracy in the west since the rise of Roman Emperors? | No. This answer really depends on how you define a "democracy", but there have been a number of governments that could qualify:
* The [Althing](_URL_0_) of the Icelandic Commonwealth, founded in 930.
* The [Tuath](_URL_3_) of medieval Ireland.
* The democratic parliament of England (later the United Kingdom): England had its first elected paliament in [1265](_URL_4_), and after the [Glorious Revolution](_URL_2_) of 1688 the King was little more than a figurehead, with (the elected) parliament holding the real power.
* The [Corsican Republic](_URL_1_) had a democratic government and a constitution in 1755.
The difficulty with this question comes with how you define a "democracy". Is the UK, with a unelected, but powerless, head of state a democracy? And what about governments with some form of elective representation, but only for a tiny portion of the population (like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had elections but only allowed nobles to vote).
Define what you mean by a "democracy" (and remember that technically the US is not one to this day) and this question will become easier to answer. But the answer is almost certainly "no" no matter how you define the question. | [
"In the age of Cicero and Caesar, Rome was a republic, but not a democracy. Furthermore, it would be misleading to say that the tradition of Athenian democracy was an important part of the 18th-century revolutionaries' intellectual background. The classical example that inspired the American and French revolutionar... |
why do cops pull you over then ask you if you know why they pulled you over? | Because it puts you on the spot.
When you get pulled over, most people hope to get off with just a warning, and part of that is being polite and respectful. Lying is impolite, and will likely get you a ticket, but leave open the option of contesting it in court. Telling the truth (assuming you were speeding or something) is a confession, the officer might respect your honesty and give you a warning, but if they don't, it will be more difficult to contest the ticket.
Also, like any open-ended question, it helps gauge your level of nervousness and/or intoxication, to help the officer determine if you are breaking any other laws. | [
"Following the \"Inside Edition\" investigation, many magazines also focused on the team and their extreme stunt riding. One crew member is quoted saying \"Most normal people pull over when they see lights or hear sirens, we immediately drop a gear and hammer it. There isn’t a police car out there that can keep up ... |
Can anyone date this photograph from the late 19th century? | I would venture to guess the early 1900s or 1910s - the high collars worn by the women were popular during those years, and the lack of both puffed arms and large (at least to the rear) crinolines indicate it is not the 1880s or the 1890s.
It looks to me like the men are wearing HRH collars, popularised during the very late 19th century by Edward VII, which lends further proof to a date around the early 1900s. | [
"Robert Benecke (January 25, 1835 – November 3, 1903) was a German-born American photographer, operating primarily out of St. Louis in the latter half of the 19th century. Along with portraits, his works included photographs of railroads, bridges, buildings, and steamboats. He received considerable acclaim for his ... |
What was the biggest pre-Nulcear explosion? | I assume we're talking about man made explosions as opposed to natural. If the latter, a volcano is the likely suspect.
Having asked this question myself, the answer I have most often found is no one is sure. Most of the leading candidates were accidents, usually military storage explosions, that didnt have much in the way of testing going on nearby for metric verification.
My guess is the [Dupont Powder Mill explosion of 1907](_URL_2_). Reports were that the concussion could be felt almost [200 miles away](_URL_1_)! Buildings were damaged at least a mile away.
During the US civil war the battle of the crater was fought in a hole made by 300 or so kegs of gunpowder. According to Wikipedia the Powder Mill explosion was closer to 40,000 kegs of gunpowder. That gives you a pretty decent idea of the kind of scale we're talking about.
While that surely isn't definite I have to think it was close. There were [many large explosions](_URL_0_) that could be possible candidates. While a ship explosion is possible I have trouble believing any ship ever carried more than 40,000 kegs of gunpowder's worth of explosive power up until the advent of nuclear weapons.
| [
"The explosion took place 12.2 billion light-years (light travel distance) away. That means it occurred 12.2 billion years ago—when the universe was only about 1.5 billion years old. The burst lasted for 23 minutes, almost 700 times as long as the two-second average for high energy GRBs. Follow-up observations were... |
how it is possible to have a cellphone conversation with a person on the other side of the planet in near real time... | No, they are radio waves.
Sound waves are matter moving and compressing, just like a physical water wave.
Light, radio waves, and the like, are electromagnetic waves that travel at the speed of light. | [
"Chat line services make it possible for people to communicate with one another by telephone call. However, recent chat lines are like CB radio in which a number of people both listen and speak together.\n",
"Rather than traveling great distances in order to have a face-face meeting, it is now commonplace to use ... |
When I shift into a lower gear while going down a hill and my car starts to slow down, where is the energy going? | It compresses the intake air, and due to losses to heat and mechanical inefficiencies it loses energy to the engines cooling system and heat through the exhaust. | [
"For instance, a given car traveling on a road of a given slope presents a load which the engine must act against. Because air resistance increases with speed, the motor must put out more torque at a higher speed in order to maintain the speed. By shifting to a higher gear, one may be able to meet the requirement w... |
There's a stereotype that a lot of Victorian women would wear lots of, and difficult to move in clothing. How would one use the bathroom while wearing such attire? | The answer is actually quite simple: they wouldn't take any of it off.
Pantlike underwear was only gradually taking hold in the early Victorian era. We simply don't have the sources to know exactly how many women were wearing drawers (an undergarment, generally of white cotton, made like a pair of capri pants with separate legs and an open crotch) at the time, but it was a minority: most women wore just their chemises, corsets, and petticoats instead. And why not? No wind was ever going to be strong enough to blow *all* of that out of the way and embarrass you in public, and using the chamber pot is quite simple that way - just get it underneath your skirts. It was not until the popularization of the hoop skirt, or cage crinoline, in the late 1850s that drawers really became a necessary item, because the hoop made the possibility of exposure much more likely. It could be caught in the wind, or get stuck on a piece of furniture, or fly up when you fall or bend over ... drawers were [not terribly flattering](_URL_1_), but in conjunction with a short underpetticoat, they would save your modesty. And as I said above, these were open between the legs, so that the same process applied: just get it underneath your skirts and kneel over it or sit on it. It's not until the 20th century, after the Victorian era, that closed underwear became the norm.
That being said, Victorian women's clothing was really not that difficult to move in and did not consist of that many layers. In comparison to today? Yes, there's a lot of clothing. But it's not as though women were prevented from moving around. The lower half of [this dress](_URL_0_) is not an upholstered piece of furniture, it's a skirt and petticoat (or two) draped over a wire frame. Women went hiking and riding in fashionable dress made out of durable fabrics, and later played tennis and went bicycling in clothing with only a few design changes to facilitate the activity (e.g. divided skirts). | [
"In the Victorian era, despite contemporary ideas about morality, women's clothing was paradoxically designed to emphasize both the breasts and hips by tightlacing the waist. Victorian women were encumbered with many layers of clothing, including a chemise with a drawstring neckline, usually drawers, then the corse... |
does temple run use gyroscope or accelerometer ? can you explain the differences between them? | A gyroscope measures orientation (under what angles is your phone being held), a accelerometer measures acceleration (how fast is your phone moving). A game like Temple Run uses your gyroscope, since it has to know if you're leaning your phone to the left or right. | [
"The principles behind the two devices are different, however. A conventional gyroscope relies on the principle of conservation of angular momentum whereas the sensitivity of the ring interferometer to rotation arises from the invariance of the speed of light for all inertial frames of reference.\n",
"Gyroscopes ... |
Why was the RBMK model reactor (that the Chernobyl power plant reactors were designed as) reputed to be so safe compared to other models? | Do you have a citation or context for that claim? I'm not aware of that being a prominent selling point of the RBMK-1000 design as it was rolling out. | [
"The RBMK is an early Generation II reactor and the oldest commercial reactor design still in wide operation. Certain aspects of the RBMK reactor design, such as the active removal of decay heat, the positive void coefficient properties, the graphite displacer ends of the control rods and instability at low power l... |
How did Marco Polo survive incredibly long journeys? | The Silk Road and other trading routes were very in existence at the time of Polo's journey and would have provided markets, towns, and cities for him to utilize along the _URL_0_ would have been a difficult journey, especially going across two deserts, but clearly not impossible. We can look at the legs of his journey and judge for ourselves the difficulty.
1. Setting sail from Venice to Acre(It's in modern day Israel). People made this journey often, sometimes on pilgrimage and sometimes going over land through what is now Istanbul. Not a super difficult leg.
2. Acre to Hormuz. Once again, a difficult journey by our standards, but the roads were being used by many traders and there were people along the way to provide provisions.
3. Crossing the Pamir Mountains would probably have been very difficult. I can't say for sure how they survived this, but I would venture to say that it was a mix of keeping a good stock of provisions along with utilizing villages, foraging and hunting. But it's not like no one lived here, Kashgar was a stopping point on Polo's journey. He noted there were Christians living there and open air markets.
4.The journey across the Gobi was extremely difficult. It took a month and Polo notes that they took enough food to last a long time. He makes mention that food was not to be found, but that water could be found. He said it was extremely scarce, but they found enough to survive on and to reach their destination of what is now Beijing.
So to summarize, a mix of utilizing existing trade routes, villages and cities, and some foraging of water and resources. | [
"While he was an undergraduate at Oxford University, Severin, Stanley Johnson and Michael de Larrabeiti retraced Marco Polo's thirteenth-century journey through Asia on motorcycles, using Polo's \"The Description of the World\" as a guide. They travelled from Venice through Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan, survivin... |
the genetics of haemophilia a. | When you get a cut, it blood can leave at the site of the injury. If this kept happening, it would be bad, because you'd lose a lot of blood. The body has ways to stop this from happening, and we call this clotting. It's the body's way to sort of make the blood less like a liquid and more like a gel, stopping it from running out.
One way the body does this is through the coagulation (or clotting) cascade. When there's a cut, the cells around the cut release a messenger that basically says "Ahhh there's a cut!" This messenger starts the cascade, which is kind of like a pyramid scheme recruiter. It tells 10 of its friends, who each tell 10 friends, who each tell 10 friends, etc. So in a little bit, you have 1,000,000 friends all helping to plug up the injury.
Hemophilia A is a problem with one of the "friends" that helps to make the stuff to plug up the injury. This friend, (called Factor VIII) is important, because remember this factor recruits other factors to help too, so if it's not there, we miss out on a lot of help to form the clot.
Our genes have DNA, which is the blueprint that tells cells what to build and make - proteins. One of those proteins is Factor VIII. In people with hemophilia A, they have a problem making Factor VIII. Some people have a Factor VIII that doesn't work right, and others just don't make enough of it. Either way, someone with hemophilia A is going to take a lot longer to clot appropriately.
The gene that tells the body to make Factor VIII is located on the X chromosome. Genetic males typically have one X and one Y chromosome, and genetic females typically have two X chromosomes. For genetic females, if they have one X that is normal and one X that carries the hemophilia A gene, their good X chromosome can make enough Factor VIII that they're fine. But for genetic males, the Y chromosome doesn't have anything for Factor VIII, so their single X chromosome makes a faulty Factor VIII (or not enough Factor VIII), leading to hemophilia A. This is why hemophilia A is much more common in males than females - genetic females would need both X chromosomes to have the affected gene.
A treatment for people with hemophilia A is to inject them with the clotting factor that they lack, in this case, Factor VIII. Other types of hemophilia are missing other factors - type B is missing Factor IX and type C is missing Factor XI.
Let me know if you have any questions! Happy to explain anything at a more advanced or more basic level :o) | [
"Hemophilia, or haemophilia, is an X-linked recessive disorder that impairs the body's control over blood clotting. Haemophilia A and Haemophilia B arise from mutations in the genes for factor VIII and factor IX, respectively. Females with this disease are almost exclusively unaffected, obligate carriers. The mutat... |
how/why do people get tingles and some don’t on asmr | I might have a minor case of misophonia, because ASMR and the sound of chewing greatly annoys me | [
"Imaging subjects' brains with fMRI as they reported experiencing ASMR tingles suggests support for this hypothesis, because brain areas such as the medial prefrontal cortex (associated with social behaviors including grooming), and the secondary somatosensory cortex (associated with sensation of touch) were activa... |
how is there wifi on buses (ie. megabus) and not on airplanes? | There is WiFi on many planes. The reason there wasn't for a ling time after buses got it is for safety concerns. | [
"They also have WiFi routers which are powered by Sun Broadband, because they believe that the passengers will be happy if they are not bored, and they will never be bored because of the free WiFi service. Some of the passengers can watch multimedia sites, like YouTube and Dailymotion, update their status in the to... |
How does the energy density of sperm whale oil compare to gas? | According to [wikipedia](_URL_1_), winter-strained sperm oil is roughly two-thirds wax esters (chiefly cetyl palmitate) and one third triglycerides (three fatty acids held together by a glycerol molecule).
If kerosene wax (paraffin) and food fats are comparable substances, they have specific energy densities of 46.3 MJ/Kg (wax) and 38.9 MJ/Kg (fat). This can be compared to propane which has a specific energy density of 50.3 MJ/Kg or methane 55.5 MJ/Kg.
TL;DR: Sperm oil has in the ball park of 87% of the specific energy density of gas.
Values for specific energy densities taken from: _URL_0_ | [
"The spermaceti organ in sperm whales is shaped like an elongated barrel and sits on top of the whale's melon. Historically, the spermaceti oil found within it was used in a variety of products –including lamp oils, candles, and lubricants– providing the economic basis for the sperm whaling industry. A sperm whale ... |
How were new/reserve divisions raised, activated, staffed, and trained during WWII? | There were several methods of filling out newly-created divisions. The Organized Reserve, first created in 1908 as the Medical Officers' Reserve Corps and then expanded to the whole Army, consisted of a pool of trained officers and men that could be used in war. Immediately after World War I, the United States created 27 Organized Reserve divisions to complement the planned 9 Regular Army and 18 National Guard divisions. Many of the OR divisions were continuations of their World War I counterparts, drawing men from the same geographical areas as the drafted National Army; others were completely new, but then deactivated at various times during the interwar period. The Army conducted a large recruitment program to lure potential civilian officer and enlisted candidates, and formalized a Reserve Officers' Training Corps. The Organized Reserve divisions were formally active, but only existed "on paper," having all of their officers present, but only 33 percent of their enlisted men. When war broke out, the Organized Reserve divisions would be called into federal service as a convenient source of manpower; the 33 percent of enlisted men already serving with them would become noncommissioned officers, and would train the large numbers of draftees used to "fill out" the rest of the divisions. During the interwar period, the Organized Reserve served almost as a kind of "second National Guard," conducting training exercises and using equipment and facilities loaned from the Regular Army and National Guard. Immediately prior to World War II, the United States [instituted the draft](_URL_1_), greatly increasing the size of the Army in a short period of time. In World War II, draftees were part of the Army of the United States, as opposed to career soldiers of the Regular Army, and reservists of the Organized Reserve and National Guard. Under the scheme of the Army of the United States, 28 completely new divisions were activated or converted.
Completely new divisions that had never existed before were formed by drawing a cadre of about 1,000 officers and enlisted men from an already-active division, and having the Secretary of War and the War Department General Staff select the higher-level personnel in the division. Officer candidates, as well as NCOs and enlisted men who needed specialist training at schools offered by the branches of the Army underwent their training before the division was formally activated. The rest of the unit, after its activation, would then be filled out with volunteers and draftees. As a consequence of the time needed to fully form and thoroughly train a division, (38 weeks of basic, small-unit, and combined-arms training after November 1942, and then up to a year or more of maneuvers, specialized training, and exercises) National Guard and Regular Army troops were some of the first divisions to go overseas. They were generally followed by the Organized Reserve, and finally the Army of the United States. As a consequence of remaining in the United States until well into 1944, the last 9 divisions to go overseas (the 65th, 71st, 86th, 89th, and 97th Infantry Divisions, the 13th, 16th, and 20th Armored Divisions, and the 13th Airborne Division) experienced some unfortunate circumstances. Due to [manpower problems](_URL_0_?) in the U.S. Army from late 1943 to early 1945, divisions still in the United States were authorized to be stripped of portions of their enlisted men to be sent overseas as replacements. Unit cohesion was significantly decreased by this, and these nine divisions are arguably the least "battle ready" ones the U.S. Army fielded during WWII. A study conducted revealed the following;
* 26 percent of the enlisted men in the divisions had been with them only since January 1944
* 23 percent had been assigned from infantry replacement training centers within thirty days of embarkation
* 18 percent were former Army Specialized Training Program participants or transferred Army Air Forces cadets
* 33 percent were transfers from other branches with less than four months' experience in the division
**Sources:**
* Keefer, Louis E. *Scholars in Foxholes: The Story of the Army Specialized Training Program in World War II*. Reston: COTU Publishing, 2003.
* Palmer, Robert R., Bell I. Wiley, William R. Keast. *The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops*. Washington: United States Army Center of Military History, 2003.
* United States, War Department, *Army Ground Forces Historical Study No. 12: The Building and Training of Infantry Divisions*. By Bell I. Wiley. Washington: Army Ground Forces Historical Section, 1946.
| [
"After World War II, this division was reorganized primarily as a training division for Reserve forces. After several decades, the division then expanded its role to conducting entry-level training for soldiers of all branches of the Army in the northwestern United States. Its role and size have expanded over that ... |
difference between microcontroller and microprocessor | A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals.
A microprocessor is just a processor. It is a component piece of a larger computer rather than a computer by itself. | [
"A microcontroller (MCU for \"microcontroller unit\", or UC for \"μ-controller\") is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. In modern terminology, it is similar to, but less sophisticated than, a system on a chip (SoC); an SoC may include a microcontroller as one of its components. A microcontroller conta... |
what do ukrainian separatists have to gain by shooting down a malaysian passenger plane? | For starters: We aren't sure who did it yet. To my knowledge there has been no confirmation as to who launched the missile.
There are several options
1) Russia's making a play. Russia (well Putin) is claiming that it was an attempt to assassinate Putin that missed. This would be enough of an event to allow Russia to deploy troops and retake Ukraine by force.
~Personally I find this extraordinarily stupid if it is the truth, but it is a possibility
2) Mistaken Identity. The Russian Separatists have been shooting down Ukrainian military planes flying through the region for weeks now. They may have seen the plane on the radar and fired, not considering that its profile was more like a passenger jet than a military plane.
3) Trigger Happy idiots/Inexperienced Crew. I group both together because they have the same effect. Someone saw the plane and made the decision to fire. Perhaps they just like firing missiles and didn't care what they hit OR they were not trained enough to judge what they were aiming at. In either case, they fired and the plane took a hit.
| [
"Some relatives of the crash victims refused to accept the compensation offered by Ukraine. They brought a civil suit against the Ukrainian government to Pechers'ky local court in Kiev. During the court hearings, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence representatives stated that the airplane \"could not be brought down ... |
is it normal to have a ring of orange around each of my pupils? | Go to the doctor. It may be something called Kayser–Fleischer rings, which are a symptom of Wilson's disease. This is a genetic condition which causes a build up of copper in the body and in the long term can cause liver, brain or kidney damage. | [
"BULLET::::2. Cone monochromacy is the condition of having both rods and cones, but only a single kind of cone. A cone monochromat can have good pattern vision at normal daylight levels, but will not be able to distinguish hues. Blue cone monochromacy (X chromosome) is caused by lack of functionality of L and M con... |
How does homosexuality get passed on through genetics if homosexuals do not create offspring? (This is not a loaded question. Please do not delete.) | The exact causes of homosexuality are unknown, as well as their genetic component, if it is genetic. However, much research is centering leading towards the theory that it's caused by prenatal hormone levels that control sexual development of the brain. The short answer is, male homosexuality is the default state of a male in the womb, some males will stay that way due to the process that normally causes them to develop heterosexuality being negated or interrupted. For females, it's likely because their brain accidentally starts the process of becoming a heterosexual male when they're actually female.
Basic overview: all human embryos begin in a sort of prototype female form. basically, a female amphibian or reptile, with one orifice for reproduction, as well as the expelling of solid and liquid waste (a cloaca). eventually this separates into the more familiar human female form, nearly finished anatomically, and both fetuses with male and female chromosomes are still nearly identical. If the fetus has male genes, it then becomes "soaked" in male hormones, causing the ovaries to develop into testicles, clitoris to elongate into a penis, labis to become scrotal tissue, and the clitoral hood to become the shaft skin and foreskin. females just develop a little bit more, and then everything's complete by birth (usually).
Why is this relevant? because the brain appears to undergo the same process of gendering some of its parts, except at different times. The main theory is this: the brain starts out female, and some components become more male if the process is set off correctly in the case of heterosexual males, or incorrectly in the case of lesbians. in gay men, the sexual orientation part of the masculinizing process does not occur, nor does it occur in straight women.
Basically, there actually is no "cause" of homosexuality in males, because attraction to other males is the default state. **which means that technically, researchers on men are trying to figure out what the cause of heterosexuality is.** That blows people's minds a little bit. for females, it's the opposite. Overall, it's an attempt to determine what the cause of attraction to women is. this general framework is pretty widely accepted among the relevant researchers, and debate centers on what specific mechanism controls development, i.e. what genetic/epigenetic trigger causes which hormone to activate which part of the brain at what time using what cellular process.
**So how does it keep getting passed on?** due to the process I outlined above, homosexuality can never really disappear; it's innately a part of the process of developing heterosexuality. inevitably, any process that can be begun can be interrupted or arrested, as well as begun by mistake. All male fetuses start out gay, then some become straight. that's a process that can be arrested, leading some to stay gay. females start out straight, but reach full development through 99.99999...% of the process that makes a male, and in fact carry the genes and hormones that can make a fetus male, which can always get turned on by accident. so they will always be capable of becoming lesbians.
**tl,dr:** as long as male fetuses can turn straight, they'll always be able to stay gay, and females will always be able to turn into lesbians. | [
"An epigenetic model of sexual development, published in 2012, suggests that homosexuality may be the result of epi-marks being inherited from the parent of opposite gender. Following the publication, some suggested that it could be possible to change one’s sexual orientation with epigenetic therapy.\n",
"A study... |
Is it possible for life to be living UNDER the oceans? | Great question! It is possible for life to live under oceans, and we have detected microbes there. See this recent paper showing evidence for [microbial communities in coal beds 2.5 km below the ocean surface](_URL_0_) or the recent paper on the [biology of a type of archaea that lives in the subsurface](_URL_1_). It isn't my area of expertise, but the challenges seem to be that drilling is expensive and the fact that we can't culture many of these microbes in the lab (a large problem for the study of microbes in general).
It is an interesting topic for a number of reasons though. It could teach us new types of chemistry used by life, since the energy sources in these environments have to be very different from what surface life uses. It also could offer clues to the [origins of life](_URL_2_) - maybe the first cells resembled subsurface bacteria rather than the species we are more familiar with. | [
"The average depth of the oceans also affects the habitability of a planet. The shallow areas of the sea, given the amount of light and heat they receive, usually are more comfortable for aquatic species, so it is likely that exoplanets with a lower average depth are more suitable for life. More massive exoplanets ... |
How come every native religion in Europe - Norse, Slavic, Hellenic, Baltic etc - got wiped out by Christianity? Why were they all so weak? | First, it's important to recognize that in most cases it took centuries, if not a full millennium, for these traditions to be fully uprooted.
Christianity had a few things going for it as a missionary religion that the divergent local pagan traditions couldn't match: it came out of Roman late antiquity with a strong and international institutional identity and organization; it was better able to integrate itself into both the local and royal political orders; and it demanded exclusive worship of its followers, which sapped the support of other traditions. And apparently the beliefs were appealing to people from a wide variety of backgrounds (never underestimate the role of either women or desperate royals looking for political backing in the spread of Christianity)
The pagans, meanwhile, were mostly just local communities worshiping in their traditional manner.
This is possibly a terrible analogy, but each branch of paganism is somewhat like a bunch of locally owned restaurants run by individual owners, all serving similar cuisines, who couldn't compete when the giant Mediterranean franchise (under a regional manager called a bishop) rolled in and took their lunch-money, all with the support of the government.
For a different, but excellent perspective, check out this recent thread:
_URL_0_ | [
"Increasing conversions to Christianity began to displace the Norse religion, leading to the disappearance of the vǫlur; aided by Church and civil laws enacted against them, as in this Anglo-Saxon Canon law:\n",
"The conversion from Norse paganism to Christianity was a complex, gradual, and at times violent (see ... |
how is it that men can ejaculate after a vasectomy but not get women pregnant? | Because the tube that carries the sperm from the testicles is cut, or tied shut. Therefore their ejaculate contains no sperm cells, so fertilization of an ovum cannot occur. | [
"It is widely believed that urinating after an ejaculation will flush the urethra of remaining sperm. Therefore, some of the subjects in the March 2011 study who produced sperm in their pre-ejaculate did urinate (sometimes more than once) before producing their sample. Therefore, some males can release the pre-ejac... |
what would happen if the sahara desert were to receive regular, moderate rainfall for the next year (local ecological changes and/or global ones)? | This is actually a very good question I would like to see a good answer for.
The only thing I expect is that there would be growth of plants all over the place, but I might be uterly wrong. | [
"A strengthening of the summer monsoon 9000–7000 years ago increased rainfall across the Sahara, which became a grassland, with lakes, rivers, and wetlands. After a period of climatic instability, the Sahara settled into a desert state by the 4th millennium BCE.\n",
"Some simulations of man-made global warming an... |
Did people in the early 1900s only wear suits when they werent working? | While i don't have any definitive answers on the clothing that anyone wore in the early 20th century, i have seen a good amount of early videos [like this one](_URL_0_) which depict people of all ages and occupations walking around in what would appear to us, today, to be very formal attire. Specifically, we can see a busy street at [this time](_URL_1_) of the aforementioned video, which holds tons of men in suits who are not posing for the camera, and seem to be going about their business.
I know this is only a video of Madrid, and is a limited answer, but it's probable that suits were used more or less the same way then as now - they were used to convey an image of respectability, control, and wealth. | [
"This business suit (also known as the \"sack suit\" in North America, commonly by Brooks Brothers) became the standard business daywear for all men who were not engaged in physical labor. The waistcoat (British) or vest (American) was worn regularly with the suit up to World War II, but is rarely seen today, due t... |
what are "whale trades" that jp morgan did in london and lost $$$? | JP Morgan had a trader in London, Bruno Iskil, that was known for making extremely large bets on the stock market using very complex ways of making trades. Bets so complicated even his bosses had no idea what he was doing. The trades themselves involved something called credit default swaps, which are bets that a company or fund will go bankrupt.
Gamblers like to use the term "whale" for people that bet massive amounts of money in casinos, and Iskil got the nickname "The London Whale".
Iskil made a bad bet in early 2012 that cost his company a lot of money, and the bets were so complex that nobody had a real clue how much money could have been lost. At first it was thought to be USD $2 Billion, but now it looks more like more than $9 billion. '
| [
"In April 2012, Ruhle, along with Bloomberg reporters Bradley Keoun and Mary Childs, were the first reporters to break the story of the London Whale, the trader behind the 2012 JPMorgan Chase trading loss. Ruhle reported that Bruno Iksil, the London-based trader at JP Morgan, had amassed positions large enough to d... |
what is the reason for certain guns to not have a safety? | Most firearms have some mix of passive and manually operated safeties. For example my 1911 handgun has a mechanical safety that prevents the gun from firing when it's in the safe position, it's got a grip safety that makes it so it won't shoot unless there's a hand on the grip and it's also got a little piece that covers the back of the hammer and makes it less likely to go off if it's dropped, it's got a little notch cut in the chamber to make it possible to see if there's a round chambered, and it's got a disconnector in the trigger mechanism that will keep the gun from going off if the chamber isn't closed. Some guns have even more features meant to make the gun safer, what exactly is present on any individual gun depends on what it's meant for and the design philosophy of the maker.
When Glock first started selling handguns on the civilian market they were the first semiautomatic handguns with no manual safeties that most people had ever handled. The lack of a manual safety wasn't unheard of (most revolvers don't have them, and some mid 20th century shooting experts advocated pinning them permanently in the off position) but their instant popularity combined with the accumulated bad habits of a generation used to being able to rely on a manual safety lead to a bunch of "ooopsies" early on.
This lead to a lot of people thinking that designs like this were inherently unsafe. Modern training tends to really emphasize that you shouldn't pull the trigger unless you want bullets to come out and this seems to have solved the problem. However, most movies aren't written by people who are all that familiar with guns and old myths tend to pop up even in modern films. | [
"As the early Sten gun illustrates, \"poor design,\" including the specification of unsuitable component materials, is sometimes cited as a cause for some firearms being \"unsafe.\" Surely, any firearm that can discharge by itself when loaded is unsafe, and no user would want to handle a firearm that has a high lik... |
How did Trotsky get former Tsarist officers to serve in the Red Army in the Russian Civil War? | First of all, apologies. I've had this question on the back-burner for some time, but I'm finally getting around to answering it.
First of all, what was the political sense of the Russian officer class before the revolutions? You might say that there wasn't one. The Russian Army was reformed in 1874 during the reign of Tsar Alexander II, whose laws extended service to all Russians regardless of social status. Russian aristocrats, however, tended to be good at wriggling out of military obligations, and men of the upper-class tended only to serve for short amounts of time. Because of this, the Russian officer class was much less aristocratic than, say, its counterpart in Britain. Most Russian officers were sons of soldiers or peasants, so there was a degree of upward social mobility.
However, there was still a sharp distinction between officers and the rank-and-file. Officers were considered educated men based on their training in military academies, where they studied history and literature, besides military science. They went to extraordinary lengths to minimize any influence by subversive politics (to the point that many actually did not teach Russian literature, because its ideas were considered dangerous!) This led the Russian officer class to be sort of aggressively apolitical. Anton Denikin, the commander of the White Volunteer Army, and himself from peasant stock, summed it up pretty well in his memoirs:
"The fatherland was accepted ardently, completely, as the entire complex entity of the country and the people - without analysis, without knowledge of its life, without delving into the murky realm of its interests... The young officers were hardly at all interested in social questions, which touched their consciousness as something strange or simply dull. In life they hardly noticed them; in literature pages dicussing social right and wrong were flipped over as something irritating, obstructing the development of the plot.. And indeed, generally they did not read much."
So, Russian officers were fundamentally uninterested in politics. The big objection by the Russian officer class to the revolutions was whether they weakened Russia's military. Indeed, many officers (among them White leaders like Denikin) supported the February Revolution because they felt it would aid the anti-German war effort.
This helps answer your second question, how did the Bolsheviks get former officers to serve in the Red Army? Well, coercion in part, but also there were very many willing volunteers. Like you said, Trotsky recognized that he needed help organizing an army, and an army of millions could not be effectively commanded by elections and unit-democracy, as the failure of the Provisional Government's army had shown. The regime had no choice but to draft thousands of ex-Imperial officers.
However, many joined by their own volition. Eight thousand ex-Tsarist officers responded to the Bolshevik government's call in February and March 1918, when negotiations between the Bolsheviks and the Central Powers broke down at Brest-Litovsk. They volunteered because they were patriotic and wanted to keep fighting Germany, and felt that the Red Army was the only force organized enough to do it. They also joined because the only other alternative for many officers was a life of poverty on the streets, as the collapse of the army had left them without pensions and placed them under a cloud of suspicion. Joining up gave them status and shielded them form persecution. Few openly sympathized with the revolution, let alone joined the Communist Party, but by and large they maintained their apolitical attitude: they wanted a job and to fight the Germans, and joining the Red Army allowed them to do both.
Of course, not many expected they would soon be fighting other Russians, and the Red Army still required far more officers and NCO's to lead it. Trotsky did not decide personally to enlist thousands more officers, the Bolshevik Central Committee did, and in July 1918 the drafting of officers got under way.
The ex-Imperial officers were termed "military specialists", similar to how members of the bourgeoisie were employed later in the Soviet Union as technical specialists, etc. Former Tsarist officers were always paired up with two political commissars, who approved his orders and watched for signs of unreliability. This actually became a trope in Soviet movies about the Russian Civil War - a grizzled, aristocratic ex-Tsarist officer will have to work together with a zealous young communist commissar, they will learn to get along and fight the reactionaries, yadda yadda.
75,000 ex-Imperial officers were employed as such during the Russian Civil War, including 775 generals and 1,726 members of the old Imperial General Staff. Ex-Tsarist officers made up 85% of the commanders of fronts, 82% of the commanders of armies, and 70% of divisional commanders.
So, again, how did they maintain their loyalty? Well, the commissars could have them executed, but more importantly, their families were held accountable under the idea of "collective responsibility". An ex-Imperial officer who failed or switched sides could have his family imprisoned or executed. This policy worked pretty well, and very few Tsarist officers in the Red Army defected to the Whites. This is also, again, because they lacked much political consciousness. Even when the White Armies were at their peak, they didn't have many volunteers from the officer class, who did not really care enough about reversing the revolution to enlist en masse. Also, the few that did defect sides were usually treated very poorly by the Whites. The Chief-of-Staff of the Red forces at Ufa, in Siberia, for example, defected to Admiral Kolchak's White Army in 1918, together with his whole staff. Not only did they make an amazing escape through the Red lines, they brought loads of valuable information. Yet Kolchaks' officers criticized him as a traitor for ever serving with the Reds in the first place, and came close to having him shot!
What happened to them after the end of the Civil War? To the best of my knowledge, many of them remained in the Red Army throughout the 1920s and 1930s, participating in other conflicts like the Soviet-Polish War. Many of them reached lofty heights, like S.S. Kamenev, an ex-Tsarist officer who became the Commander in Chief of the Soviet military. By the time of Stalin's purges in the 1930s, however, they were easy targets because their Tsarist background could be used against them, and many if not most were shot.
Sources:
Peter Kenez, *Civil War in South Russia*
Richard Pipes, *Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime*
Jonathon Smele, *Civil War in Siberia: the Anti-Bolshevik Government of Admiral Kolchak* | [
"In June 1918, when it had become apparent that a revolutionary army composed solely of workers would not suffice, Trotsky instituted mandatory conscription of the rural peasantry into the Red Army. The Bolsheviks overcame opposition of rural Russians to Red-Army conscription units by taking hostages and shooting t... |
why does having the “high ground” on a combat its an advantage? | Several points
Being up on a hill gives you a better view of what is happening
Running/charging uphill is tiring and slows the attack down
Running downhill gives additional impact to a charge.
Firing uphill reduces the range of the weapon
Firing downhill increases the range of a weapon
Whilst in combat bringing your weapon down on someone increases the impact of the weapon whilst thrusting up decreases the impact. | [
"High ground is an area of elevated terrain, which can be useful in combat. The military importance of the high ground has been recognized for over 2,000 years, citing early examples from China and other early-dynastic cultures who regularly engaged in territorial/power struggles. Later incorporated to be advantage... |
why is the "follow through" in sports like golf or basketball so important? | If you stop right when you hit the ball, your muscles have slowed down your arms already. Youre getting a less solid hit. Also, youre fighting momentum, which stresses the body. Follow through and the stroke stops itself, and you get a full power, proper form hit. | [
"The three point shot is now a priority for teams, when prior to the 2010s, the game was based solely around the paint. Teams focused on scoring high percentage shots outside, and then utilizing the three point shot, however, even then it was still limited. Teams now play a \"outside-in\" style of play with Analyti... |
what are those swarms of bugs actually doing when they seem to just be flying around in a small area? | Could be for various reasons, depends on the situation, species, etc.
Usually it's somewhere with a damp breeze (downwind of a river or pond), and food. They see something you don't and are hanging around where the food is for them.
Another reason is a mating swarm. At certain times of the year some bugs swarm up to make the task of finding mates a lot easier (basically like a big mixer). | [
"These bugs give the illusion of sand floating around. They can consume large volumes of water at a rapid rate considering they are such small entities. They seem to be intelligent creatures and are passive and helpful unless provoked, in which case they can be extremely lethal. They fly around in \"swarms\" and wi... |
can the light passed through a prism be split or refined further? | If red light passes through a prism then red light exits the prism. If you pass any color of light through a prism that's not white light then you will see black bars in the ROYGBIV spectrum where certain wavelengths are missing. In the case of red light the OYBGIV portion will be black. | [
"The prism consists of a four-sided block of glass shaped as a right prism with 90°, 75°, 135°, and 60° angles on the end faces. Light enters the prism through face AB, undergoes total internal reflection from face BC, and exits through face AD. The refraction of the light as it enters and exits the prism is such t... |
Can you fertilize a human egg with another egg? | [Hypothetically, yes. It's been done with mice](_URL_0_) | [
"There is a hypothetical scenario, though, in which it could be possible for a human to self fertilize. If a human chimera is formed from a male and female zygote fusing into a single embryo, giving an individual functional gonadal tissue of both types, such a self-fertilization is feasible. Indeed, it is known to ... |
What would happen to the atmosphere if the oceans level raised hundreds of feet? | The local atmospheric pressure change due to a very sudden sea level rise would be very small, and indistinguishable from normal variation.
& #x200B;
"Barometric altimeter" isn't a thing underwater. But, if you mean it measures "the pressure at this distance from the surface" then you could have a point to chase.
& #x200B;
If the atmospheric pressure doubled, it would mean the pressure 10m below the surface would go from 2bar to 3bar.
& #x200B;
I am not familiar with any submersible system that measures distance from the sea surface that way as a routine measurement. When we want depth, we measure ambient pressure. The only altimeter we use is for how far off the bottom we are. In your scenario, the crew is going to freak when they are holding 50m above the bottom and the pressure goes up by how much sea level rises. 100m sea level rise means plus 10b but still 50m off the bottom. | [
"Atmospheric pollutant concentrations expressed as mass per unit volume of atmospheric air (e.g., mg/m³, µg/m³, etc.) at sea level will decrease with increasing altitude because the atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing altitude.\n",
"If the entire mass of the atmosphere had a uniform density equal to se... |
how come the us president can sign orders without input from congress? isn't thay undemocratic? | Congress gives the president broad latitude over many areas of the federal government. The President can then use executive orders to exercise the powers granted to him by Congress.
Imagine Congress passes a law to build a house. All it says is "We will build a house". You, as the President, can then issue an executive order that says "The house shall be colored blue and have 7 bedrooms". You cannot issue an executive order that says "Do not build a house, instead spend that money on video games".
| [
"The Constitution explicitly assigns the president the power to sign or veto legislation, command the armed forces, ask for the written opinion of their Cabinet, convene or adjourn Congress, grant reprieves and pardons, and receive ambassadors. The president oversees federal law execution by directing and removing ... |
middleware | Middleware has no real solid definition and gets used differently in various contexts. But put simply: Software developers realise that they can save a lot of time and money by getting other developers to work on areas of their program for them. For example, say you have a team working on a computer game. The computer game needs realistic trees, and they decide that instead of writing the tree themselves, there's a company that sells middleware to generate these trees already. This is a smart choice for a couple of reasons:
a) The cost of buying the middleware is much lower than employing a developer to work on a tree generator.
b) The company building the tree generator middleware have been working on this product for several years and have made it really good
c) The development team making the game can focus their energy on making their game
So really, middleware is just the name for any bit of code that is sold to programmers in order to achieve certain tasks. The programmers buy it, and wrap it up in their product. It can vary, from handling a few background tasks (a simple networking API), to driving the core of a program (game engine). | [
"Middleware analysts hold and maintain proficiency in middleware technologies. Middleware is computer software that connects software components or applications. A central theme in most middleware analyst roles is being able to articulate why Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is important to the business.\n",
"... |
why do our eyes not see color on the edge of our peripheral vision? | We have two kinds of light receptors in our eyes: rods and cones. Rods are more sensitive to black and white; cones are more sensitive to colors and have a higher ability to focus.
Cones are more concentrated in the centers of our eyes, while rods are more prevalent toward the edges of our eyes. | [
"Peripheral vision is weak in humans, especially at distinguishing detail, color, and shape. This is because the density of receptor and ganglion cells in the retina is greater at the center and lowest at the edges, and, moreover, the representation in the visual cortex is much smaller than that of the fovea (see v... |
the act of hydration and how drinking water gets distributed through the body and utilized? | Water and other nutrients get absorbed through the walls of the intestines. From there the water enters into the blood stream, where it is carried back to the heart and pumped throughout the body.
This process takes advantage of osmosis, which is a physical property that causes water to move from an area with higher water concentration to an area of lower water concentration. This means that water will passively flow from the intestines full of the water you drank to the blood vessels, which have a higher concentration of solutes with a comparatively lower concentration of water. The end result is somewhat akin to wiping a dry sponge over spilled water. | [
"Water is excreted from the body in multiple forms; including urine and feces, sweating, and by water vapour in the exhaled breath. Therefore, it is necessary to adequately rehydrate to replace lost fluids.\n",
"Besides hydration, water reservoirs may be used for washing dishes or equipment, or for showering. Pre... |
Can spinning electromagnetic fields produce energy? | I am not sure of what's your exact question, but *nothing* can produce energy. This violates the principle of conservation of energy (or mass-energy, if you want to be picky).
If you are thinking of the [electric generator](_URL_0_) aka the dynamo, it converts mechanical energy (e.g. from steam or waterfalls or wind) to electric energy. I am not sure if this answers your question, but feel free to clarify.
edit: If you are thinking of some form of perpetual machine that we can *tap energy* out of, it helps to clarify your hypothetical system and then we can analyze how the system violates the conservation of energy. | [
"Advocates for the existence of the spinor field or torsion field as described here claim that spin-spin interaction itself a well-studied quantum phenomenon can be transmitted through space similar to electromagnetic waves, but transmitting no mass or energy but only information, and does so at speeds of up to a b... |
d-day and the events leading up to it | After the fall of France in June 1940 (or one might even argue after the fall of Greece in April 1941), the Axis forces, primarily of Nazi Germany and Italy, occupied all of mainland Europe.
The UK and its Commonwealth were still fighting the Axis, but without a foot-hold on the Continent, their options were very limited.
In the end, the Allies invaded mainland Europe at Normandy, France in order to liberate France, to assist Soviet Russia by forcing the Axis to divert some of their forces away from the Eastern Front, and (later) to provide a bulwark against the Soviets from controlling all of Europe by ensuring that *some* of Europe would be liberated by the Western democracies instead of by the Soviets.
If you're asking about why France as the geographic location:
Invading Germany directly was a no-go because it was too far, didn't have suitable beaches and would be too close to reinforcements
Invading Norway was out because it was not directly linked to mainland Europe
They had already invaded Italy, but the Alpine Mountains blocked any possible advance into Germany from the South
France had good beaches, had good terrain that would lead to Germany, and liberating a former Democracy would be a big PR win
It's also worth noting that as far as the absolute distance between England and France, Normandy was not the closest spot: The shortest distance across the English Channel would be to land at the Pas de Calais. The Allies instead ran a big disinformation campaign to make the Germans believe that they would land at the Pas de Calais instead. | [
"BULLET::::- June 6 – World War II – Battle of Normandy: \"Operation Overlord\", commonly known as D-Day, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The Allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland, in the largest amphibious military operatio... |
Can anyone tell me anything about this unique pistol powder flask? | Try xposting to /r/whatisthisthing | [
"A powder flask is a small container for gunpowder, which was an essential part of shooting equipment with muzzleloading guns, before pre-made paper cartridges became standard in the 19th century. They range from very elaborately decorated works of art to early forms of consumer packaging, and are widely collected.... |
What is the inner relationship between conic curves and gravitation? Does this mean a gravitational field curves space in the shape of a cone? | If you literally think gravity is a cone-shaped deal, it's not... kinda.
It is, however, a representation of the same thing, in 3 dimensions. This means that your elevation won't change as you go "into" the field, but you will be accelerating at said body. Pictures like [this](_URL_0_) are merely diagrams. It's really like [this](_URL_2_). Diagrams like [this](_URL_1_) are just there to help you identify what trajectories look like. It's filled with these *kinds* of shapes, but only in the trajectory form. There are no arc-stars, no plane nebulae. It is, yes. | [
"This model is essentially a degenerate FLRW for . It is incompatible with observations that definitely rule out such a large negative spatial curvature. However, as a background in which gravitational fields (or gravitons) can operate, due to diffeomorphism invariance, the space on the macroscopic scale, is equiva... |
how can someone die from one punch while ufc fighters and professional boxers can take hundreds of blows to the head and recover fairly quickly? | Professional athletes are tested for heart conditions and other things before every fight. They have to pass these tests medically for them to fight. I think this was more from him smacking his head on the ground hard when he fell backwards. | [
"If a boxer has received large amount of damage to either their head or their body, and they continue to be punched in that area, the fight will soon end in a TKO. Large amounts of punishment to the head will also result in visible cuts. A TKO will also result if a boxer is knocked down three times. However, unlike... |
Why does the US Army have very few types of dedicated Anti-Aircraft assets compared to the Soviet Union/Russia? | I second the request for clarification by /u/40kfreak, but the way I understand the question in its present form is that while the Soviets had a plethora of mobile SAM and AAA systems, such as the Krug, Kub, Shilka, Osa etc., the US Army doesn’t. That is what I would consider ‘dedicated’ anti-aircraft weaponry for the purpose of this question: one that is exclusively or primarily used against aircraft on a tactical level. I omit stationary systems such as the S-75, as this wouldn’t be in line with the US Army part of the question.
(Incidentally, the Shilka has proved itself to be somewhat useful as a support weapon in urban environments due to its his angle of barrel elevation).
All this having been said, I would argue that the difference in the *number of types* is not significant. The US has had systems such as the M42 Duster, MIM-72 Chaparral (which is a Sidewinder married to an M113), MIM-23 Hawk or the recent SLAMRAAM system. Is there actually a numerical advantage on the Soviet side? Perhaps, but it’s not nearly big enough to be considered meaningful.
And if it were, what would it imply? Well, one of two things: either that the US didn’t put much emphasis on AA defense of its troops or that the Soviet-designed systems proved to be much less reliable and new ones had to be developed to keep up with the ever-evolving battlefield.
Both of these conclusions are demonstrably false. The American SAM systems have been constantly developed and upgraded as much as the Soviet ones (though an interesting difference is the emphasis put on creating ground systems utilizing modified air to air missiles). Soviet systems have proven their lethality, most interestingly in the Middle East where mobile SAMs utilized by Arab states inflicted surprisingly high losses on the Israelis in the post-Six Day War period.
That’s about as much as I can say with the question being as it is. If /u/kimpoiot wants to rephrase it or if there’s any follow-up questions, I’ll be happy to provide more answers. | [
"Of the World War II allies, the Soviet Union used specifically designed ground attack aircraft more than the UK and US. Such aircraft included the Ilyushin Il-2, the single most produced military aircraft design in all of aviation history. The Soviets also used the Polikarpov Po-2, a biplane, as a ground attack ai... |
there are an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1. that means there is an infinite amount of numbers between 1 and 2. why isn't there two times infinity amount of numbers between 0 and 2? | Because infinity isn't itself a number. | [
"Some proofs that 0.999... = 1 rely on the Archimedean property of the real numbers: that there are no nonzero infinitesimals. Specifically, the difference 1 − 0.999... must be smaller than any positive rational number, so it must be an infinitesimal; but since the reals do not contain nonzero infinitesimals, the d... |
why are sites like google and facebook (and others) so intent on pushing video content? a lot of people don't want it, and it must be expensive to host | Google and Facebook are advertising companies. Advertisements appear within and beside videos. Videos keep viewers' attention longer than photos or text, and viewers are in a more passive state while watching videos, more likely to absorb ad content. It's strictly about money; likes and complaints have nothing to do with it. | [
"The popularity of YouTube, Facebook, etc., combined with the increasing availability and affordability of high-speed connections has made video content far more common on all kinds of websites. Many video-content hosting and creation sites provide an easy means for their videos to be embedded on third party websit... |
What species of the Homo genus were the first to wear clothes, and do clothes predate modern humans? | Good question, but you might be better off asking /r/askanthropology or /r/anthropology | [
"Because animal skins and vegetable materials decompose readily there is no archeological evidence of when and how clothing developed. However, recent studies of human lice suggest that clothing may have become commonplace in human society around 72,000 years ago. If that is correct, it would mean that for around 1... |
why can't radio stations accept pay for play from record labels but they can take money to play commercials? | Radio stations can accept pay for play. They just have to disclose it.
Here is a brief history: _URL_0_
TL;DR - Big companies buying their way into the markets. Scandal erupts throughout the country. Congress passes law on pay to play disclosures. | [
"Music radio stations pay music-licensing fees to licensing agencies such as ASCAP and BMI in the United States or PRS in the UK. These fees or royalties are generally paid to the songwriters; the musicians themselves typically do not get a cut of radio royalties, even if they own a share of the performance rights,... |
what to do/how to act at a casino | You're 5, so don't go. But if you were an adult:
> how do you join a poker or blackjack game
Honestly you just sit down. If there are other people at the table, don't be afraid to ask if you can join or if a seat is taken. Be sure you look for a "Minimum Bet" sign. You don't want to sit at a $100 minimum bet table unless you can afford it. Ask the dealer for X amount in chips. For example: "Can I have $40 in chips?" and put $40 on the table in front of you. In some cases you don't have to ask and you just put cash down. The dealer will walk you through what to do. If you don't know how to play the game feel free to ask the dealer. They will be more than happy to tell you the rules. When you're done you can just walk away (even if you have chips). At the end of the day you can cash in chips at the counter.
For poker tables, make sure they're not tournament tables. You can usually find someone to ask before you make a move. Some tables are sit-down and others are for tournaments. Some casinos will separate the rooms.
"You should go during slow periods for your first time. I went at a steady time and the dealer was less than helpful because (I assume) having to slow down and explain things to me was taking away from potential tips for him. Other players are there to win and lose and don't always want to wait." - CMO_Ratchett
> do you tip dealers
Yes. It's proper etiquette to tip after winning, especially if it's a big win. You want to give them a portion of your winnings (like $1-10)
> do you tip the free drink waitresses
Absolutely! Usually about $1-2 per drink. Some casinos accept tips in chips, otherwise you can pay in cash. On a side note: In some casinos alcohol drinks are not free. Soft drinks are always free.
> basic table etiquette
Be respectful. Don't be afraid to talk to people, but don't expect them to tell you what their cards are. Don't come across as an ass and brag or you may be kicked out of the table.
"Depending on the casino (I'm speaking mostly from Vegas experience), it's best to not bring out your phone, iPod, or any other electronic device. In the past these have been used for cheating purposes, and while it might not get you thrown out to check the time on your phone, it's really best to just leave it alone in your pocket.
Also, the dealers are your friends! I know this sounds weird, but remember they don't get commission or anything from how much they take from you; they are wage-workers who also make a decent amount off of tips. Especially in blackjack, as them for advice! If you don't know whether or not to split those eights, ask your dealer! They will likely tell you what to do under basic strategy, which is your best odds.
And definitely make sure to tip after a big win AND when you leave the table." - Lucky137
"I would suggest NOT tipping when you win, but determining some amount to tip and sticking to it. A dollar or two every half hour is what I usually stick to." - metaridley18
> the different type of poker and blackjack games buyins rules etc
I think I pretty much covered this. A good rule is to buy in at least 20x the minimum amount. If a table has a $5 minimum bet, you may want to purchase at least $100 worth of chips. Ask the dealers to go over the rules for whatever game you're playing. They're more than willing to and walk you through your first couple of games. You cannot ask them for tips, however.
If anyone wants to add on this feel free to. I'll edit as necessary.
Edit: Edited based on comments. | [
"To become employable by a casino, applicants without prior experience are typically required to complete a 4-6 week training program at a dealing school. Dealing in a casino may require working late hours and remaining seated for long periods of time. Dealers also commonly work holidays, since these are especially... |
how does the post office tell if stamps are counterfeit? | _URL_0_
Not much security. There's a shine, a special perforation on the side, special paper used, maybe a fluorescent dye.
But ultimately i think it's biggest defense is it's a high punishment for a small crime that acts to deter people. Think up to 5 years in prison and up to $250,000 fine for forging a stamp that costs what, 50 cents?
According to the linked reddit post those single stamp takers are really small fish. The real way they catch people are the bulk mailers. Say you prepay 100 pieces a month or something and you send a lot more, their computers are going to catch that and stop the mail from going through until you pay up. | [
"Those who produce counterfeits appeal to a very different market from philatelists. They depend on their stamps being produced in large quantities in order to be able to recover their outlay. The person who would use them must feel that he can purchase them for a price that is significantly lower than what he woul... |
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