question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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is streaming basically downloading something temporarily? | Yes, that is exactly correct.
When you stream a video, it downloads the video in chunks which get stored in a temporary buffer. The video may also be cached to the hard-disk for some time and can be accessed using specialized software like [this](_URL_0_).
In the case of live streaming... it's just a continuous download where the buffer is a set size and as new information gets loaded into the buffer, old information is purged. | [
"Content distributed online may be streamed or downloaded, and often consists of books, films and television programs, music, software, and video games. Streaming involves downloading and using content at a user's request, or \"on-demand\", rather than allowing a user to store it permanently. In contrast, fully dow... |
what would happen if sometime in the future somewhere on the earth or another planet a massive amount of gold ore is found? | Not much - Although the world has [around 7 trillion dollars in gold](_URL_1_) currently, and a major new find would tend to lower the value of existing gold, keep in mind how much any one country or person really has.
[The United States](_URL_0_) holds the most gold by far, worth roughly 306 billion dollars. Germany comes in second, at less than half as much. Both countries could survive the complete loss of that value without much trouble.
Most of the gold in the world, however, doesn't belong to governments, [it belongs to private holders](_URL_2_), with almost half in the form of jewelry and another fifth as "investment" products (bullion coins and bars). And again, while it would certainly hurt to lose that value, the sort of people buying up a significant amount of gold can typically weather its loss.
A major gold find (of a scale large enough to devalue existing gold) *would* have an upside, however - Gold has a *ton* of industrial uses. Although we have gotten very, very good at using it in tiny amounts, countless products would benefit by more liberal use of it if not for the price. | [
"The vast majority of the Earth's gold and other heavy metals are locked up in the earth's core. Evidence from tungsten isotope studies indicates that most gold in the crust is derived from gold in the mantle which resulted from a meteorite bombardment some 3900 million years ago (i.e. at approximately the time tha... |
why do people continuously disagree about what foods are "healthy?" why haven't nutritionists been able to agree on [insert controversial food item here] being good for you or not? | People live various different lifestyles, and experience differing levels of activity which is why certain people seem to be able to eat anything while others struggle with weight no matter what they eat. Human metabolisms are quite varied, and two people can eat the exact same diet, and number of calories with different results.
Nutrition and food is as susceptible to fads and trends as any other component of culture, and 'healthy' can all too often be used as a marketing term which helps muddle the issue. I tend to eat low carb, high protein because I feel better than when I eat a lot of grains. This works for me, but not for everyone.
There is a tendency for people in these arguments to determine the 'right' diet for everyone, when the 'right' diet is more likely tailored to an individual's lifestyle and metabolism. | [
"It says that just because foods are low in fat, cholesterol, and sodium, they cannot claim to be \"healthy\" unless they contain at least 10 percent of the Daily Value (DV) of: vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, protein, fiber, or iron. The FDA also made a policy that companies could not fortify foods with the sole in... |
What is "nothing" made of? | There will still be a tiny amount of air in your vacuum chamber, you can't pump out every single molecule. But otherwise, no, there is nothing "created in the void".
Space isn't a perfect vacuum, just a very dilute gas.
Electromagnetic radiation (light, UV, etc.) doesn't need any medium. They are waves in the electromagnetic field, which exists everywhere in space. A medium can modify the electromagnetic wave because any material has some response to electric and magnetic fields. This effect gives rise to the refractive index of a material.
Solar wind is more or less hydrogen plasma, so it's just ions and electrons flying through space. | [
"Nothing comes from nothing () is a philosophical expression of a thesis first argued by Parmenides. It is associated with ancient Greek cosmology, such as is presented not just in the works of Homer and Hesiod, but also in virtually every internal system—there is no break in-between a world that did not exist and ... |
if weight doesn't affect how fast an object falls, why will the center of gravity tilt an object while it falls? | Weight doesn't affect how fast an object falls _in a vacuum_. But these objects are not in a vacuum, and are subject to air resistance and affected by the resulting aerodynamics. | [
"Technically, an object is in free fall even when moving upwards or instantaneously at rest at the top of its motion. If gravity is the only influence acting, then the acceleration is always downward and has the same magnitude for all bodies, commonly denoted formula_1.\n",
"If an object is on a level surface and... |
What's the closest scientists have made something to absolute zero? | Someone with a good understanding of statistical mechanics should confirm/clarify this. but the [*negative temperature*](_URL_0_) results probably aren't what the OP had in mind. They are actually hotter than any material with positive temperature because if a negative temperature object is in contact with a positive temperature object then heat will always flow from the negative to the positive one. Systems with negative temperature aren't in a thermal equilibrium.
So the lowest temperature, as far as objects in thermal equilibrium go, is 100 pk as noted elsewhere in the thread. | [
"Absolute zero cannot be achieved, although it is possible to reach temperatures close to it through the use of cryocoolers, dilution refrigerators, and nuclear adiabatic demagnetization. The use of laser cooling has produced temperatures less than a billionth of a kelvin. At very low temperatures in the vicinity o... |
[META] AskScience has over one million subscribers! Let's have some fun! | One million words randomly chosen from the English language will average 5,100,000 characters. | [
"On 18 February 2013, the PewDiePie channel reached 5 million subscribers, and in April, Kjellberg was covered in \"The New York Times\" after surpassing 6 million subscribers. In May, at the inaugural Starcount Social Stars Awards in Singapore, Kjellberg won the award for \"Swedish Social Star\". Competing against... |
Has penis length always been an issue or is it a modern issue? | The answer will be yes :)
**In Athens:** the most desirable penis should be small (in a plays by Aristophanes, diminutives such as posthion, "small phallus" are compliments) The Athenians would not understand contemporary jokes on men well mounted.
**In ancient Rome:** The Romans, saw things a little differently than modern man: they had a predilection for big phallus - it happened to Roman generals to raise men in rank solely on the basis of their generous genital additives. "When in the bathroom means crackle of applause, wrote the inventor of the Martial epigram, it is likely that the huge phallus of Maron was the cause.
And, like modern man, the Romans did not hesitate to ridicule anyone who stood flagrantly below average, as did the poet Catullus about a Roman fellow "whose small dagger dangling more mollassonne than the tender beet never stood up in the middle of his tunic "
**In Ancient Egypt:** Min is an Ancient Egyptian god , He was represented in many different forms, but was often represented in male human form, shown with a disproportionately erect penis which he holds in his left hand and an upheld right arm holding a flail and he was shown as having black skin. For ancient egyptian big phallus was associated with greater fertility
If you want some good books I can sugest you this two book below they both got a good review from the british magazine *The economist*
Sources:
*God's Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis, Tom Hickman*
*The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens, Eva C Keuls*
| [
"Males may quite easily underestimate the size of their own penis relative to those of others. A survey by sexologists showed that many men who believed that their penis was of inadequate size had average-sized penises. Another study found sex education of standard penile measurements to be helpful and relieving fo... |
every time a ambulance passess to our road, when a ambulance is approaching. i hear siren loudly. when its going away, i hear siren noise less. | It is *not* the Doppler Effect like most other posters are saying. The doppler effect applies to the pitch of the siren, not the loudness.
& #x200B;
As one other poster said, it's louder when it's approaching because the siren is pointed towards the front of the ambulance. It produces much louder sound from it's front than from the sides or back. | [
"A siren on a passing emergency vehicle will start out higher than its stationary pitch, slide down as it passes, and continue lower than its stationary pitch as it recedes from the observer. Astronomer John Dobson explained the effect thus:\n",
"Some emergency vehicle operators occasionally turn off their sirens... |
if video can be measured in frames per second, is there an equivalent unit for audio? | Yes, it's samples per second aka the sampling rate of an audio signal. When you convert analog sound to a digital format it is done by sampling the analog wave thousands of times a second to convert it into a number like a voltage. The higher the sampling rate, the greater the frequency in hz that can be represented. It ends up needing about twice the sampling rate, to correctly sample a specific frequency of sound.
For instance if you need to record a 20,000hz analog soundwave, you need to sample it at 40,000 times a second or 44.1khz which is what music on a CD is sampled at.
The other factor is the size of each sample which effects how many levels of sound it can encode for each sample. This is analogous to how many colors an image has. An 8 bit sample allows for 0-255 levels of sound, or 256 colors if it were photographic data. Where as a 16 bit sample allows for 0-65,355 levels or voltages, or 65,356 colors if it were an image.
So a 16 bit 44.1khz wave file encodes 65,356 discrete "loudness" or voltages in each sample and it samples (or does it) 44,100 times a second. | [
"Video is recorded as an MPEG program stream. Video resolution depends on the recording quality and the video format used. Multiple audio encodings are allowed including MPEG Audio, Dolby Digital (AC-3) and Linear PCM.\n",
"By compressing both the video and audio streams, a VCD is able to hold 74 minutes of pictu... |
Why does do our bodies react when telling a lie? | Lying is more effortful and carries the risk of being uncovered, hence some fear as well. In addition, there is a general physiological (autonomic nervous system) reaction to "relevant" stimuli. This is used in the guilty knowledge test (GKT), which is a form of lie detection, though it is notably different from the "standard" control question test (CQT) used by polygraphers in the US and elsewhere. To briefly summarize, the CQT asks a a series of "control" questions (i.e., not relevant to the activity of interest), which examinees answer truthfully or not, and their physiological responses are recorded as a baseline reference. Then, questions of interest are asked - like did you commit this crime, have you ever been a member of the communist party, etc., and the physiological responses are then compared to the control questions. The GKT is different in that it asks multiple choice questions related to a criminal act, with one of the answers being something that only the person who committed the crime, or who had been in that location would know, such as color of the walls or what the victim (if there was one) was wearing. Physiological responses to the "correct" or relevant answer choice (regardless of verbal response) will be systematically greater if the person committed the crime. If the person did not commit the crime (or have knowledge of it), then the greatest physiological reaction would be to the "correct" answer only 25% of the time (chance odds, assuming 4 options/question). Like the CQT, there are ways to try to beat the GKT by doing something to try to elicit a greater physiological response to the incorrect answers, such as by biting one's tongue, stepping down on a tack inside your shoe, etc. However, in that case, the greatest response is likely to be to the correct answer 0% of the time, which is definitely less than would be expected by chance. The GKT is harder to put together, because it requires developing a number of questions relevant to the crime, usually by going to the scene very shortly after the crime. | [
"Researchers have looked into individuals cognitive effort when choosing between a lie versus the truth. Lying has been proven more difficult for the brain than telling the truth, they have found that lying increases activity in the brain regions. It takes the brain longer to formulate a deceptive answer than it do... |
how does a car track mileage? how does it know how far you’re going? | Math.
The car is aware of how many times the wheels rotate (as it is in control of how of many times the driveshaft turns based on gear and RPMs of the engine). Given that the wheels are a fixed diameter with a fixed circumference, it is simple math to translate how far the car travels for every rotation of the wheels. | [
"The runs on Brooklands track amounted to 1,930.5 miles (3106.8 km)at an average speed of 42.4 mph (68.2 km/h) with an average weight of car and passengers of 3,805 lb (1726 kg). A distance of 5 miles was traversed in running to and from the car-headquarters and the track, and this with the return journey to Covent... |
why is it so much easier to notice typos after you send a message, compared trying to proofread the message before you send it? | Your brain makes all kinds of assumptions for you when it builds a picture of something. Your eyes even have a blind spot that you never noticed because your brain fills in what it thinks should be there.
When you are proofreading something that you just wrote, your brain will auto correct small mistakes because it knows what you meant to write.
When you hit send you change the environment the message was in. there are different colors around, it might be in a different font, ect. So it kind of resets what your brain thinks is supposed to be on the page and you actually read it again.
Artists take advantage of this by viewing their work in a mirror to find mistakes or just things they don't like. It is the same idea, viewing the work in a different setting resets what your brain thinks the work should look like and you actually look at it again. | [
"In instant messaging, users often send messages in haste and only afterwards notice the typo. It is common practice to correct the typo by sending a subsequent message in which an asterisk precedes the correct word.\n",
"Email allows messages to be targeted at particular members of the audience by using the \"To... |
when i put chocolate milk mix in a glass and then add milk, it clumps up and doesn't dissolve well. if i do it the other way around it works fine. what's happening? | When you have a pile of powder at the bottom, not very much surface area is exposed to the milk, only the top layer. When you pour it into milk it is spread out and there is a lot much more surface area to dissolve into the milk. | [
"Makers produce the effect by drizzling melted chocolate into plain milk ice cream towards the end of the churning process; chocolate solidifies immediately coming in contact with the cold ice cream, and is then broken up and incorporated into the ice cream with a spatula. This process creates the shreds of chocola... |
if my air-conditioning is on fan mode does it waste less electricity/cost me less money or is it just the same purely by turning it on? | When your air conditioner is running fan mode, it is only powering the fan. When running in Cooling mode, it is also powering a compressor and that uses a lot more energy. If you can get by with just the fan, do it. | [
"Electric fan heaters can be less expensive to buy than other heaters due to simple construction. The fan carries heat away from the device, which can be made smaller without overheating. The relatively small amount of electricity used to operate the fan is converted to additional heat, so that efficiency is not a ... |
when and why server wages were suddenly made okay to be lower than minimum wage. | It's actually the responsibility of the employer to make up the difference if the waitstaffs' wages plus tips are less than minimum wage. | [
"On July 5, 2010, after visiting a restaurant in St. Paul, Emmer was asked during a press conference if he supported a tip credit, the policy of allowing businesses to subtract tips from a server's hourly wage. His response was \"Yes... if you didn't have a minimum wage law\", adding, \"somebody could be taking hom... |
why was it important the americans won the space race? | Numerous reasons. First publicity. Would it look bad if our worst enemies landed on the moon first? It would say that communism leaded to smarter people, and a better education system. We wanted to beat the Russians in sports, wars, and in perception.
Secondly, it allowed for satellites to be set up, under the guise of "discovery", so we could spy on the Russians before they could spy on us. | [
"On the Soviet side, the success of being first in space was seen as a great victory and expressed much of what was good about Russia and Russian culture. For the United States to succeed in the space race they needed to get the public enthusiastic about space. Public enthusiasm and support for the financial cost w... |
How does heat play a role in brewing coffee? Does coffee need to be heat activated to release caffeine? | Heat will definitely increase the total solubility of caffeine (and everything else) into the water and also the rate at which it dissolves. You can [cold brew](_URL_0_) coffee or tea, but generally it takes many hours to get normal strength brew compared to a couple minutes for a hot method. Changing the temperature and the brewing time would change the profile of compounds that make it into the water however, so even if you made the exact same caffeine content with hot and cold methods the overall taste would likely differ somewhat.
If you want to make cold brew coffee I think you can find plenty of recipes with a quick google search. | [
"As the brew continually seeps through the grounds, the overall temperature of the liquid approaches boiling point, at which stage the \"perking\" action (the characteristic spurting sound the pot makes) stops, and the coffee is ready for drinking. In a manual percolator it is important to remove or reduce the heat... |
What mechanical motion of the body can exert the theoretical maximum amount of force? | I'm also interested in how much average power produced during the clean movement by certain weightlifter, for ex:
_URL_1_
**Edit 1:** So I found this:
> 4786 watts for a 110 kg lifter.
_URL_0_
Now compare this to other type of movements. | [
"Concepts related to force include: thrust, which increases the velocity of an object; drag, which decreases the velocity of an object; and torque, which produces changes in rotational speed of an object. In an extended body, each part usually applies forces on the adjacent parts; the distribution of such forces th... |
Do planets always form around stars? | There are planets called rogue planets - though wikipedia lists 8 other names that convey the same idea - that orbit the cluster/black hole at the center of its galaxy instead of any parent star. They are formed independently of a star system and never join one or are ejected from their home system and lost. We have observed such planets in the darkness. Our galaxy alone is hypothesized to have billions. | [
"While several Jovian-sized planets have been discovered, most have been found orbiting close to their stars. It is now hypothesized that Jupiter's movement in the Solar System may have cleared the way for the rocky inner planets, including Earth, to form. The similarity extends to the star that centers the system;... |
I'm consistently right-handed, but consistently left-footed. What's going on here? | It's called [cross-dominance](_URL_1_). I'm unsure what might be the cause. In my personal experience "handedness" is a pretty fluid concept. I do delicate work (write, eat) left handed, "power" tasks right handed (throw ball, hammer, punch) and consistently am right footed. Claims are made that cross-dominance, or "mixed brain dominance" is associated with learning disabilities, but it's never held me back (except perhaps my spelling).
/layman
Edit: you might want to check out this thread... [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) | [
"Footedness is the natural preference of one's left or right foot for various purposes. It is the foot equivalent of handedness. While purposes vary, such as applying the greatest force in a certain foot to complete the action of kick as opposed to stomping, footedness is most commonly associated with the preferenc... |
Converting energy to temperature? | Energy is related to temperature by the Boltzmann constant, that means: any temperature has an associated energy scale. Exact values of observables - e.g. internal energy in a gas - may still depend on other characteristics, for example the interactions considered, internal degrees of freedom etc. The important part is that it is a "scale" which means a rough estimate to link energies to temperatures. The fundamental link follows from the statistics many-particle systems follow, which depends on exp(E/kT). When calculating actual observables, things like the characteristics of the system in question come in, but that's the factor where temperature comes into play.
1. That's exactly a way to use that scale: to get estimates like "when is a bond opened?" Or even "when does a phase transition occur?". The exact physics is more complex, this is just to give an estimate. For example, you might expect your 4.5eV to be (typically ) broken in the range of T = 4.5eV/k - this doesn't preclude that some observable for the bond breaking you consider actually changes at another temperature, but the temperatures probably won't be 10 or 100 times higher or lower than that scale. E.g., you can be pretty sure that a 4.5 eV -bond is almost never broken at room temperature (where thermal energy is arouns 25-30 meV).
2. For that reason, numerical prefactors of order 1 (such as the 3/2 that may arise from the equipartition theorem in certain systems) don't matter - actual physical quantities are expected to behave more complex anyways. | [
"Conversions to thermal energy from other forms of energy may occur with 100% efficiency. Conversion among non-thermal forms of energy may occur with fairly high efficiency, though there is always some energy dissipated thermally due to friction and similar processes. Sometimes the efficiency is close to 100%, such... |
Can you squeeze an electron? | An electron is treated as point-like and no experiment has ever seen anything that could be interpreted as non-zero size of an electron.
What you can do is reducing the space the wave function occupies, without a (known) limit if you have enough energy.
> This question came into my mind when I've heard that "If you remove all the space in the atoms, the entire human race could fit in the volume of a sugar cube".
Welcome to the world of bad popular science descriptions. Just ignore them. | [
"Backwash squeeze is a rare squeeze which involves squeezing an opponent which lies behind declarer's menace. A variation of this, known as the \"Sydney Squeeze\" or \"Seres Squeeze\", was discovered in play at a rubber bridge game in Sydney, Australia in 1965, by the Australian great Tim Seres; it was later attest... |
What's the big deal with "Alternate a History"? | Alternate histories can make thrilling, engaging, and intellectual stories. A well-researched tale in which some tweaked events extend Roman rule in Europe 200 years could be a wonderful novel. But that is all it will ever be: stories, tales, and novels.
The idea of an "alternate history" in any setting outside of creative writing suggests that we possess some ability to predict how human history will proceed. That is an outrageous notion. This is not chemistry, where we can take five known chemicals and mix them together in an unstudied mixture and predict what will happen with reasonable accuracy. Assuming a controlled environment, this really only involves 5 variables with which chemists are rather familiar. If history is a science experiment, it is one with billions of unpredictable human "variables" in an even more unpredictable environment. There is no real value to saying what could have happened because it is so impossible to predict. | [
"The Collins English Dictionary defines alternative history as \"a genre of fiction in which the author speculates on how the course of history might have been altered if a particular historical event had had a different outcome.\" According to Steven H Silver, an American science fiction editor, alternate history ... |
can you negate transplant organ rejection with hiv? | If you take the medication, the damage done by the virus to your immune system is negated. Therefore, it's not going to stop the rejection reaction. | [
"HIV was at one point considered to be a complete contraindication to transplantation. There was fear that immunosuppressing someone with a depleted immune system would result in the progression of the disease. However, some research seem to suggest that immunosuppressive drugs and antiretrovirals may work synergis... |
why does us restrain from shooting down n.korean missiles? | You can calculate the trajectory of a ballistic missile shortly after launch, and it's clear that the trajectories for these are not aimed at land.
Launching a costly intercept system (and showing our exact intercept capabilities and locations) to pick off an annoying but harmless test launch isn't worth the trouble. | [
"Obama, in solidarity with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, warned North Korea against \"provocative\" gestures such as a rocket launch. The United States Navy has declared its readiness to use missile defense systems to shoot down a North Korean missile if one is launched, either offensively or as a test, with Ad... |
how do i account for bias in this survey? | This is a classic example of selection bias. If you have external data on what the probability of getting a response from positive subjects is and what the probability of getting a response from negative subjects is, you could weigh the responses by the inverse of their probabilities in order to get an unbiased estimate. | [
"Statistical bias is a feature of a statistical technique or of its results whereby the expected value of the results differs from the true underlying quantitative parameter being estimated. The bias of an estimator of a parameter should not be confused with its degree of precision as the degree of precision is a m... |
touch screens like on iphones, specifically why i can use odd objects to activate it, like the blunt of a pencil? | Most smartphones these days use capacitive touch screens. Since your skin is an electrical conductor, when you touch the screen, charge builds up in that area. The screen detects that build up and reports a touch. Anything that causes that electrical build up will register. | [
"Almost all input is given through the touch screen, which understands complex gestures using multi-touch. The iPhone's interaction techniques enable the user to move the content up or down by a touch-drag motion of the finger. For example, zooming in and out of web pages and photos is done by placing two fingers o... |
Have there been "civil rights" movements in non-recent memory? | Well, this really isn't all that much older than the women's suffrage movement (in fact it happened concurrently), but it has somehow escaped national memory.
During the Exclusion Era (1882-1943), Chinese-Americans organized protests throughout California to protest their legal situation (which was very dismal). They were stripped of lots of legal rights (like being a witness during trials), they were the victims of repeated arson, they were legislated out of various industries, and, of course, barred from having their native Chinese brethren from immigrating to the U.S. (though they found some ways around that).
Anyway, lots of these Chinese immigrants would create organizations to unite with others from China, which eventually consolidated into what was know as the Chinese Six Companies. They were able to help a lot of the Chinatowns they faced--helping to build sewers & hydrants to comply with local laws, helping Chinese find legal counsel, etc. (EDIT: [Here](_URL_0_) is a short document about the Chinese Six hiring some security guards for the well-being of the San Francisco Chinatown as an example.)
Some Chinese took a more direct approach to getting civil rights. One man named Fong Lee actually stormed into an anti-Chinese meeting to air his concerns, calling them racists.
While violence did occur, the Chinese were ultimately very peaceful going about getting their rights. They usually either sidestepped the law, or tried their best to comply with it, and were actually very active (despite rumors about them to the contrary) in contesting things within the judiciary.
Sources:
Charles J. McClain, “The Chinese Struggle for Civil Rights in Nineteenth Century America: The First Phase, 1850-1870,” *California Law Review* 72 (1984): 529-568.
R. Scott Baxter, “The Response of California’s Chinese Populations to the Anti-Chinese Movement,” *Historical Archaeology* 42 (2008): 29-36.
I recommend the Baxter article to get an understanding of how the Chinese dealt with their situation--it's a pretty quick read and it's well organized, if not the best cited. | [
"Movements for civil rights in the United States include noted legislation and organized efforts to abolish public and private acts of racial discrimination against African Americans and other disadvantaged groups between 1954 and 1968, particularly in the southern United States. It is sometimes referred to as the ... |
Is katana really that good sword? | Perhaps these previous topics will answer your inquiry
_URL_3_
_URL_1_
_URL_2_
_URL_0_
_URL_4_ | [
"Katana is a highly proficient hand-to-hand combatant and swordswoman, having studied martial arts as a child and later being trained by the samurai Tadashi. From her time with the Outsiders and Batman, she has also developed strong tactical skills.\n",
"The \"katana\" is generally defined as the standard sized, ... |
- why is the company herbalife ltd (hlf) always under investigation for being some type of a pyramid scheme | Probably on account of being some type of pyramid scheme. | [
"In October 2015, the Australian Federal Court found that the loyalty program is not a pyramid scheme as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has originally claimed. The latest decision in Austria also declared that Lyoness is not classified as fraud or any illegal pyramid scheme by the Austria... |
What recent and present events will be featured in History classes of the 22nd century? | The invention and widespread adoption of smartphones is a huge deal and will definitely be mentioned in the future. In terms of world events, the first black president of the US, the Greek economic crisis, and the Japanese earthquake that led to a backlash against nuclear power are all historic events.
And as one of my friends said, in fifty years AP history kids will be scrambling through notecards and wondering "Did Obama kill Osama or was it the other way around?"
| [
"Key events of the period include: the Council of Trent (1545–1563); the excommunication of Elizabeth I (1570); the Battle of Lepanto (1571); the adoption of the Gregorian calendar under Pope Gregory XIII; the French Wars of Religion; the Long Turkish War; the final phases of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648); and ... |
How is temperature measured? Is the difference in energy from 90-70 degrees the same as the difference in 30-0? | 90-70 is 20. 30-0 is 30. So right there there isn't equivalence. | [
"By the conservation of energy, the sum of the two energies is zero. The quantity formula_30 is known as the \"Log mean temperature difference\", and is a measure of the effectiveness of the heat exchanger in transferring heat energy.\n",
"Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy per particle in an ... |
what happens to the weapons and gear of fallen soldiers? | Hey, US Army Infantryman who is actually in Afghanistan right now here.
In an Infantry platoon it is the Platoon Sergeant's job to maintain accountability of all men, weapons, and equipment. He does this by maintaining a MAL (master authorization list) given to him by the Company's Armorer when weapons are signed out from the arms room.
When a Soldier is injured or killed during combat operations he/she is put onto a MEDEVAC (medical evacuation) vehicle, whether it be a helicopter or some form of ground transportation. Prior to the Soldier being loaded all of his equipment is stripped off of him/her and retained by the unit. If the Soldier carried a crucial casualty producing weapon, like a machine gun with a higher rate of fire than the standard M4, it will be given to the next most qualified person along with all the ammo. This is to try and maintain the combat effectiveness, AKA how many bullets you can throw at people, despite having less people.
As for the gear, after it is recovered back to a FOB (Forward Operating Base) all gear that was worn by a casualty is inspected by people certified to determine whether it is serviceable. If an item is not serviceable and the casualty is still alive the inspectors will make an effort to send the item to the casualty's home. It is not uncommon for Soldiers who received gunshots to their helmets to get to keep those for life.
Enemy equipment is another story. In a perfect scenario where we eliminate the threat and have time to investigate any enemy equipment is gathered by a TSE team (Tactical Site Exploitation) on the spot and processed similar to a crime scene. Bagged, tagged, photographed, and turned into Military Intelligence for processing so they can determine ways to fight better against the enemy's weapons and equipment.
In other situations enemy equipment is destroyed on the spot to permanently prevent the enemy from using that against us.
TL;DR Platoon Sergeant is responsible for recovering friendly equipment to the best of his abilities and repaired as quickly as possible. Enemy equipment is analyzed by Military intelligence or destroyed on the spot.
| [
"In which soldiers stood motionless in their bows when the same did not hit weak parts, which was covered here and there with shatters and banners and torn away parasols, while fallen elephants with dead and half dead soldiers who had done their duty, whose strong arms raised the weapons, whose lips were bitten and... |
what is polymorphism, abstraction, inheritance and encapsulation | This is my first attempt to ELI5 anything so bear with me:
##Polymorphism
Think supersets and subsets or generic to specific. Contrived examples are things like a Person is generic, but Employee and Manager are specific kinds of people. Or Savings, Checking and Retirement are all specific kinds of Bank Accounts.
##Inheritance
You can kind of the think about inheritance in the same way you would describe certain aspects of yourself, ie, “I have my mom’s eyes” or “I laugh like my dad.” You inherited those attributes, or at least some version of them, from those members of your family trees.
Using the Bank Account example again, all of them inherit the ability to deposit, withdraw and accrue interest from the “generic bank account” but they all do it slightly differently.
##Encapsulation
Let’s say you have a box and you put a sandwich, a soda and a bag of chips inside and someone asked you “what’s the box?” you’d likely respond, “it’s my lunch.” You just encapsulated a set of food items into something concise and easy to describe and understand.
This is no different than taking the afore mentioned behaviors like “deposit”, “withdraw” and “accrue” into a well understood construct like a “bank account.”
##Abstraction
This one I’m struggling to ELI5.
Continuing with the bank account examples, what does it mean to “withdraw”. The easy answer is “take money out of my account.”
But, before that can be done, the bank needs to know the following:
1 is this really your account? Prove it.
2 is there enough money in your account?
3 are you allowed to withdraw the desired amount? Is there a daily limit and will this exceed it?
You can see that “withdraw” is actually an abstraction of many things happening behind the scenes.
Hope this helped and I’ll clarify anything if needed.
| [
"According to the theory of evolution, polymorphism results from evolutionary processes, as does any aspect of a species. It is heritable and is modified by natural selection. In polyphenism, an individual's genetic makeup allows for different morphs, and the switch mechanism that determines which morph is shown is... |
what life on europa would be like if it exists? what would conditions would need to be like for it evolve to the level of life on earth? | From what we know about organic chemistry life needs to be Carbon based to have any sort of complexity. Sorry the idea of Silicon life doesn't really work. Life as we understand it needs liquid water, though presumably another molecule could work. and needs oxygen via some molecule (O2, CO2..) There needs to be an external energy source (Solar and hydrothermal vents are used on earth.) I am trying to go through the more basic ones first. There needs to be and abiogenesis event(s), which basically means organic molecules are created from inorganic ones. Earth uses DNA/RNA, presumably something else could take its place, but the building blocks still need to be there. | [
"So far, there is no evidence that life exists on Europa, but Europa has emerged as one of the most likely locations in the Solar System for potential habitability. Life could exist in its under-ice ocean, perhaps in an environment similar to Earth's deep-ocean hydrothermal vents. Even if Europa lacks volcanic hydr... |
ipv6 | So you know how your phone number (in the US) is something like "(555) 555-1000"?
Well, computers are given numbers like that by the people who provide them internet so when they talk to other computers, the other computers have a way to address the responses. It's like calling someone and leaving them a message: without a telephone number to give, there's no way for them to call you back, with their reply.
But there are a lot of computers - way more than people were expecting when they first set up the system. It's been 30 or so years since IPv4 was published.
So they did what they'd do if they ran out of telephone numbers: add more digits.
(Also, just because it had been a while since the last time they agreed about how the internet system worked, they're updating lots of details about how to write the messages and how to send and deliver them. The 30 years it's been is a long time not to update agreements like that.) | [
"IPv6 is the successor to the first addressing infrastructure of the Internet, Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). In contrast to IPv4, which defined an IP address as a 32-bit value, IPv6 addresses have a size of 128 bits. Therefore, IPv6 has a vastly enlarged address space compared to IPv4.\n",
"An IPv6 address ... |
why did vladimir putin block us adoptions of russian children? | Cold War? No, not really. There are two main reasons for this:
+ There have been a few incidents in the past few years where adopted children have died in the US (well, one), and one where a child was put on a plane (alone) and sent back to Russia
+ The US just passed a new law banning entry (i.e. no travel visas) to Russians who have been accused of human rights violations. The US did this because of the case against sergei magnitsky (google it) | [
"In late 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the Dima Yakovlev Law, prohibiting Russian children from being adopted by American citizens. Those in favor of the bill attributed the need for it to the cases of abuse that have been caused by American adoptive parents. They felt as if the punishment for the... |
what is the slow motion effect we experience during car accidents or other traumatic events? | I've read that it's not really about increased perception, it's about increased memory formation. While adrenaline does create a heightenbed state of awareness and alertness, time really only seems to slow down in your *remembering* of the event, since your body created detailed memories of every instant of it (a snapshot every quarter second, as opposed to one every second, for example) to help you learn from it and increase future survival chances. thus the density of memories you have of the event makes it seem in retrospect like time was moving slowly. | [
"Following collisions, long-lasting psychological trauma may occur. These issues may make those who have been in a crash afraid to drive again. In some cases, the psychological trauma may affect individuals' life can cause difficulty to go to work, attend school, or perform family responsibilities.\n",
"\"Sudden ... |
we do we feel tired after thinking/focusing for a while? are we expending energy in our brain? | Yes.
Your brain and the cells inside it are little factories. They make and sell goods, as well as talk to other factories to make sure everyone is on task. A byproduct of factories is waste, and all of our cells produce it, including our brain. When the cells are asked to work harder, they take in more energy from your diet (sugars/carbs/proteins/fats, etc), use it to do work, then a bit is left over which - to most cells - is toxic or unwanted. A lot of toxic waste can be dealt with (such as hydrogen peroxide formation and degradation), but there will always be stuff left over to get rid of. The brains "city sweapers" and "road cleaners" can only work so fast, and can't keep up with the waste from these factories who were told to work overtime. The result is that your brain tells your body, when too much waste exists, "ok, stop, i need to be cleaned and to recover". You expend energy when you're focusing, and your creating problems which take time to fix, no two ways around it. | [
"At rest, energy for the adult brain is normally provided by glucose but the brain has a compensatory capacity to replace some of this with lactate. Research suggests that this can be raised, when a person rests in a brain scanner, to about 17%, with a higher percentage of 25% occurring during hypoglycemia. During ... |
how the thyroid works. what makes it so important? and what role did it have in me becoming so sick at birth? | Damn, a Human Physiologist would eat this question right up.
I'm a nursing student and I can try to answer your questions, but no guarantees it'll be ELI5 material.
I'll see first if anyone else answers. | [
"Thyroid hormones play an instrumental role during the early development of the fetus's brain. Therefore, mothers suffering from thyroid-related issues and altered thyroid hormone levels may inadvertently trigger structural and functional changes in the fetal brain. The fetus is able to produce its own thyroid horm... |
Did Nazi Germany have diplomatic relations with Liechtenstein? | Liechtenstein had their own National Socialist party that was supportive of the Nazis, although the country itself remained independent. They failed to gain support during the 1939 elections as there was a rapid decrease of Nazi sympathies. It's a relatively small country and wasn't seen to carry that much political weight, and in many aspects it was dependent on Switzerland (the Swiss guarded the Liechtenstein-Germany borders) especially when it came to foreign economic policy. | [
"After the end of [[World War I]], [[Liechtenstein]] concluded a customs and monetary agreement with [[Switzerland]] and entrusted its larger neighbor with its external relations. Following the Austrian [[Anschluss]] of March 1938, [[Franz I, Prince of Liechtenstein|Prince Franz]] abdicated in favor of his third co... |
Why is the "head" on soda much shorter lived than on beer? | Protein! Beer has residual proteins from the grains used to make the beer; these proteins give structural stability to the foam. Most (all?) sodas do not have any protein content to speak of, so there's nothing to stabilize the foam. | [
"A long drink will have a tall glass full of mixer, in contrast to a short drink which has less mixer. Short drinks are generally stronger since both types tend to contain the same amount of alcohol. Long drinks are therefore generally more dilute than short drinks.\n",
"The density and longevity of the head will... |
Tell me about IBM's new molecule pictures. Is this what molecules actually "look" like? | The short answer is that no, this is not what they "look" like, because "look" refers to _sight_, and no visible wavelength can resolve those molecules.
However, that's not to say it's not an accurate representation of the structure of the molecule. Atomic force microscopy is analogous to a blind man running his finger over an object to "feel" it's shape. While that may not correspond to what it "looks like", it is a way to detect its structure and shape. In this case, AFM detects electron density.
So like all other visual representations of phenomena we can't see - for example, electric fields or magnetic field lines - it isn't what it "looks like", but it reflects the structure and shape of what we're talking about. | [
"The macromolecular approach was popularized by Dickerson and Geis' presentation of proteins and the graphic work of Jane Richardson through high-quality hand-drawn diagrams such as the \"ribbon\" representation. In this they strove to capture the intrinsic 'meaning' of the molecule. This search for the \"messages ... |
Describe the Soviet's legacy of power in current Central Asian states | Tired of posts on here phrased exactly as school essay questions. It really smacks of homework. I apologise if that's just your way of speaking, but some of the questions on here really appear to come straight from A Level history textbooks.. | [
"The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 once again created a situation of political vacuum in Central Asia. The resultant authoritarian but weak former Soviet satellite republics were still considered part of Russia's sphere of influence, but now Russia was only one among many competitors for influence in the ... |
how is saving to the cloud different from saving to servers? | The 'Cloud' is just a fancy way of saying 'multiple servers'
This means your data is protected through redundancy, meaning if one server goes down you still have your data saved to other servers. | [
"Because more corporations are moving their technical infrastructure to cloud services, the need for backup continues to grow. Companies which rely on large cloud service providers such as Microsoft are often unaware that they are responsible for backing up and recovering their own data.\n",
"BULLET::::- Cloud se... |
vpns | Virtual Private Network
A system whereby you can connect to another computer over the internet via a secured 'tunnel'. This is different to connecting to a website or other computer via a simple SSL link as it creates a virtual network adapter on your PC and IP addresses are privately assigned to those adapters, thus making it a private network.
When you connect this way, you could use a PC in Korea to connect to the internet, which in effect makes your PC in the UK or US look as though it is in Korea, since the Korean host is acting as a gateway to the internet for you.
So your PC could be seen as creating a tunnel from the UK to Korea and emerging on the other side and accessing the internet or other resources there.
Uses:
- Being part of a big private corporate network
- Pretending you are in another country when you want to access geo restricted resources
- Totally secure file transfer between peers | [
"A VPN maintains an authenticated, encrypted tunnel for securely passing data traffic over public networks (typically, the Internet.) Other VPN types are IPsec VPNs, which are useful for point-to-point connections when the network endpoints are known and remain fixed; or SSL VPNs, which provide for access through a... |
why are cars not insulated to capture heat in the winter and keep the car cool in the summer. | Cars *are* insulated, but it works both ways. If you have it trying to keep heat out in the summer then it also tries to keep heat out in the winter. Simultaneously it is trying to keep heat in during the summer and heat in during the winter. Insulation inhibits heat transfer in either direction. | [
"To cool the air it used latent heat (in other words, cooling by water evaporation). Water inside the device evaporates and in the process transfers heat from the surrounding air. The cool moisture-laden air is then directed to the inside of the car. The evaporate \"cooling\" effect decreases with humidity because ... |
Was there any rhyme or reason to which particular "side" (eg. East, West, North, South, etc...) of an American city became associated with mainly African-American neighborhoods? | In the US, there seems to be a *slight* majority of big cities where the poor side of town is to the south. A few theories have been put forward, but none are terribly convincing. The prevailing winds for most US cities are from the northwest, so areas south and east end up downwind of polluting industry. For new cities in the Great Plains and West, railroads ran east and west, so the location of the tracks and the station may have influenced what area became "downtown" and what area became "the wrong side of the tracks."
In 1939, Homer Hoyt published [this look at the phenomenon](_URL_1_), (see page 77 for [the main diagram](_URL_0_)) but the main thing he took away from it was what urban geographers call the *sector theory* for describing urban areas. | [
"Originally \"La Rue Missouri\", it was one of the first named east to west streets in Colonial St. Louis. After the American takeover of the city in 1804 the name was changed to North \"A\" Street. In 1826, in a general planning scheme to name east-west streets after trees, it became \"Chesnut\". The spelling was ... |
when describing computer components, i've heard the term architecture referenced several times before. what does it mean? | Architecture refers to the structural design.
Every couple years a CPU/GPU manufacturer will release a new chip that has it's internal layout and configuration changed significantly, this is a new "microarchitecture"
Sometimes they just shrink a process or optimize how they build the chips. Since the internal layout is fundamentally the same this isn't considered a new "microarchitecture"
Intel's 6xxx processors are the Skylake microarchitecture, as are the 7xxx and 8xxx (codenames Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake). They only differ slightly in design and performance, the biggest gains generally come from a new microarchitecture | [
"In computer engineering, \"computer architecture\" is a set of rules and methods that describe the functionality, organization, and implementation of computer systems. Some definitions of architecture define it as describing the capabilities and programming model of a computer but not a particular implementation. ... |
how do game developers determine if difficult game content is "balanced" | Good game developers have a QA department and conduct regular user testing to identify and analyze issues and aspects of their games, such as difficulty. That should help roughly estimate how difficult aspects of the game is. For certain types of games they run public betas that gather thousands of players. When you have a thousand players testing your game you will generate a lot of information about all sorts of things regarding your game: players are quick to collectively break and exploit your game. There are also sometimes automatic tests that can run trough potential combinations of gears and strategy and see if a certain combination spikes or is unbalanced, but that's more rare.
Beyond that game developers generally have quite a bit of experience and while they can not be unbiased they can often roughly estimate how difficult something is. | [
"This method facilitates fast and easy decisions that are likely to be balanced according to the judgement of the game’s author and the game master, but doesn’t allow for variation if not combined with other options. In an extreme case, characters are completely predesigned by the author of a scenario, but even the... |
common core state standards initiative | It's a set of standards that is being attempted to be passed/adopted so that ALL schools across the land are taught the same subjects at the same time and at the same level. So if you're taught in LA or NY or Dallas or wherever, at the same time, all the kids are on the same page, if you will.
The old systems each had their own pace and their own standards. Texas has it's version, California has it's, and so on. This can produce disparity of student's learning level, and that can be a potential problem when they have to move from state to state. "Oh we haven't got there yet..."
Also, one state's version of "awesome" is another state's version of "fail." And there's books and curriculum and railing for tests to be good at the expense of acutal learning, etc, ad nauseum... So no schools teach the same way, except the assesments tests. As long as those are 'working' everything is good, right?
Well, not so much. So the CCSSI is born.
The reason it's being decried by all (not just conservatives, it must be noted) is many. Here is something to read about it:
_URL_0_
The main points... no public input on it, different areas learn differently, no taking into account cultural issues in the diversity of America, rail roading, states rights to determine educational needs... a laundry list.
The last one is especally important. The reason it exists is because the US is not exactly exemplary in education compared to a great many nations. The thought is that by standardizing the entire US education system, the US can bring it's education level up.
But is it right that the federal government meddle with what has been traditionally a state's affair?
States rights is always ALWAYS a contentious issue. Some states aren't as vehement about this sort of thing, but others would rather not be a part of the US than give up their state's rights to self rule.
Same as the argument over the NSA, really... what right does the USGovernment have that they can tell us what to do/watch what we do? You lose those two, what's next?
All political. I'm not sayin' they're right or wrong, I myself am a little apathetic about this, as there's so many different skills assesments for all the schools in the various states, I'm not sure this homogenized standard isn't a bad thing... or is. | [
"The Common Core State Standards Initiative is an educational initiative from 2010 that details what K–12 students throughout the United States should know in English language arts and mathematics at the conclusion of each school grade. The initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the... |
Was Mutually Assured Destruction the main thing that prevented a major war during the cold war, or was that propaganda to justify nuclear weapons. | If you don't mind, I can speak a little more toward nuclear deterrence as a theory, rather than as specifically applied to the Cold War. But of course, the Cold War was the largest standoff between nuclear powers in history, so naturally a lot of the theory is based on it.
It is generally accepted by political scientists that, when two states have nuclear weapons, those two states are less likely to go to war. Since the development of nukes, there has been a grand total of one war between nuclear powers, that being the Kargil War between India and Pakistan in 1999. And in that war, no nuclear weapons were used. So not a perfect record, but still a pretty damn good one. The evidence seems pretty clear: with nukes, there is less war among great powers than without nukes.
There is some dissent with that opinion. John Mueller argued that the real cause of no big war breaking out was that World War II had been so horrific that no one wanted to do it again, regardless of nukes.
Ultimately, we can't know exactly how much nuclear deterrence contributed to keeping the Cold War from heating up. The one thing that seems certain is that it ensured that great powers no longer think they can get away with an easy victory against another great power. So, war seems less worthwhile.
There's also the idea of the "nuclear taboo". It's the idea that, even though there's no treaty outright banning their use, no one wants to be the first to break out the nukes. This serves as a kind of self-deterrence, regardless of whether the other side could retaliate in kind. Also playing into this is the destruction that nuclear weapons bring with them - what's the sense in destroying your enemy if you only get to win some irradiated rocks?
Source: Greg Cashman, *What Causes War?*, 362-365. | [
"During the Cold War, concepts such as mutual assured destruction (MAD) led lawmakers and government officials in both the United States and the Soviet Union to avoid entering a nuclear war that could have had catastrophic consequences on the entire world. Various scientists and authors, such as Carl Sagan, predict... |
What % of the worlds population was contained in Greece during various time periods? | This is a very hard question to answer, because until modern times "Greece" has not had stable borders. Ancient Greece is simply a term used for the region containing Greek city states, Roman Greece was a province that did not contain all Greeks, and Anatolia actually had many Greeks too. | [
"The population of the entire Greek civilization (Greece, the Greek-speaking populations of Sicily, the coast of western Asia Minor, and the Black Sea) in the 4th century BC was recently estimated to be 500,000 to 600,000.\n",
"The Greek population doubled during the eighth century, resulting in more and larger s... |
Why do our brains know how far to throw a ball, and where to catch that ball. | There's some evidence that humans actually evolved intelligence to throw objects (spears and rocks especially) well and then co-opted that structure. When you throw an object and anticipate where it will go you are essentially approximating solutions to a very tough set of differential equations. Neuroscientist William Calvin is one of the main proponents of this idea. It is discussed in two of his books "A Brief History of the Mind" and "The Throwing Madonna" (the second is a collection of his essays only some of which are relevant to this hypothesis.) | [
"The ball can be thrown in several ways. Throwing the ball while running causes the ball to move in the direction faced. Throwing the ball while standing still allows a 360 degree aim, with better tracking. Throwing the ball while jumping increases the force at which the ball hits.\n",
"The ball's direction and s... |
; the berlin wall - how did the eastern bloc prevent people from just crossing at a different point along the border? there wasn't a wall the entire length of the border surely? | The city of West Berlin was completely surrounded by communist East Germany, and, being only half of a city, it was a pretty easy border to secure. There were many other countermeasures besides the wall (dogs, guards, etc.) in place. | [
"The Berlin border crossings were border crossings created as a result of the post-World War II division of Germany. Prior to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, travel between the Eastern and Western sectors of Berlin was completely uncontrolled, although restrictions were increasingly introduced by the S... |
Henry V and kissing...was it gay? | For context, the passage the kiss appears in:
> *EXETER: The Duke of York commends him to your Majesty.*
> *KING HENRY: Lives he, good uncle? Thrice within this hour*
> *I saw him down, thrice up again and fighting.*
> *From helmet to the spur, all blood he was.*
> *EXETER: In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie,*
> *Larding the plain, and by his bloody side,*
> *Yoke-fellow to his honor-owing wounds,*
> *The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.*
> *Suffolk first died, and York, all haggled over,*
> *Comes to him where in gore he lay insteeped,*
> *And takes him by the beard, kisses the gashes*
> *That bloodily did yawn upon his face.*
> *He cries aloud “Tarry, my cousin Suffolk.*
> *My soul shall thine keep company to heaven.*
> *Tarry, sweet soul, for mine; then fly abreast,*
> *As in this glorious and well-foughten field*
> *We kept together in our chivalry.”*
> *Upon these words I came and cheered him up.*
> *He smiled me in the face, raught me his hand,*
> *And with a feeble grip, says “Dear my lord,*
> *Commend my service to my sovereign.”*
> *So did he turn, and over Suffolk’s neck*
> *He threw his wounded arm and kissed his lips,*
> *And so, espoused to death, with blood he sealed*
> *A testament of noble-ending love.*
> *The pretty and sweet manner of it forced*
> *Those waters from me which I would have stopped,*
> *But I had not so much of man in me,*
> *And all my mother came into mine eyes*
> *And gave me up to tears.*
Men kissing men was fairly common in Henry V's time, and it didn't necessarily have romantic or sexual overtones. In Henry V's own lifetime, men might exchange kisses as a formalized gesture of nonsexual affection -- for instance, some 20 years earlier than the Battle of Agincourt, when Henry V's ~~uncle~~ predecessor Richard II met with Charles VI of France to broker a truce between their countries, the two men embraced each other and kissed twice. These men weren't sexually involved with each other or even all that close, but they were making a pretty bold public statement by kissing in public; eyewitness accounts viewed the gesture quite positively, as a sign of renewed closeness and friendly relations between the two nations. Kisses might symbolize Christian forgiveness, kinship, or a pledge of personal loyalty, whether the kiss was a full-on kiss on the mouth or a kiss on the cheek. Men also embraced and kissed on an informal basis; there was somewhat less squeamishness about certain displays of physicality between men who were already close friends or relatives.That doesn't mean that it was a total free-for-all when it came to man-on-man kisses -- late medieval men were quite class-conscious, and the power dynamics implied in a kiss were at the forefront in men's minds. The formal understanding of why men might kiss for non-sexual reasons didn't entirely negate the potential for sexual misconduct -- while two men or two women hugging and kissing upon meeting or parting wasn't necessarily suspect, swapping kisses in private with drawn-out embraces, fondling, or use of tongues would still have been recognized as something rather different. That level of intimate contact might be cause for suspicion or accusations of sexual misconduct.
Was kissing between men still so common by the time Shakespeare was writing *Henry V*? Shakespeare was writing almost 200 years later than the events he was depicting in this play. It would be hard to say that men were less concerned about their masculinity in the 16th century than in the 15th century, but that concern about masculinity looked pretty different between 1415 and 1599. Attitudes toward kisses between men were similarly different than they'd been two centuries before, but the idea of men kissing for reasons other than sexual reasons was still fairly common. There are a couple other male kisses in Shakespeare that are manifestly nonsexual -- Hamlet talks about kissing Yorick on the lips as a boy, and in *Henry VI, Part 2*, the rebel Jack Cade tells his cronies to make the severed heads of a man and his son-in-law kiss, which is clearly distasteful but not necessarily sexual or incestuous.
> [Re-enter one with the heads]
> *JACK CADE: But is not this braver? Let them kiss one another,*
> *For they loved well when they were alive.*
The kiss between Suffolk and York in *Henry V*, however, is surrounded by descriptions of *passionate* love, so what's up with that? In this case, the extremity of the situation may give it a little leeway; the men involved are noble kinsmen, mortally wounded in battle, so it's a situation of manly pathos rather than freewheeling intimacy. Hearers react positively to it rather than with unease or condemnation. Exeter talking about how this scene makes him weep in terms of his own temporarily deficient manliness and Henry responding that even he must make an effort not to weep suggests how concerned these men were with masculinity and propriety even while they're talking about the deaths of valiant warriors on the battlefield. It's an excusable lapse of masculinity for two men to weep at the thought of their noble kinsmen dying like tragic heroes, just like it's an excusable lapse of decorum for two men to embrace and kiss as they lie dying on the battlefield. Overall the play *Henry V* is somewhat touchy about masculinity and sexuality as well as friendship and loyalty between men. It's not a reach to say that the picture painted of a tableau of two men dying in each other's arms as a consummate display of their love for each other can be analyzed in terms of its romantic or homoerotic content, but it'd be hard to say that the kisses between York and Suffolk as they lie dying are an unambiguous indicator that they were in a sexual relationship with each other. No such scene took place between the historical York and Suffolk, for the simple reason that the historical York died at Agincourt in a less romantic way -- Edward of Norwich was supposedly smothered to death by overheating and crowding.
(On a side note: Earlier in the play in Act 2 Scene 2, Exeter describes one of Henry's treacherous friends as his bedfellow, someone who slept in the same bed as Henry, without necessarily a sexual implication. I'm not sure that that phrasing deliberately excludes the possibility given the faint sexual undertones it's possible to read in Henry's description of his treacherous friends' "practising on [him] for [their] use", but it's another place where the sensibilities of this play differ from modern sensibilities where two male friends voluntarily sleeping in the same bed has romantic or at least potentially romantic associations.)
There *are* depictions of erotic intimacy between men in Elizabethan drama — Marlowe's *Dido, Queen Of Carthage* begins with Jupiter "dandling [his male favorite Ganymede] upon his knee", Marlowe's *Edward II* has a same-sex sexual relationship at its center where two men embrace, kiss, and sit practically in each other's laps, and the nonsexual closeness between Clermont and his male companion the Guise in *Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois* is readily interpreted by other characters as sexual closeness. It's hard to tell from the text alone how these pairs' body language would have been represented on stage, and whether that would differ from visual representations of male friendship, but there is still a strong sense that there are things it's appropriate for men to do with one another dictated by their relative social roles and social stations as well as things that are inappropriate for men, too intimate or too improper. (One of my recent answers on homosexuality and Shakespeare has a contemporary circa 1590s description of [two men embracing each other](_URL_0_) that's clearly supposed to be understood as improperly sexual -- men not just hugging but "playing wantonly" with each other.) It’s a near-certainty that in the past men did kiss other men for romantic/sexual reasons, both in Henry V’s time and in Shakespeare’s, but there was not yet a stigma that all kisses between men were sexually charged, whether in real life or on the stage. Kissing as a display of other kinds of nonsexual affection between men was still in circulation in the 15th and 16th centuries. | [
"In 2003, Britney Spears staged a kiss with Madonna (who also kissed Christina Aguilera in the same performance) on an MTV Video Music Awards performance that would continue to fuel bisexual chic, and at the time many news and tabloid outsources referred to it as \"lesbian chic\", since it was clear from her impend... |
how many times would i have to perform an action to guarantee 1 success? | You can never guarantee success of any action that does not have 100% probability. If it is *possible* to fail something once, it's *possible* to fail again. If you can fail the first time you can still fail the 1,000,000th time. This is also known as the gamblers fallacy if you want to look that up | [
"The Success Chance is determined by multiplying the Primary Chance of an action by the Ease Factor. Ease Factors are set by the gamemaster, starting at 5 for most situations and modified down for more difficult, or up for easier tasks, always ranging between 1/2 and 10. The Primary Chance of most actions is a comb... |
why do people on reddit answer questions with the same answers people have already posted? | Everyone wants to throw in their opinion even if its just copy and paste. maybe just for the votes. | [
"Questions are initially open to answers for four days. However, the asker can choose to pick a best answer for the question after a minimum of one hour. However, comments and answers can still be posted after this time. To ask a question, one has to have a Yahoo! account with a positive score balance of five point... |
When did the concept of terrorism come to exist? What are some early examples of terrorist groups? | The original word terrorism comes from the french word *terrorisme* which was used to describe the policies of the Reign of Terror (1793-1794) during the French Revolution. Jacobin's invented this word to describe their own government policies. They only conceptualized it as what today is know as "state terrorism" however.
He word was then used by the British to describe the Irish Republicans under Wolfe Tone during their failed rebellion. This pejorative title for Irish Republicans stuck and would be use to refer to future republican organisations. As these organisations change tactics their actions would define what you today know as terrorism. This name would continue to derogatorily be used for Irish Republicans regardless of their tactics (uniformed open rebellion or peaceful protest). The Irish Fenians of the 1850's would likely be the first group that both their contemporaries and you would describe as a terrorist organisation.
As the 19th Century saw the rise of radicals and reactionaries ideas such as anarchism, fascism, and communism the word rapidly spread to include those who used tactics similar to the Fenians in Ireland.
The thing is, this is a derogatory term and very few groups that are rightly labeled terrorists would agree to such a title and many groups that are not terrorists by to day standards were labeled such at the time. (an example would be Charles de Gaulle who was labeled opponents by both the Nazis and Vichy French) Really only nihilist anarchists ever embraced the term.
The way we conceptualize terrorists today is largely through the lens of counter-terrorism. The first true anti-terrorism laws were the "Lois scélérates" (or villainous laws) restricting free speech in the third French Republic in the 1890's. These were largely detested among French republicans who saw them as unnecessary. The first truly popular efforts to counter terrorism came in the early 20th century to counter anarchists. It was actually after President McKinley's assassination by such an anarchist that America declared a "war on terrorism" for the first time
If this all seems very irresolute, it is. This is because the concept of terrorism and what is or isn't terrorism is far from a settled matter and much debated. Much of what was considered terrorism at the beginning might not be considered terrorism today and vis versa. What is and isn't terrorism has largely been a matter of politics and in the eye of the beholder.
This is not to say that what we call terrorism (civilian targeting by brutal underground political organisations) is a new phenomenon...far from it. These kinds of attacks are as old as civilisation. Assassination, murder, kidnapping, arson, for political gains were all favored by the Zealots of Judea 2000 years ago. I am only speaking of the conceptualizing of terrorism and being labeled as such.
Source:
- *What Terrorists Want* Louise Richardson 2007
- *Terrorism in Context* Martha Crenshaw 1995
- *Revolutionary Underground: The Story of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, 1858–1924* Leon O'Broin 1976 | [
"Terrorism was associated with state terror and the Reign of Terror in France, until the mid-19th century when the term also began to be associated with non-governmental groups. Anarchism, often in league with rising nationalism, was the most prominent ideology linked with terrorism. Attacks by various anarchist gr... |
If you followed a supersonic aircraft right in its trailing shockwave, what would you hear? A loud roar? Repeated "booms"? Nothing? | I previously answered this in a way someone seemed to like, so I guess it's appropriate to link here: _URL_0_ (also, watch the video to the end!) | [
"However, shock waves can form on some parts of an aircraft moving at less than the speed of sound. Low pressure regions around an aircraft cause the flow to accelerate, and at transonic speeds this local acceleration can exceed Mach 1. Localized supersonic flow must return to the freestream conditions around the r... |
how does the herrman grid illusion work? | Nobody knows for sure.
One theory is [lateral inhibition](_URL_1_) where some receptors in the eye may suppress other receptors, creating a perceived area of darkness. This has been roundly challenged however.
Another theory is the presence of S1 simple cells, that are part of how we in perceive 3D images out of what are essentially 2D patterns. In this case, the flat grid may 'trick' them into perceiving an illusory image. But there are problems there as well.
Anyway, I dug this all out of the Wikipedia page for [Grid Illusion](_URL_0_). | [
"The scintillating grid illusion is an optical illusion, discovered by E. and B. Lingelbach and M. Schrauf in 1994. It is often considered a variation of the Hermann grid illusion but posesses different properties..\n",
"The Hermann grid illusion is an optical illusion reported by Ludimar Hermann in 1870. The ill... |
Here's one for Egyptologists: Which books do you recommend about the daily life in Ancient Egypt? | The book that you are looking for has indeed been written, at least for the part of being "put into the shoes" of a middle class girl in the Late Middle Kingdom:
Kasia Szpakowska, Daily Life in Ancient Egypt. Recreating Lahun.
Here's a review:
_URL_0_ | [
"Ancient Egypt is a magazine that deals with the subject of Egyptology. It is published bi-monthly. \"Ancient Egypt\" magazine is pitched somewhere between an academic journal and a travel magazine – bringing the spectacular sights of the ancient world together with the latest archaeological discoveries and theorie... |
why does applying more heat help with inflammation? (eg heat packs, hot water bottles) | Inflammation is characterised by 5 signs - redness, swelling, pain, high local temperature and dysfunction. Big part responsible for these is the "pooling" of blood at the inflamatory site. Because of the high pressure of the blood inside capillaries it is forced outside their walls and into the surrounding tissue.
Now, for the first 24 hours it is wrong apllying heat, you should instead apply cold compresses, because heat expands the capillaries and makes it easier for thinga to get out. If 24 hours have passed, and enough outside liquid is pooled, it exercises pressure on the blood vessels and shrinks them, that's when heat can help get them expanded, so they can start collecting that external liquid. | [
"Several days of cold therapy, sweats, and NSAIDs can help a \"hot\" splint. NSAIDs can help reduce the inflammation and help the bone growth by doing so. However, none of these treatments are incredibly effective. The most important factor is time. Counter-irritants, which increase inflammation, only hinder the fo... |
why doesn't vicks medicine make nyquil, dayquil and zquil in the form of a pill? | They do, actually:
_URL_0_
I usually buy the store brand, but it's the same stuff. | [
"Vicks is an American brand of over-the-counter medications owned by the American company Procter & Gamble. Vicks manufactures NyQuil and its sister medication, DayQuil. The Vicks brand also produces Formula 44 cough medicines, cough drops, Vicks VapoRub, and a number of inhaled breathing treatments. For much of it... |
If exercise leads to increased damage, death, and division in cells, why does it tend to lower the cancer rate overall? | I've encountered this view/question before with regards to free radical production so i'm just going to copy and paste some shit from emails here, apologies for the weird grammar/speech and older random citations.
Theoretically, it would seem sounds that something like Aerobic exercise, which increases the rate of free-radical production, might be disadvantageous in terms of cancer rates and lifespan.
But this is an extremely superficial view, and does not take into account the mechanisms the body has to compensate for that activity. Free radicals themselves are important signalling molecules within cells; their levels are very tightly related to the level of production of antioxidant enzymes and even stuff like mitochondrial biogenesis. If you increase your ROS production, the downstream signalling cascade will cause an up-regulation of enzymes and processes involved in protection from free radicals. This concept is broadly applicable to inflammation as well; you're up-regulating your bodies' repair mechanisms.
Random sources:
Mari-Carmen Gomez-Cabrera, Elena Domenech, Jose Viña, Moderate exercise is an antioxidant: Upregulation of antioxidant genes by training, Free Radical Biology and Medicine, Volume 44, Issue 2, 15 January 2008, Pages 126-131
Brooks, S. V., et al. (2008). "Repeated bouts of aerobic exercise lead to reductions in skeletal muscle free radical generation and nuclear factor κB activation." The Journal of Physiology 586(16): 3979-3990
Now can't you just sit around doing nothing eating antioxidants and this will be a better option? Well, no. Because by making an effort to exogenously decrease ROS levels, you're going to (via reduced levels of ROS) down-regulate your bodies' native antioxidant processes:
Colin Selman, Jane S. McLaren, Claus Meyer, Jackie S. Duncan, Paula Redman, Andrew R. Collins, Garry G. Duthie, John R. Speakman, Life-long vitamin C supplementation in combination with cold exposure does not affect oxidative damage or lifespan in mice, but decreases expression of antioxidant protection genes, Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, Volume 127, Issue 12, December 2006, Pages 897-904
The problem with this is that there are certain areas where the generation of free radicals is a serious issue for cells (i.e. complex I of the electron transport chain is pretty important). Cell's own antioxidant enzymes are evolved to combat ROS generation in the manner in which it becomes an issue for a cell. Exogenous antioxidants don't necessarily do the same job.
I haven't really answered your question directly here, but it's kind of an analogous process. Exercise, while it does damage the body (ROS production, inflammation, muscle tears, etc), produces a whole host of compensatory physiological and biochemical mechanisms that provide a benefit above and beyond simply combating the damage produced.
As with all things, there's a limit beyond which things start to break down. There's a bit more of a question when it comes to Ultra-endurance athletes:
Knez, W. L., Coombes, J. S., & Jenkins, D. G. (2006). Ultra-endurance exercise and oxidative damage. Sports Medicine, 36(5), 429-441.
But broadly, that's the principle involved. | [
"James Watson and others have proposed that lack of intracellular ROS due to a lack of physical exercise may contribute to the malignant progression of cancer, because spikes of ROS are needed to correctly fold proteins in the endoplasmatic reticulum and low ROS levels may thus aspecifically hamper the formation of... |
How commonly were smoke shells used by tanks to support infantry during WWII? | The most blatant example of the use of smoke by tanks to screen infantry is the policy of the British close support tanks which fired almost exclusively smoke rounds. See David Fletcher's brief discussion here. _URL_0_
Smoke in US use would be certainly useful for self preservation, the US tended to prefer to blow up the enemy rather than just block their vision. However, if used in concert, instead of as simply a matter of blocking one particular line of sight in the spur of the moment, a group of tanks firing either directly or indirectly could set up a deliberate smoke screen as part of a planned attack.
Finally, it is worth noting that the 75mm smoke round on the Sherman could be used as an offensive weapon in itself: It was a white phosphorous round, which would do very nasty things to troops, and could even be used against armored vehicles. For whatever reason, WP wasn't developed for the 76 until after the war
I do not feel qualified to respond to the German or Soviet sides. | [
"During the Vietnam War, air bursting shells were used to great effect to defend bases. This tactic was known as \"Killer Junior\" when referring to 105 mm or 155 mm shells, and \"Killer Senior\" when employed with larger howitzers.\n",
"During these later years of the war, general purpose high explosive ammuniti... |
how do diseases like the bubonic plague and spanish plague suddenly die out? | I'm not sure what "Spanish plague" is. Do you mean Spanish flu?
Anyway, bubonic plague is alive and well. It is present in many areas of the world, including the U.S. We get a handful of cases every year. The Spanish flu is a little different. Influenza mutates every year in a variety of ways (a little beyond ELI5). So, there really is no Spanish flu anymore that is quite the same as the old one.
But, the reason that we don't see as much bubonic plague anymore is because it's not 100% fatal. The survivors will have immunity and make it more difficult for the bacterium to spread among the population. Couple that with the advent of antibiotics and improved sanitation (removal of rats and their accompanying fleas), and the incidence dropped. | [
"Almost 25 years later, another plague ravaged Spain. For nine years (1676–1685), great outbreaks of the disease attacked in waves across the country. It struck the areas of Andalucía and Valencia particularly hard. In conjunction with the poor harvest of 1682-83 which created famine conditions, the effects killed ... |
whenever i pause a video, why does it never stop between frames? | Are you expecting a black frame? What is your expectation of what between frames is? There is never going to be a frame between frames because they are sequential. So there is always a frame on the screen.
There are certain types of playback that show two frames on the screen at the same time, but they are interlaced. So one row of pixels will be the next, the other row of pixels will be the last frame. There is also progressive where the whole frame is shown one at a time. | [
"As the video temporally unfolds, complex perceptual illusions are triggered through repetition, alternation and flicker. The flickering video image, which references the perceptual explorations of Op Art and \"flicker\" film, produces the illusion of the video as a series of constructed frames. As the video image ... |
how does brainstorming / mind mapping technique help? | Brainstorming is a technique where multiple people can come up with some crazy and not so crazy ideas to solve a problem. If done correctly no idea is judged or rejected at the brainstorming stage. The idea is that brainstorming will provide a bunch of approaches to solve the problem and therefore the chances that a clever "outside-the-box" idea will be thought up is higher.
Mind mapping is a graphical technique that allows one to relate ideas or other information hierarchically. Mind mapping in my experience works better individually and it works well because as you are taking notes or doing an individual brainstorming session you can focus one one area or another without worrying about other areas but if you think of something outside your current area you have a place to put it. Mind mapping is really hard to [describe without a demonstration](_URL_0_). | [
"BULLET::::- iMindQ — mind mapping and brainstorming software application that supports users in creative idea capturing, memorization and thought process improvements, meeting management and management information overload, as well as task and project management through the use of concept maps, flowcharts and mind... |
why does persevering food via airtight seal work? | Regular old "put in a plastic bag" delays spoilage, but does not prevent it.
It limits exposure to new bacteria and fungi which means that they can only multiply from what is there, not add new ones (which would then also multiply). But it also helps regulate moisture which can keep something from going stale quickly. Or it can prevent dry things (like crackers or cookies) from getting soggy in humid air.
| [
"Simply loosening the lid of a vacuum-packed food product to break the seal is enough to permit the bacteria and mold growth to resume. The amount of air inhaled into the container when the seal is broken is small, but sufficient to permit slow growth of contaminating and decomposing organisms.\n",
"Before the pr... |
why does the dominant sex differ between animals? | I assume you mean physically or in size - Sexual selection has caused the sexes of some animal species to become quite different in body size, shape, and form. When the sexes differ in appearance we call this [sexual dimorphism](_URL_0_). There are thought to be two main mechanism which drive sexual dimorphism: female choice and male-male competition.
**Female Choice**: Females select for males with the most desirable traits. Overtime and over many generations these traits become exaggerated. The males tend to have bright elaborate plumage, intricate mating songs, elaborate facial structures, or might even display complex behaviours. The main idea is that it is very costly for the male to produce this trait - it takes a lot of time, energy, and resources - in that way he must be very fit if he can produce such an elaborate trait. By fit I don't mean physically fit, I mean it in the Darwinian sense of word - a fit animal is one that is able to survive and reproduce because it has traits which give it an advantage in its environment as compared to other individuals of the same species which might lack those traits. So for example, the female peacock has over time selected for male peacocks with bright colourful and elaborate plumage. Males who are inferior and who can't access resource won't be able to make that elaborate plumage. It will come out dull and worn. They won't be picked by a female and they won't get to mate. Its worth noting that there are many examples where the sexes roles have been reversed, in that the males choose the female with the desirable trait.
**Male-Male Competition:** Males compete with each other over access to females. In this way males with the biggest ornaments (e.g. antlers) or biggest size (e.g. gorillas) will be able to defend their territory or females. Males with the best traits to accomplish this will be more likely to mate and pass on their successful genes to their offspring. Over time and over many generations we would expect those traits to become more exaggerated (e.g. the average horn size gets bigger and bigger) until external limiting factors take hold (e.g. the species is physiologically incapable of making a bigger horn, there aren't enough resources in the environment to make a bigger horn). Its worth noting that there are many examples where the sexes roles have been reversed, where females compete with female over access to males.
Finally, both mechanisms can be working on the same species at the same time. | [
"Animal species that are not in a state of sexual conflict are more likely to be in sync to the male dominance hierarchy as the females are more docile in these organizations such as wolves, common rabbits and crocodiles. Others, such as spiders, ants and orcas are female-dominated. Some regard sexual conflict as a... |
how someone can be "muscley" but not strong. | > I've heard that people looking for larger muscles and those looking for more strenght do different excercises; is this true or is it just another /r/fitness myth?
This is true. Bodybuilders tend to do lower weight at high reps to build large muscles. For strength, what I do is a hypertrophy phase of moderate weight at moderate reps to build muscle mass. Followed by high weight at low reps, which teaches your nervous system how to properly utilize your muscles. Or at least that's how my coach explains it to me. | [
"BULLET::::- In the Kurt Vonnegut short story \"Harrison Bergeron\", physically strong individuals are weighted down with weights of varying heaviness in accordance to the individuals' strength. This is done to handicap them and make them physically \"equal\" to a normal person.\n",
"A strength athlete is a perso... |
Ketchup as a non-Newtonian Fluid ? | According to **Koocheki, Arash, et al. "The rheological properties of ketchup as a function of different hydrocolloids and temperature." International journal of food science & technology 44.3 (2009): 596-602.**
> Viscosity functions data
showed that all ketchups under examination were non-Newtonian
fluids, since the values for flow behaviour
indices, n, were below 1, which was indicative of the
pseudoplastic (shear thinning) nature of tomato ketchups
(Singh Gujral et al., 2002; Sahin & Ozdemir, 2004;
Bayoda et al., 2008).
[pdf](_URL_0_) | [
"A non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid that does not follow Newton's law of viscosity, i.e. constant viscosity independent of stress. In non-Newtonian fluids, viscosity can change when under force to either more liquid or more solid. Ketchup, for example, becomes runnier when shaken and is thus a non-Newtonian fluid. Ma... |
why are squirrels so indecisive? | Darting back and forth in random directions is a good way to avoid getting caught by a predator, since they won't be able to predict which way its going. | [
"Because squirrels cannot digest cellulose, they must rely on foods rich in protein, carbohydrates, and fats. In temperate regions, early spring is the hardest time of year for squirrels because the nuts they buried are beginning to sprout (and thus are no longer available to eat), while many of the usual food sour... |
Can we observe the past by looking up into the stars with a powerful telescope? | > Is this true for planets as well?
Yes. The light from planets takes just as much time to reach us as the light from stars does. If the star a planet is orbiting has exploded, or some other catastrophic event has occurred then it is entirely possibly for a planet we are currently "seeing" to no longer exist.
> Because of it's distance would we be looking at the past and not the actual present condition of the planet?
Yes. It takes the light from a planet 1000 light-years away 1000 years to reach us, so the image we would see of that planet, if we could take a picture of it, would be of what that planet looked like 1000 years ago.
> If there was a civilization on this planet which we could observe, would we be viewing it in action as it was at some point in the past?
This is of course far, far beyond current technological limitations on telescopes, but yes, in principle it is true.
>
If this is so can we observe the beginning of the universe by fixating said telescope on the point of the big bang? How do we even estimate the distance or age of this point?
Yep! In fact we do it all the time. It works because the big bang happened *everywhere*. All we have to do to see it is look as far out in any direction we like as far as we can possibly see. That light reaching us from that far away is the oldest light there is, originating around 300,000 years after the big bang. (Before then, the universe was opaque.) | [
"A visionary astronomer, Dr. Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff), has invented a telescope that can look far out into deep space, into the Andromeda Galaxy, and photograph light rays that will show the Earth's past. He has theorized about this being possible for some years, much to his discredit among his fellow scientist-c... |
Is a penis transplant possible? | I'm not an expert at all but I found a little info with a quick google search. One has apparently been successfully attempted. The penis was functional as far as urination ~~and sensation~~, but there was no indication of whether or not he could use it sexually. The patient opted to have it removed 15 days later due to psychological trauma. I can't find a whole lot more about it.
[Wikipedia article with links to relevent sources](_URL_0_) | [
"Penis transplantation is a surgical transplant procedure in which a penis is transplanted to a patient. The penis may be an allograft from a human donor, or it may be grown artificially, though the latter has not yet been transplanted onto a human.\n",
"In December 2014, the first successful penis transplant was... |
why do firefighters "make it rain" on a fire instead of pointing the hose at the ground or directly into the fire? | What they are trying to do is prevent the area immediately next to where the fire is from catching fire. By doing this (in theory) the fire will have nowhere to go and eventually use up the fuel that is currently on fire and extinguish itself.
The "make it rain" approach is common because it starves the fire of both heat and oxygen (the water vapour displaces the oxygen in the air) | [
"The fire is attacked from the upwind side by lightly swatting out the flames or glows with the thick flap. When the flapper hits the ground , the oxygen supply to the fire is stopped and the fire will be extinguished. Where ground cover is short, the flapper can be dragged along the fire edge to smother the fire. ... |
Why is Alsace-Lorraine so valuable? | While I will speak a little bit to the history of Alsace-Lorraine prior to the Franco-Prussian war, the region's importance was really due to its iron and coal deposits during the industrialization of France and the newly-formed Germany, particularly in the period right before the First World War.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, in which both Alsace and Lorraine were part of Gaul, they fell under the control of invading German tribes, and were later ruled by the Franks until 870. At this point, Alsace and Lorraine took on separate histories, with Lorraine becoming an independent duchy in Germany and Alsace being incorporated into a duchy with Suabia. During this period, both duchies were predominantly German speaking.
Alsace would remain nominally under German rule until the end of the Thirty Years war, where it was annexed by France. Lorraine was later incorporated into France in 1766 through a series of deaths and inheritances. It's worth noting that both Alsace and Lorraine would remain culturally German until the French Revolution, at which point their citizen's service in the French military and fascination with the Revolution's political ideals caused a shift in the region's identity towards France.
So, just to recap, Alsace and Lorraine had spent nearly a millennium under German rule and identifying themselves as German, but had become pretty much fully French by the 1870's. So, this begs the question: why did Germany want Alsace and Lorraine back after the Franco-Prussian War?
Well, initially Germany mainly wanted Alsace-Lorraine to act as a buffer zone in the event of any future wars with France. The area contains the Vosges Mountains, which would be much more defensible than the Rhine River if the French ever attempted to invade. Bismarck was actually reluctant to take Alsace-Lorraine, but German general Helmuth von Moltke, whose nephew of the same name would later serve as a general in WWI, insisted that Germany annex the region for defensive purposes. Also, Germany still recognized that the people living in Alsace-Lorraine had been German for centuries, and there were people who still saw the region as rightfully German and felt a desire to reclaim it. It is worth noting that both Alsace and Lorraine did not want to be annexed, and left France against their will.
However, in the following years it became clear that the real value of Alsace-Lorraine wasn't the Vosges Mountains: it was the minerals buried within them. The iron deposits of Alsace-Lorraine were the second largest discovered deposits in the world in 1918. During WWI, there were 2,800 million tons of iron ore in Germany. Lorraine alone accounted for 2,000 million of those tons. Once the dephosphorizing process was discovered prior to WWI, the value of these ore deposits became abundantly clear to both Germany and France. Add in a solid dose of French outrage at the loss of their provinces against both their government and their people's will, and this explains why control over Alsace-Lorraine was so hotly contested during the first half of the 20th century.
EDIT: Corrected a few typos and my mistaking Moltke the Younger for Moltke the Elder.
Sources:
_URL_1_
_URL_0_ | [
"In “Alsace, French or German?”, Stevenson traces the historical development of Alsace back to the Protocelts who settled this part of the Rhine 3,500 years ago, and determines that not only was Alsace originally German, but it was the French who were the first to invade the region. He also researched the popular n... |
how did roman abramovich (russian oligarch, chelsea fc owner, one of the richest men in the world) gain his wealth? | At the risk of having this comment deleted, this kind of doesn't belong in Explain Like I'm Five. I doubt there's any subject matter experts here that "know" anything more than can be easily googled or wiki'ed. | [
"Brytsalov promoted himself with the superlative claim of being \"the richest man in Russia\". As a candidate, Brytsalov flaunted his wealth by dressing in a flashy wardrobe and wearing a $80,000 Rolex. During his campaign he was often was accompanied by his wife, who was noticeably twenty years his minor. In addit... |
why is it necessary for women to bleed monthly? do men have any sort of monthly cycle? | The reason menstruation developed is because it allows for a prime reproductive environment all-year 'round. The cause of the bleeding is the uterine lining sloughing off and being renewed when there is no child present. The associated problems are caused by the changes in hormonal levels which signal this event. Again, it allows for more a more optimal environment for fetal growth when pregnant, and is a consequence of human females' ability to reproduce at any time of the year rather than waiting for a particular mating season. This trait tends to be associated with more social animals, as women who were affected by this were not required to hunt or forage for themselves, and were therefore capable of surviving and continuing this trait. Isolated animals couldn't afford monthly periods, and so this trait did not evolve or persist in them.
Men may have a monthly cycle, but there is not a whole lot of research into it, so it's unclear. If so, it certainly isn't as pronounced as menstruation for women. | [
"During the transition to menopause, menstrual patterns can show shorter cycling (by 2–7 days); longer cycles remain possible. There may be irregular bleeding (lighter, heavier, spotting). Dysfunctional uterine bleeding is often experienced by women approaching menopause due to the hormonal changes that accompany t... |
Castle building in medieval Japan | The answer is that they were not. No castle of the early and high Sengoku has survived intact (not least because the Edo government passed the law of one castle per domain, so all old castles were abandoned). All the beautiful castles of Japan today were built in the Edo period, or at the earliest built in the late Sengoku (just prior to or after Hideyoshi's unification) and received significant renovations and enlargement in the early Edo. The castles you think of functioned as much as administrative centers as the lord's defensive fortress, and in fact were the focal point of often large urban centers. Edo castle, the current Imperial Palace in Tōkyō for instance, was one of if not the largest castle on earth and is still one of if not the largest functioning palace, and was and still is the center of one of if not the most populated urban center on the planet. Jesuits do report seeing white plaster on at least some of the castles, but by the time the large, multi-layered maze with thick stone bases and a huge central keep were constructed (a couple even had a huge ring of walls around the castle town that do not survive), Japan was either unified and or well on its way to unification. These castles mobilized the resources of the whole clan, large clans used to military level mobilization and preparing for war but was at peace. Or, in the case of giant castles like Edo and Ōsaka, from contributions from multiple domains throughout Japan.
The castles that were actually built in the early and high Sengoku, when domains were small, political units were unstable, and warfare rampant could have been large and plastered (for the very few larger lords, most would've been little more than forts), but they were built mainly by carving mountain slopes into cliffs and then putting wooden barricades on top. There was no central keep, and watchtowers were little more than wooden frames. The result was a design in the hills and mountains for defense, made out of semi-dependent or independent wards. It would have been defensively strong, and thanks to geography maybe even stronger than later castles. But it wouldn't have looked as elegant. | [
"Inuyama Castle is often claimed as the oldest castle in Japan. Its original construction was completed in 1440. According to \"Engishiki\" (a Heian Period-book), Haritsuna Shrine (a Shinto shrine) was moved to make way for the castle. That structure has been heavily augmented over time, and the current towers were... |
food fiber. is it actually fibers? | Fiber is essentially undigestible sugars. There are 2 types of fiber, soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber dissolves in water and is usually metabolized by bacteria in the colon. We often benefit from the byproducts of soluble fiber metabolism but it can also cause gas. Insoluble fiber is fiber that cannot be dissolved in water. It creates a gelatin like substance that aids in the movement of waste through the digestive tract. Fiber is just sugars that we don't posses the enzymes to digest. Some of it is digested by bacteria in the colon and some of it makes us poop better. | [
"Dietary fiber has distinct physicochemical properties. Most semi-solid foods, fiber and fat are a combination of gel matrices which are hydrated or collapsed with microstructural elements, globules, solutions or encapsulating walls. Fresh fruit and vegetables are cellular materials.\n",
"Whole grains, beans and ... |
how is a census of a country taken? | Usually there is a form that needs to be filled out by each household I believe, beyond that I’m not sure what other ways they use to calculate it | [
"A census is a complete enumeration of a population or groups at a point in time with respect to well-defined characteristics (population, production). Data are collected for a specific reference period. A census should be taken at regular intervals in order to have comparable information available, therefore, most... |
When dinosaur bones were initially discovered how did they put together what is now the shape of different dinosaur species? | When they were first found, people had no idea they were the skeletal remains of extinct species from 65+ million years ago. However, ancient people definitely were able to tell they were the skeletal remains of some strange animals.
In many cultures, these remains gave rise to legends like dragons - since the remains looked an awful lot like lizards, crocodiles and other critters they knew, but way, way bigger - so it was a logical assumption.
Other mythical explanations arose as well, such as legends of the mammut from Siberia - a huge creature with tusks like a walrus that lived underground. If it came into sunlight, it turned to stone and died. Not a bad explanation for mammoth bones found eroding out of the tundra.
It wasn't until the Enlightenment that anatomists like Georges Cuvier were able to look at the fossils in detail, and realize that they had similarities to modern animals, but also important differences. Using his knowledge of how modern animals were put together, he was able to come up with pretty accurate reconstructions of how these critters would have actually looked.
| [
"Scholarly descriptions of dinosaur bones first appeared in the late 17th-century England. Between 1815 and 1824, William Buckland discovered fossils of \"Megalosaurus\" and became the first person to describe a dinosaur in a scientific journal. The second dinosaur genus to be identified, \"Iguanodon\", was discove... |
- what makes humans different from cows in regards to prolonged milk production? | IIRC, cows might be able to maintain production of milk certain extent, but milk production does drop off after a while. So it makes more sense to cycle them through so that they can return to maximum production.
The life history of a dairy cow is going to change slightly from operation to operation and between countries but generally speaking a dairy cow is about two years old when she has her first calf, it is at this point that she produces milk for the first time. Cows will then have a calf every 12 to 14 months. As cows mature they tend to produce more milk each cycle until IIRC the [~6th?] cycle...however in my area cows only have an average of about 2-3 cycles before they are killed for slaughter. Poorly producing cows end up getting pulled from production and slaughtered.
Female calves will usually be kept and raised to replace older cows. Male calves are usually slaughtered for food, but occasionally one may be kept for future breeding. | [
"While the treatment of dairy cows is similar to that of beef cattle, it has faced additional criticism. To produce milk from dairy cattle, most calves are separated from their mothers soon after birth and fed milk replacement in order to retain the cows' milk for human consumption. Animal welfare advocates point o... |
How does light therapy for seasonal affective disorder work? | Summary: Bright blue light can powerfully alter the timing of your daily, circadian, rhythms. If applied early in the day, they will advance your rhythm to make you wake earlier, and go to bed earlier. If applied late in the day, they will delay your rhythm. Most people's rhythms delay a little each day, and light counteracts this natural trend. Insomniacs and people with depression slow their rhythms more than others.
Your circadian, or daily, rhythms are the things that make you alert in the daytime and sleepy at night. The best biological indicator of the circadian rhythm for scientists are your melatonin levels. Melatonin or metabolites are found in salive, urine, or blood. These levels are low for most of the day, and then sharply rise at night about 2 hours before you go to bed. Then, they stay high for several hours before slowly declining near zero around the time you wake up. Most scientific studies look at circadian rhythms by analyzing the dim light melatonin onset, often referred to as DLMO. This rapid rise is easy to identify on daily plots of melatonin levels. So circadian rhythm studies in humans
are mostly studies of changes in timing of the DLMO.
Blind people have poor circadian rhythms. They sort of drift from being synchronized to the solar cycles to being anti-synchronized. Melatonin, if given to blind people around the timing of their desired DLMO, seems to keep them in sync a little better. Of all the cues that our bodies could use to keep track of daily rhythms, it seems light is by far the most important.
_URL_2_
How does all this work, though? I came across this
study:
_URL_3_
In it, volunteers are exposed to bright light at different times of the day. If the light occurs early in the "daytime", the DLMO phase advances, or occurs earlier. If the light occurs near the end of the day, the DLMO phase retards, or occurs later. Light is actually shifting the clock. However, instead of looking like a feedback system in which the light has a center, neutral, phase and either advances or retards the DLMO depending on its timing, it looks like light is supposed to advance timing. Every day, your body's natural rhythms tell your body to get tired, as measured by the DLMO, a little later than the day before. And then, when light hits your retina during the day, the DLMO phase advances. You need light every day to stay in sync.
But what kind of light? A very neat study found that the receptors in the eye responsible for the effects of light on circadian rhythms are blue sensitive. These receptors are not properly part of the visual perceptual system, and you cannot use them to see. They exist, as far as we currently understand, only to help keep you in sync.
_URL_1_
Studies of depressed people and insomniacs find that their circadian clocks are generally later than those of normals. Could it be that some of the people with depression and insomnia have circadian clocks that advance each day more than normals? And that this is correctable by light exposure earlier in the day? There is now some evidence that this is the case. Light exposure early in the day has an antidepressive effect, and helps insomniacs and some depressed people sleep better.
_URL_0_
The use of light to phase advance circadian rhythms is now
published and reasonably standard therapy for age-related
insomnia and major depression. | [
"A Cochrane (organisation) review conducted in 2019 states the evidence base for light therapy as a treatment for prevention of seasonal affective disorder is limited, therefore the decision to use light therapy should be based on a persons preference of treatment.\n",
"Contraindications to light therapy for seas... |
if there are approximately 200 different virus strains that cause the common cold; and children get a cold between 4 and 6 times a year; and adults 2 to 4 times a year; shouldn't one be essentially completely immune to all strains by around 50 years of age? | New virus strains are constantly appearing. The influenza virus mutates very quickly and every year there are dozens of new strains that could infect you. That's why you have to get a new flu shot every year. When scientists are making each year's flu shot they look at what strains are currently in the wild and make a guess about which ones are likely to be the most problematic that year and include the top 3-5 in that year's flu shot. | [
"The common cold is the most common human disease and affects people all over the globe. Adults typically have two to three infections annually, and children may have six to ten colds a year (and up to twelve colds a year for school children). Rates of symptomatic infections increase in the elderly due to declining... |
what are atoms, molecules, particles? are they just different names for the same thing? | No. Atoms form molecules when they chain together, like how oxygen and hydrogen atoms form a water molecule H20 and they cannot be seen with a naked eye. A particle in common tongue can be anything really tiny, but still visible. | [
"Molecules are the smallest particles into which a non-elemental substance can be divided while maintaining the physical properties of the substance. Each type of molecule corresponds to a specific chemical compound. Molecules are a composite of two or more atoms. See list of compounds for a list of molecules. A mo... |
if neutering or spaying an animal is necessary to prevent unwanted babies, why not just give them a hysterectomy or vasectomy instead? do the remaining hormones still have other negative effects? | Spaying a female animal IS a hysterectomy - the uterus is removed.
Yes, the hormones are a reason for neutering male animals. Testosterone can cause aggressive, territorial behaviour such as fighting and spray-marking, or wandering in search of females. | [
"Because of the overpopulation of dogs in some countries, puppies born to strays or as the result of accidental breedings often end up being killed in animal shelters. Spaying and neutering can also decrease the risk of hormone-driven diseases such as mammary cancer, as well as undesired hormone-driven behaviors. H... |
Tell me about German folklore! | Answer part 1: This is practically impossible to answer for several reasons. First, the response could (and does) fill several volumes: one of the best examples of a comprehensive look at belief and custom is the Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens (Encyclopedia of the German Popular Superstitions), which appeared in nine volumes between 1927 and 1942. This is an exceptional work because it offers published material that most folklore archives only possess in unpublished form.
Second, you are asking about folklore from a historic period (presumably so the mods don't delete the question for lacking a period-specific nature?). Folklore can and does change, but the movement can be glacial particularly in pre-industrial settings. One can find evidence of folklore in written documents, but it is only by looking at collected material and then recognizing historical references that one can gather that the document is referring to something in popular belief/storytelling. No one was professionally collecting folklore before the nineteenth century, so this is the only means to surmise historical forms of oral tradition. In short, the only way we recognize folklore before the Peace of Westphalia is to consider folklore collected in nineteenth and twentieth centuries and use it to recognize and evaluate literary references before that time.
Third, Germany, as such, did not exist before 1870, and furthermore, German folklore is difficult to define even by 1871. The German inheritance was shared by neighbors. The traditions in the Germanies had a unique fingerprint, but the deviation from those of Denmark, France, and other European countries could be subtle and are at times only recognized by the specialist.
In a separate entry, I'll provide an example of how we can use historic manifestations of oral tradition. | [
"Volksmärchen der Deutschen (\"Folktales of the Germans\") is an early collection of German folk stories retold in a satirical style by Johann Karl August Musäus, published in five volumes between 1782 and 1786.\n",
"German literature can be traced back to the Middle Ages and the works of writers such as Walther ... |
Can planets ignite? | Ignition requires a fuel source, an oxidizer, and heat. A comet entering Jupiter's atmosphere would provide heat. Jupiter has a massive amount of hydrogen, so you have a fuel. However...oxygen is a trace element in Jupiter's atmosphere. [Shoemaker Levy 9](_URL_2_) is a comet that broke apart and hit Jupiter's surface in 1994. The brown spots [in this picture](_URL_0_) are the impact sites for chunks of the planet. There *were* [fireballs](_URL_1_) as cometary fragments hit, but it didn't ignite the planet as a whole. | [
"BULLET::::- The Annihilaser from Planetary Annihilation. It is used by building 5 massive Catalysts on the north pole of a metal planet, allowing the player to fire a weapon from the planet. After a short charging up sequence, the planet will rotate to its target and fire an extremely powerful beam of energy that ... |
question regarding acceleration due to gravity? | I gave you a yes answer to your yes or no question, but people kept giving you the wrong answer so I'll have to explain in more detail.
Essentially, you are correct that the acceleration of the Earth matters. You can neglect it when the objects are much smaller than the mass of the Earth, which they are. Just using the [freefall time](_URL_0_) equation, which isn't totally applicable in this situation because I'm ignoring the Earth's surface, the difference in time is less than a picosecond. If you make the object thousands of kilograms, then you might start seeing differences on the nanosecond level. | [
"In physics, gravitational acceleration is the acceleration on an object caused by the force of gravitation. Neglecting friction such as air resistance, all small bodies accelerate in a gravitational field at the same rate relative to the center of mass. This equality is true regardless of the masses or composition... |
Scientific Evidence About Body Detox/Cleanse? | Detoxes don't do anything. For the most part, you eat clumping cat litter. The resulting clumps make you think that it has cleansed your bowel.
Your kidneys and liver work just fine. | [
"Detoxification and body cleansing products and diets have been criticized for their unsound scientific basis, in particular their premise of nonexistent \"toxins\" and their appropriation of the legitimate medical concept of detoxification. According to the Mayo Clinic, the \"toxins\" typically remain unspecified ... |
Did the Big Bang violate the First Law of Thermodynamics? | Where does the energy conservation come from? It comes from the laws of physics being independent of time, i.e., the existence of a timelike Killing vector. Because the universe is expanding, no such Killing vector exists, so there is no reason to think that energy conservation should apply.
Even if you naively apply Newtonian energy conservation to the whole universe everything works out pretty well. Negative gravitational potential energy and kinetic/mass energy are interchanged in such a way that the total energy of the universe remains to be exactly 0 (if the topology of the universe is exactly flat). | [
"The Big Bang theory is the most widely accepted scientific theory to explain the early stages in the evolution of the Universe. For the first millisecond of the Big Bang, the temperatures were over 10 billion kelvins and photons had mean energies over a million electronvolts. These photons were sufficiently energe... |
how do pawn shops work? | Usually the idea of "pawning" something is a way to get a short-term loan. If I need $100 but I have no job (for example) a bank is unlikely to give me that money because they have no way to know I'll pay them back. And if I won't or *can't* pay them back, I may get in trouble but that won't help them get their money back... so it's a big risk.
At a pawn shop, I would give them an item worth *somewhat more* than $100, and if I don't pay the loan back they can keep the item. They benefit because they either get their money back, or sell the item to recoup their money. I benefit because they're willing to lend me money on this basis, which I need, and couldn't get otherwise.
Not that it's always 100% fair, but that's the basic idea. | [
"Many pawnshops will also trade used items, as long as the transaction turns a profit for pawn shop. In cases where the pawnshop buys items outright, the money is not a loan; it is a straight payment for the item. On sales, the pawnshop may offer layaway plans, subject to conditions (down payment, regular payments,... |
what is an "industry lobbyist" and why are they allowed to attend presidential meetings? | Basically, different industry actors get together in groups to hire someone to advocate for that industry. So, let's say that BP, Shell, and Exxon, though competitors, all have a stake in how the oil industry is regulated. They would hire a lobbyist together (though they may have their own separate lobbyists, too) to look out for anything impacting oil companies in total.
A lobbyist is basically just a representative. A representative who is paid to watch out for the industry, not any particular company. So, when he's sitting down with tech industry lobbyists, it's because they are there on behalf of the many companies that have an interest in the issue, instead of the President meeting with 10000 representatives from each individual company with a stake. | [
"Lobbying in the United States describes paid activity in which special interests hire professional advocates to argue for specific legislation in decision-making bodies such as the United States Congress. Lobbying in the United States could be seen to originate from Amendment I of the Constitution of the United St... |
why some eu countries still haven’t picked euro as their main currency? | Because using the Euro is not a no-cost/all-benefit prospect.
It greatly simplifies cross-border trade and can make borrowing costs much cheaper.
However, in the event a country's economic performance, particularly price inflation and its debt load, are out of sync with what's going on in the wider EU, not having the levers of monetary policy at the government's disposal greatly reduces what it can do. Greece can't just devalue its currency to lighten the load of its debt because it doesn't control the value of its currency.
In other large currency blocs this is an issue, too. Take the US for example, inflation and debt load may be way different in Idaho than in New York. However, it is far easier to use government spending funded by one part of the US to prop up another part than it is for the EU. It was politically crippling for Europe to offer Greece bailouts. Similar payments effectively happen in the US every year with next to no political consequences. | [
"Beginning in the year 1999 with some EU member states, now 19 out of EU states use the euro as official currency in a currency union. The remaining 9 states continued to use their own currency with the possibility to join the euro later. The euro is also the most widely used currency in the EU.\n",
"The Maastric... |
how a signature is good security for verification | The signature is generally only important insofar as it proves that you read the document you signed and, depending on the context, that you approve of what the document says. If you sign a receipt with a picture of a whale, you can't get out of paying it by saying "I signed a picture of a whale, so I never agreed to pay it." If you signed your name as "I refuse to pay" or something like that, then that may be another issue.
The only time signatures really come into play are when someone claims they never saw or agreed to something. The person who says you signed can then show your signature as proof. If you signed it, regardless of how you did it, then that's pretty good proof you had a chance to review the document and agree to it. If you never signed it, then that's pretty good proof that you didn't have a chance to review it. And if there's a signature that you claim isn't yours, you can have a legal battle over whether it was really you who signed or didn't. If it gets that far, you might have to get a bunch of documents you have signed in the past and hire handwriting experts to testify as to whether you actually signed or not.
The reason it's helpful to have a consistent signature is so that it's easier to prove forgery if the need ever arises. | [
"When used in conjunction with an electronic signature, it can provide evidence whether data received has been tampered with after being signed by its original sender. In a time where fraud and identity theft has become rampant, electronic authentication can be a more secure method of verifying that a person is who... |
Did and if so, how did the ancient Romans celebrate Christmas? | Even after the introduction of Christianity as the "official religion" of the Empire after Constantine's conversion, Christmas was not observed immediately. I think the earliest date we hear about something resembling a "Christmas" observance is 336 CE, right at the end of Constantine's life. I do not know much about early Christian Rome, or how they celebrated holidays. I do know that in the Eastern Empire, the birth of Christ was wrapped up in the celebration of the Epiphany on January 6th. Later, observation of Christmas in the East became one of the many weapons employed by this or that bickering religious faction. The setting of the date to December 25th has to do with the solstice, and the later linking of Christ with solar/cosmic symbolism.
But I can talk about pre-Christian "christmas." The Romans observed an important festival called the Saturnalia, beginning on December 17th, which was dedicated to Saturn and the Winter solstice. It was a fertility festival involving a public sacrifice, a banquet, and revelry. It was one of the most popular festivals of the year, but no single source gives us a very good idea of what it was all about. Its origins are extremely ancient, probably pre-Italic (in other words, Proto-Indo-European), and the elements of the Saturnalia ritual seem to share commonalities with the Greek festival to Kronos, the Kronia, and numerous other smaller Greek festivals. Unfortunately, our best source is Macrobius, writing at the end of antiquity. His understanding of the rituals is clouded by his own experiences and his own time.
Some famous elements of the Saturnalia:
Communal dining/drinking. This is a feature of many ancient festivals, and in fact is one of the central tenets of modern holidays. Virtually all modern American holidays involve communal dining/drinking in some form or another. The eating was not really a central element of the Saturnalia and probably not the central element of early Christian observance of Christmas, but communal dining is so ubiquitous in all periods that it became an important aspect of christmas. A medievalist might be able to talk about how important the meal was (or wasn't) for post-antique christmas.
Revelry. The Saturnalia was marked by an atmosphere of "letting go" which is typical of many contemporary fertility rituals. In fact, the feeling was probably much like modern Carnival or Mardi Gras. In later Roman times, we hear about a "princeps" of ceremonies who was chosen at random and was the show-runner. He was supposed to make up capricious rules, it seems, like "everybody do the bunny hop!"
Gift-giving. The Saturnalia was marked by a ritual exchange of gifts between individuals. Unlike in modern Christmas, the value of the gift did not seem to correlate directly to quality of friendship. Inexpensive or even "gag" gifts were expected and welcomed. Some examples were: candles, ceramic objects like lamps or figurines, little pet animals, dice, exotic animal skulls, little bottles of fragrance or oil, food items like cakes or sausages, utility items like axes or knives, clothing items or clothing accessories, and so on. Kids often got toys, which in particular translated to Christian christmas and persisted until the present.
Gambling. There is a lot of disagreement about this aspect, but late Roman (ie Christian) writers make special mention of the Saturnalia as a time for gambling without stigma or judgment. I do not know much about this particular aspect. Gambling was certainly not stigmatized in the Republic or the early empire. There are gambling boards scratched into the steps of the basilica right in the middle of the Roman forum.
Inversion of social norms. This is maybe the most famous aspect of the Saturnalia, but it is not well understood. Many ancient festivals involved mask-wearing as a mechanism for "leveling" social relationships: for the period of the revelry, the rich and poor were anonymized and were enabled to party and rub shoulders freely. There are mentions of masters serving slaves at table, either in a private household setting or else out at the public dining, which would be out in the street. It is hard to get an exact sense of how it all worked, but the basic element of upturning social norms for a fixed period is very common in the ancient world. | [
"Owing to differences in liturgical calendars, as early as the fourth century, the churches of the eastern Roman Empire were celebrating Christmas on 6 January, while those of the western Roman Empire were celebrating it on 25 December. \n",
"A major source for Roman holidays is Ovid's \"Fasti\", a poem that desc... |
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